After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World

”If the military enlistment was required earlier, maybe more people would have survived.”

Harold said, imagining the scenario of a population filled with strongmen who knew what to do in a disaster.

Although he didn’t want to experience it himself, having the skills would’ve definitely made him less dependent on the girls.

Although he was old, he still cared about his masculinity!

To some degree, anyway.

What they didn’t know yet was that a lot of Edenian men survived after the transfer, relative to other demographics, primarily because of this mandatory enlistment requirement.

In terms of survivability, it could be said that Edenian citizens, especially young men, made up for a large bulk of the population.

”Well, our world had entered a time of utter peace and integration,” Eugene told them. ”Even as a soldier, the number of fights I encountered wasn’t much, not compared to our predecessors.”

Eugene entered the military a few years prior after his contract with a company expired, with the unfortunate accident happening in his final year of mandatory service.

Ironically, what got his hand was a machine malfunction he was tasked to fix.

He wasn’t able to move his hand for a while after the accident, and it was only a month back that he started to be able to move his hand freely.

Ironically, he was only able to start building things just before the damned migration, and he was not yet able to earn money from them.

He wasn’t able to make up to his lover at all, he was never able to give her a good life.

It had been about a year since the incident and his Mina had only been supportive of him.

He had always felt guilty for holding her back, so he would never resent her for leaving him to survive.

He owed her too much for that.

…

The group allowed themselves enough respite as they went further at their own pace.

They walked according to Eugene’s pace, who was still getting used to walking without two legs. Fortunately, his thighs were intact so he could still control the direction of his ’legs’.

He couldn’t help but look at the beautiful pregnant woman, recalling the medicine she asked him to take. Eugene still couldn’t believe how his wound stopped bleeding. It was incredible.

The slow pace allowed them to chat with each other, easily dealing with the few aggressive mobs that came their way.

The monsters were all level one, and they served as effective whetstones for the others.

Just like this, a group of ’friends’, diverse in age and abilities, embarked on an adventurous trek to an unknown land.

They navigated through both rocky terrains and dense outgrowing plants, easily dealing with weak mobs to strengthen themselves along the way.

Everyone just followed Althea, not questioning where she was headed, believing that she really had a place in mind. As they traveled, the group also found out more about each other.

For example, Harold was deadly afraid of snakes. Fortunately, they had yet to encounter a slithering critter or else he may have perished then and there.

Maya once said that her father was almost run over by a car trying to escape one.

”It was this small!” she said, waving her hand to show how small the snake was. It looked to be around 10 inches…

”Pffftt–” Sheila laughed out loud, while the other two chuckled reservedly.

”What would you do if you encounter a snake-like monster then?”

Harold shivered at the thought. For a moment, he already saw death. But then he saw his cute daughter and knew he couldn’t hide.

”Well, I’d have to face it sooner or later…”

”Or you’ll just find a cabinet to hide. Maybe rescue will come on time.” Sheila said, smiling. Althea looked at her and had an idea about what she was talking about.

”Like what you did?”

It was around this time that they found out that Sheila was actually locked in the cabinet by a coworker, just before the zombie apocalypse came.

This coworker was one of the first nurses Althea beheaded when they got together.

”It was the most satisfying gruesome thing I have ever seen…” Sheila mumbled, thinking no one heard her.

Harold chuckled, imagining a nurse’s bully unintentionally saving her life.

”Not everyone is lucky to meet Althea.” He added, and Sheila shrugged.

”But I was. We all were.”

”Stop,” Althea said as she walked, hands patting her stomach. ”You’re making me embarrassed.”

The group laughed as they went, very leisurely, incomparable to how they were when they first arrived.

Maya saw the adults had told their stories and proceeded to tell hers.

She was very cute and was a lively storyteller.

She shared a lot about herself, mostly it was about her elementary school friends and playmates, and they all felt melancholy at how unlikely things could return that way.

They wondered if they would ever see children happily playing without care anymore.

Except for Althea, of course, because she was an actionist, and she was bent on creating a peaceful happy home for her children.

…

About an hour of leisure walking later, Sheila looked at Althea curiously, because she could see Althea had a specific direction she was heading in, and she was very curious about where they were going.

”Where are we going next, Althea?” Sheila asked, though she had no doubt they would follow her wherever she decided to go, even if Althea wasn’t sure of the direction.

Fortunately for them, Althea already had a rough location in mind.

Althea’s feet paused momentarily and turned to look at the people she’s been traveling with thus far.

She pursed her lips, feeling a bit complicated, pondering what to tell them. She didn’t know what kind of event or effect activating the token would show. Should she separate from them now and just return once it was activated?

Should she tell them she was going on an exploration mission with Fufi again?

But...was it so necessary to hide it from them?

From what she saw, they would be her travel companions for a long time. They already proved their characters and they had experienced many things together.

She closed her eyes to analyze the pros and cons, and ended up following her feelings and her gut instead.

”Actually…,” She said, ”I have something to tell you.”

.

.

.

The group, except Maya who just ogled at her like she was her goddess, still hadn’t recovered until they neared the location a few hours later.

They reached a low peak and stared at the beautiful half-valley below.

It was a relatively wide area, so the slope wasn’t steep, only gently rolling. On the northwest side, there were rolling hills and mountains from as far as they could see.

Interwoven with these hills was a forest, not as eerie or dense as the ones they had been to, but just right—ample in resources, but with manageable dangers hiding underneath.

As they went deeper, more of the forest revealed itself. There was sparse undergrowth, allowing dappled sunlight to filter through, casting ethereal beams to the soil.

There were a lot of delicate wildflowers, in several shades, adding a touch of beauty to the place.

There was ample vegetation but not too much, there were a lot of grasslands and bushes. The mountain range opened up southwards and southeast to relatively flatter lands.

In the corner of the valley, there seemed to be a reservoir of spring water seeping down to form the stream and eventually converging to the small river she saw before, about a kilometer away.

She clicked on the logo of the castle and a map of the area appeared in front of her.

There was also a circle and a small scale indicating that the circle had a radius of one kilometer.

She moved the circle to enclose both the valley and the river, and pressed OK.

[Would you like to use the Lord’s Token? Yes | No]

With a bit of anticipation, Althea directly chose yes.

All of a sudden, gravity on where she stood seemed to have increased a little, with the children directly falling down, the trees shaking and the air getting heavier.

A circle lit up faintly underneath her feet, suddenly expanding to beyond what they could see, likely to the border she had chosen prior.

A few moments later, the air returned to normal, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

[Congratulations! You have successfully created a territory.

Rewarded +5000 units of wood and +3000 units of stone.

What would you like to name your territory?]

Althea stared at the screen for a while, interested.

A name, eh?

She had been so busy that it failed to enter her mind that she’d had to name the territory.

Althea thought for a while and decidedly refused to depend on her own polarizing naming sense. Instead, she dug within her own memory, to the happy times back in Terran so that she would associate her territory with it.

Back when they were children, her now-husband had always taken time to tell her bedtime stories.

There was a particular name that stood out, because it rhymed with her name, so she liked it very much.

It was an adventure storybook for children, she recalled, and its hero (male) was named Altera.

It meant Proud, Powerful, and Superb.

And because it sounded a lot like her name, both her husband and brother called her so when she was being domineering.

She chuckled lightly at the memories, deciding on a name in her heart.

Similarly, it could also be passed as just ’Higher Terran’.

Ah, so convenient.

With a smile, she opened her mouth to answer.

”Altera.”