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

”Thank you for everything.” The soft voice of his sister sounded in his ears, pulling him out of his daze.

His hands clenched as she wrapped her bony arms around him.

Matthew was not reconciled. Why? Why was the world so unfair to them?

His sister was the only family he had left! The world was so cruel to them—it seemed like it wanted to take his only family left, even after everything?

She was his sister, his mother, and his anchor. If he didn’t have her… would he be able to deal with anything that came after?

But if he did follow her to the grave, what about the citizens? If he didn’t, what about him?

Melissa’s eyes lined with tears at the manic look in her brother’s eyes, wrapping her thin arms around him even tighter. ”No, no, you’re going to be fine.”

”You’re so young…” she sobbed, ”I’ve held you back long enough.”

The calm Lord that they knew broke down crying, and his sister couldn’t help but do the same.

They watched the sad scene of the siblings’ despair with complicated eyes.

It could be seen that the lives of these two were quite tragic.

They really couldn’t tell Matthew’s life experience was so colorful, they thought he was born with a silver spoon.

His current disposition was very unlike the image he had as a magnificent lord.

It was the softhearted Dog who couldn’t watch it anymore.

He walked closer to the siblings and cleared his throat. ”Uhm…It’s not… entirely hopeless.”

The siblings paused and turned to look at him with very similar looks of confusion, eyes still a little red from sadness.

Dog stared for a bit before he could utter a word. ”It’s not hopeless because your disease isn’t unfixable with the current situation... There were a number of people in our territory that had Trialphas.”

”What?” Melissa voiced out, while Matthew held on to Dog’s shoulders directly.

”And then? Do they have a lot of medicine?”

Dog shook his head and the siblings visibly paled.

Dog flinched, not expecting a short pause would bring so much emotional damage. He was clearly not yet finished speaking, okay?!

”They don’t have a lot of medicine because they don’t need them anymore!”

The two didn’t speak and just stared at him, eagerly waiting for him to continue.

Dog felt a little shy and cleared his throat again. ”The Trialphas patients in our territory only had to watch their food intake when they reached level 2.”

”Basically, Miss just had to level up to heal.” They could see the woman was only level 1 after so long, the type that barely even managed to get to the level.

This could mean that after all this time, she was very protected or… trapped.

”One of our guards even had stage 1 cancer.” Dog paused, pointing his chin to one of the men kicking the unruly tied-up gangsters to make them behave.

His lips twitched. Dog coughed before turning his head to the siblings.

”As you can see, he’s quite healthy.”

Sunny stood beside him and nodded. ”Besides, even if there’s something lacking, maybe Ms. Althea can help?”

Dog’s eyes widened at the realization. ”Yes, right! Ms. Althea’s medicines are very good, especially those that she makes herself—that’s just miracle medicine, man.”

The two watched as the conversation turned to a new individual, with such a gushing tone too.

Matthew looked at the two and spoke after their spiel. ”Ms. Althea? The one that makes the medicine you guys took before?”

”Well, her company’s. It would be such a waste to use Ms. Althea’s medicine for such small wounds.”

His eyebrows rose, from what he saw, the wounds were not small wounds.

”Yes, Ms. Althea’s amazing.” Dog and the guards showed expressions of admiration that Matthew was even more curious.

In any case, Matthew walked back to his sister and took time to absorb this information.

Slowly, the new information dawned on them, finally understanding the new hope that was being presented.

The siblings held each other’s hand with long-lost genuine smiles slowly returning to their faces.

…

The fall of the gangsters had echoed across the territory. While there were plenty of worries in their defense now that most of the strong people had gone, it was mostly hopeful.

”So what if they’re strong? They had only made us suffer!”

”Yes, sometimes… it is so much more painful to suffer under your own kind!”

The Alterans would be very surprised to know that very few citizens had any rebellious thoughts against their lord, despite knowing what was going on behind the scenes.

Of course, this was granted they didn’t know exactly what went on behind the scenes—i.e. believing the no-killing prohibition was applicable to the entire territory.

It was inevitable that a lot of hearts would shift, disappointed, and even angry.

For now, they were fairly forgiving. A lot of them were with the Lord when the territory was just established. If his sister died… he would too. Then what would happen to the rest of the territory?

Similar situations echoed in the territory, with people just being inspired to become stronger.

They had seen the Alterans. Even normal citizens could fight!

The gleeful atmosphere was exactly the opposite inside the formerly forbidden area. Unlike those who were celebrating, a lot of people directly entered the forbidden area, trying to find their loved ones.

The citizens who went in to find relatives watched blankly as rows and rows of corpses were lined up. It was for identification.

There were also plenty of girls sitting aside, blank expressions on their faces akin to the zombies they thought they left in Terran.

They were finding it hard to absorb the sight, and they stutteringly looked at the Lord standing blankly.

The man turned to them, red eyes, with his sister right next to him. The two of them looked wan and dark, tears flowing down their faces. ”These are the people we lost to Higson,” He said. ”I have failed you.”

The citizens couldn’t truly absorb his words until their feet took them to the corpses. One by one, bawls of despair and sadness exploded. Some lost their family, and some their friend, but there was no one who had a dry eye in the area.

The siblings felt their hearts clench at the sight and they looked at each other. Holding a hand they stood closer to the corpses, the victims, and their families and friends.

The knees bent, landing on the stony soil below with a flop, and they kowtowed.

If they could bury themselves under the soil to express their apologies, they would’ve.

Matthew, sobbing, bellowed strongly as he prayed.

”As a Lord, I feel ashamed for not being able to protect my citizens. The weight of this transgression is mine to bear,” he said, shaking his head when his sister wanted to intervene.

”I will not make excuses. I will not ask for leniency as I know very well that I deserve a fate worse than death.

”However, I hope that I can be given the chance to fix—even a little—of my wrongs by improving the lives of thousands more than who we lost.

”May their deaths be a reminder of what we cannot become—weak and cowardly. May we be strong enough to protect ourselves!”

His dull eyes soon gained a bit of light. ”I—Matthew White—swear never to make the same mistake again. And I will do my part to prepare each and every one of you—my citizens—for a better life.”

His forehead met the ground, showing maximum humility.

”Please give me this chance!”