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

When the small group arrived at the gates of Altera an hour later, the newcomers gaped everywhere.

”Amazing…” Kimmy mumbled, eyes wide as she stared at the wide organized avenues and streets, abutted by lovely shops selling SO MANY THINGS!

Kyaaa. Her shopaholic nature: Activated!

”You can shop around after the meeting, milord,” Raine whispered, pulling her out of her reverie. ”We can stay here for a long time afterwards, the other two lords will not.”

”Oh… right, right, right…” she said, (temporarily) bringing her sights to the road ahead, and Raine was just glad his reminder was heard.

Anyway, Kimmy had no choice but to hold back, and she—along with every one of her companions—stared at the stores with rumbling stomachs and wildly beating hearts.

They went past the pedestrian-only street and were continually amazed by everything. Kimmy had to be pulled by Raine in order to stop her from going to the clothing stores.

They weren’t even fashionista stores, just basic clothing, but she brightened at the sight of them.

She had brought loads of clothes and shoes from Terran, but they were quickly dwindling and were dirty now. After all, how well could they wash clothes with limited water and no soap??

After so many weeks, she was really beginning to be stinky!

She swore she’d buy dozens of new clothes today!

After the meeting, of course.

Eventually, they reached the end of the street and saw a large corner park. It was surrounded by buildings and there was even an open-air roofed market on one side filled with stalls.

Even from afar, they could see the stalls selling a dazzling amount of food and crafts! Especially foods! They felt dizzy just thinking of what to choose when they could finally look around.

In any case—how could a market be so developed? It’s only been a couple of weeks, hasn’t it?

Time ran fast and they weren’t given enough time to appreciate as they arrived at their destination.

They stopped in front of one of the three three-story buildings there.

It was the premier restaurant of Altera: the Terran Gastronomique Haven.

It was one of the large commercial buildings on the eastern end of Market Street. The restaurant was located near the Woodmasters Gallery, except it had a better location. It was not only next to the open area, currently a small park but it was also adjacent to a new street provision.

Not to mention, the Eastern Market Street happened to be closer to the luxury areas near the river as well. With more than half of the villas there already occupied by rich people, it was already the perfect location for his high-end restaurant.

In the future, when the new street opens, then this restaurant will also be a corner building in two pedestrian-only streets like the Supermarket. He’d also get more access to the richer crowd.

The location was the primest of the prime.

Cooke begged Althea to have it. Or rather, implored her to ’kindly ask the system’ for some priority in the rentals.

These large commercial buildings could only be rented and Cooke also needed her ’connections’ to get the premier building.

On paper, she was not the Lord, but everyone knew the Elders could make suggestions to the system. No one was surprised with the approval of the request and the subsequent procurement of this lot for rental.

Although Cooke had bought a standard mixed-use building a while back, since becoming close with a few NPCs he had seen how much potential his business could have. This was especially true when the Protection Period ended when the territory would be open to more locals.

So he decided to take a risk even before he got a return on all his initial investments and upgrade. He had a backer and a funder (i.e. Althea), anyway.

As for what Cooke did with the first unit he bought along the main avenue, he was converting it into a high-end bakery instead, being manned by his not-yet-a-system-chef apprentice who arrived with Jun back then.

”This is amazing…” Kimmy said and Althea’s attention was pulled back to the present. She turned to see the newcomers were currently admiring the buildings and their facades.

In front of every large commercial building in the cul-de-sac, there was about two meters of easement. These were patches of open space that could be used in any way by the adjoining structure.

Baron’s wood products gallery had a lot of wood sculptures and carved items to show their expertise. It was basically an area to showcase their usable outdoor furniture.

For the restaurant, this easement was adorned with a small fountain with circulating water and flower gardens.

”So beautiful! I didn’t know they had these flowers here.” Kimmy said, softly touching a lavender flower, ”Amazing… how did you get water all the way here? Do you have pumps?” She asked, referring to the small fountain. It was a cascading fountain under the entrance canopy and right outside the door, welcoming all those who entered.

Althea looked at the intricately formed fountain with a smile.

Other than the restaurant, there were also various other and bigger fountains. They placed various types: there were birdbaths, cascading, freestanding, and spewing fountains.

The most challenging, naturally, were the spewing fountains, and there were only three in the entire territory.

One was in the main square in front of the village center, another in the luxury area, and another in her soon-to-open garden park.

Althea looked at the other girl to answer her question. ”We used the siphon system.”

”Siphon system?”

Althea tried to explain, but it went over Kimmy’s head.

Raine watched all of this and sighed, looking around the massive developments, even just around this park. He couldn’t imagine how so much could be built within a few weeks.

Beluga had its share of refugees and he naturally knew how it was in most territories. Frankly, he was quite proud of what they had accomplished before.

But now…

His fist clenched, the ambition in his eyes sparkling a bit.

He swore that his Belluga Village wouldn’t be left behind for long.