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

The Alterans and the mobile refugees took a moment to gather the corpses and give them a proper burial. As always, they burned their corpses until they turned to ashes, dedicating moments of silence in prayer for their souls.

They solemnly watched the bodies slowly return to the earth, their hearts heavy.

Althea held her husband’s hand, resting her head on his shoulder. He held hers, rubbing it comfortingly.

Her husband’s warmth never failed to calm her down—to make her feel that things were going to get better soon—that these problems were temporary.

After some time, Althea felt her shirt being tugged. She looked down and saw a pitiful-looking girl looking up at her, eyes lined with tears. She was biting her lips and looked a little intimidated as if fighting herself whether or not to bother her at this time.

It was Lily.

”Lily?” she blinked. ”What’s wrong?”

Her words of concern seemed to have triggered the held-back tears.

”Sister… help me… wuuuu…”

Althea flinched, immediately kneeling to level her eyes with the girl. She immediately wrapped her arms around Lily and the little girl buried her head on Althea’s soft shoulder.

She sighed, patting the girl’s head as they embraced, ”Oh, my poor Lily…” she mumbled and her motherly voice seemed to have opened a few more tear ducts.

The girl sobbed for a while until Althea gently held her shoulders. Althea kindly wiped her tears and snot from her face with a clean handkerchief from the space.

”Now, how can I help Lily?” Althea said, very gently, afraid the girl would sob again.

The girl held her hand tightly, eyes filled with begging. ”S-Save my father, please!”

”What?” Althea uttered, looking around. Her eyes ended on Tom, who stepped forward to explain.

Tom looked at the girl in pity, ”Bruce… was one of the people sent to be a slave,” he said, and it made everyone’s faces darken. Although they had heard a lot about slavery here, this was the first time they heard their fellow Terrans becoming slaves.

What’s more: It was fellow Terrans enslaving fellow Terrans.

It made the tragedy feel more concrete and, unfortunately, too near their lives.

”I see…” Althea patted the girl’s head. ”Yes, we can help him.”

This made the girls’ eyes brighten with hope. Althea’s next words dampened it a bit, but it was still much more than she thought when they were still just escaping.

”But we have to prepare,” she told her, gently squeezing her nose. ”We don’t want any more deaths, do we?”

…

After a short rest, the group finally gestured to go back home, eventually reaching the stopover.

They camped in the intersection camping grounds, with Luis and the others making dinner for everyone.

”It’s sad that us Terrans are fighting amongst ourselves. Worse, it even happened within my own circle.” Micheal said, sighing.

”What happened?” Garan asked, ”The strength difference couldn’t have been so large?”

After all, Bright had plenty of Aborigines as well as strong Terrans. What’s more: They had a lot of guns.

”Well, they’re very powerful and they also had a lot of Aborigines,” Micheal paused. ”However, they… they pretty much took away our legs even before they attacked.”

Everyone looked at him, waiting for him to detail the events. Micheal heaved a sigh to speak. It was him reliving the tragedies, but he knew they ought to get this information.

”First, they poisoned our wells, so many people—most of our guards, even—were ill when the war happened.”

”Doesn’t system wells have self-cleaning functions?”

”I’m not sure how they did it, but our investigations narrowed the source to the wells.”

The Alterans looked at each other in worry. This meant that system wells may not have cleaning functions. This was especially true for manually made wells like theirs.

”They also made chaos during the war. There were stampedes and fights everywhere, and the remaining guards’ energies were drained as early as the war began.”

”The fact that all rules and regulations were null during wars was something not a lot of people know about—it was something we hid just for this type of situation. But somehow, they found out and people started committing crimes. Stealing, mostly.”

Luis sneered as he turned the barbeques. If he wasn’t handling other people’s foods, he’d have spat on the floor to show disgruntlement. ”It must be their people, causing chaos before the war.”

”I thought so too.”

”Fargo is also very strong. They were trained and had guns and even stronger aborigines.”

”The Village Center couldn’t have hired so many… right?” Althea asked, wondering if she was just unlucky with her options.

”It must’ve been Belize,” Garan said, making everyone stare at him.

”He’s an aborigine, but a powerful one. I think he is also an elementalist. It’s easy to assume he got his people in after the protection period ended.”

They could imagine the chaos arrogant aborigines caused—especially after looking at their low average levels.

Micheal nodded. ”That’s true. They had many people within the level limit, and the amount of pain those people caused us…” He closed his eyes and didn’t speak anymore.

Juno beside him wanted to pat his back, but didn’t dare to. Juno, in the end, still believed Micheal was his lord.

It was Tom who continued with the story, mentioning how Artie died and how they got Lily as a hostage. Realizing his words made him flinch, and he immediately whipped his head and looked at the girl, who was now shaking in Althea’s embrace.

They sighed, feeling very sad for the girl.

”They also weakened us by sabotaging people training outside,” He added, and they looked at Badjau who looked like he’s in pain from the memory.

The young man then detailed what happened to them then, and it just made people’s blood boil.

”They even gave Aborigines guns!”

”Guns are useless against monsters here,” Althea said, ”They kept all that gun to deal with humans.”

”But… even so… Bright wasn’t weak,” Garan said and the Alterans nodded. Indeed. They were the defending territory and their sentries were much denser than other villages. Belize and the others couldn’t have mobilized so many forces—especially not those within the level cap.

In theory, it should’ve been a fifty-fifty battle. This… was a crushing defeat.

Micheal nodded, his eyes showing some hurt and a lot of people who knew him couldn’t help but feel pity.

”Of course, there was the betrayal. My right-hand man, Gingo, had switched sides, willingly sacrificing all the people who saw him as a brother, just to become someone’s steward.”

”He stole my guns and killed some of my greatest fighters when they weren’t paying attention,” he said. ”They took advantage of our weakness to cause maximum damage.”

”Many people died. We couldn’t defend them well.”

”A lot of women were raped in the open air. It was horrible. Our own people helping those aborigines do their way with our women—”

Micheal gritted his teeth so hard that some blood came out. ”Wars didn’t have to be so brutal. Yet they made it so! Maybe this happened in Aborigine villages, but this is a Terran territory!!”

Micheal also looked at Garan, looking at him complicatedly. ”There’s also something you need to know.”

”What is it?”

”One of your people, I think his name was Gian,” he said. ”He came along with them.”

”What?”

Garan and Luis looked at him in disbelief, and Micheal told them what he had seen.

Gian actually stopped a lot of the open-air rapes and torture, but he didn’t do anything else. As a soldier, this was an extreme shame.

Garan’s vein popped as he listened. They had so many enemies, but that guy decided to point guns at his own brethren. And Gian—

Why would that young man decide to switch sides? To such a horrendous human being?

Gian was immature, but he was not evil.

What did Fargo do to him?

Garan raised his hand and punched the nearest tree. It cracked, soon falling down backwards.

Amon Fargo!

That bastard!!!