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

At some point, the Golds ended up in a game around 2 meters deep and a meter wide.

There was a basket target moved around randomly, and they were given a little ’catapult’ which had a button of sorts. They had to time and calculate the angle well if they wanted to shoot the ’rock’ to the basket.

”Oh, how creative!”

”How do the people here think of these things?”

One must know that cities did indeed have catapults—though for most parts, they were technology taken from when the dwarves were still human slaves. It seemed that Alterans also had this concept!

Would it appear in a village, too?

It took Obi about ten tries to get closer, but still did not manage to shoot.

”UGH!” Obi gritted his teeth, a little annoyed. Otto looked at him. ”Be careful of destroying anything. I heard you’ll get transported straight to prison.”

”Seriously?”

”Yep.”

At some point, Obi and Otto also started watching stranger’s games, and they were even cheering along with the locals. They then played a game called whack-a-trudge-rat where a caricature of said monster—a good digger beast—would appear in random holes and they had to hit it.

The mechanism wasn’t simple. First, it had to be durable enough to handle the strength of strongmen. This was done using a lot of rubber and resin. Of course, they had to place a sign of what power level could be used. For example, for this game, a maximum of level 10 strength was allowed.

Further, it had to be much faster than back in Terra due to the people’s improved reflexes here, but also not too fast that it’d take away from the fun. The two aborigines found themselves addicted.

At some point, they bought pockets full of wood coins and somehow they halved it with just that one game alone.

Olga laughed at their antics. ”Stupid.”

But she did have a large smile on her face.

…

Some time later, a man in an official uniform entered, looking around for someone.

The person manning the coin exchange booth saw him, and immediately smiled. ”Hey! Sir Jun! Looking for Mimi?”

The man smiled as he looked around. ”Yes.”

”She’s by the wood coin machine,” he said, pointing in a direction, and Jun followed. He went past a couple of games until he found a group of kids huddled around some sort of translucent dome.

The material wasn’t youli though, but rather a nearly-transparent mesh supported by wooden frames.

The game was like that Coin Pusher game in Terran. As for how the mechanism inside worked, he only knew it used the wind turbines above the building as the mechanism. However it worked, he knew it must be ingenious.

Of course, the mechanical games were limited to simple ones like this which only needed one or two main movements. The other games would need electricity first, which meant they were a long time away.

Jun stood behind the children, watching his daughter have fun with friends.

To be honest, when the disaster happened, he didn’t think they’d have any semblance of normalcy anymore. But look at this now. His daughter was playing arcade games!

However, all good things must still come to an end, and he did call on her a few moments later.

He gently tapped her little shoulders. ”Mimi, time to go home,” he said, and the little ones all turned to him with furrowed eyebrows.

”Awww….” she mumbled and looked at him. ”But it’s still so early daddy!”

”Five minutes please!”

His eyes twitched. ”Fine.”

This made the children’s frown morph to one of relief and they continued to play their little game.

”...”

Jun shook his head and saw the Golds, who were half-playing and half-watching the others.

”Hello,” he said, greeting. They nodded at him, doing the same.

”Hi. Jun, right?”

”Yes, I’m happy you remember me.”

They smiled at this. Of course they remembered not only the elders, but also the people next to them in their respective departments.

For Miss Althea, it was Winona; for Sir Garan it was Gill, Drake, and Reno; for Ansel it was the twins Leo and Luke; for Sir Gru it was a man named Dennis; and for Miss Mathilda it was Jun and a woman named Silvia.

Jun also looked at them being friendly with him, feeling a bit flattered and relieved. He naturally knew them all and wanted to give them very good times while also assisting them in ’contributing to Altera’s GDP’.

At this, he looked at his daughter who still seemed to be having fun, and then to the Golds. A few minutes of introduction should do fine. ”Actually, this is an all-access floor, but there are other floors you may want to check.”

”Oh?”

”On the upper floors, there are games like billiards, mahjong boards, and darts.” There was less mechanism (without electricity, the mechanism needed a lot of space and could only be built on the ground floor) and the focus up there was socialization and maybe a bit of friendly gambling.

”What’s that?”

”Well, you’ll find out soon,” he said, gesturing to go to the stairs. Olga looked back at the children.

”What about our nephew?”

”He’s with my daughter. They’ll be fine.”

For good measure, he called her in. ”MimI!”

”Daddy!”

”It’s fine, you can stay longer,” he said and smiled when the little girl (and her friends) brightened. ”But you stay inside the building and on this floor okay?”

”Yes, daddy!”

”Good girl,” he said, handing her a few more silver. ”Now, go buy a few more tokens.”

”YAY! DADDY IS THE BEST!” she said, hugging his leg, before pattering towards her friends (who were already heading to the coin booth).

As the group turned and headed to the stairs, they could even hear a few kids mumble. ”Wow, your dad is so cool!”

”Your dad is the best!”

Jun choked, before chuckling. Well, he is indeed very good.

…

The group climbed up the stairs, passing by the second floor and heading straight to the third.

”What’s this floor for?” Otto asked, looking at the couple of people also playing there. ”Those are billiards, darts, and other games. There are also lounge areas there. Most of its for teenagers and young adults to hang out.”

As he said so, Jun saw that Amos’ brother Alon was also there, no doubt spending away his brother’s hard-earned money.

He frowned, thinking of proposing some minimum amount of contribution points for non-tourists to enter the building. They didn’t need to spend the contribution points, but a baseline should be required.

He could tell the other people playing there were there to relax after a long day of work. Alon looked like he had been there the whole day.

The Golds beside him weren’t privy to his various administrative thoughts. They simply followed him up the stairs, curious about what they could find.

Then they would soon arrive on the third floor, and although there was a guard in front, they could see some of the activities behind him.

Terrans would recognize this was a casino of sorts.

And it would be paying a lot of taxes to Altera in the future.