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

There was about 2 meters of clear area around the walls. It was narrow, but it was wide enough to see anomalies from the perimeter of the wall.

There were only about 4 guards on the walls. However, because of the arrangement (or non-arrangement) of this place, it wouldn’t be easy to target the guards. First, three meters above was way above eye level. If they wanted to have a chance of a good shot, they had to be on one of the houses.

However, there were few windows in system houses—likely in consideration for the extreme weather—and those they had happened to be facing the streets. This made sense as the houses were built right next to each other. However, this also meant there was no direct place to target the guards from.

The best the archers—Crow and Juan—could do was position on the ’front’ windows, hoping for the guard to pass whatever limited line segment they could see.

Crow looked at Tacky and Juan, who nodded as they opened the doors to said homes, revealing the apprehensive stares of the people inside. Each house had about a dozen people squeezed together, paying several coppers a day for a night.

The Alterans quickly captured their hearts with their stories, and soon they were asking what kind of rooms Alteran Dormitories had. Anyway, they managed to get permission to use the houses both as vantage points as well as places to hide the rescued slaves.

Another challenge was the slaves themselves.

It wasn’t that the force value of the slaves was a threat. On the contrary, they were weak and easy to push down. The challenge was what to do to minimize their injuries.

At the same time, the guards who would definitely be shooting relentlessly. They would not care who they hit, and this certainly included the slaves.

What was the use of rescuing them when they’d be riddled with arrows in the end?

The plan was for an Alteran—who had good equipment—to lure in Tacky’s sister (and as many slaves as possible) to the nearest cover (the house) and then immobilize them.

”Try to lure as many in here,” he said, pointing at the delineation. ”They were probably ordered to stay within a certain distance from the wall.”

When they got back Tacky earlier, they weren’t able to see clearly when they stopped following because it was such a rush. It was safe to assume that they stopped before the building line, just to be safe.

It was shieldswoman Sunny who went to assist Tacky and Baka to lure in slaves. Another sheildsman started further away, and he was followed by a few slaves along the perimeter, confirming the theory that their order was to stay within a certain distance from the wall, not from their positions.

This was good because this meant they could gather a few before leading them to the ’capture area’.

”ENEMY! ENEMY!” The slaves yelled as they followed as if they were afflicted by some virus from an apocalypse movie. There were only over a dozen, but it was still a creepy sight.

”HEY! HERE!” The guard took out his bow and arrow. He didn’t hesitate to shoot, and his companions quickly did the same. Only one of them had awakened the Archer profession though, and everyone else just had arrows for convenience as battlement guards.

The guards this time were former citizens who applied for the position. The heavily trained men who were under Fargo back in Terran were either dealing with Althea’s group, or Reno, Luis, and Ansel’s group somewhere else.

They got lucky this time because this meant none of these archers were sharpshooters. The shieldsmen only had to deal with a few shots, while the rest badly missed.

”Hey! They’re running away!” One said as they realized the groups were heading in particular directions. He cursed shooting as fast as he could though definitely not as fast as he’d have wanted.

”Too slow! I miss my gun!”

”Damn it! It’s that darned shield of theirs!”

”Just shoot and shoot!”

The guards continued to shoot arrows at them, not really caring if they hit slaves in the process. As they said, try and try until you succeed and it happened that someone was really about to hit a slave.

Unexpectedly a shield came right in front of the slave, though she quickly avoided the slave’s desperate grip on her, continuing on her way as ’bait’.

”Why would she shield the slaves!?”

”Damn!” One yelled as they saw them enter a street. ”Should we go down?”

”We got orders never to get down the battlement unless the enemies got inside!”

The other three nodded. They didn’t want to go down and risk their lives anyway. This place was still the safest!

They watched as the Alterans moved from area to area, seemingly without direction, and two guards shifted position to shoot.

”Shoot at the same time,” one said. ”For some reason, they’re shielding slaves. Target one near them, and I’ll hit the person when the shield is down.”

”Ah, good idea.”

However, before they could make use of this plan—

Whoosh!

Two guards fell down with crossbow arrows on their head or neck.

!!!

…

Back to the ground level, Alterans and the Fargo citizens waited tensely as the slaves entered their area.

”There!” Dog yelled and immediately Alterans and Fargo citizens wrapped the slaves in ropes, pulling them back to the alleys and houses in time before the surviving guards could gather their wits and shoot.

The slaves struggled but not very effectively, and those with some more strength were immediately sprayed with knockout potions.

They wrapped them a few more times with Altera’s ropes—everyone had it in their tool set—and the people heaved a deep breath once they were certain no amount of struggling would free the slaves.

And just like this, more than two dozen slaves were saved.

And just in time, too, because the slaves’ bodies had been pushed too much. If they waited a bit longer, more than a few of them would’ve crumbled.

Including Tacky’s sister.