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

While Fargo was getting cleaned up, bit by bit, a few more people were invited to the Village Center. These were the respected citizens of Fargo other than Henry, who were the doctors. Their representative was Volohov as well as his wife, Liana.

They also called some of the erudite citizens who had seen and experienced the events, but would still be able to help with the objective and logical decision-making. Among these people was Vivian and, by extension, her husband Thomas.

While the confessions and the recording of accounts with the local citizens were going on below, Althea and the others still hoped to find other perspectives as well. After all, most citizens were at the height of emotions, and they might miss or exaggerate a few things.

However, what they would hear still made their blood boil.

The type of abuse and oppression was so medieval—it was a shame that modern Terrans propagated it!

The Alterans also looked at Henry and the others in pity. Having to endure such oppression while trying to protect citizens must not have been easy. No wonder the old man wanted to retire. Considering everyone had longer lifespans here, the old man must’ve felt he still lost a few years.

After much discussion, they decided to divide the punishments into two: Execution and Prisoner of War.

Execution would be the painful and prolonged deaths of the Thousand Slashes, where their victims would be allowed to damage them, to contribute to their painful and imminent deaths.

The Prisoners of War would be the exception to the ’no slave’ rule of Altera. They would basically be ’slaves’ in a sense, where they’d be punished by doing hard labor jobs for Altera or its satellites.

As for the duration of this sentence, it would depend on their transgressions.

Besides, it so happened that Fargo had limestone and copper deposits that Altera needed. As they said so themselves: Slaves were convenient to dig!

There were naturally some ’idealistic and humanitarian’ voices around, of course, who had voiced their opinion against such blatant ’disrespect for human rights’.

For instance, there was Vanessa, who wasn’t comfortable with not having a bigger part in the discussion.

”They’re human beings! We shouldn’t be deciding life or death like this, nor should we allow for slavery!” she said, a bit meekly but with chest out as if she was a kind-hearted woman speaking her mind against some oppressive force.

Oppressive-force-Althea looked at her. ”So, what do you suggest?”

”I… we let them go,” she said, ”Surviving out in their states—”

”Haven’t you heard that cockroaches live forever? What will you do if someone survived and caused harm to Alterans? You might not care, but I do.”

”That’s not what I meant—”

”You think just because people are injured, they wouldn’t be able to cause damage? Vanessa, don’t be naive.”

”I’m not!” Vanessa said, voice rising a bit. Her upbringing and the fact that she had an image to maintain in front of Garan kept her from losing her cool. ”I’m just saying we shouldn’t be playing god—”

”In a world where strength is language and killing is everywhere, taking a life is not playing god—it’s a means of survival.”

”You can’t possibly say that if those men did what they did to you, you would be able to let them be?”

”I—”

”Will you?”

Vanessa pursed her lips, eyes teary, and then she looked around for help, looking as if she was being bullied. However, no one felt pity for her. Garan didn’t even look at her, his eyes were fixed lovingly on his wife.

Althea heaved a sigh as she saw her like this. However, in consideration of her brother and father, she wasn’t too harsh on her.

”This is no longer Terran, where the biggest problem is if the president you voted for gets elected or if you get a job, or if you will get to buy that luxury bag you wanted.

”Any wrong decision here could equal lives or a massacre,” she paused, emerald eyes looking straight at her.

”And we, as people in power, could only do what’s best for our people.”

…

A few hours later.

At this time, the surviving Fargo guards and a couple of inner wall citizens were gathered into the plaza in front of the village center. It was the only plaza Fargo had and the Alterans jointly decided to do the punishments there.

The masses gathered around to see, and everyone was filled with emotions.

They all knew what would be happening to these people, and they wanted to be there to witness it.

The Alterans based on testimonials of victims and witnesses to determine who was to be put to death and who would simply be imprisoned and become war slaves.

This was done using a strict oath, so they weren’t worried about wronging anyone.

Anyway, this public display was necessary to calm some of the wrongs. After all, the victims had to carry the ’damage’ these people caused—whether physical or mental—for the rest of their lives. The least they could get was to punish the perpetrators themselves.

The prisoners naturally struggled. Many of them couldn’t walk anymore with broken or amputated legs, so they were dragged to the plaza.

”NO!! LET ME GOO!!”

”STOP IT!”

”DON’T—GAH!”

During their procession, the prisoners received rocks and trash thrown at them. The citizens didn’t throw feces, fortunately, because they knew the Alterans needed to touch them to set them up on the stake.

There were dozens of stakes there with those to be executed staged in batches. There were plenty of struggles, pleas, and yells, but what could their weakened selves do against the strong and healthy Alterans?

Each person was tied to a stake, and several Class B knives were lined up on a table in front of them. People who wished to punish the men queued up. The direct victims were allowed to stab how many times they wanted, while the others were limited to a few.

The weakened guards could only watch as people lined up to stab at them.

In front of the line, there was Jake, holding Yiyi’s hand. He gently placed the knife on her hand, and she raised her head to look at him, eyes contracted in fear and apprehension.

Her hands were cold, shaking as she felt the hilt of the weapon. Jake’s heart broke but he knew this was a necessary step. If she didn’t do this—she might regret it.

So, with a smile on his face, he comfortingly patted her hand.

”Come,” he said, gently pulling her to the platform. ”We will take revenge together, okay?”