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

Before heading inside the meeting room, everyone in the team signed a non-betrayal Oath in the Village Center. And, as with others, the loyalty oath would be completely voluntary.

The oath was a standard perpetual non-betrayal oath made by Mathilda and Lawyer Jun to ensure there were no loopholes. This was something every territory employee, Terran or Aborigine, had to do before they get hired.

They would be given a choice to continue with the employment after seeing the oath, and so far no one had refused to do so.

At the same time, Altera wouldn’t demand a loyalty oath asking for people’s lives. Altera wanted to ensure its safety present and future, but didn’t want to take away people’s freedom.

Hence, the oath still guaranteed the territory could trust these individuals with sensitive information, while giving them a choice to undergo it or not. It was also insurance that the individuals would in no way undermine the safety, interest, or well-being of Altera (or any of its satellites) in any way or form.

Even if the damage was genuinely by accident, they would be receiving some form of punishment proportional to the damage they did. This was still under discussion, but the punishment could be monetary or even forced labor.

This would ensure proper care and quality in the work of the officials and the employees.

Henry and the others didn’t react much with the oaths, knowing it was necessary. There were a few frowns—after all, even if they weren’t planning on betraying, getting so many rules imposed did not feel good.

Finally, the oaths were also perpetual—that was to say, like the hired aborigines, they would not be able to cause damage to Altera even when they were no longer associated with it.

The wordings were also much more detailed than what the aborigines signed back in the Chancery—something Jun and his team interviewed aborigines a lot.

For one, they included indirect damage, so they couldn’t send people after Altera in their stead (as what Belize would’ve done, if he was alive). This would also control the entry of future spies in key positions of the territory.

At the very least, most territories would hesitate to plant spies in their midst, because it’d have been useless—maybe even counterproductive.

They even added ’perpetual beyond the grave’ in order to avoid unnecessary leaks even if the employee, or even the territories themselves, fell. As it was now, they could take the hired aborigines of fallen territories (like Rona and Mogi) and get everything they knew about the territories that were no more.

Speaking of this, when they found out about this (Jun was asking a lot of questions about the existing oaths), Mathilda and the others also got more information about the world.

Interestingly, most of the ’fallen’ territories were exhausted villages overpowered by mobs. Fall from wars, and more especially getting taken over, was actually uncommon.

This was not entirely a surprise because, technically, wars could only be among territories of the same rank. So, while there was a 50-50 chance of losing the war, it was a rare case for a territory to actually fall from it—not unless they were specifically targeted.

Sadly, Fargo was a deeply untrusting individual, so what they got from Rona and Mogi was nothing they didn’t already know.

Leny and most of the others’ experiences were similar because the villages they were hired in before Altera were all unremarkable. The fall of these territories was also typical of this world.

For instance, in Leny’s case, out of the dozen or so villages she had been to, about two of them fell while she was there. One was targetted—the lord apparently offending someone from a town—and the other one fell under beast tides.

At best, they found out that most lords would choose to hide away when the momentum fell out of their favor, leaving the citizens to fend for themselves. Anyway, as long as they kept most of the enemies out for 28 hours, then they’d have won.

Tambai and Gochi’s information, though, was new and interesting. For one, they got to know more about orcs and half-orcs.

For one, orcs were a lot bigger than half-orcs, which amazed them because Gochi was already towering even among the aborigines. The weaker class—the herbivores—were at least twice as strong as Gochi.

The fighter class was far superior in fighting and was much more troublesome. From Tambai’s story, it didn’t take long for a group to take down the lowest level warehouse.

By Althea’s estimate, a group of humans would’ve taken hours before doing the same feat.

Anyway, Altera will never fall, but its citizens sure would appreciate getting to know more about those who did.

This was something they’d discover more in the future. For now, they were in a meeting about the future of a territory.

The leading party then sat around the large table. Garan took a seat on one side side, while Althea sat next to him.

Vanessa, who had wanted to sit next to Garan, sent a bad look to Althea’s direction.

”Do you have to be here?” Vanessa asked Althea, who blinked. Althea held her husband’s hand when she felt that he was about to speak. She stopped it because she didn’t want any tension between Victor, Henry, and her husband—not when she could handle it herself.

Althea smiled at the woman. ”Of course, I’m an elder in Altera after all.”

”An Elder?” Vanessa asked, disbelieving. ”What kind of Elder?”

She knew the woman probably had a good position by virtue of the respect she was getting, but…

”A useful one,” was all Althea said before turning back to the table, effectively ignoring her. Vanessa gritted her teeth.

”You—”

”Stop,” Garan said with a deep frown, unable to help himself anymore. ”I assure you, Althea has more to contribute in a single meeting than you can in years.”

He turned his eyes and Vanessa met his striking blue eyes that made her heart beat, though now in intimidation.

”Now, seat down and be quiet,” he said, his baritone voice flowing across the room. ”Or else we will kick you out.”