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

Baltimore’s team met up later that night after going around on their own. After all, they were all big men, how odd it was to see big men going around together as if on a leisure trip?

However, this investigatory trip that should’ve been straightforward lasted much, much, longer than expected.

Baltimore looked at his men who were now facing him in the private room of the premier restaurant. They were standing by the door while Baltimore alone sat on the table.

Everyone was silent for a while and didn’t speak. When the waiter arrived to deliver their food, he flinched, not sure what to make of it.

Baltimore sighed, rubbing his temple.

”Enter.”

”A-Ah yes,” he said, entering, and arranging the beautifully-plated food on the table. Even from just the appearance, one could tell this was superior to the food outside—which was already mouthwatering in and of themselves.

Baltimore frowned when he saw his men shift attention towards the food, looking greedy for it.

”Are you idiots?” Baltimore asked as soon as the waiter left. The men flinched and kneeled, apologizing.

He had waited here alone for almost half a day.

As a lord, he naturally never did the investigation himself. He went to ask where the best restaurant was and waited there after paying a premium amount for not having a ’reservation’.

He was annoyed at first for being treated like everyone else, but he was too curious—especially when he saw the food being placed on the tables—so he did not make a scene.

In the end, his slave-servant Piko paid the people in the queue a hefty amount so he didn’t have to line up. He had to admit the food was indeed mouthwatering, and he couldn’t help but start ordering as soon as he was seated.

It was easily the best meal he had eaten.

There were even special effects for a majority of the meals!

Surprisingly, when he asked to meet the chef, he was too busy to appear in front of him.

”How rude…” Piko mumbled, swearing pain to the entire restaurant.

”Now, now,” Baltimore said calmly, but the darkness in his eyes betrayed his sadistic tendencies.

”Didn’t you read the rules? The lord here obviously invested a lot on the rules.”

Piko sneered, ”Which are useless during wars, milord.”

”Exactly,” he said, eyes looking at the empty plates. ”When we wage war, nothing will stop us from doing whatever we wanted.”

He didn’t speak for a moment and looked out the translucent window made from youli stone. He didn’t even know it could be used like this.

”I’ll stay here, you go order your food outside.”

Piko’s eyes brightened, looking forward to this order since they entered. ”Thank you, milord!” he said and went out, eating his heart out.

This was several hours ago.

While Baltimore enjoyed the food, it didn’t mean, however, that he was willing to wait beyond the stipulated time.

These men better have a lot of things to report.

And when he saw them stealing glances at the food, he wanted to throw them to monster mobs then and there.

”Report.”

”Yes, milord!”

It was Treck who spoke first. Among the men around Baltimore, Treck was actually the weakest one at level 15. However, he was the leading man during wars, at least until he remained at this level.

In fact, Treck should have leveled up a long time ago, but he enjoyed wars where he could crush his enemies and wanted to participate actively in them.

”First of all, there seems to be… no lord.”

Baltimore frowned as he looked at him. He saw the others’ reactions and knew they gathered the same.

”How did the rules and changes come to be then?”

”The general knowledge is that there was the omniscient ’Village System’, as they called it, who makes all the changes.”

A man nodded beside him. This was Seto, a level 24 and one of the guards who were ’poisoned’ by Garan back then. He also had a lot of scars because of this.

”They also have an Elder group in charge of different things. They are assigned by the system for their skills. They also have the right to ask this system directly of what they hope to change in the territory.”

”And you believe them?”

”Of course not, milord.”

The concept of the elders was not unheard of, but because of the system not everyone adopted them.

Very few lords would be willing to distribute so much power, after all.

Baltimore’s fingers tapped rhythmically on the table as he thought. ”These Elders… what do you know about them?”

”We know that there’s someone in charge of the internal peace—whatever that means—called Matilda.

”There is an elder in-charge of the farms called Gru.”

”The elder of Military affairs… is Garan.”

Baltimore’s eyes sharpened.

”He’s got a really high position from the start.”

”We’re still trying to investigate more about this.”

”Still? You were out for half a day.”

The men paled. Not only had they been a bit distracted by the goodness and ended up buying a lot of things, it was also really difficult to gather the information they wanted!

In pretty much everyone’s experience, when they were investigating, a lot of people chattered with them for an hour, droning on and on, but without actually answering the question!

For example, Ero, a level 23 cronie, was trying to get more information about the source of the sauces.

Obviously, it was common knowledge, but the people droned on and on about how the sauces changed their lives, how it helped them make livelihoods, how they were able to afford the children going to school, et cetera. But then—

”Oh, excuse me, I have customers! Bye~”

He wanted to throw the table over, but they had read the rules and he knew he’d be fined.

Being fined would get him a record, adding some more difficulties in his looking for information.

”There is also an Elder of Economy, whatever he does.” Whatever economics does was still vague to them.

”This person is a man called Ansel, though I’ve seen him just leisurely walking around with food…”

”There was an Elder of Research and the Elder of Pharmacy. I’m not certain what exactly they did, but I could see people idolize them.”

”You couldn’t gather anything?”

Trek and the others looked embarrassed. ”When I started asking, people started… being guarded.”

”Same here.”

”I had a similar experience.”

”It’s like the more we went around, the harder it was to gather information…”

They would also notice a lot more bad looks coming their way. Some of them were outright ignored. They would only be entertained if they were paying customers, but even then they would deflect the answers to something wholly unrelated to what they wanted to hear.

How these people never lacked stories to tell, they would never understand.

What they didn’t know was Althea and the others, especially the guard stations, had recently received a lot of reports of ’suspicious activities’. This made guards watch them closer and make sufficient warnings.

Baltimore didn’t speak for a while and his cronies genuinely feared for their lives.

”Find out more about those Elders,” he just said after a moment of silence, making the others heave sighs of relief.

”The Lord… is definitely one of them.”