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

Ramona shook at the announcement. But then she thought, it didn’t matter.

Glorious Hospitality had her ex Louie’s back and had networks all over, her reputation was so low someone even threw rotten eggs at her! Then that bastard Danny, during his tavern runs, would often rant about her when he was drunk!

Although Alterra was amazing, her reputation was so bad here she couldn’t hang on to anyone. A place where she can’t live a good life was not a place worth keeping!

She just couldn’t stay here anymore!

It had to be said Ramona was incredibly naive. Not to mention, because she had never participated in wars nor had she ever cared about others, she had no idea just how bad women had it in this world, especially in aborigine territories.

She always had the default ideology of ’the grass being greener on the other side’, making her blind that the land she was on was the best place she could be in.

”Well, okay,” Baltimore said, ”I remember your contribution.” He said, then manifesting a few gold pieces and handed it to her. ”Reward, for now, come to me if you have more information.”

Her eyes brightened at the gold. Silver would already get her far in Alterra, let alone gold!

She knew her decision wasn’t the wrong one!

She looked at him with dazed and bright eyes. ”Yes, yes, thank you,” she said, her voice soft. Baltimore looked at her and nodded. ”When we obtain this place, you’re going to live better than now,” he promised and Ramona almost hugged him.

She knew that she couldn’t compromise herself yet though, so she stopped herself and Baltimore didn’t do anything either.

The group separated from her and left, set to start the next phase of their plans, while Ramona was left there already dreaming of her new life, completely unaware that someone was behind the bushes about a hundred meters away, blinking, and witnessing the whole thing.

…

One of the things about the Sound Blocker was that it not only blocked sounds from within, it also blocked sounds from outside.

Toktok was an eighteen-year-old who found most of her living in the maintenance team, not including the hunting part where she basically hang around the Golden Corner with many others.

The Golden Corner was the safe place between the level 5 main walls and the angle it made with the level 3 secondary wall. Here, they had two sentry walls covering their backs, leaving a small 90 degree opening to guard.

At this time though, she was running to the village center with a purpose.

Not only was it for contribution points, but she really liked Alterra—she couldn’t let anything threaten its safety!

She immediately went to the Guard Station near the barracks. This Guard Station was the equivalent to the police station where people could make reports.

They could report suspicious activities here. They would be taken to take an oath in the village center, and then get contribution points depending on validity and usefulness of the information.

There happened to be a guard currently heading inside, probably just coming back from his rounds.

She went to him and grabbed his arm.

”WHOA!”

He seemed quite surprised to be pulled so suddenly. Angelo was a little ashamed to not notice, but the girl’s sense of presence was really low!

”W-What is it?” He asked the girl, though he found his voice lowering unconsciously.

She was overtly thin, but a bit pretty.

The girl didn’t notice this. She took his hand, eager to report. ”What!” he exclaimed, flushed, but didn’t pull his hand away.

She began to write characters on his palm and his eyebrows furrowed, but a dawn of understanding came to him when her mouth opened but only minor sounds came out.

He cleared his throat as he looked at the girl with large rounded eyes, her heart-shaped face framed by her wavy black locks.

”Write it again,” he said and she nodded, doing as she was told. Her hand once again held the back of his palm, while the dainty fingers on her other hand moved along its surface, tickling his heart.

/I have something to report./

Angelo’s eyes widened as he was finally shook back to professionalism.

He held her hand, leading her inside the guard station where they had stocks of paper.

He ignored the raised eyebrows of his fellow guards, who watched them with interest. Angelo took paper and pencils, handing it over to the girl.

The girl’s eyes widened in admiration, definitely missing the feeling of such tools again, before gathering herself and telling them the whole story.

At the time, she was leaning down, maintaining a few flowers in the mountain trek when she saw a local talking with the guests.

There was a reminder sent to all the residents—temporary or permanent—to keep a sharp eye on any suspicious activities at all times. Toktok judged that this seemed like a very suspicious activity indeed.

Because of her current condition, she not only had very very good eyesight, she had also learned a little skill called lip-reading. However, it wasn’t as straightforward because they were using Xeno language.

Lip reading didn’t come with the automatic translation as spoken language had, so she had to learn from scratch for the past few months, and she had yet to be proficient in the language. She couldn’t catch everything, but she did manage to gather a couple of keywords.

For example, Althea, for example, her husband Garan, their children, and the term ’monitor’.

Angelo’s eyes widened a bit at the report. Seeing that her job was done, Toktok nodded, ready to leave.

Angelo flinched and grabbed her arm, making her turn to him, blinking, and he immediately felt shy under the stare of her large innocent eyes.

”Here, take these,” he said, handing her a thin rim of paper and sharpened pencils.

”As thanks,” he said, a bit awkwardly. ”They’ll be commercially available in a few days, anyway.”

Toktok blinked but then looked at the new set, heart beating loudly.

To others, it was just writing materials but, to her, it was the means to express herself!

Reluctant to use it so quickly, she just held Angelo’s palms again, heart filled with gratitude, and eager to express it.

’Thank you.’