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

Before heading out, Althea put an aether letter telling the elders of her plans and to settle the prisoners well. She also asked to handle the slaves and make them swear oaths to never harm the territory, even after they freed themselves.

Of course, she also mentioned that they could not drop their guards until the announcement was received. People could still attack them after all. What if there were still rats hidden, waiting to strike?

”Wait,” Garan said as they headed out the gate. He brought her to Baltimore’s corpse and took out a long knife, beheading him.

He took out a tissue paper from his space to hold the head in, and he wrapped him in some dirty rags to keep his dirty blood from bleeding in his wife’s space.

”So people believe they have already lost,” he told her. She nodded, placing it in her space. This would be her ’entrance ticket’ if they needed it.

Because they hadn’t retrieved the token yet, there was no announcement.

Strictly speaking, if the rest of the enemy territory citizens below the level cap would go through the array and get inside the territory alive—if the number somehow reached more than half of the overall participants—then they could still win.

Hence, in their case, until the entire 28 hours were completed, they hadn’t officially won yet—not unless they got their hands on that token.

Although it was only Althea, Luis, and a few others who went in to maintain low-key entry to Guia, it didn’t mean those beyond wouldn’t do anything else. For one, they still needed to send stronger individuals there even if the travel would take days.

If they managed to secure the place, then there would be a need for trusted stewards to watch over the place. If there wasn’t, then it was a good chance to get as much Iron as they could (and maybe even get some more goblins) before the Master Territory messed things up for them.

Gill also stepped forward. ”I’ll go there with a few people, Captain, but I may not go back for a while.” After the war, he hoped to get to Cassandra. Judging by the consolidated maps, Guia was on the way to Jacoba Town.

Garan nodded, assigning the forces to go to Guia Village as soon as possible. After that, he would go around the place to check for leaks and escapees around the territory.

For a territory like Guia, they had to cut all roots they could not control.

…

Guia Village.

At this time, several guards gathered by the gates. One, to do their jobs, second, to gossip.

”What do you think happened?” One asked, recalling the major orders a few hours back. The guards looked bloody and scared and they could tell the enemy—Alterra Village—was a lot stronger than they thought.

Pretty much all of their fighting forces were called in, leaving a handful of guards to maintain the territory.

While the guards looked worried, they comforted themselves. ”It’s a challenge sure, but it means the loot is higher.”

”Ah, that’s true.”

Guia Village had never lost before, and the people didn’t have the concept of it.

They continued chattering until the array lit up. ”They’re here!” one said, looking forward to the triumphant return—likely with new slaves.

They jumped down the battlement—a grave mistake on their part—thinking they’d be needed to escort the slaves.

Too many died the previous month during that damned Goblin attack, plus the few tortures and venting ended up reducing the goblin slaves they had.

Anyway, they really lost a lot of slaves. They needed more and this war was the perfect time to regenerate and get more forces!

To their shock though, the people who leisurely came through were all unfamiliar people. There were only two of them, but they came in as if they didn’t take them to mind at all!

They gasped and immediately started attacking, but none of the attacks even damaged the woman, while the man was an elementalist who took them down while they were distracted!!

They were both level 17 though, so naturally the fire could not kill them so easily.

What they didn’t expect was a glittering set of bow and arrows directed straight to their hearts.

Their eyes were wide as they stared at the newcomers.

Who the orcshit are these people?

…

They dragged the guards deeper into the forest for interrogation, with Luis looking at his scope to see if anything had changed around the gates.

He saw that it was clear, so he knew the disappearance of two guards was unnoticed for now.

”First thing we have to determine is the reason why Baltimore hid it in the first place,” Althea said, handing over another protection charm to Luis, just in case.

This would help them narrow down the places to look, or—at the worst case scenario—whether to not waste time anymore.

For instance, if Baltimore placed it in his Warehouse.

Only the lord could enter the Warehouse at any time. In theory, he could’ve placed the token there.

Normally, if the war ended and the lord was dead, then the territory would disintegrate. In such cases, them—the winners—would not get anything except a portion of the gold and the people they may or may not have captured on their turf.

But if Baltimore truly had and used that magic tool to preserve the separation of the token, then it’d be a different matter.

In theory, if the Lord died with its token protected like so, then the territory would become an independent land with no master, for the rest of time—at least until the token was found.

However, they knew this was unlikely in Guia Village’s case. They knew from Ferrol’s secret letter that Guia was only their subsidiary in name and it definitely had a master. This meant Baltimore was answering to someone else, and they must have access to where the lord token was even in his death.

Perhaps, one of his allies was already taking it somewhere. In this case, they had to get it back.

Althea heaved a deep breath as she stared at the wall not too far from them.

”Let’s go.”