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

Shiro was not stupid. On the contrary, he was smart. Respected by his citizens despite his young age, he had led them to the best of his ability, and they knew it too.

When their territory fell, most people had chosen another village or even the nearby town to settle, but a lot of them stayed. That was much more than what others would expect in the same situation.

Anyway, he had just found a new home for his citizens after the last one was destroyed; He was not about to cause trouble now.

They circled the two people brawling, and Cain was obviously taken aback by the younger man’s fighting prowess. Then all of a sudden a small but sharp metal spike appeared about to stab Crow.

”Watch out!” an Alterran yelled, quickly pulling Crow back before he could get stabbed.

Crow looked at Cain with venomous eyes, while the latter wiped the blood from his cracked lips, returning his glare with dark eyes. ”What? You think I’ll just lie there for you to beat me?”

”I can make it that way—” Crow yelled, despite not being too superior in level than the other, and Cain sneered and spat out some blood, taking a spare sword from his space.

However, before the two could resume their fight, they were suddenly doused with water.

Crow’s eyebrows furrowed and turned to the only water elementalist in the area who could make so much water from thin air, and so did the others who saw where it came from.

It was Turbo who had put down his hands. He looked at them with a stern expression. ”This is not the time,” he said, ”Mobs would be attracted soon enough.”

There was silence. They knew he was right.

Shiro nodded and looked at his men. ”Let’s go,” he said, and the men including Cain reluctantly followed, though not without staring down at the opponents.

”Wait,” Turbo said, pointing at the slaves. ”Give them to us.”

”Why?”

”We can buy them.”

Shiro looked at them. After a pause, he spoke. ”10 gold each.”

”What?”

None of them had that kind of extra money to give out. However, looking at the ’slaves’ looking at them with eyes filled with hope, they couldn’t express this openly.

After a pause, Turbo sighed. ”We will talk to our elders. Don’t harm any of them.”

The Alterrans left and so did then Shrao Villagers, with the slaves following closely as they sobbed. However, they were suddenly filled with hope this time, unlike before.

Cain gritted his teeth and was about to beat one of them up to vent, but he was stopped by Fos, one of Shiro’s confidantes.

”Will you be paying for the damages?” He asked. If Alterra found out they beat them, they’d discount the gold and they weren’t confident they could go against them. For one, they couldn’t attack Alterran Residents in either of their territories which was a huge disadvantage already.

He could see the Slaves smile and look at each other. From their former hopeless demeanor, that short interaction seemed to have injected life into them.

Shiro saw everything, turning to look at their backs and in the direction where the opponents left. ”Alterra, eh?”

…

When Turbo’s team came back, they immediately went to report that their people had been enslaved.

This was common practice in this world and they wouldn’t risk their lives to rescue all their enslaved brethren. In addition to all the wars and preparation for the heat wave, they simply put Vismont to the back of their minds.

Their own way of life was threatened, who would have the mind to go out of their way to rescue others? They were not heroes who’d go out of their way and jump from territory to territory with the sole purpose of saving Terrans.

At least not yet.

At this time, they didn’t have the ability to go against the world.

But now that they have encountered them head on, they could no longer, in good conscience, not do anything. How could they sit still when they witnessed them so close and enslaved?

Rather, the reality of it hitting them so hard made their hearts hurt in anger and indignance.

”Those bastards!”

”We can’t let this slide!”

”Letting them go now could lower momentum, even by a bit.”

Althea watched them as they planned the next step, her mind entering a slightly different path of thought. Although Shrao did a lot of wrong, she felt there was another way around this…

”We can’t jump into this too quickly,” she said. ”Besides, we can’t go to war for the next two weeks.”

Iron Mountain had just been attacked so both Alterra and Limestone Valley could not be attacked. In the same vein, they had already consumed the month’s attack slots with the Fargo war so they would still need to wait a bit to attack.

”We will also need to know the rules and regulations of that place.”

Around this time, Loki, who was the latest in charge of the Guard Station, spoke up. ”Didn’t Limestone village say they want to join if we decide to attack Shrao Village?”

”Oh yeah, what did Shrao do to them?”

Not long after sending letters and newspaper to the Satellites, they received a reply letter from Limestone Valley.

First, they reported about the status of the territory, as well as confirmation of their orders (for example, building a permanent extra structure outside the warehouse for Althea’s protection when she was transferring a huge amount of goods to them).

There was also the mention that a few people hoped to be part of a war if it involved Shrao village, should they hope to trigger it.

Even Crow and even little Horus approached some of them before they entered the meeting. They said that they hoped to be a greater part of the war—if it should happen.

They would have to wait another few weeks to attack though. Would the slaves last that long? Especially with the upcoming heat wave?

”They’re a subsidiary, can we even attack it?”

”Yes. It’s another reason few territories accept being subsidiaries. They not only had to pay tribute, but it doesn’t exempt them from an attack.” This was in contrast with official alliances, in which neither territory could attack the other, or they’d be penalized with whatever was indicated in the contract.

While Althea was pondering on how to handle it, Mathilda thought of an idea. ”Then what about attacking without triggering wars?”

The room was silent then, minds whirling with the possibilities and implications.

They knew it was possible. After all, they had done this with Vismont before. Rowan didn’t attack but they still managed to cause chaos anyway, to the point that a huge power in the territory was taken down.

”We have a mathematician team now, right?” Eugene asked. ”Can they calculate what force value would need to trigger a war?”

”...”

Genius!

With this, the team immediately started to distribute the work, with Eugene to work with the Math team to determine the formula, as fast as possible.

Althea sighed. While she did think there could be alternatives, she didn’t stop them or put any damper in their passion.

She wanted to know the threshold of triggering wars, anyway.