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

We temporarily made it to Top 1 for Oct 2024 so here’s my thanks to everyone who helped!

Hopefully, we can maintain this for 2 more hours *prays*

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Department Store

Because the market had gotten larger, the clothing and garments had separated into a new Fabric Store building near the Bookstore.

Here, they were introduced to various types of cloth like hemp cloth, linen, and cotton cloth. Having all these at the same time were already impressive for a village without the new Clothing Store system building.

Usually, a village would have 1 choice of fabric, and they were usually rough. If the nobles wanted better clothes, they’d either go to towns or wait for their caravans to return, if they had one.

If they didn’t, then they prayed to the skies that a caravan would see their little village and pass by, but that happened very few times a year, especially if there was no town or city nearby for the caravans to use as a destination.

”Actually, we also have another… but it’s for super customers only,” the salesperson said, looking very hush hush. ”Since you’re planning on buying several bolts, I’ll tell you.”

They ’subtly’ went to the racks at the back, revealing smooth and somewhat shimmery fabric that made their eyes widen.

”This…”

Silk?

Although the stock was small and it was much more expensive than the others, this was definitely silk.

Sipa looked at his boss with wide eyes. He was one of the ’experts’ of this in their team, so whenever they had to buy fabric, he was always with them.

Seeing such a thing here took him aback.

”This could rival the Cloth cities…” he whispered, lightly touching the fabric with his hands.

Eloi looked at them with a complicated expression. ”It really is…” he said, though he was half-impressed and half-concerned. Those cities held on to their techniques tightly. They had a cutthroat culture, and he couldn’t help but feel a little worried for Alterra.

However, the quality was really good and the price was a tiny fraction of what those places sold. To be honest, they could sell these for about the same or at an even higher price than what the cloth cities’ equivalents sold for.

”Someone should rent beast carts from Ferrol Town, really,” Sipa said with sincerity. ”We’ve only been here for a few hours and what we bought couldn’t fit in our spaces anymore.”

Bulgogi heaved a deep breath and patted his stomach bulging from overeating. ”We wouldn’t even be able to fit a couple of bolts on our backs…”

This made the mercenaries consider it. It was true. There were still so many places for them to go. They wouldn’t be able to hold on all of the products they’d want to buy just by themselves.

While Bart mulled on the next step, they proceeded on looking at the other shops.

The next stop was the Bookstore. Here, they sold novelty items like paper—an extremely convenient alternative to papyrus—stationaries, pens, and pencils.

There was also a large piece of paper they could test out the writing tools, and it really fascinated them. The Terrans nearby couldn’t help but chuckle, reminded of kids in bookstores.

The quality was really different from what they were used to. For one, there were no clumps of ink! The pencil could even be erased so well there were nearly no marks at all!

”How much these could be sold in noble families…”

”It’s true…”

Louie smiled and let them shop around. He stopped when he saw a new item though. ”Oh? We also have territory maps now! But they’re not cheap,” he mumbled.

”Oh?”

Sipa, who was nearby, immediately went to take a look. The piece of paper seemed thicker than the others and seemed more stable. It was also Louie’s first time seeing it, so he also observed it with the same interest.

It was a semi-cartoonized map of the public-accessible places in the territory. It was drawn in novel interesting ways with text, both local and Terran, titled directly above the buildings.

It was quite colorful too, for most part. Rather, most of it had vivid colors which was in contrast to the grey-ish areas where the public could not access to, like Barracks and the Research Center, both of which had vague placeholders to represent them.

Bart walked over to study it as well. ”We’ll buy one,” he said, though his eyes ended up on the Specialty Shop mentioned before.

”Can we go here next?” he asked, pointing at the shop on the map, and Louie happily took them there.

Most of the items were completely novel, yes, and they’d have been very excited. However, they weren’t able to explore because in a section, there was a massive sign that distracted them completely:

[Things to buy for the Upcoming Extreme Heat] and listed below were items they ought to buy and their possible alternatives, the quantity, and their estimated duration to last.

”What…”

Louie looked at them. In fact, he wondered to tell them when they were talking about sending people to Ferrol, but he didn’t want to ruin their mood for the rest of the day. He was planning on telling them when the tour was over.

Anyway, since they were here, might as well tell them. ”Our experts predicted that an Extreme Weather phenomenon is happening within the next few days,” he said.

This made everyone flinch and turn to him. It had indeed been a bit hot lately, though the changes were too subtle for them to think too much of it. They actually mostly noticed the changes when they arrived here and everyone had their umbrellas, cool drinks, and the like so there was contrast.

After some moments, Bart looked at Louie. ”They’re so certain?”

”Yes. Besides, even if it doesn’t, it doesn’t hurt to get ready.”

The group was quiet in ponder for a while until a familiar voice sounded near them. ”Why the long faces?”

They turned to see a dark-skinned guard with curly hair, looking at them with amusement. This made several of the mercenaries’ eyebrows rise at the sight of their old friend.

”Sammy?”