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

Esias and the others were let go during the night. This meant that they had to be the ones to deal with the mobs, or at least a portion of it.

From the get-go, they lost a big portion—mostly because many people backed out in coming with them, while there were also those who died under the claws of monsters.

Fortunately, Esias had scouted the area around his territory well—it was a professional habit—through the months he had been there. He knew where there the depressions and climbs were, where they could hide, and so on.

As such—although they did, tragically, lose a handful of people—there were still more people who survived long enough until daylight arrived… wherein their problem was how to live through the heat for at least an entire day.

For most people, this would be a hopeless situation. They did not know where they could go, and they barely had any food or water left in their spaces. They were tired, parched, and hungry—how would they survive?

More than that, they had to deal with the extreme heat in the mornings and they had to deal with monsters at night—all without the protection of even the lowest-level walls.

Fortunately, those who came with Esias in the first place—even after the terror of the outside—were all people with strong wills.

No one who was planning to be a leech would voluntarily go with banished people obviously being fed directly into monsters’ mouths.

Anyway, with an overall positive atmosphere, they managed to get through the following tribulations mostly intact.

They created temporary roofs to cover their heads and they traveled like this for days, surviving with the little water they had and whatever Celia could create.

At the same time, Esias and the others would always find places to hide just before night came. Esias was an earth user while Celia was a water user, so they could create mud together to fortify whatever roof or cover they could get.

The two of them also had Class A Potentials, so their mana reservoirs as well as the efficiency with which they used their powers were far superior to most. Otherwise, they’d have lost energy a long time ago.

Another thing they did was to keep the monster feces they encountered in their spaces. It was disgusting, but when night came, they would put it out around where they were hiding and the monsters would pass by them.

It affected their psyche and killed them from the inside, but at least they didn’t get eaten by monsters.

Of course, for those who were tasked to keep the feces in their spaces (they got the short straws), the exchange was debatable.

”Well, it’s not like you’ve got anything in there anyway,” one of the soldiers said when his companion complained about it.

”You don’t have anything either, right? Why don’t we change that?”

The soldier’s eyes twitched as he walked farther away from the other man, though his arms were still raised as he helped support the flaking ’roof’ above their heads.

He sighed when he ended up in a spot with a hole, so the sun’s rays directly landed on his arm, stinging it a bit.

”I wonder if we could get skin cancer here…” he wondered.

”Possibly,” Celia said, looking at her very dark skin. ”But I think I’m safe.”

”...”

Anyway, this went on for another day or two until Esias suddenly paused his steps.

”Esias?” Celia called, causing the man turned to her with bright eyes. He then looked down, using his ability to sense the vibration of the ground below.

They were not heading in a direction aimlessly. All this time, they were heading to where Esias surmised water

could

be.

Every couple hundred meters, Esias would use his ability to feel the vibration of the soil underneath him. Very dry soil vibrated differently from soil that was slightly more compact—even if the difference was minuscule.

More compacted soil meant there was some humidity keeping them together, and they had always been heading toward where there was increasing compactness—even if the difference was almost impossible to detect.

He used it so expertly and so often that his awakened skill [Earth Mapping] leveled up to the point that he could feel up to 15 meters below ground.

After another hour or so, they actually found a small valley with an underground spring! Immediately, Esias and the other earth users dug a hole, creating a well where they could finally get their fill of water!

It looked like a small depressed basin that had dried during the heat wave. However, because of the fact that there was probably a shallow pond there before, it was richer than other places outside territories by comparison.

At the same time, because of the underground water source, the trees there were slightly healthier than others. The leaves had some moisture in them and could somewhat fill their empty stomachs already on the verge of imploding on themselves!

They cried as this bit of hope finally introduced itself and they drank their fills and ate whatever leaves they could find—making sure they weren’t poisonous, of course.

However, it was really not a big place—the group of them could barely fit in. With earth users’ abilities, they rushed to dig a tunnel big enough to hold them. It was very crowded, but it was better than taking on the direct sun or holding up roofs with their arms for an entire day.

They could barely lift their arms when dusk came.

In any case, in their new camp, they fought off a small mob to take their meat to cook and eat. After a quick dinner, they placed the monster feces a distance away from them, as they always had.

The area was wide though so it could not entirely cover them, so they still had to keep their guards up through the night, doing shifts to rest.

Of course, even if monsters did find them—especially if they were coming from the upwind direction—the numbers shouldn’t be too big. As long as they had enough rest and eaten their fills, Esias and the others believed they should be able to handle them.

Most of them were fighters, after all, and it would be a shame if they fell at this juncture!

The group also used some of the fallen wood from the fight to extend the mouth of the cave forward. It was still sizzling during the day, but at least they were no longer squeezed in with everybody else’s body heat, making it much more tolerable.

The day had become more tolerable now, and at night the small mobs that came their way would be their source of protein. They lived like this for the next few days.

No one believed they would settle there, nor were they naive to think they could stay for long. The resources refreshed very slowly during this heat, so they would quickly use up the little bit of edible plants in there.

They soon had to start rationing again. They also had to keep some of the meat they got at night in the spaces to stockpile as sustenance.

It was, in no way, easy to live like this.

However, it was their little paradise and—for now—it was good enough.