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

[Welcome to Bleulle City! Please pay 5 silvers as the entrance fee.]

Helios’ eyes twitched, paying for it with a heavy heart. Goodness, 5 silvers a day was 160 silvers a month. A good portion of the average salary was spent just by staying within the walls? Poor people must have it hard.

Anyway, he was met with a barrage of activities as soon as he entered. The buildings were relatively tall and imposing, and there were people going around everywhere.

Some of them had weapons on their backs and hips and were ready to go out. Most of them were quite strong, the lowest-level was around level 20.

Some seemed to have just returned from a big hunt. They had large handcarts behind them, carrying carcasses of beasts to sell within the territory.

There were also those who were just going around the perimeter, gathering resources and the like.

He was also greeted with a strong stench of body odor and waste. This place definitely had a big cleaning crew, but because the City was much denser than towns or villages, it still stinked so much that Helios wanted to run out to breathe some air.

There were avenues but, otherwise, the streets seemed organic and narrow for its use. There was quite a bit of traffic, especially when two larger-than-usual beasts ended up using a street at the same time.

The beast carts had the speed of cars, and they traversed the avenues with relative disregard to the pedestrians. However, the people were used to this and just consciously avoided the streets whenever a Beast Cart approached.

Many would also be hit and pushed away by the carriages, but they would just stand back up again and walk away as if nothing happened, regardless of their injuries.

Helios was overwhelmed with the clamors of people and rackets of activity everywhere. He was reminded of dense marketplaces back in Terran, except there were the added dangers of beast carts and people who could lift them.

Speaking of this, he heard the prices yelled by the hawkers. As expected, prices for cities were really up there. He worried all that gold he had saved up would get drained.

He finally understood the territory’s worries when they tried to balance the salaries and costs with that of outside. It was a really big move and affected everyone, especially the businesses that had to shoulder a lot of the initial costs.

He understood it in theory, but experiencing it himself was really different.

If they kept it as it was, it was estimated a month’s salary wouldn’t last him a few days in here.

Anyway, he shook his head, forcing himself to adjust to his new reality. He had to find Sahara!

”Where are you going?”

”I want to go to the City Center to make an announcement.”

The Mercenaries were puzzled as they looked at him. He blinked, and explained exactly what he was planning to do for efficiency.

”Cities normally don’t allow it casually,” Enok explained. ”There are millions of people in a City. Imagine hearing announcements from them?”

His heart sank.

That made sense… but still…

”Also, even if it was allowed, are you planning on announcing a woman’s name randomly?” Raz asked, looking at him oddly. ”You do know that she could get in trouble for that, right?”

”What?”

”Do you even know anything about this woman?” Raz-the-woman-expert asked, tone becoming more and more reprimanding. ”If you—an unrelated man—carelessly looked for her with such fanfare, her reputation would suffer.”

Raz, despite having a few lovers, actually cared for his women and took a bit more effort to get to know them to some degree. It was part of his charm. It was also why Helios’ earlier words did strike a chord, which would’ve had no effect to other men with multiple lovers.

Regardless of Raz’s lovelife, his words put a major damper in Helios’ plan.

He looked up at the sentries with flags and emblems, showing off the prestige the place had as a city. Bleulle City had the logo of a papyrus and pen, indicative of its main industry.

After staring at it for a moment, he tilted his head back to look at the bustling streets at eye level.

After being used to the openness of Alterra’s plan, this felt a little… suffocating, as if it was draining his confidence of ever finding his woman.

Obviously… he’s going to need a lot more help.

Puto—the ever-so opportunistic foodie—couldn’t help but nudge him again. ”We can help you investigate if you give us some more.”

Helios blinked and turned to him, wondering if he was serious.

He was.

And so were the others.

”Really? Ok deal.”

Wow. Alterra’s products could really replace gold.

Anyway, the group huddled in a corner of the bustling plaza as they planned. They ended up separating, though they were worried about leaving Helios alone.

He shook his head. ”I know some people here,” he said, reassuring them that he wouldn’t get randomly killed on the streets (or at least he hoped so), and to do their own tasks.

He didn’t want to slow down finding Sahara because they had to babysit him!

He had to reassure them a few more times before they all finally separated to do their own tasks. Helios heaved a sigh of relief as he watched their backs. Despite their flaws, they were definitely reliable.

After the disappeared from view, Helios stared at the lively streets ahead of him. He took a deep breath (which made him gag a bit), before heading to the City Center anyway.

He needed to get to the Golds, after all.

…

In the more exclusive neighborhoods, the Golds were having their meal together, catching up with smiles on their faces.

They were among the very rare breed of upper-class family who could have sincere and amicable conversations with each other.

”Hey! That’s my beef!”

”Huh? It’s a communal dish, dumbass.”

Well, partially amicable conversations.

Still… Zaol’s mood was good.

His children might be throwing insults at each other—which made his wife shake her head in exasperation—but he was actually smiling a bit.

In fact, it hadn’t always been like this in this manor. The culture back then was like most other noble families: toxic.

Although his kids fought a lot, he knew they loved each other.

Unlike when he was young… and siblings wanted to kill each other.