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

Zaol couldn’t speak, but when he felt his wife’s hand on his arm, he felt like he was injected with renewed strength.

He approached and looked at the woman, who was looking at him with a complicated expression on her face. ”I… hello, nice to meet you.”

The girl looked at him with bright eyes, but also with awkwardness, reluctance, and… shame. ”Uncle…” she said. ”My mother talked a lot about you.”

Zaol’s heart dropped and his eyebrows furrowed. ”I… thought that she died. I—”

The Gold Patriarch, however, could not finish his words because the Lord—for no other reason than his own amusement—cut off their conversation by hugging the woman closer to him.

He even leaned down to bite her ears, which clearly made the woman uncomfortable. It filled Zaol and his family with indignance, but they couldn’t do anything about it.

Every noble in Bleuelle—and anyone who’d have close interactions with the Lord— had signed a detailed oath to never send harm to him, and this included touching him with the thought of force.

This was something they had to do since they were young, in fact, and could be said to be part of a rite of passage. If they didn’t take it, they—and their immediate family—would be kicked out of the City, so who could escape it?

”The party is starting, we can’t be spending time just staying here,” he said. ”Go out and enjoy the food and performances! I’ll let her meet you when I feel like letting her go.”

This was not a question, and Bleumrick led the entourage elsewhere to watch the various shows and enjoy the food and attention there. As the Lord left, the Golds’ sights followed their backs with various thoughts.

The age gap between Bleumrick and his new wife wasn’t small. The Lord was in the two ends of the same generation as Zaol, who was in his late 60s. The Lord was almost 90 years old, though he looked just about half of that.

The Lady Margaery, in contrast, seemed to be Olga’s age at 40 years old...

Their levels were also far away, and there were no few women who died under Bleumrick after he got… passionate. Of course, it was impossible to find a woman near Bleumrick’s level, which made many noblemen believe the ’sacrifices’ were inevitable.

Rather, the deep-rooted awe of the strong was so integral that it was taken for granted—even a point of pride to some—that women were killed in bed.

It was absolutely disgusting, but it was the current way of the world.

After all, leveling up after level 50 was incredibly difficult—almost impossible, in fact. There seemed to be a large gorge in between 49 and 50. It was a gorge that most people would not be able to cross in a lifetime if one didn’t have a consistent access to aether stones.

Further, it was normal to only level up once or twice in a decade after this threshold. This was why Zaol reaching level 55 and the Lord reaching level 68 at their age was a feat and the reason why both families were so revered.

Still… it was unlikely for that girl to want this marriage. Did her father sell her off, like how it was with many other girls?

Gaia patted her husband’s arm. Zaol was understandably mad, and it was depressing how their hands were tied. ”We’ll figure out something to make her life here easy,” she said.

Gaia didn’t even consider ’rescuing’ the girl from a man like Bleumrick. It was not something they could do, and who was to say it was something they should do as well?

”And… your sister…” she said, her soothing voice calming him down a bit. ”We’ll find a way to contact her.”

While this was happening, Obi’s eyes couldn’t help but look at the back of the Lord’s entourage. He narrowed his eyes and flinched.

Olga saw his anomaly and followed his sights. She, too, gaped at the sight.

It couldn’t be helped, the person was tall… and had two long ears above her head.

His eyebrows rose. ”A half-orc?”

…

The party officially began when the music—using various instruments from all over the world—resumed playing, and the Lord was further surrounded by curious nobles who did not forget to show admiration for whatever he had accomplished.

The younger generation of the Golds were far more interested in the half-orc though. Obi and Olga slid to the back of the crowd to get a closer look. The half-orc was dressed like the other slaves, though she had a slightly more revealing dress to show the puff tail behind her.

The other slaves saw them and bowed a bit. No one thought too much. Whenever the half-orc was shown, someone would go to take a closer look.

She had a pitiful look on her face, and she was holding on to a cheap pendant held by a rope on her neck.

As they walked closer, her little nose twitched, and her long ears slightly swiveled. The half-orc turned in a direction and her eyes went wide as she saw Obi. ”You!”

He flinched, pointing at himself. ”You recognize us?”

”You have my friend’s scent,” she said, eyebrows furrowed. She looked at them guardedly and was immediately hostile the moment she placed the scent.

If she wasn’t a slave, it was estimated she’d have attacked by now.

”What?”

”It is very sticky and intimate,” she said, her nose twitching as she smelled him closely. ”You rubbed him a lot!”

At this, Otto and Olga looked at Obi weirdly. Obi was just confused at first until he realized what his siblings were probably thinking.

”It’s nothing like that!”

He then turned to the half-orc, too. ”It’s nothing like that either!”

Obi couldn’t help but sniff himself. Nothing was there. Although he didn’t use those scented soap (too girly), he still took proper baths right?

”Us half-orcs have special senses of smell. Orcs and half orcs have scents of different spectrum to what you humans can smell.”

The rabbit half-orc wasn’t normally aggressive—she was even cowardly. Outside of this scene, she was looking down and her bunny ears were drooping.

However, the moment family was involved she could become quite a beast. Too bad she was a slave and couldn’t do anything yet, however.

Instead, she just glared at Obi and the other Golds, shocking the other slaves around her.

”What did you do to Gochi?”