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

That said, she was the type to want to learn every option she had so she—and the rest of the Elders—could make educated decisions early on.

Building slots were limited and, while they seemed to have more than others in their tier, each one of them mattered.

At this, she decided to thicken her face and ask Jonathan, perhaps as they were having their meal.

Before she could invite him, Jonathan turned to them. ”Have you had lunch yet?” he asked. ”I won’t invite you to my home because you make better food…

”I think it’s better we eat at your base.”

”...”

Jonathan did not invite them to lunch. Instead, he invited himself to lunch.

The couple chuckled, planning on doing so anyway, and they happily went back to the base with the guards, ready for a delicious meal.

When they arrived, the food was already prepared and still warm. They set it up in the canteen which had a number of tables. The three of them were naturally in one table, while Jonathan’s guards took another table not far from them.

The food was prepared by the cooks trained in Alterra, and they had many firsts on this meal. Most importantly, this was the first time they’d cook for Miss Althea as well as Lord Jonathan!!

Fortunately, when the head chef Yoyo saw the Lord visited, he had the foresight to know that he’d be having lunch here!

Anyway, the meal this time was a little grander than their daily meals. There was mixed fried rice with mushrooms (harvested from the tunnels of Alterra), as well as three main dishes, a vegetable side dish, and the like.

Jonathan and everyone ate deliciously. Miss Althea and Sir Garan were also nodding a bit, the staff tensely watching from the side finally heaved a breath. As long as those two didn’t dislike it, it meant their standards were at least close to Alterran cuisine!

”Delicious!” Jonathan said, eating another plate after a few minutes of filling himself up. Although he had managed to stock up on a lot of ingredients, Alterran (or Alterran-trained) cooks were just different.

Should he send his own cooks for training?

He looked at Althea in thought. ”Is it possible to send my chef to you as well?” he said. ”I can make him swear not to commercialize what he learned.”

Althea and Garan looked at him and for a moment Jonathan thought he had mispoken.

But then they smiled and nodded and Jonathan felt like he made one of the biggest accomplishments he had yet!

He could already imagine it: Eating food like this every day! Ah, he was already in Elvendell just thinking about it.

”Great!” Jonathan said, thinking this was the greatest perk in this partnership.

By the time dessert arrived, Jonathan and his men were completely satisfied in stomach and in mind.

The dessert this time was a simple fruit punch, but it had milk and other things that tied up the whole thing, creating a lovely and refreshing dessert that was both healthy and sweet.

”I do have quite a few more things to ask as well,” she said, and Jonathan raised his head and nodded.

”Ask away.”

Anything for good food every day!

”Can you tell us more about the building options at Town level, if you’re aware of them?” she asked. ”The Elders would like to know what we could do with the future slots…”

Jonathan looked at her in interest. They must already be nearing Town level for her to ask this.

”My father recorded everything,” he said. ”So I even know the costs as well when he built those buildings in his time.”

Though sharing so much was counterintuitive to how people here were raised, having a bit of critical thinking would show that there was no reason to hide it. It would even buy him goodwill from such a high-potential ally.

The trio moved to the gazebo with tea and snacks on hand, which made Jonathan willing to share even more information (because the more he said, the longer he had with these snacks).

The basic options for towns included bigger housing, grander restaurants, and some commercial areas which did not interest Althea. It was only the Special Buildings that were intriguing to her and were worth the limited building slots.

It had to be mentioned that apparently Special Buildings cost at least 10 times typical buildings to build and to maintain (in addition to the fees automatically sent to the ’original’ territories), so a lot of Towns still opted to buy the typical options if they lacked the resources to do otherwise.

It was not to say there weren’t interesting buildings amongst the duplicable (non-special) buildings. For instance, there were the Beast Stables, the Inns, and the Guardhouses—all of which Ferrol had in ample amounts.

The Beast Inns were relatively big and could fit in 5 beasts at its lowest level. They had the passive of calming down beasts that were deposited in them on top of hastening their HP and Spirit recovery.

In Ferrol, there was one Beast Stable every couple of blocks because of the business model they adopted.

After all, it would be difficult to invite and keep so many foreigners to participate in their annual events if there wasn’t a place where their sole mode of transport could be safely stored.

The Inn was also very useful for a tourism-based territory like Ferrol. Its function was as one would expect: It had the passive effect of faster recovery of HP, Mana, and Spirit. Although Alterra’s Inn did not have this effect, they made up for it with their furniture specially created by woodworkers.

The next was the Guard Station which could be occupied by guards to oversee the territory. The Guard Station was much smaller than the one they had in Alterra, and each one just seemed to be able to contain 2 or 3 people at a time. However, it was also duplicable and was connected by the system.

All the guards inside the buildings would be alerted which sentry was working at the time, and would therefore be alerted if there was excessive activity in the area.

It also functioned like a telephone booth of sorts where each Guard Station could communicate with others real-time, which was also very convenient.

She found it interesting because most of these buildings already had an equivalent in Alterra. While theirs could arguably be less effective, they were already good considering their costs and, most importantly, they did not consume a building slot.

Still, it could be seen that the previous lords of Ferrol had quite the foresight. From what they could see, Ferrol’s non-special buildings took up only half of their total slots. The rest were—as they had already seen—under the Special Buildings category.

That said, having more than one Special Building was already indicative that the territory was doing well. Whether or not this was true, of course—considering some Lords went into debt to buy these buildings—still depended on the territory.

”Tell me more about the Special buildings available,” she said, continuing to write down some notes in her notebook.

Jonathan nodded with a smile. ”You’d definitely find them quite interesting.”