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

The alliance with Dune Town had even deeper implications. After all, it was a Town and it was still thousands of kilometers away from them.

The deal had been finalized just over a month prior through Helios and his new wife, the beautiful Sahara.

The trade deal was for Alterra to give water-making technology and drought-resistant plant seeds in exchange for large amounts of oil.

While they were trying to be self-sustaining in terms of electricity and various mechanical productions, there were still plenty of uses for petrol.

Plastic and synthetic materials—despite the trouble it caused them in Terran—had a lot of great uses which they could not discount because they feared the troubles brought about by its overuse.

The material could be used as electrical insulators, casings, packing materials, storage, and so on. It also had too many uses for medical tools like syringes, IV bags, surgical instruments, and the like.

They were light-weight, durable, and long-lasting. Eventually, they’d be extremely cost-effective. They were also hygienic, safe, water-resistant, and so on.

It could also be used to make bitumen roads which was far more sound absorbent than concrete—which would be useful outside the walls—and was recyclable.

Of course, learning from their old world, they would not allow plastics and its derivatives to be commercially available until they figured out how to make it more sustainable.

In any case, it was a really good deal for both parties, and it was finalized almost as soon as it was proposed. Of course, the actual implementation did pose challenges.

Dune Town was a long way from Alterra—more than 15,000 kilometers away, deep in the desert. Even by Beast Car, the travel was several weeks of nonstop travel.

However, this was where the magic of the Mercenary Halls came in. With it, as long as they were proper mercenaries, they could reduce their travel time by a huge amount.

A limitation of mercenary hall arrays, other than the fact that only mercenary teams could use it, was that the distances and number of people to be transferred also depended on the Class.

For reference, a mercenary could only use the array once a day at most, and each mercenary team had a travel cap of 10% of that class’ maximum number of members.

For instance, Class E mercenary teams could have a maximum number of 100 members, and each day only 10 people could travel via the array. As for the distance limit, they could get teleported up to 1000 kilometers, which was already pretty good if one was only going around the region.

For instance, Ferrol was well within this distance at only a few hundred kilometers away. In the future, teams could go through and fro via the arrays if they had to.

On the other hand, Class D teams could travel more than twice at a distance of 5,000 kilometer radius. Class C Mercenary Teams could travel 10,000 km which covered most of the way.

The Sands Mercenary Team, Dune Town’s top Mercenary Team, happened to have landed at Class C a few years back.

With this, they could use the Mercenary Hall to teleport to a Level 2 Town, and once again the next day, effectively reducing their travel time by half. They would have to go back on foot, however, considering the items they had to buy from Alterra would not fit in their spaces.

The first batch of trade had been completed a month ago and they heard touching news and good reviews. Anyway, another caravan was heading to Alterra, set to arrive that day.

The Dune Town caravan passed by Ferrol late the previous night and they didn’t stop to rest, so they were set to arrive before noon of today. Sahara was very excited because apparently her mother was in this caravan, hoping to see her child.

Eight to nine months was a perfectly normal gestation period for local women. Sahara had gotten pregnant more than 2 months after they transferred and she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl a few weeks ago.

In consideration of the caravan arriving soon, Helios took leave from guard duty to accompany her to wait for her people. The ’alert boy’ knocked at their door about an hour before noon.

”They’re here!” he said, holding hand-written sign saying so.

This was Percy, Jake’s young cousin. He was still a little spoiled, but Jake did a good job making him understand he had to depend on himself to survive. So now, during his free period, he took on a job which would be able to fund his food trip later that day.

He liked this job because it was flexible. He could do it when he felt like it, and there was no consequence if he decided to be lazy. He also had a good eye for clients who’d pay well and tip, so he was actually quite efficient.

Helios and Sahara smiled, immediately heading out after paying the teen for his service.

They got into Helios’ bike, with Sahara entering the side car with their baby. Production of bikes had greatly improved in the past few months and there was now a specialized bike store where people could buy their own bikes.

It was still on the more expensive side however, so most people who had one could afford by paying downpayments and taking smaller loans.

Helios did own this bike though. He and Sahara received a lot of contribution points for brokering a good deal with a town!

Anyway, they rushed to the entrance plaza to greet the caravan. They arrived to see them unloading from the beast carts. These beast carts were rented in Ferrol Town.

After all, they arrived via Mercenary Team array and therefore could not bring beast carts with them.

A middle-aged woman emerged from one of the rear carriages, guided down by two similarly-aged women in uniforms. They were looking around the new place in fascination, unaware there was someone whose sights had fixed on them.

It wasn’t that they hadn’t exchanged letters, but there were just so many things that could not be expressed properly in letters. Not to mention, she just… missed her mother’s voice and her warmth.

Her feet moved closer to the carriages, some memories passing by her mind. Specifically, she remembered her mother’s last words to her before they parted.

They believed that she—forced by circumstance—took on responsibility for burdens she had no business carrying. That, due to their weaknesses, they had no choice but to let her go.

Her parents’ hearts broke for her, thinking she should just be living a carefree life under their care.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans, and they had to succumb.

”My kind daughter… I wish you didn’t have to do this. I feel so sorry that you are put in a position where you think you have to.

”Someday—someday, I believe things will change. The heavens will see your kind heart and give you the happiness you deserve.”

Carrying her daughter in her arms, Sahara’s steps hastened towards the caravan. She burst into tears as soon as they were close enough—knowing there was a lot to tell.

Things had changed, indeed, and it was all for the better.