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

Oslo made a run to the interior to buy a few things before the Golds could demount. The group was given robes to hide themselves, though Oslo also bought them some hair dyes for later.

That said, they should also switch residencies soon. At this time, they were actually ’homeless’ and had denounced their residencies as soon as they recovered from the fight.

Bleumrick didn’t remove their residencies despite banishing them for the sole purpose of knowing exactly when they died, so naturally they couldn’t wait so many days before they disappeared from his panel.

Fortunately, Oslo (including Otto and Olga, as direct business partners) had hoarded quite a bit of contribution points in the past half year so it wasn’t a problem for them to buy permanent residencies for the entire family.

Considering how difficult it was to get a Residency in Alterra now, this was extremely impressive.

Anyway, everyone finally went down, the men stretching the stiffness off of their bodies, while the women were a bit more demure. By this time, all the injuries had been healed and everyone had adopted a relaxed attitude and stretched as they wanted.

”Ah~ my back~” Crack

”Goodness, my bum…” Crack

Three days of travel and, except for some nature breaks, they were on the road the whole time. But what could they do? The master Alchemist had spoken.

Speaking of the Grand Master, Oslo sent an aether letter message to Althea, though she was definitely busy at this time, so he didn’t rush anything.

”Good Day, Master Oslo and… guests?” the innkeeper said, looking at the robed individuals and then the very old man with another old man without it. ”Please park the beasts this way…”

The man’s name was Art, an assistant Beast Innkeeper who was assigned to the exterior branch.

Oslo and the others watched as the carts were guided to the sheds with open frontage. The beasts were facing the interior and the carriages at the front for easy mounting.

At the back, there were feeding stations and easements on that back so the monster’s heads weren’t readily accessible to anyone to prevent accidents.

”Can I see?” Oslo asked, curious about the new construction. Otto was, too, so everyone followed their leads. Anyway, the queue of entries on foot was really long, and they really needed a bit of rest.

Fortunately, the Grandmaster seemed to still be seeing a lot of curious things that he wasn’t forcing everyone to rush to Miss Althea, who no doubt was very busy at this time of day.

”I’d be honored! First, let me guide you to our facilities,” Art said, leading them into the modular building.

The first room was the largest. It had rows of comfortable wooden chairs, and there was even a table with simple board games there.

”This is the driver’s lounge, wherein drivers wait to get their beasts inside,” he said. ”The benches are free for the designated drivers of the beasts, but the food stalls inside aren’t free.”

”You also offer food?”

”Yes, but the variety is small.”

”It’s fine. We’re really hungry,” Otto said. ”I saw the line. It’s long. It’s good to have food ready.”

Oslo nodded. ”The waiting time would be much more tolerable by then,” he turned to the newcomers. ”Come, I’m sure you’re all hungry.”

They walked deeper and saw a line of kiosks selling simple food. Their party went to buy a bit of everything, and everyone pretty much forgot about their tiredness.

Even though Zaol, Gaia, and the others had tasted the food from Alterra, those were only the non-perishable food due to the limitations of logistics. They hadn’t eaten them fresh and warm, and to be frank, they could stay there the whole day.

If they were like this, more so were Hoffen and Gregor, who had never tasted Alterran products before.

”This…” Hoffen said, looking at the popcorn bucket as if it was a new potion. ”Is very addicting, don’t you think so?” he asked Gregor as he took a piece to his mouth, one after another.

For someone nearly 130 years old, he really ate a lot.

Similarly, the 82-year-old Gregor never quite learned to be expressive, but his speed of consuming the food was telling enough.

Koro and Liu were also eating their fill. They were not expecting to have salaries after the fall of their masters, but the food here was so affordable it felt like they could live off their savings for a while.

Anyway, the group ate their fill—with several takeaways—before heading back to the gate to queue.

The queue was still a few hundred meters long…

”Still, this queue is long. People only need to enter, right?” Obi asked as he chewed on his jerky. ”There was no need to pile up a queue like this.”

After all, to enter, one simply needed to pay the visitor’s fee if they weren’t residents (yet). Even if there were hundreds or thousands of people entering a city, the line wouldn’t be this long.

They soon realized the reason for the long queue was that each person had to be registered with basic information from the gate. They could also do a more detailed one in the Town Center, and only then would they be counted as a ’verified entry’.

”I think there’ll be a war soon,” Zaol said, making a few turn to him.

”It’s a new town, isn’t it?” Gaia mumbled, worried. ”Should we really register residency?”

”Mother... if anyone’s not losing a war, it’s Alterra.”

”Well, I’ll trust you.”

That said, the extent Alterra was taking to protect its citizens was really impressive. After all, doing this required a lot of manpower and it also risked alienating paying visitors, as well.

Both steps in Registration could be skipped, of course. As people from a City, they already knew that Lords could not ’legally’ deny people entry beyond the standard fees.

They could block access to facilities but not beyond the protection of a system wall. (They knew this; they tried to at least keep some of them within the territory but beyond the existing walls.)

This meant that the ruling party could not force people to tell everything just to enter the ’protected area’ i.e. a territory.

The System’s main function had always been to protect. It was generally advantageous for survival, but it could also be cumbersome for territories that simply wanted to keep the bad gouji fruits away from their walls.

That said, if both steps were skipped, then the visitors would be flagged by their guard team. They would be tagged as ’suspicious individuals’ who had to be monitored closely.

The Intelligence team was functional the entire day, with teams going in shifts. They were trained to be aware of as many suspicious activities as possible. Combined with the citizen reporting system, few things could get past them.

The saying ’there are eyes and ears everywhere’ very much applied in Alterra Town.

The refusal to cooperate would also be placed in the visitors’ records, reducing their chances of getting decent deals in Alterra in the first place.

This was not kept a secret so, generally, most people were cooperative. The listings were done per group in a relatively covered area, anyway, ensuring some privacy.

In any case, their turn soon arrived (just in time for them to finish their snacks). It was led by Veronica, who happened to be in front of the line.

”Next,” the guard said without looking up from his list.

”Veronica Hubble.”

The name made the guard lift his head so fast he had whiplash, but then he was shocked by the changes in her appearance.

”M-Miss Veronica!?” A guard gaped, eyes on her shortened and darkened hair.

Fortunately, he quickly realized his gaffe and composed himself.

With a pandering grin, he smiled at her. ”As beautiful as always.”

It had to be said, every Alterran could be quite smooth if needed.

After registering, the group entered. Oslo led them to the so-called Bike Station, where they could either rent bike(s) or get rides. Most of them couldn’t ride yet, so they took the ones with sidecars.

”We leased a home here,” Otto said. ”You’d love it there.”

Of course, they might have to hide their identities—just in case.

The cars surged forward, the ground trembling faintly as they entered the wide avenues. They looked at the hundreds of bikes on the road, appearing like an energetic tide that had a life of its own.

Those with higher levels could also see the distant intersections, the rotundas, and the buildings. They could get a glimpse of just how big the network of roads was—each one connecting a small part of the territory to another.

It was fascinating.

The newcomers’ eyes couldn’t help but sparkle in interest.

”So this is Alterra.”