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

Fargo felt his consciousness slipping away, but the pain and stink and all the other unpleasantness kept his mind clear.

Inexplicably, even when his body could not move, various memories of his glory days passed by his head.

He remembered the days when he could affect economies with an order. The days when he’d order a bombing with a wave of the hand. The days he could cause wars between countries and make billions selling weaponry to both sides.

He would watch the news and see the reactions of the people and the victims, feeling satisfaction of changing so many lives so easily.

There were also acts closer to home. A few times, he killed a subordinate, and someone close to him would try and rebel, only to be caught like a useless rat.

The most recent one was the daughter of a former official he killed.

Well... that child grew up and worked her way to becoming a child slave and became close to him. When she was 18, she actively seduced him, and he took the bait, and he added her to his harem.

He gave her some affection when she was interesting, and it seemed to have gotten in her head. She did not even choose a subtle way to assassinate him, she tried to stab him with a dagger.

Naturally, she got caught and tortured well. He even cut off her legs himself.

She lost the mask she had been wearing and showed him a hideous expression to show how much she hated him. During her last moments, when she was already bleeding to death, she summoned all the energy she could muster to curse him.

”FARGO! YOU WILL GO TO HELL!” she screamed to the top of her lungs, using the remaining life that she had. ”YOU WILL SUFFER! KARMA WILL FIND YOU!”

At the time, he sneered at her, turning back to go on with his day as if nothing had happened.

He never did believe in karma.

He believed he was the Karma.

Bang!

He was bolted awake when he was thrown straight at the cell gates. He barely heard the complaints of disgust from the other cellmates.

Apparently, the venting had resumed again, not even half an hour since the previous one.

Slam!

”A-AHHH!” he gasped as he felt the remainder of his teeth fall off.

He heard a scoff from the side. ”Heh, useless, didn’t even make a dent.”

Bang!

He groaned, unable to move anymore, just feeling all the pain in every iota of his body.

Karma... is a bitch.

...

When Garan and the others got to the prison, Fargo was already half-dead. He looked all broken up, his face and body drenched in blood, sweat, drool, piss and shit. To summarize, he was pretty much about to die.

There was no untouched skin or an unbroken bone. His mouth was parted and he was drooling uncontrollably because his jaw was partially broken.

”Don’t let him die yet,” Garan said, and the medics stepped forward to pull him out of the cell to keep him alive, though just barely.

Instead of wasting resources to heal his wounds though, they just made him consume a stimulant to keep him awake.

At the same time, the potion’s side effect would make him feel all the pain that he should be feeling multiplied by a few times.

And feel it, Fargo did.

His entire body twisted as the intense agony spread to each of his veins. ”AHHHHHH!!!!”

Every breath sent fresh ripples of pain all over his body. Each movement ignited a wildfire of pain that spread to his core.

”AHHH!”

Garan, Mao, and the others watched this go on without changing expression. Some were just observing him coldly though.

These people noticed that something else had changed during the past day. He not only lost the young he gained during his upgrades, but it seemed like he lost a few decades of life.

He had extra wrinkles on his face and half of his hair had turned white.

”Did the prison suck out so much life?” Mao couldn’t help but ask, a bit confused.

Obi was there and he shook his head. ”Didn’t you say he took an oath that he could not attack Alterra?”

This made the others blink and stare at him. ”It’s because of that?” They had indeed been wondering about that.

There was a famous saying in Xeno: Vague oaths had vague consequences. It was too difficult to pinpoint the exact cause and effect of ’indirect’ attacks, how could the punishment be so clear cut?

More explicit ones, like going through the array from the attacking side, definitely penalized him with the usual punishment in level and wealth. However, it was the indirect ones that had interesting types of penalties.

Fargo had made an oath not to cause direct or indirect harm to Alterra, and because he didn’t see the immediate consequences of what he had been doing, he seemed to have forgotten about it. His ego, perhaps, even convinced him that he was made into an exception.

However, the fact was that he did cause damage. People even died, and a lot of that was on him, even indirectly.

Obi couldn’t help but look curiously at the enemy so many Alterrans hated. He had known them to be very kind. Someone who angered them so much must be especially evil.

”You must’ve been very, very, unlucky lately right? Nothing seems to be going right, and it seems like everything bad that could happen happened to you.”

Fargo did not react—he physically could not—but he definitely heard it, considering that he flinched under Obi’s words.

Mao and the others smirked, hearing this. To be honest, many of them had questioned how Fargo could do what he could do despite the oaths. It’s great now. It seemed like things went so bad for him precisely because of it.

”In fact, if he just subtly guided people to the idea of Alterra, he might not have been punished at all,” Obi explained. ”But he took advantage of the loophole he thought he found, and it came back to bite him.”

Oaths were still such a mysterious power to them.

It accepts and punishes in a vague way and... it seemed like Fargo finally suffered the bulk of it.