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

The aforementioned senior brother was a man named Kalfene, a Class C Toolmaker specializing in aether letters and aether boards.

He had bright, unruly orange hair, with curls all over the place, and half his face was covered with thick glasses from the renowned Crystal City. He was past 40 years old, though he leveled up relatively early, so he looked like he was only in his 20s.

His house, which had been granted by the Golds decades ago for a high price, was something Kalfene inherited from his late master. It was also where he grew up, and had been his home for most of his life.

The workshop occupied the entire ground floor of his home, using the second floor as the storage area as well as his staff quarters, and the top-most floor was his barely-used bedroom and lounge.

For the majority of the day, he was on the ground floor, working, only resting when his brain was feeling too muddled from not sleeping at all.

The workshop itself was a bit messy, but quite nice. It exuded a warm charm, its interior characterized by a lovely blend of wood and stone. The air inside was filled with the scent of polished wood, herbs, and various other materials, which brought a bit of comfort to his increasingly-turbulent heart.

Parchments hung in one corner, some draped with a special herb mixture, while others had nearly dried. A few were also pressed under heavy—but extremely uniform—weights to ensure their flatness.

Its interiors were illuminated by lanterns, the brightest of which were over the tabletops. Here, there was a small team of people—only three—working on various parchment-like items on their massive personal desks. Each of the five aether letter masters had their own workshops like this, and they all had assistants and apprentices whom they had to care for themselves.

Each one of them was working on their own projects, with them doing their magic on specially-treated parchment. Usually, they would stay like this for hours on end, focused on their craft.

However, this time they weren’t alone. They actually had a guest this time. He was standing at the threshold of the workshop, not daring to bother them too much.

Kalfene only acknowledged the guest’s existence since he arrived an hour prior, and he had not spoken again after that. He was still busy with his tools and each one required intense concentration. He had been working on this for several hours. If he messed this one up, it could waste his days-worth of effort, and might even destroy the raw materials.

He used his skill to apply special patterns he didn’t understand. He had a really hard time memorizing these patterns through the years, but through talent and practice, he was able to do them well. Still, he couldn’t be distracted at all, otherwise it’d fail.

Anyway, another hour passed before one product was finally finished.

Seeing that he was done, he was pulled elsewhere, making sure no one could hear their conversation.

”Are you really not leaving?” the man asked, looking concerned as Kalfene just stretched out his sore shoulders.

”I couldn’t sleep either, Elron, but I don’t know how to live elsewhere,” Kalfene said, looking in the direction of his workshop. ”Besides, what use is there for getting rid of us?”

Elron had been one of the Golds’ guards, and he was usually assigned to the front gates of their estate. He was not privy to a lot of the deeper issues, but he still couldn’t help but be worried.

Everyone knew that the Lord... was not the most gracious man.

”The Lord may believe we’re hiding something that could cause betrayals,” he said. He didn’t want to sound paranoid, but the world was dangerous and he had much to lose. Although Kalfene had no family, he was also concerned for this old friend.

”Well, I don’t know where to go,” Kalfene said after a while. ”What about you?”

”I already sent my family to the West to my wife’s maternal family,” he said. ”I’ll follow them soon. I just... feel concerned, and heartbroken that things turned out this way.”

Whenever he thought of the fate his good masters could’ve met... he felt so incredibly heavy and unfair. To be honest, it was probably why he was so paranoid. In a sense, he feared the Lord would sense his thoughts.

Kalfene finally lifted his head and looked at Elron. ”Do you really believe that they’re dead?”

This made Elron pause and look at the other man. ”You...” Do you know something?

It was at this time that the door burst open, revealing two young men, effectively killing the conversation.

”Hey, Senior Brother!” one of the newcomers said, a bright smile on his face. He then proceeded to invite another person in as if he owned the place.

”Aetat,” Kalfene said, sounding bored. He never liked this kid. The young man never focused on the craft. Rather, he just looked at what he could take from it.

It was a shame their late master took him, it just added arrogance in the younger man. Now, he worked for another aether letter master, but he was still acting like he was part of this group.

”Long time no see~” he said, looking at his companion. ”This is Menzon, he’s the guy who inherited the Celeste Mirror Skill.”

”Oh.” Kalfene was not impressed. He had heard of this young man. He remembered how excited the community was to get access to a rare inheritance few people had heard of.

But... what was the use of a good inheritance when one couldn’t even use it?

However, his derisive look didn’t seem to bother Aetat. He just looked around the workshop, with a critical eye. ”It had been a while since I’ve been here! Mind if we have a look?”

This question was just him being polite, of course, because they looked around anyway.

The two looked around as if they were thinking of how to use the place.

”Hm, this place is just as I remembered. Wasn’t this place bought by the Golds for Master?” he paused, slightly turning to give Kalfene a meaningful look. ”I wonder how long you could still own it...”