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

”They’re Terran?” Sammy, the other ’guard’, stepped forward and looked at them up and down. By this time, the ’slaves’ were also allowed to be at ease.

With the renewed confidence of clearing a relatively large monster mob on their own, they even started whispering amongst each other.

”When did they sneak in?”

”Isn’t that Yayoi?”

”You know him?”

”Yeah, he was one of our citizens. He disappeared one day, but we didn’t think too much...” After all, many people disappeared every few days. Sometimes, they were taken by monsters, sometimes, they were taken by humans.

”We’re not slaves... we tried to escape, and have been hiding,” Yayoi said. ”A lot of us had died, however, leaving just a little over 2 dozen people.”

Otto looked at them. ”How long has it been since you left the territory?”

”Should’ve been a couple of months now.”

”What? How did you survive so long without a territory?”

”W-We created an underground bunker near the gates...” Yayoi said. ”We’ve been trying to find a chance to go away, but never came.”

There were also slave traders who got some people back then. But at the time, the escorts were many, and they looked belligerent. They did not dare associate with them.

”This time, we saw that the number of people was huge, so we thought it could be our chance to leave without getting noticed.”

”I’m still impressed by how long you’ve hold on.”

”We’re barely surviving now,” Yayoi said. ”We have already been losing people from hunger.

”We hunt ourselves, but sometimes there’d be monsters way beyond our capabilities. When we encounter those, it was expected that at least half of the hunting party would perish, or get heavily injured.”

Rowan and Sammy’s eyes met. He must be referring to Town-level monsters.

Although this was beyond Alterra’s sphere of influence, naturally, monsters would be coming and passing through from somewhere, right? So there would be town-level monsters appearing here and there, congregating in the area where Alterra was.

”Fortunately, there was someone who helped us out when we first encountered such a monster. The soldier even guarded us while we reinforced our home...”

A soldier? Sammy wondered as he looked around. ”He’s no longer here?”

”He followed some slave traders heading North weeks ago,” they said.

”Gian was his name.”

This made Sammy’s eyebrows rise. ”I see...”

Sammy paused and thought, but couldn’t handle his curiosity in the end. Although that guy had a damned bad case of insubordination (i.e. betrayal), he didn’t have an evil heart.

He was a bit selfish, sure, but he did have his own sense of justice that he followed.

Yayoi looked at him and pondered how to express as much, or as little, as he knew about Gian.

”The soldier did not enter the territory, but we encountered him during our nightly runs. Our torch must’ve attracted him.”

At the time, they—even when they made sure to stay within the sentries’ reach—were hunting for their food but ended up attracting a bigger mob than they expected.

They were also quite strong—stronger than they had ever expected to find in a village.

Immediately, they had lost a few people. They were terrified, and their whole focus was just to get back to the gates without dying, which was hard because nearly every step that monster took, he’d harvest at least one of their limbs!

Then that person arrived. He used his amazing fire to easily take care of the beasts that terrorized them.

When they found out he was a Terran, just like them, they could only be shocked. How can there be such a huge difference?

From him, they found out that the excessively strong monsters were actually town-level, and they were just unlucky, since there shouldn’t be that many in this area.

The fire of hope lit up in everyone’s hearts when they found out that the strongman wasn’t a slave and that there were territories in the East that were led by similarly strong Terrans. They had never been conquered and had defeated all their attackers so far, and they even became a Town within a year.

When given the chance, they should try to move there.

He gave them a lot of food and some money, and also gave them the map to a place called Fargo Village. He left in the end, but it was only after ensuring they dug out a nice, defensible place in a nearby hill.

So when they saw the chance and realized the large group was heading East, they immediately took it.

Fortunately, the strong people seemed to have accepted their explanation and allowed them to walk along them, apparently to more of their brethren camping somewhere.

”Do you know of a Fargo Village?”

”Why?”

”Did that guy Gian point you there?”

”Fargo Village is called Limestone Valley now.”

”Ah.”

”It’s been taken over by us, and is now a satellite village.”

”...”

The maps did not update in real time. Whatever was explored by that person at the time would be the only thing recorded. Gian, who only knew it as its original name, and had not been to Fargo since he left, only had the old map.

Similarly, Alterra’s scouts were set to refresh the maps once every 5 to 10 years, with the immediate surrounding areas being updated more often.

Then the newcomers saw the thousands of people waiting, and they could only gape.

”Stop gaping,” Otto said. ”There’d be more like you soon.”

...

It took the group another day to go to a few more villages, taking hundreds from each village they passed. They had less ’slaves’ than Diana Village, which became a hub of sorts, but they still rescued plenty.

The population in those villages had slowly mixed a lot with aborigines just to keep them standing, but a lot of its forces were actually being drained away bit by bit, so it wasn’t difficult to get good deals.

They still missed on a lot of people, however, which was unfortunate. After all, these villages would fall if they let go of so many, not to mention the fact that Otto and the others had run out of gold.

There were still ways to go to save everyone, but for now, this was enough.

And so, the few thousand rescued heading to the Alterran region had now become several, just like this.