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

The Ferrol Branch of the Terran Mercenary Team was as lively as always.

Since the Post Office was created and since Alterra had gained some stability as a Level 1 Town, the trade between Ferrol and Alterra had never stopped.

Except for war times (or anticipation of one), disasters, extreme threats, upgrade mobs, and the like, there was always at least one caravan heading here in rotation.

Now, the rentable shops abutting the streets were rented out at all times, and their inns were always full, so Ferrol Inns also gained a lot of new customers even during their off-seasons.

Many Ferrol merchants had been worried about the rise of Alterra. What if everyone just went there? Fortunately, Alterra’s terrain was not as easy as Ferrol’s, and they also had better positioning and a more established pathway from other places.

Even if they found out about Alterra, there was something called purchase limits, and the priority there was the citizens and their business partners, so some entities could actually only access some Alterran products while in Ferrol, which was good for Ferrol and the businessmen selling there.

Like this, Ferrol was making quite a bit of money year-round, regardless of whether a major event was happening.

The current batch incoming was led by Ryan, Gwen, as well as a few of their newer Town hires Woos and Herben.

Their caravan had about 200 people, mostly people selling things to Ferrol, while the others were there to be tourists.

At this time, the couple was having a meeting with the Branch leader—Kleid. Kleid had grown quite considerably in the past few months. From Level 21, he was now Level 23.1

While this seemed slow compared to some of their soldiers, this pacing was incredible for the aborigines. He himself had trained a lot harder, too, inspired by the atmosphere of growth the Captain and the others showed.

A while back, they had learned that although Xenoans and Terrans looked more or less the same except for some physical traits and height, there were some differences in the structure as well.

So to speak, the Xenoans seemed to be closer to the ’archaic’ ancestors in terms of cognitive potential, and that seemed to have an effect on Terran leveling as well, allowing them to level up faster than others.

That said, this meant that theoretically it was also possible for the Terran kids to be able to awaken earlier than 12 years old (possibly years earlier than their Xenoan peers) though the adults would rather not risk it unless necessary for the child’s survival.

The worry here was that some Terrans might start feeling ’superior’ at some point, which could get troublesome if someone with enough strength led a version of supremacist ideology.

The belief that one race was better than the other was the root of racism, after all.

Mathilda saw this as soon as the research study appeared, and she immediately ordered a deeper study on the advantages of the other side.

From here, they found out that Xenoans seemed to have higher ’base’ physicality, if one did not have level differences. They also had higher chances of awakening ’powers’ like superspeed and superstrength, given they grew in the right conditions. This was not considering that Terrans were all elementalists, either. Even if they weren’t, this theory still seemed valid.

Xenoans’ structure also seemed to be blessed by the world in a different sense. For one, the fecundity of Xenoan humans was actually stronger than Terran humans. It just didn’t seem that way because Terrans appeared at around the same time and therefore had similar levels.

There were also territories like Alterra that gave a safe enough environment for children, and protected them from the Extreme Weather changes that ultimately killed a lot of children and elderly everywhere else, so it seemed like Alterra had more children.

Their bodies were also more capable of crossbreeding with other local races, like half-orcs, but they were not publishing this. The fact of the matter was that humans bearing orc children was too dangerous for the human body in general, so they did not recommend it.

They also seemed to have higher immunity to local diseases, which was understandable.

Anyway, this meant it was completely normal for locals to level up slower than Terrans, and Kleid was one of the faster ones among his kind.

”Impressive,” Ryan said as he punched the aborigine on the stomach, but Kleid managed to avoid it enough to minimize the impact. He coughed, but he was able to quickly counter with a few successive kicks.

Ryan nodded and continued the barrage.

At some point during the meeting, Kleid and Ryan decided to have a spar at the sparring ring behind the main building.

Since the Rules and Regulations were updated in Ferrol, they got Jonathan to assign this area as a place they could fight in—though it was still with a no-kill zone, of course.

Of course, they paid for the costs of that rule change (taken from the profits of renting out the shops abutting the streets), so Jonathan was happy to oblige.

Their meeting was all about the assignments of the shops and the like. Gwen didn’t know how, but it somehow ended with ’how much did you grow since we last saw each other?’ conversations, which ultimately led to this spar.

Gwen sighed as she looked at her handsome husband. Her eyes followed his movements, and her eyes traced over his great figure, revealed by his sweat that caused the shirt to cling to his body.

She also looked at his sinewy arms and hands and those sexy veins.

She really wanted to give him a baby, but it wasn’t easy. She was also working hard to level up to lower the gap, but it wasn’t like he could wait for her to match his level, considering their job.

That said, it was really much harder to level up as one went higher, so she believed she’d eventually get near enough to his level so their daily night activities would finally bear fruit.

Ryan didn’t know why he suddenly felt hot, but it distracted him enough that Kleid actually managed to get a hit. Ryan shook his head and kicked the other man, turning and finally taking him down.

BANG!

Gwen stood up and went to her husband, wiping his sweat on his head, his neck, and his pecks.

The man flushed and tried taking the handkerchief from her. Gwen shook her head and lifted her hand to prevent it. ”No, you’re tired, let your wife serve you.”

She then proceeded to wipe sweat from his face, down his neck, and seductively went southwards to his shapely abs.

Ryan had very pale skin, but he was now 10x redder than when he was from fighting.

Poor single-dog-Kleid could only suffer while on the ground.

Fortunately, the single-dog didn’t suffer for too long because Ryan’s aether letter heated up.

He cleared his throat while he took it out from his space, though he had to hold his wife’s hand because she was getting too distracting.

It was a bit of a struggle, but he did get enough wits to actually read the contents of the letter, and his eyebrows rose at what he read.

”It’s from Jonathan,” he said, voice hoarse. ”And it seems like there will be trouble.”

Kleid was one of their first hires, back before Garan and them reached Alterra