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

While Gingo, Hesso, and a few of their men met their fates, a certain pseudo-Lord was also meeting him.

Felipe was confident in his hiding spot. He believed he just had to wait it out, the numerous mercenaries he hired would take care of the enemies while he waited.

But then the door burst open, revealing someone somewhat familiar. He didn’t even have the chance to react when the man was already in front of him.

The newcomer grabbed his neck and slammed him against the wall.

BANG!

He gasped at the force. If it were a normal wooden building, he reckoned a part of the wall would’ve cracked.

”This... you—” he gasped, but whenever he tried to summon an elemental attack, the newcomer would slam him twice, until he got so dizzy that he could not even feel aether anymore.

”You’ve done a lot of damage, Felipe,” he said, using the Terran lingua franca.

”A Terran?!” he gasped, not expecting it. It wasn’t that the man did not have Terran features, but this man was already in his late level 20s! How could he be so strong already!?

He suddenly remembered why he was familiar, too. He had occasionally seen him around, though all he knew was that he was a mercenary with a decent level.

The Lord also saw that he was an elementalist and had once sent someone to recruit him. This happened very recently, and the response was that he’d think about it. This happened recently, and he was too busy to care for it. Now, he regretted it.

”Where is the chemist?”

”What?”

”Where is the chemist?” Gian repeated. Before heading in, he received an aether letter message that this man’s lover, who they surmised to be the chemist behind the drugs, was gone.

Felipe’s eyes sparked with hope, and he grinned, despite the fact that he probably had a number of internal injuries. ”If you let me go, I will tell—”

BAM!

Felipe gasped as he was, once again, slammed against the wall. His teeth were tittering as his body shivered in pain. His eyes were still sharp as he glared at Gian, however.

Gian narrowed his eyes at him, studying. Felipe was a sly bastard and he had no plans on making deals with him, so he had to figure out what he needed to know without giving advantage to this bastard.

From what he had observed the past weeks, he knew that he wouldn’t have gotten her to escape on her own. He was monopolizing her well and she was head over heels in love with him.

Felipe also had the hubris of arrogance, though admittedly deserving of it, and Gian wondered if he ever made a backup plan for her, in case he got in trouble.

Somehow, Gian doubted it. Felipe would only make enough effort if it involved him directly. If he thought he would die, he wouldn’t have cared for what would happen to that woman.

So, if she escaped, then this meant that she must already have had a previously-planned escape route, though designed for both of them. This route, therefore, must be easily accessible for both.

He couldn’t help but remember one of the slaves he saved, who was part of the construction team here. Although he could not mention it outright, Gian could surmise—just by asking whether he had ever made something in certain areas—that the underground tunnel network was a lot more developed than initially thought.

Gian’s eyes were dark as he looked at the man responsible for bringing such poison—a poison he hated to his core—to this land. His hand heated up until it finally ignited.

”AHHHH!!!” Felipe screamed and squirmed under the heat, desperately trying to get out of his hold, but the man was too strong. Worse, the man spilled liquid on him, and he burst into a bigger flame, and this time, there was no stopping it.

Petrol?!

At the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but recognize the effect and the stench of petrol. Others had petrol now!?

Felipe wasn’t able to think anymore after this, because he was in so much pain that he lost consciousness, never to wake up again, and his corpse was definitely not intact.

Like this, the Flaret Town token—which was in Felipe’s pockets—landed in Gian’s hands.

And just like this, Alterra got hold of two tokens under the guise of war.

...

Alterra had no lack of Token Guards, so they were not in a rush to find new Lords of the new territories. They had enough time to decide on it, and there was no way they could take this lightly either.

These were two towns with extremely critical placements around the Terran region, after all.

That said, they also opened up the opportunity to their citizens, especially their guards or anyone with some ambition, but loyal to Alterra.

If there was anyone who wanted to take over, provided that they had enough strength, capability, and were willing to become a subsidiary to Alterra for at least 10 years, then the terms of payment for the token could easily be negotiated.

It couldn’t be too expensive either. It was just that anyone who had lived in Alterra, even if they had some ambition, as long as they were smart enough, would actually feel reluctant to leave and handle the cesspit outside.

Basically, anyone who might do a good job with these new territories probably wouldn’t want the responsibility at all!

For example, Rowan.

Some people, especially those who had surmised his background after the spies studied Voumi, really thought he’d take the deal. The redhead admitted to his lineage with friends one day, though it was in a bar, so many people heard it, so they all assumed he’d take over his father’s territory.

There seemed to be quite a few allies of the previous Lord there, too, so it should be doable for him to adjust.

However, Rowan told them that his level was not nearly enough to be the Lord of a Town.

...and he didn’t necessarily want it.