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

Flaret, on the other hand, was won by Bart, who would be given to the leader of their mercenary team. There were many people who had bid for Flaret, most of whom were aborigines.

Many of them definitely had the thought of gathering what was left behind of the lucrative industry. Sad for them, they would never get this Town.

There were also a few Terrans from other territories, but they definitely didn’t have the resources to manage a problematic territory so far away.

Alterra was also a Town—a much younger one, at that— but they were still too busy with themselves to consistently handle another Town. This was also why, for Flaret, they decided to do an alliance instead.

At least with Voumi, although it was also far away and was also a problematic territory, they had been steadily developing the network in that direction, and they had plenty more spies attached.

The aborigine North...was mostly blank for them. Developing in that direction was a bit exhausting, especially with the terrain limitations, and they hoped someone else would soften the way first.

The Elders didn’t want to over-extend and over-expand, now that they were still consolidating the expansion of the Terran region.

Anyway, although subsidiary and alliance contracts had to be renewed every year, their interests were tied deeper, so it was unlikely for the Rolan Mercenary team—unlike most of those who made a bid—to decide to cut off the relationship after a few years.

The team’s proposal was really detailed. They included a plan on how to treat the addicts humanely, and would not be asking for free support from Alterra with this. Alterra already had a cure for this, and they were shouldering the costs of the production.

They also promised to fund the roads from Flaret to Guardian Village, and then to Alterra, as soon as they received the token.

Alterra already had some roads across the Terran region, but the North was definitely still a bit bare. Flaret’s promise to do this really lifted a significant part of the burden from them.

They also promised to send materials they found from the North to Alterra, as if they were still tributes, although they were an ally rather than a subsidiary. Among many other things, this was one of the promises that sealed the deal.

Bart was the team’s official representative in the region, so he could make oaths in the leader’s stead. However, the actual handover and the alliance oath had to be made by the leader himself, so they’d have to wait. Bart was just there to secure the token as well as to lay out everything that had to be coordinated.

Despite his appearance, Bart was really quite capable.

Some people did ask why he didn’t just own it himself, but it seemed like he owed the leader a lot and was raised by him. The man was practically his father, in fact, and buying a territory for a good price was his filial piety to the man.

Later, they’d find out that Bart was named the heir, especially since the new Lord had already lost all his children decades ago to a deadly plague.

As for their base in the previous territory, the Rolans still promised to give Twinwave some tributes and a lot of deals. This way, their branch there would still be maintained well over there.

They also vowed to return all Terran slaves who landed in their territory for free. And since Flaret won the war, a good majority of the Terrans in both territories were actually there.

They were also expressly forbidden to do any kind of drug trade. They didn’t know if it would eventually rise up again, but many nobles should’ve been made aware of its effects by now.

Look, two territories even fell because of it.

As for the origin of the drugs, the chemist was never found. They found tunnels and escape routes, but she was no longer there.

The pharmacy team studied the bottles and solutions found in the laboratory and, other than the drugs themselves—some versions of which were poisonous—there were also other things.

The Grandmasters easily determined it to be a color-changing solution that could change a person’s coloring, whether it was skin color or hair color, or eye color. It was a relatively common inheritance among alchemists, and it seemed like the Chemist had the same opportunity.

The fortunate part was that it only worked for a day, and while the ingredients weren’t rare, they were not too common, so it was impossible for her to keep drinking it every day.

In the end, her face was drawn by someone (using a profiler). It was also in black-and-white. This way, she could be recognized regardless of her coloring

While there were very few people who had seen her, the few who had confirmed that the drawing was accurate enough. This was then spread out to the territories.

It wasn’t exactly a bounty, as they were unsure whether the woman had been forced by Felipe to do what she did, but it was definitely spread out to administrative forces in the network, and they were asked to inform Alterra if she was found.

The woman would definitely be punished, but the degree to which was unclear yet. Althea just felt it was a pity that the woman wasted her talent like this.

Speaking of the drug trade, everyone had to cooperate with the cleansing and rehabilitation programs. They offered up the medicine on loan, to be paid bit by bit for a period of one year. This was helpful, especially to Flaret, who promised to shoulder all the cost of this.

This was also a way to keep people working for them, and they’d end up loving it anyway, so it was always a win-win situation.

That said, like every other associate territory, there would be Alterran hubs or bases in their territories, and their needs, especially when it came to gathering information, must be met.

Of course, in exchange, information gathered in their territory, assuming that it wouldn’t harm any of the other territories, would also be forwarded to them.

Soon, the Lord-to-be Rolan, arrived via the Mercenary Hall.

He was a buff and big man around 60 years old (and the appearance of a 50-year-old). He had a lot of scars on his body and an intimidating aura around him. However, when he was there talking with the Elders, he was all smiles.

His laugh was boisterous, by the way.

With his arrival, they finally finalized the deals and the oaths. They also finalized some trade deals and the like. Deals directly made between territories had much larger purchase limits, especially if they were towns.

Several hours passed by like this, and Rolan and the rest of them left happily, excited, and could not believe such good things had fallen down on them.

That said, they were surprised at the fact that all of the Alterrans really didn’t bother competing with them at all! None of them bothered! The ones who did make a bid were not even Alterrans!

It was really such a curious thing. Although logically, they understood what they were saying when they refused, that it was too troublesome, and they liked their lives in Alterra too much. The aborigines definitely understood this, but how could they not be even a bit greedy for a token?

It had been ingrained so deeply in the locals to strive for power and conquest. To many of them, growing up, they believed that only with brute strength could one survive in this world full of beasts and wars.

Well, they just had to accept that the Terrans were just a different species.

...

This trade was not announced nor was it publicised. At the same time, it was not treated as top secret either. The population of all territories involved was too large to even think they could keep everything under wraps.

Within a week, some powers that had realized something big had happened on this side of the world started investigating.

One of the first persons to obtain actual information was naturally the Glen family, whose property, Baccal Town, was directly involved in the war.

Since they only gave minimal assistance, Cauis wasn’t really expecting Voumi to win just through that bit of help. However, he did not expect the Lord to die in his own territory and lose the token!

Later, he found out a similar thing had happened in Flaret Town, too!

Cauis’ eyebrows rose.

When he was wondering who was trying to start a war between Baccal and Valov, the first thought he had was that it must be someone from Voumi. Not the Lord, who was an idiot, but someone next to him.

After all, there had been plenty of tension between Valov and Voumi before Baccal got involved. Not to mention, Voumi outright contacted them and offered an alliance.

However, seeing as both Tokens were taken by a third party, things became clear: There was someone else manipulating behind the scenes!

Cauis was not the only one who had thought of this. It was too much of a coincidence, and it affected tens of thousands of lives for it to be something that happened by chance.

After a large-scale investigation by various parties, a singular name appeared at the center.

Alterra.