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

The highest level of walls available was now Level 7, and they’d definitely use that everywhere, so the expenses made people feel like drowning just by thinking about it.

At best, she’d probably slightly reduce the cost by not walling all the way to the edge. When they didn’t wall after the town upgrade, they really felt the advantages of a sizable forest area outside the wall, but within the territory, especially for those who wished to train well and on the ground.

It would also allow her to build sentries beyond the walls. Many fighters who used the current outlier sentries called them ’savior towers’ which was indicative of how useful they were for the citizens.

Further, now that the high-level sentry’s scope was larger and could shoot a bit more frequently, its usefulness in this scenario was amplified.

Anyway, as a group, they decided on the next expansion, which was creating a more-or-less circular shape, to minimize the extra walls they had to use while following the terrain.

Anyway, the advantage of system buildings was that they were erected by themselves and had a fixed cost, so they had little problem with the extra costs implication of building on odd terrain, unlike manual construction.

”Can I have recommendations on how to handle the new expansion, walls, and sentries during the beast mob?” she asked because she always wanted to take advantage of any changes in the territory when dealing with enemies. She herself had some theories, but she wanted to hear what others thought.

They nodded, and it was the people in the military team with the most recommendations.

”Unlike humans, beasts would always instinctively target the openings, which are the gates,” Loki began. ”So we can take advantage of this instinct.”

”Indeed. The monsters that appear on other sectors of the walls would only be a small fraction of the total attackers. We at least know where they are heading, and how to target more efficiently.”

In the end, they recommended to still build a portion of the Level 7 walls and Level 7 sentries before the beast mob arrived.

However, to minimize the damage of monsters targeting the new gates, they would simply leave certain sections blank, for now.

It made for somewhat of a concentric arrangement, with an outer wall temporarily serving as channeling walls.

This way, most of the monsters would funnel through this area, and they would be much easier to target.

Althea could also add standalone sentries along this path, so there was a line of sentries attacking from the new outer walls, from the old outer walls, and then several in between.

This kind of arrow shower was bound to take down a number of monsters before they could even get to the existing gates!

This was something only possible now because they hadn’t developed the land yet. Hopefully, it would work well because the cost of those walls would definitely turn her poor again, and she didn’t want to do so many repairs after!

...

The next morning, about an hour or two after dawn, a loud announcement resounded in everyone’s heads.

[Good morning, Alterrans! We have an important announcement to make. And please remain calm about what we will say next.]

[We are upgrading to Level 2 in a bit! The beast mob is expected to arrive in 1-2 hours after the Upgrade. Please prepare well, and earn a lot of contribution points!]

[The highest level available walls and sentries have been built as well, so do not worry. As always, the town is buying loose resources.]

Clank!

Pak!

Bang!

A lot of plates, books, or whatever people were holding dropped at that moment.

”WHAT?”

”Excuse meee?!”

”Already?”

”I’m not prepared! Gosh! My Class D weapon is broken!”

”At least you can repair or buy a new one. I was planning on reaching level 15 first!”

”I’m so worried right now.”

”Hey, is this why the nightlife street was shut down at midnight? I thought it was just one of those occasional forced leaves to get people to rest... Oh.”

Well, the whole ’please keep calm’ preface was definitely going to need several minutes. It seemed that most people needed to breathe several times first to adjust to this news.

That said, others were more in a dazed state rather than in a frantic frenzy.

”Level 2 town, huh?”

”What does that mean for us, exactly?”

Others could only cover their faces. ”I mean, I’m proud—Alterra’s even stronger now! But... why am I not happy?”

The citizens were feeling all sorts of emotions at this time. A stronger territory was great and all, but in this world, it also meant that the troubles were also stronger!

They genuinely thought they had time to mentally (and physically) prepare for it!

Was this the so-called being the ’Victims of one’s own success’?!

...

The locals were like this, and the new visitors and aborigines from afar also felt the same.

”Are they upgrading to Level 2? Already?”

”According to our research, it has been less than a year... LESS THAN A YEAR since they became a town!”

Normally, leveling in each tier would take decades or more—even never. Something big must’ve happened!

Alterra was unbelievable. When it came to upgrades, it seemed that it was never a question of ’if’, only a ’when’.

Considering what they knew and what they had observed, it was expected that Alterra would upgrade much, much faster than others—but Town level was different from Village Level!

The population and prestige requirements between each tier were no joke!

They weren’t even the ones who took over the two towns directly, right? So background manipulation could also give that many prestige points?

Anyway, it was shocking news, and all the spies basically ran to the Post Office (duly monitored by the Intelligence Team, of course) to send news back home, with varying intentions.

”Send Posts to all our informants, right now!”

”Send a message to the Lord!”

”Urgent news, urgent news!”

And so on.

On the corner of the restaurant, a certain bespectacled man and his assistant watched all of this with interested eyes, all while elegantly eating their food.

Of course, if one were to watch them closely, one would realize the food was disappearing from the plates abnormally quickly.

This was none other than Cauis Glen and his right-hand man, Mattheo. They had just arrived a few hours prior and had decided to eat in the first restaurant they saw while observing the surroundings and gathering information at the same time.

They had no idea things would escalate like this.

Although...they had to admit they were still sufficiently distracted by the food they were eating, despite the chaos happening outside.

”What interesting flavors,” Mattheo said, gulping down another bite of the specially coated Gugu bird dish. ”They are tastier than the ones in Holt—I’m sorry, Master.”

”Don’t be,” he said. ”Besides, Holt’s sauces aren’t just about the taste.”

”Ah, yes.”

At least half of Holt’s signature sauces had special effects on their own.

Even if normal people used them to cook, the dishes that would come out had a high chance of having effects.

Further, these food and special effects also had a chance of giving permanent improvements. They were minuscule, but eating them consistently was bound to show effects after a few years.

It was the main reason why Holt’s population was simply...superior to most. Their bodies and foundations were much more solid through the years, decades, and generations of consuming such food.

That was Holt’s true specialty, so even if tastier food and flavors appeared elsewhere, their position wasn’t shaken.

Speaking of which, this kind of miraculous effect was possible because of the special land and array that had been developed there through the millennia.

The ancestors’ friendship with the elves naturally helped, of course.

This was the effect of special arrays left behind by the elves, and there were no other territories that had them.

That said, the taste of the condiments and sauces here was truly superior. If they could get the raw materials and formula, perhaps they could plant them in their farm lands, too.

His family, Glen, happened to own a few farmlands in Holt City, and this could be their chance to finally climb higher. The special effects of the farms and the taste of the ingredients here were bound to become the paragon of Holt’s culinary industry, too.

As for how they’d approach the procurement of the raw materials, however, it would probably depend on what they’d observe from this point onwards.

Cauis was looking forward to it.

....

Because they had up to 100 hours of leeway before upgrading, Althea chose to maximize it and upgraded the morning after the countdown so her citizens would get good rest. She forced nightlife close by midnight though, which was just as well.

She chose to upgrade just after dawn, sending the alert all over the territory at the same time. By the time the ground rumbled, signalling the appearance of the beasts, all of the guards and most of the citizens were already in position.

This included Althea, of course, who was taking this chance to finally level up.

After increasing her meditation time back then and spending a bit more on training, she leveled up to 18 a few weeks ago. Now, with this beast mob, she hoped to upgrade again.

Further, now that more and more people could take over the necessary research, including her master—and now the new toolmakers—she was granted a bit more time for herself again.

And it was time to catch up with the others.