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

The other areas of ongoing construction were the expanded industrial and farming zones.

In preparation for the inevitable population and supply boom, the factories built this time were twice (or thrice) as large as the ones in the inner walls.

Interestingly, most of them were blank lots. This was because many plants had specific requirements for their spaces. Brianna’s firm was once again tapped for the design of these buildings.

Her assistant, Amber, was placed on point for the designs here. Amber was a young 22-year-old recruited all the way from Guardian Village, one of the registered ’good’ villages, so she did have a decent life compared to others, especially compared to other women.

Still, she was so very surprised when someone from the Lord’s side approached her, saying she was being recruited as an architect in Alterra Town!

In their village—as well as many others—Alterra was like the beacon, the goal of young people, like how people from the countryside aimed to head to the urban areas for a ’better life’.

She had been part of the urban planning team in Guardian village, so she was promoted rather quickly. Now, during the start of the Phase 1 Outer Circle Development Project, she was even assigned her own team by Boss Brianna! She had to do well!

So she made sure to study the clients’ needs, and she even interviewed several people in each field.

For example, the new Iron and Steelworks factory had to be customized to handle the incredibly high heat and the harsh conditions for more complex projects to be made.

The current one, because it was a module warehouse-slash-factory, had to be retrofitted a lot. There were still limitations, so they could not do excessively big jobs there. But now, the goal was different.

They wanted to handle big, big projects like large windmills and maybe large machinery.

Even for the ’smaller’ items, bigger spaces were needed to improve efficiency, quality, and quantity per batch. There would be larger smelting and forging zones, and the like.

They were also using crucible steel and the Bessemer process. She didn’t really know what those were, don’t ask her, but she knew that they would need large spaces and bigger furnaces.

With this, they would be able to create stronger, more consistent, and less brittle steel. They could also start producing much more, so more people could be equipped with better weapons. The new setup would also allow a greater variety of alloys to be mass-produced.

Of course, ranked weaponry still needed the input of actual weaponsmiths, but they had learned which part of the equipment-making process could get streamlined and still get the same final products.

For example, the factories can handle the mass production of raw steel, melting down ores, mixing alloys, and creating base metals like steel ingots. These were labor-intensive processes and could really cut down the time and energy to create a ranked weapon.

Amber had also heard a gossip that their metal experts were handling a special type of metal right now, and it also had a very specific process that would need a bit of investment to mass-produce.

She had no idea what that was, but she was excited for it!

Another factory that had to be specialized was the glass factory. They needed more space for more molds and more space for more complex processes. Boss Ricky, Sir Ryan’s uncle and Alterra’s premier glass expert, had long proposed this and even created a presentation of what they could do when the new factories were built.

For example, better telescopes, better solar lenses, and so on, could be made. They could also start mass-producing everyday items like beakers, utensils, and so on. After this factory was built, they should also be able to export some panels.

Their Intelligence Team was looking into Crystal City’s products as well as their possible attitude towards rivals. This would also allow them to determine if there were products that would not conflict with the City. If there were, then they’d specialize in those instead.

The fewer the enemies, the better.

Next to receive their own design was the textile mill. Considering Alterra had specialized textiles and colors, the demand for their fabric was not small.

They needed bigger spaces for larger looms, etc, larger drying areas, and a variety of areas for moisture control (different fabrics behaved differently).

They also needed a large space to handle huge amounts of high-popularity fabric like the purples and the blues, let alone the actual processing of the pigment, which needed both space and privacy.

They had a few spies and informants that at least 2 of the 3 major cloth cities were already aware of their existence and their products. As for how that’d pan out for them, only time could tell.

They also had to make sure they were capable of producing specific types of fabric on a grand scale in case of emergencies. Since they knew Extreme Weathers were a fixed thing, this wouldn’t go to waste.

Another was food processing and preservation plants. This was unsurprising as Alterra’s strongest industry and its biggest export.

Let alone the bigger production areas needed, they had to add or expand the smoke houses, salt-curing chambers, and fermentation pits.

Rather, there were specific food types that even received their own factories.

The most popular of them were the food with long shelf-life, like instant noodles, cookies, and so on.

There were also those for processing highly-used food items like dairy products, chocolate products, and coffee.

Considering how Alterra’s food industry had gotten close to the quality of that in Terran, and there were even a lot of interesting new things as they mixed with local ingredients and cuisines, the need for the usually ’non-essential’ things like creams, cheese, milk, coffee, chocolate, and so on had spiked a lot.

This just showed that the people had already long passed the need for the basics, and were starting to edge more to just, well, enjoying life.