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

Everyone admitted that getting nature to deal with their enemies was tempting, but it was too difficult to perfect the timing when there were so many variables, including the exact time of the Extreme Cold.

The ideal would be for them to happen at exactly the same time, but there was a tolerance for error, and they simply couldn’t risk so much by assuming it would happen as they wanted it to.

Their opening for war would occur late day 3 days from now, and the enemy would jump at the chance of going to war then.

There was no way they would send Limestone and Iron Mountains into a war now, either, knowing an Extreme weather change was abound, so they would really have to risk going to war as a Town.

”What a pity, what a pity...” Gru said, mumbling at the side. No one would forget how they dealt with five villages, as a single village, with minimal casualties, because they took advantage of the upgrade beast mob. Actively or not, they had been wanting to see something similar happen again.

At some point, Mathilda spoke up. ”Well, it’s not like it’s impossible...”

...

The Cold Preparation during this time had already reached a peak. People were quietly informed about this. This was especially so with the Lords of associated territories, though for the next few days, they were asked to keep a relatively low profile about it.

For those who were not privy to the upcoming yet, they would be informed before the cold wave, so it should still be fine.

However, to maximise the manpower they had (on top of the slaves and prisoners of war), mass hiring in relevant factories and industries was done, pretending that they would need to restock and supply for the upcoming war in a few days. It was known that they were aware of the imminent attack, anyway.

This was fortunate, but they still needed to prepare as if there was.

According to the aborigines, the Cold Wave was the immediate drop of the weather to freezing temperatures, quick cooling of all water to ice, rain that could hurt people, and days or weeks-long snowfall.

Someone asked if it could be like a cold snap that could instantaneously freeze people (like in the movies) or like what Garan did back then, except on a worldwide scale, but fortunately, nothing apocalyptic like that had happened yet.

There was something close, though, but it happened in specific areas (that moved) like an invisible cold snake. Some territories called it the Freezing Serpent, some called it the Frost Whip, and some called it Crawling Frost. Anyway, they got the gist

The scary image of instant freezing and death, fortunately, was limited to people below level 10, and if they were exposed to the open. If someone stronger or an awakened elementalist was hit, they should survive as long as help arrived quickly enough.

If one could describe the sensation of being hit by the Crawling Frost as a powerhouse (and Obi had a personal account of this), it was as if one was suddenly hit by a cold whip, completely out of nowhere.

If one’s body could not balance that contact, then it could spread out, as if the blood itself was freezing. Low-level non-elementalists were completely vulnerable to this ’slap’ and they would find themselves completely frozen (and very likely dead) within seconds of contact.

Obi was one of the main guards assigned to the outer circle back in Bleulle, and was also frequently sent out to assist in town wars that Bleulle had a hand in behind the scenes.

The previous Cold Wave happened about ten years prior, when he was around level 30 or so, and he was one of the blokes on the battlement at the time. He just found himself shocked one moment, and he fell down the wall. Fortunately, his level was high, and his body passively fought it while he regained his balance.

Interestingly, if one had good enough instinct and eyes, then the ’snake’ was actually visible. One could see it move on the ground, creating ice on its path.

He ran around the city, rescuing people and helping them avoid the disaster, and even just before they were kicked out, Obi was still receiving some gifts of gratitude from the people he saved back then.

Obi caught Leez’s admiring gaze, and he started blurting out more stories, and many people listened to enlighten themselves of the future danger, unaware that someone was trying to show off to his friend.

Anyway, back in the Minister’s meeting, Volohov and the rest of them started formulating standard operating procedures for these events. Since Alterra’s infrastructure was already very good, the things to rush now were limited to loose resources for the most part.

The rule for overpreparation would always apply: the more they could create, the more prepared they were; no matter how much the surplus could be, the better it was.

Preparing for ultra-cold temperatures was straightforward, from the perspective of small units like families and teams.

First to prepare was shelter. It must trap heat and block the cold.

For a start, the houses themselves had decent provisions for heating. Buildings had insulation already, improved by Althea very early on.

One had to remember that Althea and Eugene designed the custom system houses so there would be toilets and even biogas from waste food. How could they not consider heated floors?

These were provisions, of course, and they set up another line from the stone to heat up fuel and wood to heat the floor. This was sufficient for typical cold weather.

In the extreme cold in Xeno, however, there were still other things they needed to prepare.

Airtight Insulation, food stocks per family, information spread, the oxygen problem, warming clothes, and so on were crucial.

Fortunately, they had been passively preparing for various cases, so they were not completely helpless. At the very least, the base infrastructure was prepared.

However, no matter what, it would never feel like enough!