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

Other places were also doing relatively well. Bright Village had deeper connections to Alterra and had managed to secure/buy a few hundred more copies of the potions compared to others.

Combined with a swift execution of the plans and the quarantine, Bright stopped seeing new victims not too far after Alterra did.

Of course, it was by no means a smooth process. There was something called free will and self-preservation instincts, after all.

”GIVE IT TO ME!! MEEE!” a man yelled, screaming at the guards. ”I’m just asking for the vaccine! Not the cure! Give it to me!”

He was making a scene at the Center, where the medicine was distributed to the families of the doctors and guards who would go to the afflicted.

These were all recorded, of course, and if they couldn’t pay yet, like in Alterra, it was simply put on loan. The markup was not high either, not even two times the cost price. Alterra didn’t allow for excessive mark-ups, anyway.

Anyway, this man was making a scene when he found out there was a good amount of vaccine provided by Alterra.

If Ansel and Tom were here, they’d recognize him as the person who greeted them as if he were the Lord’s right-hand man.

Ghoo was one of the jerks people disliked. He had once tried getting into Micheal’s inner circle but failed to do so. Still, his arrogance was still there. He was like a cockroach, though, unable to die and live decently by himself, which was kind of impressive on its own.

His so-called preservation instincts seemed to be a bit out of whack today, however.

He had been hiding in his house the entire time, and he had the money, so he stocked up on a lot of necessities during the cold wave. However, who’d have thought that he’d be locked in again without enough food?

Bright Village did not have a delivery system, like other villages in general, because those who had high immunity against the disease would be constrained to handle the basic-but-essential jobs. Who’d have the time to do deliveries?

So, those who were trapped were really trapped, and they had to risk going out to buy at the depots assigned by Micheal. This guy, who had strong survival instincts, was too cowardly to get out, even with facemasks, so he could only make do with the food he had and ration it.

Now, the food was gone, but he was too afraid, so he went and demanded to get a vaccine first.

The guards stood still. ”There is a process when determining who will get it first.”

This was inevitable. After all, everyone just wanted to survive. Choosing who to get the medicine first was, in a sense, could be akin to choosing who gets to live.

It was a heavy responsibility that might have long-lasting psychological effects, and some people just had to take it.

The fortunate part was that they could continuously procure it, so it wouldn’t get to that extreme, but the essence was the same.

”You are not ill. The priority for the vaccines would be the children.”

This was not just because of people’s softness towards children. The vaccine was most effective in a developing body, not to mention their levels were weak, and the lethality of the virus increased by folds because of that.

”Do you wish to take medicine from a child?”

”This—”

Of course, there were not many children in Bright. All orphans that didn’t get adopted by locals would be sent to Alterra and its orphanage. This was something done by many territories and was considered the best course of action for everyone.

A lot of territories did have their own orphanages, like the Guardian Village, but most just opted to send them to Alterra because of the complete resources and infrastructure, though this was still a growing trend as the travel was too dangerous and the slots for the caravans were limited.

Still, it was a predictable move, so Alterra planned to build a new and bigger orphanage in the outer walls by phase 2.

”But what about other people? Don’t you think we are humans, too?” he asked, loudly, as if encouraging the bystanders to fight as well. With more voices of ’reason’, maybe these people could be persuaded!

The gaslighting was real.

The guard looked like he was just tired and had no patience. He had been one of the people who handled these things. If he had the resources, who didn’t want to give everyone a vaccine?

But hundreds a week were already very good. Fortunately, they heard this would soon increase because every Alterran was now vaccinated, and this kept them relatively calm rather than half-insane.

Not that jerks like these were helping this mindset.

”Make another move, and you will go straight to prison. I heard that there were a few people who showed symptoms there before they got pulled out for quarantine.

”This...”

At this, Ghoo’s preservation instincts finally worked again, and he could only run back to his home.

...

Limestone Valley, Iron Mountains, and the other territories were about the same and used similar standard operating procedures.

The Iron Mountains were just a bit different because a large portion of their population was aborigines who didn’t have the same instinct for rules and ethics as the rest of them.

To say that there was a lot of trouble was an understatement. The news of inhibitors, vaccines, and the like was hidden and administered in a low-key manner to avoid chaos.

However, as days passed, especially after more and more people received the medicine, the news still leaked out. Unsurprisingly, plenty of people—some quite powerful for village level—demanded copies.

Fortunately, the hiring in the centers wouldn’t pause just because of a disaster, and when Flaret confirmed the illness, Alterra sent more people to reinforce the order in the satellites.

One could say the Iron Mountains’ prison was among the busiest in the region.

It was very annoying, but what could they do? These prisoners were definitely not the priority for the medicine.

The lucky part was that because of the warehouse teleportation array, the two satellites had the most shares of the medicines outside of Alterra. Like Bright Village, they also halted the development of new afflicted (other than the refugees and the prisoners), not long after Alterra did.

Through all this, people started to truly feel that the end to this disaster was finally in sight!