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

Not everywhere was the same as the Alterra region or their allies, of course.

Most territories were still contacting Holt or Warrior City to buy medicine from them, though the cities were naturally busy with servicing their own territory first.

There were plenty of territories who knew that it all came from Alterra, and might either be too far from Holt or Warrior City, or simply thought their offers were too expensive (though in reality, the two cities’ prices were quite fair. Profitable, but not too limiting to the commoners), though many people just felt entitled to the formula.

Alterra didn’t have much of an exclusivity agreement with the two cities. Their agreement was just that they wouldn’t sell the formula to other territories within a thousand-kilometer distance from them. Everyone else could buy the formula.

A thousand-kilometer radius might be a massive area, especially by Terran standards, but this continent was much more massive than Terran, and there was no loss in selling to more territories.

It was just that while some were willing to pay for Alterra’s requirements, others found it too expensive and seriously started to scheme to take over Alterra instead, thinking that after defeating it, then all of Alterra’s formulas—and their various goods—would just go to them instead!

The value of Alterra could no longer be compared to even higher-level territories, and some even said it was invaluable. Winning a war against it could be the most profitable war of the century.

But...it needed some planning, especially since it was partnering with powerful territories.

Of course, in many of the greedy men’s minds, they didn’t think there’d be much loyalty. After all, the Cities had already bought the formulas, so would they have to protect Alterra? They could also easily offer better deals to them after taking over, right?

Not long after the spread that Alterra had formulated the cure, this plan started to bear fruit. However, unexpectedly, they could not attack at all!

This was because the Iron Mountains were attacked by one of the territories.

Shannon, Gio, and the rest looked at the people rushing to their walls and attacking. They were prepared to fight and attack, and everyone was just guarding the battlements as well as specific areas of the territory.

There were still quarantine areas in Iron Mountains at this time, but there were no new cases anymore. A few hundred people incapable of defending themselves had to be protected, and they also made deductions to their manpower.

Compared to the enemy, however, this was nothing. Using the scope, they easily determined where the array was, and they soon caught a glimpse of their states.

The Village that attacked them was somewhere in the far South. There had been no indication of hostility before, so this war was relatively out of nowhere. However, when they saw their states, it became obvious why they did so.

They attacked out of desperation. They probably heard that they had vaccines and cures. Instead of going to them for trade, they attacked because of the time.

The disease itself acted and spread relatively quickly, even if there was an incubation period. When the incubation period ended, it would be like people started exploding one by one, falling down in intense fever, and soon reaching the deadliest stage—the internal burning and smoking.

People would feel powerless under such a disease, and this was actually the normal reaction. After all, how many had a collection of medicinal experts like Alterra?

...

Anyway, they probably thought that just going to war was the fastest way to get the cure—which was not exactly inaccurate, but this was assuming they would win.

While the enemy was, in fact, not confident in winning, they believed they didn’t have anything to lose, so they attacked anyway.

The leaders of Iron Mountains recognized this and, influenced by Alterra’s way of ’doing minimal effort but max results’, they started to strategize how to handle this war well. Relentlessly killing these people felt too inhumane, and it was not worth hurting their conscience.

Shannon raised her voice amplifier and looked at the desperate people attacking them. They didn’t even care about the sentries. They had shields, sure, but how many sentry arrows could that block, especially after half an hour of barrages?

All satellites had superior walls and sentries now, at least superior to those with the same levels, like how it was with Alterra before. Their sentries were definitely not weak, especially against fellow villages.

Shannon had grown a lot from being a mere victim of a male aborigine. She was now part of the administration team of Iron Mountains and was one of the people responsible for its current stability.

They worked so hard to stabilize the state of the village. There was no way she’d allow any of these people in.

”STOP! Our territory has vaccines and cures, and we now have excess!” she said. ”Are you sure you want to make an enemy out of us?”

”While we won’t be giving them out for free, our price is very fair, and you can pay later after making oaths,” he said. ”Besides, if you become system slaves, we will not abandon you, as you will be our person.”

”BACK AWAY RIGHT NOW! For the next half an hour, anyone still within the scope of the sentry will be considered our enemy from this point forward! All of them will be killed. Otherwise, we will take it as your surrender and prepare accordingly.”

The tension within the enemy group was palpable, and most of them really stepped back. Some were too desperate to care, and some were already smoking and were trudging forward through the pain.

Suicide.

For those people, they could no longer be helped. At least they took comfort from the fact that they died while in a war, rather than pitifully in bed and affecting their people.

In a war, they at least had the chance of affecting the enemy. If it were another territory they were attacking, this desperate strategy could’ve worked, but by this time, everyone participating in the war had already been vaccinated.

Soon, everyone stayed beyond the scope of the sentries, staring at the people looking down on them from the battlement.

”MY SON! MY SON IS DYING! WILL YOU HELP HIM!?” one yelled, and others followed, asking for cures and vaccines as well.

Shannon was not overwhelmed by the cacophony of pleas. ”Our stocks are limited, so we will have to determine who will gain the medicine first.

”What I can guarantee is that as of now, we have a few hundred inhibitors and vaccines, and about a dozen bottles of cure,” she said, counting the latest delivery through the warehouse.

”We cannot guarantee which among you will receive it, but we can guarantee that anyone who misbehaves will be disqualified. This includes attacking others to gain their slots.”

This calmed down some desperate people, forcing them to behave. While they knew that not many of them would receive the potion, at least not any time soon compared to Iron Mountains’ actual citizens, the tiny bit of promise was enough to spark hope in them.

They had seen how fearless those guards were, even when some of their people had desperately tried to climb and ’smoke’ them.

They must’ve been vaccinated already. Those must easily be hundreds of people, right?

For those who had experienced the Fire Plague once, seeing even ten people vaccinated was already a miracle. What would stop them from hoping a little bit of that would touch their bodies?

Like this, Alterra and its satellites were once again free for the next two weeks.