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

In a valley nestled in a large mountain range, there was a very, very secluded village.

This village lay in the innermost part of this mountain range, located some mid-north of what was currently called the Human territory. Interestingly, this village’s inhabitants couldn’t be more opposite of humans.

It was a quiet, charming place with simple but sturdy houses made of rocks, seemingly embedded on the mountainside. It gave the impression that the village grew and was carved on the mountain itself.

There were dozens and dozens of such structures, with the largest ones at the valley head, a few times larger and more vast than the houses.

It was not to say that the houses were small, however. On the contrary, they were tall for bungalows. Despite all of them having one floor, some with a mezzanine floor at most, the ceiling height was nearly twice as tall as that of human houses.

Could giants live here?

No, quite the contrary.

Rather than giants, the civilization that lived here was actually much shorter than humans.

The dwarves.

The houses were tall because dwarves used their own houses to double as their workshops. Dwarves took a long time to complete a single piece of equipment, so they naturally needed to do it in their most comfortable space. Each house cannot be without a workshop; it was as important as a kitchen was to the humans.

There were a few dwarves walking around, and most of them would be in their homes. One could see some ventilation methods on the roofs releasing smoke, but some other tools dispersed it, so no smoke was visible in the outside world.

At this time, a few bipedal creatures with long beards toddled, but their pace was hurried (in their standards), and their beards bounced as they traversed the streets, heading in a direction.

They were the Elders of their dwarven village.

They were all not very big, only about a meter high on the taller side, and they all had solemn expressions on their faces.

”Why did-did we take them in, ba?” One of the elders with a curly beard asked. ”They are outsiders! Not even dwarves! Orcs are very dangerous! Stupid! Stupid!”

Another dwarven elder shook his head. He was quite a bit calmer than the other one. He had straight gossamer hair that didn’t have a single knot.

”Calm down, Elder Greimo,” the elder Feilo, said. ”Technically speaking, we didn’t take them in, ba. They are outside of the valley.”

The other elder, one with a shorter hat and beard neatly tied up, was called Weico. He was also relatively calm, but also a bit impatient. ”They are half orcs, not orcs. Except for the tigress, the others are non-aggressive types.”

Everyone knew that it was very difficult for orcs to reproduce, and the human women had a hard time during their gestation period. The huge, aggressive types of orcs would rarely successfully procreate with a human.

”But didn’t you know that a Fire Plague has spread out, ba?! What if they are infected, ba?!”

Dwarves have isolated themselves from the world, but they had some ways to find more about the outside world.

They had to do many things in order to protect themselves. Dwarves made destructive weapons because their inheritance was focused more on war-related things. They were also quite slow, so even if they had long lifespans, the chances of innovation were quite low.

That said, through the years, there would be the occasional good thing. Though it was still used in wars, it was not in and of itself destructive or defensive.

This tool was called the Earthen Eye, which allowed them to see hundreds of kilometers away. This had been in the possession of their village for about a hundred years, created by one of their master toolmakers just before his death.

The farther the sight was, the longer it could be used again, of course. From there, they confirmed that the Fire Plague had been spread already, and considering what happened last time, it was probably still spreading.

”They have stayed there since the cold wave. None of us here are affected yet, and even if they are, the incubation period should’ve ended by now, ba.”

”Sending them out now would be killing them,” one said. ”They have also been oppressed by the darn humans. Will you be able to live with yourself after knowing you will send them to death?”

”Fine. Let them stay two more weeks at most ba!”

Feilo sighed, still combing his beard. ”I just hope no curious dwarves would make contact.”

...

Sadly, that was too late for that.

The ’teenage’ trio Cotto, Batto, and Sotto were already there.

Although they were in their 30s, they were still considered young in their race, not to mention emotional maturity was also slow. Right now, they were in a somewhat rebellious and exploratory stage. The more they were stopped, the more they wanted to see it.

The three of them had found their way back to the home village not long before the Cold Wave. They were lost, and they did almost die when the power of their weapons and repellents had expired. Fortunately, adults from their village had ventured out and eventually found them.

The adults had to go out, using one of the few functional tools designed to find dwarven blood. It was a marble slab the size of a dwarf’s face called Dwarf Seeker.

This tool could detect dwarven blood regardless of whether it was impure (though there had been no halflings for probably a century), as well as whether the dwarf was dead or alive.

If it was the former though, there was naturally a time limit. Depending on the environment wherein the dwarf died, the signature aether could last for one day to one month.

Fortunately, fortunately, the Dwarf Seeker found them when they were alive.

They really appreciated living for a while! But how long did that last? These teenagers were now, once again, challenging fate.