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

Everything changes when disaster strikes.

To be fair, their Lord seemed aware of the cold coming and told them, though with the added drama and flair.

He acted like some sort of prophet, and this indeed increased his prestige among the people.

Of course, telling them was one thing, but whether he actually helped them through the upcoming disaster—or even made decent territory-wide preparation—was another thing entirely.

Spoiler alert: He didn’t. Not really.

People knew an Extreme Cold was coming, and they gathered firewood and things like that. However, they had no idea how intense it’d be. Many people froze while gathering resources outside, and too many people starved to death within the first week.

At the time, many blamed the Lord, and many tried to get food, especially when people saw them living well. They obviously had more than enough food. There was even warmth and insulation, and this was revealed by some servants who were kicked out in the midst of the disaster.

Many brave citizens complained. They gathered their courage and their wits to surround the Lord’s palace, asking that he help them out.

However, the Lord retaliated with excessive force, but at the same time, they were led to believe everything was their fault for not preparing when they had been warned. Behave or get kicked out, he said, and most people could only grit their teeth and quietly stay in their homes.

Logically, he wasn’t wrong. People who survived this long would know that they could not depend on others, only themselves.

If only the Lord didn’t treat people like trash while they were begging, or if he didn’t take more advantage to line his own pockets as well as forcibly tie up people to work under him.

It was only if they made loyalty oaths (though with some limitations, thanks to the system) that they could purchase goods. And the price still wasn’t low.

The oaths could become quite specific if they had a lot of conditions. For example, this Lord’s contracts were not too far from slaves’. The only difference was that it was slightly less intense, and they couldn’t be ordered to jump to their deaths. The limitation would either be in the time limit or in effectivity.

The Lord took advantage to get more oaths from his people.

To buy a piece of bread, or a cup of rice, and an extra blanket, many people had been forced to commit years of their lives to near-slavery.

For the weak, the effectiveness of the oath would be around ten to fifteen years, for the relatively strong, it was three years or even five years, which wasn’t a short amount either.

Many people did it, many did not, and a lot more of the latter died.

Like this, the Lord had completely grasped the power inside his village, and the deep kind due to the oaths. They couldn’t even leave even if they wanted to.

And because of this security, the Lord could afford to be careless, the mask he had been holding on to cracking.

By the time the cold wave ended, he already had several women of all ages in his harem, some were willing, some were forced, while most were practically sold. As for how the Lord treated them behind closed walls, no one knew, and no one had the energy to care.

Then, after the Cold Wave, the people only breathed for a few days until a new virus spread through them.

They had just finished burning their dead.

Once again, the Lord seemed aware of this disaster. He mentioned its symptoms, the way it spread, and the fact that it did not have a cure yet.

He forced everyone to stay in their homes, claiming that a pandemic was definitely here, and it was through cooperation that they would be able to go through this!

There were no symptoms at the time, but many trusted in the Lord’s prophecies and stayed at home. And they were fortunate that they did, because one by one, people started heating up, undergoing extreme fevers, and some started burning from within.

It was a horrid virus they had never seen before. People were literally burning from within, their skins expanding like molten lava was appearing underneath.

A lot of people were affected, especially the weaker ones.

Once again, the mass graves increased in size.

It would’ve been much worse if not for the warning and, once again, the Lord appeared like a prophet. Despite his increasingly blatant oppression, more people swore loyalty to him.

For the inhibitors and the vaccine, he also required the oath and a large amount of money. By this time, the majority of the people with decent levels and skills were already under oath.

Some of their friends were stubborn, and others survived but were now ’disabled’. They simply did not like the Lord’s conditions, and they did not like his character, so it was just against their instincts to commit years of life to him.

There were also those who treated the Lord as an enemy after experiencing some wrongs. There were far worse Lords, but this one wasn’t innocent either. He was just very, very skilled in hiding things.

The Lord acted like a good guy on the outside, so people believed in him. Similarly, when Alterrans made primary investigations, they thought he was a decent guy who could be an ally.

The requirements weren’t that stringent. As long as they weren’t abusing their people and were treating them inhumanely, then they could be allied with. There were so many territories in the region, and villages certainly didn’t warrant the Intelligence department to invest in sending spies there.

After two disasters, those who did not make oaths were ostracized. There were times when they could not even queue up in the restaurants. Before, the Lord wouldn’t do this in fear of retaliation. Now, when most of the population was under oath, what was he afraid of?

Nothing.

It was worse for their group, who were village powerhouses, as they had gained extra skills early on and leveled up faster than others.

The Lord had always wanted them completely loyal to him. They were guards and had made non-betrayal oaths, but somehow, the bastard kept wanting more.

Well, their abilities were indeed tempting.

There were more than a dozen of them there, and four of them were among the top 100 of the first awakeners back in Terran.

There would’ve been more, but sadly, they perished one by one the past 2 years. How could the Lord be willing to let go of the remaining ones?