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

Crystal City could not attack Ferrol since it was on a different tier, but the relatively midway Papell Town, which was an ally and a business partner for decades, could.

Papell Town actually had no idea that there was such a new product at first. The merchants naturally chose to head straight to Cities when they could, as the items were resold there for a much higher price.

It was just that some people from the Town would occasionally go to the City, and they found a superior equivalent to theirs. It was sold at a higher price by the merchants.

Then they found out through close connections that they had apparently added a lot of markup along with others. This actually made things even more concerning because this meant that somehow, the other side could produce the superior products for cheap! Possibly at even lower cost than what they could!

The Papell merchants couldn’t help but buy several copies and send them to their own experts. They studied it well, its composition, and so on. The raw materials indicated that the base was also plant fibers, but they couldn’t figure out how they managed to make such good parchments!

And even if some had theories, they didn’t know how to produce them for a low cost! Even if they attempted it, they’d have to price it for a much higher price than what the other sold for, and their profit margin would be too low for the capital they had to churn out.

When they realized that it was impossible for them to beat it, they went straight to the Lord to beg them to ban the item. This was in exchange for better deals, only to find out they were encountering similar problems.

Even if there were literally only a few products that reached their territory—two rims of paper, sold in pieces, and one glass plate, two glass cups, and one vase—they were enough to make them feel a sense of alarm.

After months of investigation, after tracing back several merchant groups from various territories, they finally ended up on Ferrol Town, which had been known as the commercial town that many people on their side also knew of.

Thinking of this made sense, so their investigators surmised that the products either came from them or at least passed through them.

After such intense investigation, they had naturally heard of Alterra Town, but when they found out it had been a village less than a year prior, they did not think of them too much. They were biased, but it was usually the case. Who knew they’d encounter such a massive exception?

Not that they knew of this yet, of course.

As for how they missed the fact that the medicine they bought from Warrior City was from this place, Virion and the others kept it a secret to protect their interest, which was the natural course of action.

Alterra was so far away. How were they supposed to know that they’d cross swords with such an important place?!

That said, not everyone agreed to the decision to attack Ferrol either. For one, several advisors from Papell Town disagreed for all the reasons why high level towns did not want to go to war.

Regardless of amount, half of the assets and registered population of a losing territory would fall to the victorious party. For towns of their level, that could mean decades of hard work, gone. And this was a conservative estimate.

There had been records of once-thriving towns becoming empty shells after a war, especially when other towns take advantage of the weakness to gain resources too.

Wars were basically ’legal’ plundering, after all, and if the other side could not defend against them, that was on them.

The heir for Papell Town, Rigam, was leading the voice of the Elders, hoping for their Lord not to declare war back then. For the most part, he was rational and knew of the risks—and that they were completely unnecessary.

Another part of him simply wanted to go against his own father.

The current Lord was not the son of the previous Lord, but rather his son-in-law. The previous Lord had been afflicted by the Fire Plague and was rendered useless, but his daughter—his only child—wasn’t even considered to become the heir because she was a girl.

That said, although she was physically weak, she was quite smart and had a relatively strong mentality compared to other women.

When a handsome, strong man—one who had been a guard of their family—offered to become the Lord-in-name, she accepted it. However, he was, in actuality, letting her lead. He was even willing to sign a deep oath for it.

Oaths had a lot of limitations, especially for strong people. The adjustments either had to have looser conditions or had shorter effective lengths. However, if the heart of the oath-taker was extremely sincere, the oaths could be made a little more effective.

This was the case with the previous Lord’s daughter.

The previous Lord died not long after that as well due to the disease, so she was desperate to stabilise the rule.

To be fair, at the time, the Lord was truly sincere. It was also because of this that his mother did not dare ask him to add emotional loyalty to the oath, for fear of cooling his heart.

That was her first mistake.

It so happened that through the decade of inability to bear a child, the man had a change of heart and faltered in his love.

This was cemented when a seductive woman caught his attention, touched his desires, and encouraged his infidelity, which wasn’t even unusual for a man of his stature.

It so happened that the oath was still true...even if the woman died on her own, as long as it was without his hand in it.

The mistress, knowing the oath, did not tell her lover anything and acted on her own. Even if he did, if he did not take the oath, perhaps he wouldn’t have minded either.

The once-upright man had been corrupted by power already and had not been reconciled by working under a woman for so long, especially one who ’could not lay eggs’ for the longest time.

That was the beginning of the fall for Rigam’s mother, and he would never forgive his father for it.