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

Alterra

[Valov Town (Lv2) has waged a war against us. They had already made preemptive attacks, and suspicious activity will be strictly monitored. All traffic in and out of the Town would also be blocked, with the former requiring extra oaths. We hope for everyone’s understanding.]

[Everyone past Level 25 must report to the center within two hours. If unwilling, you will be asked to temporarily leave the premises while the war is ongoing. Otherwise, you will be hunted down and tagged as a suspicious individual.]

There were definitely a lot of spies below level 25, but that’d take too long as they now had thousands of people at that level, Alterran or otherwise.

Besides, their average combat ability (considering their guards’ equipment and tools) was already around this, so they could at least have higher chances of handling spies at this level.

It was much more efficient to monitor those who could really hurt them.

Zenno also said that bombs from dwarves required fire elementalists to work well, and this was proven by the latest addition to the prison, a high-level fire user.

If there were other bombs, then they already had a number of suspects for that. The ideal was that they’d enter their monitoring on their own; if not, then they’d use the remaining time to hunt them down.

In these couple of hours, the Elders were sent to finish their own work, the various standard operating procedures pre-war, except they were really more threatened this time and had an even higher sense of urgency. They had to assume there were more bombs around.

Oslo and Eugene went back to expedite some of the things their teams were developing. They also considered whether to take out a few prototypes and whether or not they were safe enough.

Althea went to her lab to begin studying the bomb shrapnels along with the array team, while Mathilda went to create some new in-war rules, especially now that the enemy had much more powerful weapons that could damage them even when their forces hadn’t reached the walls yet.

Some people, including Garan, scoured the territory to try to find out more about the bombs. They found the rest of the shrapnel—though it was more like a hollow sphere—hoping to find ways to detect bombs through them.

”Should we have kidnapped the dwarves in the end?” Mao couldn’t help but mutter at the side. He was there when they encountered the three teenage dwarves.

Since they had already seen and interacted with dwarves, Mao couldn’t help but feel a bit of regret about letting them go, especially now that they needed them.

As it was now, they had no idea how many bombs the enemies had, nor did they know how to handle them well.

If they had dwarves now, perhaps they could’ve gotten the detectors.

The unknown was quite disturbing, after all. Not knowing where the bombs could get planted, not knowing when they would get detonated, was disturbing.

The others, fortunately, gave voices of reason. ”There wouldn’t have been any use to develop the dwarves as an enemy. We would’ve encountered the dwarven weapons before this war if we really took them.”

Being attacked for luring innocent (bearded) teen dwarves was definitely not something they wanted to see.

Not to mention, starting a war due to a misunderstanding was extremely stupid.

Moving on, all parts of Alterra were mobilized to prepare for the upcoming war, with some added preparations.

When they saw dwarven weapons make appearances in the Ferrol war, they did try to establish a team to prepare for it. It was just that they were unsure where to start. Even if they did, it would take time to get results.

For now, all they could do was to make and enhance their own weapons, like the cannons, and perhaps study the defensive arrays well, hoping to find more applications on time.

They had hoped that Valov, even if they had dwarven weapons, wouldn’t have that many.

But seeing two used even before the war made them feel worried that the enemy would have a lot more in its arsenal.

”Which bomb was deadlier, dwarven or Terran?” Someone couldn’t help but ask, and many others—especially those who hadn’t been to the Ferrol-Papell War, hadn’t seen it with their own eyes. This would help them have a mental image.

”Our bomb is chemical, the enemy bomb is the explosion of aether,” Loku said. In a sense, their bombs could attack the body and matter, while the dwarven bombs could attack aether, which was the essence of things here, on top of the physical damage.

Garan’s eyes sharpened. Regardless of which one was stronger, there must be a way to find all of them.

...

Meanwhile, in an empty ward in the hospital, Harold and the others were kept and tied up.

There were signs of control. Their emotions and words were real, indicating they really believed their own words, but their eyes seemed glazed.

This wasn’t obvious, of course. This glaze was only visible to those with either a higher level than the caster, those who knew these people well enough to tell the difference, or those with deeper insight.

They were in the hospital because various tests had to be done. After Mathilda finished relaying her orders, she went straight here. She was the only psychological-type skill user there, so her cooperation was mandatory.

They had to figure this ability out as soon as possible. The user was definitely still running around. Althea confirmed it after looking at the panel. Sadly, it did not have a tracking function, so they had to manually hunt for the bastard.

And these bastards could hide.

Mathilda’s eyes sharpened, especially when she saw their pitiful friends and staff having to be tied up, looking gaunt in the past few days. They could even be psychologically damaged if they handled this incorrectly.

She clenched her fist.

If she found those bastards, she’d definitely make them suffer!