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

It didn’t take long for their group to encounter mobs.

Fortunately, it was just a few level 20s amidst scores of village-level monsters.

This was just the average mob in this area, and just this could literally flatten an average village.

For mobs like these which could benefit some members, they take it as training mobs as well.

Of course, because they had a mission, anything that could take too much time wouldn’t be allowed to, so things were still measured.

Beru, Virion, Garan, and the level 30s did not make moves this time, allowing those who could gain experience to gain it. All they had to do was make sure no one was injured too seriously, while at the same time not taking too long to finish things off.

If there were new mobs attracted, the three of them would likely deal with them to save on time.

Althea was one of the people shining best, even more so than the men a few levels higher.

She did not hide her elements from these people, considering them allies, and she summoned an earth platform that would allow her to shoot at will.

Even Virion was impressed, that roughish smile gracing his handsome face again. ”The lady is really amazing! Capable women are indeed very sexy—”

Amusingly, before Garan could make a move, a random leaf smacked Virion’s face instead.

”...”

Garan’s lips twitched upwards, eyes filled with approval. His wife is so good.

Anyway, Virion’s opinion was pretty genuine. He had heard a lot, but he did not expect she was this impressive in a fight.

In his impression, the Lady was a top alchemist, which was already highly impressive, so seeing her fight—and fight well—was totally unexpected.

He thought she’d be a dodder in fights, sticking to her husband’s side the whole time.

This is how a woman should be!

Anyway, the group of level 20s fought against a mob with almost a hundred monsters, dozens of which were level 20s.

Althea herself, after taking down several weaker ones, jumped over to handle a level 26 monster, which was one of the highest level ones in this group.

That said, it might not be the highest level one, it certainly was the most troublesome one.

It was a rare digger that almost killed quite a few of them, though they were saved thanks to Garan and the other watchers nearby.

It was called a Gratermole, level ranging from 23 to 26, and there were two in this mob.

Compared to the other level 20 monsters, they had brought more trouble than others.

Althea used her earth scan ability to track it, and she was shocked by how quick the digger actually went around. Had it been bigger, it would’ve directly created sink holes after a few movements.

While standing above her own platform, Althea tried to use her earth skills to close some underground paths or squeeze it.

It was quick and its reflexes were not a joke. It reminded her of the long-forgotten feeling of trying to smack a persistent fly to death.

Not to mention, because if lived underground, it was naturally very sensitive to any movement in the earth surrounding it.

In the end, Althea had to give up using the earth to kill it. Instead, she summoned the grey water from her space.

The several gallons of water floated peacefully for a few seconds before it entered the tunnel.

The digger wasn’t too big, but the tunnels it made weren’t small, so it would be naive to think she could flush it out with water. Not to mention, it could just create a new path.

Instead, the water exploded into mist so it could cover a much wider area.

It was one of the ’Strategies Against Digger-type Monsters’ that had been published along with the updated version of the monster encyclopedia, available at one of Alterra’s Aether Building, the Alterran Library.

It had several versions, with techniques divided according to the fighter or the elementalist. There were plenty of contributors here and each one received an impressive amount of contribution points per (verified) technique that they detailed.

This technique was counted as one of the advanced techniques due to transforming the water into another form, mist, but Althea could take it up another level.

Althea also added the acid there before she turned it into mist. It wasn’t enough to kill the mole in its mid-level-20s, or even hurt it significantly, but it got so irritated as if it was sprayed with pepper spray.

It struggled underground for a few moments before it instinctively emerged from the ground.

Since her acid could only irritate the monster, the main function was really to push it up, making it easier to finish off.

As for why this worked, Althea had three theories.

One might be because of their sensitive sensory organs. Burrowing-type monsters relied on other sensitive organs like whiskers, antennas, and so on to ’see’. When the acid hit these organs, even if the damage was limited, it was enough to irritate these organs.

The monster’s instincts would be to escape the irritation and regain its bearings.

Another possibility was the monsters’ oxygen-seeking behaviour. The acid might’ve made breathing a bit painful and it instinctively went to find the largest source, which was the surface.

It was similar to how smoke could drive monsters out of burrows.

Speaking of which, this was one of the techniques as well, and fire users use it best.

Manually making fire and smoke had limited effects on strong monsters since they could just create new openings or kill the fire directly.

For one, normal fire couldn’t really hurt strong monsters at all. Fire elementalist not only could produce damaging fire and smoke, they were also adaptable and could change locations at will.

Lastly, the monsters could treat it as a foreign contaminant or react differently with underground environments.

All of these would be confirmed or disproved when their home scientist dissected this monster to study it more closely. For now, Althea just took note of it.

The group barraged it with attacks as if emerging, and the kill shot was rightfully given to Althea, using an earth spike that emerged right from the tunnel that it came from.

Earth that monsters or other elementalists had just used were much easier to manipulate.

[Killed! Gratermole (Lv26)! +950 EXP, +950 Copper!]