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

Was this their future?

Aisa felt her knees buckle, and she fell down, but she was held up. In a daze, she lifted her head to see the person who helped her out.

She was a little startled when she saw that it was a woman with a lot of scars, but somehow her glimmering emerald eyes made people want to stare.

She wasn’t startled because of the scar—in a village, man or woman, people generally suffered and had scars in various parts of their bodies—but because she did not recognize her at all.

Aren’t all of them here from her village? She had never seen her before. Such scars should’ve been quite characteristic.

Villages were only so big. She had lived there for more than two decades, so she should at least recognize everyone’s faces.

Aisa wondered whether the girl was a newcomer who was just unlucky to have encountered a war.

If so, for some reason, she felt guilty. It was a reflective blame because her home territory was lost.

The woman was unaware of her dynamic thought process, letting her go after she was stably standing.

”No problem,” the woman said, voice naturally velvety. ”Women should all help each other out.”

Aisa blinked, feeling that the words had other meanings.

”T...Thank you,” she said, but she somewhat wanted to stick with this woman. It just felt...safer.

Unexpectedly, a yell bellowed from behind them.

”STOP STALLING!”

They flinched and continued moving forward. The women were quite slow though. Many of them were injured and the walk from the array to the village was not too short, especially if they were already in pain.

The guards lost patience and shoved them forward, with many women falling down on top of each other like dominoes.

Bang!

This was what Aisa saw, but was not part of. She blinked, feeling the soft hand on her arm. She realised that, at some point, she was pulled to the side, helping her avoid the collisions.

She looked at the scarred woman who just looked at the others, sighing. It was not that she was indifferent to them, rather, Aisa felt like the other woman was feeling pity that she was unable to help others.

Don’t ask her how she knew; it was a woman’s intuition.

What a nice woman, Aisa thought. She was already in this precarious situation, and she could still think of others.

This was in stark contrast with the rest of the villagers with her. They were mostly crying, utterly despondent.

Aisa decided to follow this woman around. Wherever she chose to sit, she would sit there too.

She had never felt any safer.

...

Althea had no idea what colorful thoughts the girl was having. If she knew, she’d smile a little. This one was definitely sad and terrified, but she had enough mental fortitude to think of positive things anyway.

Her emerald eyes were fixed on the surroundings.

It was pretty much a large cave. In terms of area, it was probably a few basketball courts in size, though the ceiling height ranges from less than two meters to just about three meters in height.

The women were scattered around, some sitting and some lying down, though the space between was not wide, averaging a foot.

These women must be from different villages, and this meant that many of the women before that had either been distributed or dead.

She also saw some half orc females around, and their attires were better than others. They must be those half orcs that had been ’created’ in similar villages. She heard these orc-led territories also went to war with each other, though not so often.

Althea and Aisa settled themselves at a free edge near the entrance. It was pretty cramped but there were a few gaps here and there.

”I wonder where my brother is...” Aisa whispered at the side, her tone carrying a hint of sadness. She looked at the door, hoping her brother was still alive and well.

Several others heard this and went over, as if to join and wallow in shared despair. Some prayed for their lovers or husbands, some for their sons, and some for their friends or neighbors.

These women, at least, retained some of their sanity and could still move around, unlike some unlucky ones who had been abused even before entering the array.

However, none of them were naive enough to think nothing would happen to them after the orcs left them behind. The state of the women already there was very telling, not to mention they had heard of a lot of things growing up.

Seeing Aisa, a familiar face, the other women from the village positioned themselves relatively near her and Althea. They noticed them being much calmer than the rest, as well, attracting them subconsciously.

If one surrounded oneself with someone calm and collected, it tended to be infectious.

Althea saw that while everyone was terrified, pale, and extremely anxious, there were still some of them who could be spoken with—at least for now. Althea intended to take advantage of this to discuss their current situation.

This was made easy when the girl next to her, Aisa, opened the topic. ”Hello, my name is Aisa. Are you from our village?”

Althea nodded. ”In a sense,” she said. ”I am a new arrival. It’s just that...”

The women looked at her with pity. Indeed, one decision and one accident could truly change the trajectory of someone’s life.

”I was hiding the whole time,” she added. ”Can you tell me more about our situation? Like what we have lost.”

She found out that their village had three elementalists, which was very rare for a village. Rather, outside the Alterran region, it was an impossible case.

It was just that the territory was quite old and was on the verge of becoming a town. It already had a certain population and history.

The three elementalists weren’t relatives at all, one was even in a different generation. They just arrived there one by one over the past several decades.

One was injured and could no longer fight to the death. The previous village was not bad, accepting someone like him. Sadly, even that is gone now.

The next one was Aaron, Aisa’s brother, and he was taken in by the orcs themselves, fate unknown.

Anyway, the village was already on the cusp of upgrading, which made their loss particularly sad. Hopefully, it was still standing now, though the orcs were not weak and it was hard to say if they’d survive a beast mob.

Their village was old, nearly a hundred years old, and had its own industries, even if it were just specially processed gouji berries.

They talked like this for a while. Though the topic was sad, speaking with other women brought comfort, and more people actually went to them to listen in. Even some of the old slaves sat up, looking in their direction.

Althea did not mind the followers she had. She was already thinking of how to help them out. And she had to move today.

After all, these women might be taken up tonight for pleasure. Althea was not sure if she could allow herself to stay still when that happened.