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

At the right elevation near this town, one could already see the orcspine mountains.

As they trekked through the woods, fought monsters, camped, and so on, Althea couldn’t help but look out and stare at the mountain range every so often.

She couldn’t help it. It was really a unique mountain range.

The mountain was definitely natural, though its appearance was so smooth that it seemed like someone had carved the surface and smoothened them out.

Its mass was also really expansive. Once you see it, you wouldn’t be able to see either end unless you were at the end.

From certain angles, it was akin to a giant wall that was so steep it looked like one had to literally ’climb up’ the mountain to go through.

Its peak reached the clouds; climbing that way would’ve been very difficult, even for powerhouses. There also seemed to be a lot of flying monsters there. From where she was, even with the binoculars, they looked like a group of fruit flies.

Anyway, all these made her curious about how large groups of orcs crossed through that mountain to mesh with the human territory.

”From what I understood, it seems like there is an initial batch of orcs that passed through the mountains,” she said. ”Or do they come over often?”

That was to say, was there an open channel because—if there was—they did not know where it was.

”No idea. I thought you’d have to climb up or something.”

”...okay, then how would we go up?” Althea asked, looking at the steep and smooth slopes that reached to the sky.

”We don’t know either.”

Althea: ”...”

Athea rubbed her temple.

Garan, the dutiful husband, held her hand and did it for her.

Virion: ”...”

”Maybe we’d get more information in Quo Town,” he said, sighing, suddenly very tired.

Regardless of the trouble, Quo was the town closest to the mountain, and their best chance of finding out what to do next.

She couldn’t help but look at their own map of the area, which was just an overview with not much detail.

From here, one could see the entire eastern edge was pretty much separated from their side with this mountain, and then one could also see the longitudinally central area where Quo Town was, which was also where the orc villages were concentrated.

This meant that, if there was an entrance somewhere, it would be on this part. Even if they had no idea where exactly it was in the span of hundreds of kilometers, they at least had a starting point for where to look.

Through the years, more and more vagrant orcs settled down in the region. Currently, Quo Town could be called the central hub for orcs in the area.

The trio arrived at the borders of Quo Town a day later. This time, Althea and Garan were not planning to use their masking token.

Virion knew the local Lord, and if there was an inconsistency between information, then there would be questions. Anyway, there was no need to hide their real identities this time.

Again, it wasn’t that they did not trust Virion. The masking token was just something that had to be on a strictly need-to-know basis for everyone’s sake.

As they approached the distant walls, the group observed first the town’s notable surrounding area.

Quo Town was already a newly-upgraded level 3 village before it was taken over by orcs so it already had max-level village buildings. They also had special buildings like the barracks and so on. Sadly, it had grown stagnant since it was taken over.

As for how Quo Town was occupied by outsiders, Virion said that it was partly due to bad luck, though an inevitable one. (They got history lessons here and there; the guy was chatty around people he liked).

When the mass migration of orcs began, it so happened that several neighboring villages were at war (wars were also far more common in those days).

Quo Town had just upgraded to a level 3 village back then. As a new village, it was then attacked by another, somewhat distant, level 3 village to take advantage of its weakness.

Though Quo won in the end, they had been greatly weakened. Even at their peak, they wouldn’t have been able to handle the orcs, let alone now. They were helpless and could only succumb to the influx of the invading species.

According to the stories, the Lord was unlucky to have lost the token to an orc who merged with it after the war ended. Interestingly, the way of losing varied across versions.

Most made it seem like the orc beat the Lord for the token, but was it really like that? When they arrived at this new place, they didn’t even know the Token could get detached. Would orcs—a race not known for their brains—know any better?

Regardless, unlucky villages in the area encountered a relatively large number of orcs, were helpless due to the differences in strength, and ended up getting taken over as well. This didn’t happen at the exact same time, but they happened historically very close to each other.

The humans were suppressed, passively or actively. They were allowed to continue living there, though the dynamics between humans and orcs at the beginning were actually unknown.

Virion said that there were no formal accounts back then, but he and his brother firmly believed—mostly due to the characters of the orcs they knew—that this ’invading species’ probably didn’t act like invaders at the start.

They reckoned they were literally just immigrants who encountered a new place culturally so very different from their own.

Althea was also fairly certain the whole ’plundering women to impregnate them’ did not happen from the start and was certainly not their instinct. It was a radical thought that developed through time, possibly disseminated by a few but powerful people with something wrong in their heads.

Over the next few decades, more orcs settled down, and more villages became orc-owned. Naturally, the humans would not sit still with this new power popping up, especially one with no finesse and social skills.

War between orc villages and human villages in the area began and intensified. But what could village-humans do against orcs? Not very much unless they got assistance from stronger territories.

It was just that at the time, since wars were more frequent, it meant that most territories were going to war. Who’d have enough resources to spare for people so far away?

As for whether this mass orc migration happened in a short period of time or over a long period of time, they had no idea. The orcs certainly didn’t have history books, and their odes—and other forms of oral literature—were mostly related to hunting and food.

Also sex, but the vulgarity had very narrow vocabulary, making the work seem like comedy to Althea instead.

However, Althea would become more and more certain that there must’ve been misunderstandings at the beginning.

It became clear that Orcs...weren’t particularly fond of the walls or being enclosed in them. It wasn’t to the point of avoidance, but more of a preference, like a human disliking a small room and feeling stifled in it.

She had seen a tiny glimpse of it in Tarron, though it wasn’t intense enough to note at the time.

In such a case, why would they target a territory to take over?

This was especially true in Quo, which had a far larger population outside the walls.

Like many orc villages, the orcs of Quo also built their own little spaces outside of the town. The monsters here were stronger and more troublesome, yes, but there were still plenty who preferred to live outside the walls.

For many orcs, being enclosed was against their instincts.

Interestingly, the stronger they were, the stronger this instinct got. At the powerhouse level, they might even abhor it.

This shift usually happened when the orc reached town-level, so the sentiment was weak in Tarron village or in others.

So, unlike in some villages where those outside the walls were those at the bottom of society, it wasn’t exactly the case here in a town. It could be quite the opposite, even.

The orcs built clans, and some of them built settlements outside the walls, like little satellites. They were small and only consisted of a few family units or small groups. They did not encounter one when they headed there because they used a common route.

As for where they set these up, Orcs would generally avoid the common routes because it was too noisy, and not many people went in this direction. This was why they hadn’t encountered such a small satellite before.

Anyway, if one knew where to look and didn’t fear these orcs (which was quite rare), one could try to look for these little settlements. Anyway, they were usually not beyond ten kilometers away from the walls.

With them there, Quo Town had barely experienced any hardship in any beast mob that came their way.

Overall, it was very interesting. She learned something new again today.