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

Virion met up with the couple in the inn. He had chosen the same accommodations as they did and was lucky to be on the same floor.

This was a system inn and did not have hidden compartments and hidden walls, so he just had to be careful not to be seen entering their room.

The couple’s room was the typical bedroom with a bed for two, as well as a little table and chairs at the side.

The aesthetic was the most typical wood and stone without any embellishment, but three beautiful people using them made the furniture look very high-end.

As for the size, they were just a bit bigger than usual to accommodate bigger body structures. Of course, there were rooms that had specifically been customized for orcs, though they were not used often unless the orc was rich and wanted to be pretentious.

The system buildings weren’t designed for their size in the end, and even if they hired human designers, it would not be of much use.

The customization was always limited to the facades and non-structural members. The structural members like columns and slabs, as well as the overall building footprint, could not be touched.

It was why orcs preferred manual construction a hundred percent of the time, unless they specifically wanted to emulate humans, which was not a common mindset.

(At the back of Althea’s mind, her money-grubbing self was whispering: Why not design establishments specifically for them in Alterra?)

”Have you spoken with the Lord?” Althea asked instead, perfectly professional.

Virion shook his head. ”They claimed it was an unknown, infectious disease and wouldn’t let me see them today.”

They said that they had to prepare the measures for viewing, so they delayed him the whole day. They definitely had people following him now—people around his level and with stealth skills.

This alone was indicative that there were more to this, and that they had backing. That level of guards was not what a mere town could fund.

Heck, he went to the couple’s room through the damned window! And he even had to activate his few stealth skills and tools, just to be sure he wasn’t detected.

It was such a hassle!

”You mentioned they’re starting a cooperative war. Which Town did they contact? It should be from a very far location, right?”

Quo Town was a level 1 town, but even they would struggle to find another level one town in nearby regions.

Like in the area near the desert, this region had far less density in terms of territories than the areas where Alterra, Ferrol, Holt, Hassen, and Bleulle were.

On the one hand, the western face of the Orspire mountain was dry because the mountain blocked wind and precipitation coming from the coast. If this were a world without the nourishment of aether, the strip of land left of the mountain would likely be drylands, if not outright desert.

Another, this region was a known orc area. The original territories here were either taken over or were unable to recover after losing. In time, fewer and fewer territories were left, and the rest had difficulty gathering even a bit of prestige for upgrading.

It was very difficult to expand influence, too, because of the aforementioned factors. Hence, upgrading was much slower than others, and it was not easy to find peers to cooperate with.

Most Lords with some ambition would be hostile, after all, as these peers were potential ’gold mines’ that were limited in number. For most territories that couldn’t build their own industries, winning wars was the easiest way to gather prestige, resources, and territory.

”Hmn, it’s a town called Lakna Town, associated with Crystal City.”

”Crystal City? That far?”

Althea made a rough mind map in her head. The closest city south of Alterra was Bleulle, which was already around five thousand kilometers away.

Five thousand kilometers was the distance between some famous Terran monuments located in different continents like the Taj Majel and the Great Pyramids of Goza.

Another several thousand kilometers South of Bleulle was Avel City, and at least ten thousand further down, near the desert areas, was Crystal City.

Meanwhile, Warrior City was thousands of kilometers East of Alterra and Bleulle.

To summarize, Crystal City was really far from here. It was either Crystal City had subsidiaries extremely far away from them, like Holt City, or Quo Town really went out of its way to look far and wide for a town to cooperate with.

Virion, knowing that Crystal City’s prestige wasn’t much different from Warrior City, leaned towards the latter.

Althea and Garan were curious about the conspiracies, but this seemed like it was a lot more trouble than they had thought. Their goal here was more to figure out the situation in the Orcspire Mountains. The whole issue with experiments was just incidental, and considering it involved cities, it could get too dangerous and drawn out.

They cared for this issue, yes—very much so—but they cared for their mission more.

Virion saw the couple’s expressions and sighed in understanding. ”This will take a while,” Virion said. ”You can focus on trying to find out more about your mission. This is our problem, and you don’t have to worry about it.”

The couple looked at each other and nodded. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help Virion, but they had their own priorities.

Nothing could triumph over their need to help their children.

But it wasn’t like they were completely cut off from this. They were still investigating the mountains, the access through them, as well as the sources of the Elysian plant. They could just investigate this as well, by the way.

”If you encounter trouble, just message us, and we’ll see what we can do to safely assist you.”

Virion nodded, shaking hands with the two. He knew that after today, they might have to communicate exclusively by letter. It was not worth the risk to meet up just for the sake of meeting up.

”Good luck. To all of us.”