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

For a race called ’savages’ by many humans, Orcs were surprisingly friendly. Even if their speech was a bit fragmented, lacking prepositions, proper conjugation, and so on, people could still understand their words.

People think they’re stupid, but their average IQ was actually not that far from the human average. They were still capable of logical thought; they simply never had the capacity to think deeply and ’overthink’.

The orcs relied on their instincts and did not have the scheming and deep thought people had.

Althea was relieved. It looked like the trip here wasn’t too perilous, which was a nice change considering she was so close to death just a few days prior just by entering the place.

Althea joined in the circle around the campfire. When she asked who started the fires there, they surprisingly told her that it was done by their leader, the Ox Orc.

The ox orc was named Apis. He was also Ohara’s husband.

His special ability had to do with creating intense vibrations with his body. It was so intense that the friction created heat, which could ultimately create fire.

Other orcs also knew how to make fires, though in different ways. At some point, they had also learned that cooked meat was more delicious, and its recovery effect on the body was greater than eating it raw.

This was a discovery that likely took decades to figure out, and Althea was thankful she didn’t have to explain she could only eat cooked meat.

”Have some of mine, sister.” Another piece of meat found its way on Althea’s leaf bowl. It was put there by the friendly chimpanzee she pointed at before, telling people they were relatives.

The chimpanzee’s name was Bable. Bable looked at Althea with interest. He was also very curious about the things she did.

Bable was very young, only a teenager. He had lost his family during the previous attack, just before they moved to this place. A sudden ’relative’ made him feel attached.

For the rest of the day, Althea and Ohara played around with herbs, and Bable was often there whenever he was done with his task (mostly making some nets and other basic hunting tools).

Althea couldn’t move too much, and drinking HP potions too close to each other was not efficient. It might even lead to potion fatigue, which would temporarily lessen the efficacy of the solution.

During the few hours in between, she bonded with various orcs, especially Ohara and Bable. There was also a pregnant deer called Bamba, who wasn’t allowed to move too much, either.

Bamba was apparently the first pregnancy in their tribe for years.

Her husband, Wereo, was a wolf and was actually one of the fighters who fought with the big monster before and was one of the injured ones. So, while doing some light tasks for the tribe, she was also one who took care of the injured.

In orc tribes, ’taking care’ of the injured was mostly feeding them meat. Fortunately, they had Ohara, so they had some plant paste to expedite the healing process to some degree.

There were some familiar flora, and some unfamiliar ones, so she and Ohara exchanged knowledge about them. Granted, Ohara’s knowledge was very surface-level, and some of her know-how was actually incorrect or incomplete.

For example, a plant may have initial or perceived effects, but would actually do the opposite underneath the surface. For example, they might help hasten the healing during the first day, but it would actually weaken the person, making them drowsy, and forcing them awake would end up worsening the wounds instead.

Another example was a plant she said could fill up the stomach. It indeed could, but only because it could expand inside the stomach, giving the illusion of fullness. However, after this effect was ’punctured,’ the person/orc would become several times hungrier than before.

With Althea there and her trusted Tori, she had corrected several of her misconceptions. Surprisingly, Ohara didn’t question her or be offended. Rather, she just silently corrected her own knowledge.

Althea had seen how ’simple’ their minds worked from here. To them, because they saw she was capable and confident, therefore what she said must be true.

Orcs could really be prime victims of scammers, but fortunately, the only potential scammer in this region was Althea.

Interestingly, while there were definitely no independent discoveries and deeper insights among orcs, Ohara still served as a proper healer. This was because of Ohara’s innate ability—plant sense.

She passively had a better sensitivity to plants. It was like she knew whether a portion would be harmful to her or not, and might even have the sense of determining whether something was beneficial, and in approximately what way.

As for the incorrect knowledge she knew, it was because the effects of the plants after consumption and after it reacted to various processes (whether inside the body or not) were beyond the scope of her abilities.

If Althea was to teach the doe anything, it would be how to approximate these effects.

For instance, there was a local plant called wombloom. The fruit was known for its sweetness (though the actual meat was not very much), but Althea found some interesting compounds in its seeds.

Through tori’s database, she found that the seed contained gestalin, something known to stabilize the placenta.

Other than that, it also had Myorelaxin, which could relax the uterine muscles without affecting others, as well as Vasaflorin, which could improve blood flow to the womb.

These were all compounds that assist in pregnancy. From her estimate, it should work with any race.

Althea took this chance to study the local flora more, sharing her knowledge by the way. This was a very interesting finding, and it certainly helped cool down her anxiety after being thrown into this whole new world without her husband.

As a half-orc, Nana’s pregnancy had been dangerous. In fact, later tests showed that she had given birth to more, but they had perished either in the womb or during birth. They never grew beyond the initial stages of growth, so even Nana was unaware these were fetuses.

The bird half-orc was already lucky to have multiple births surviving, but she was a very rare case. It was attributed to her husband’s highly resilient genes. It was very doubtful that other births would give the same effect, and this meant Maomao’s pregnancy was worrying. Since Althea already found a useful herb, she could use her time recovering to study it more.

Another thing to note about Ohara was that the instinct brought by her ability used her own physique as a reference. At best, orcs of similar builds.

This meant that her findings might not necessarily work as well with other orcs, especially other races. But that was more than enough, and it was certainly the best (and possibly only) condition among orcs to enter the herbalist or healer route.

Several hours passed, and Althea, after drinking another high-class potion, recovered enough so she could move around and go outside of the cave.

The entrance was not that big, just enough for two large orcs to walk in side-by-side. It was guarded by two guards around level 20.

As she emerged, Althea couldn’t help but look at her surroundings. The forest was filled with tall trees with thick trunks, much bigger than even the lushest forest in their area.

It was probably because of the constant mobs and extreme weather events happening every couple of years that the plants recovered fast, but they didn’t grow like this. It wasn’t that the extreme weather didn’t happen here, but judging by the sizes of the plants, the plants were much more resilient.

She shook her head. This wasn’t the time for any excess exploration. She needed to contact her husband.

In fact, she had been sending an aether letter out once in a while. It was just that there were no signs of it being connected, indicating that Garan was beyond the distance aether letters could get, even if the aether letter she had nearly had twice the scope as the original variant.

It was why she went out, hoping to get a ’signal,’ but to no avail.

She sighed. There were no leave message functions in aether letters either, so she had to send every hour or so and hope for a response. It seemed like a long shot, however.

The distance the bird took her alone should’ve already been beyond the letter’s scope, let alone how she was thrown into this side. Not to mention, she was further taken away by the tribe after that.

If there was only a way to expand the aether letter’s scope, even if it were just temporary.

At this, she suddenly remembered that interesting metal they found in the desert. As one of its first users, Althea was very clear about its effects.

At this, Althea immediately took out an ore, and her emerald eyes glinted in interest.

What if...?