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

Of course, as curious as she was, she wasn’t going to go there recklessly. She would investigate the danger levels there first, and of course, wait for her husband so they didn’t increase the distance between them.

Calculating, the man should also be in the mountains now. She just didn’t know which side he was in and where exactly he currently was.

If the forest where the Feyun tribe resided could be considered an ’old’ forest, then that area could be called ancient.

It was within the horizon, so it looked near, but one had to remember that Xeno was far larger than Earth. What would be a 10-kilometer horizon view on Earth could go hundreds here, depending on where you stand.

Still, considering how fast people could go, even one or two hundred kilometers could still affect this place.

She took out her scope to study it further. Anyway, the orcs below could handle the remaining mobs by now. She noticed that the closer it was to that area, the fewer paths were created by big monsters or large mobs when they passed by.

In contrast, the density of such paths was relatively consistent anywhere else.

Do monsters avoid that area or something?

As curious as she was, of course, she didn’t let herself remain in a daze for long. There were still a number of monsters left, including a weakened level 30 monster.

She looked at the fights happening below again and saw that two more monsters had come close by. It was a bit sooner than expected, but then she realized that the winds had slowed down again.

Was this kind of thing supposed to happen so often? From her impression, the winds in this area were very strong, even if a bit erratic, 98% of the time.

Regardless, her instincts were telling her to hurry up.

She controlled a few more vines to hasten the process, making them wrap around the surviving monsters’ legs.

The vines she used were the existing vines here. They were larger and heavier than what she was used to, so they consumed more mana, but they were also sturdier.

They also had a denser amount of wood energy inside them, making it easier to control than she thought. Calculating energy consumption, using these ’old’ vines was very cost-efficient.

The monsters lost balance for a few seconds, and the orcs took advantage to finish them off. They raised their bloodied claws to stab at the monster. Some attacked its neck, others its stomach, and then it finally died.

She was about to tell them that she would stay, so she could wait for her husband, when one of the orcs—in the form of Wolf—bellowed. ”The wind is about to stop!”

The yell from below resounded in the area, making everyone tense up.

The Wolf was Woleo, Wereo (Bamba the pregnant deer’s husband), and the passive form of his innate skill was wind sensitivity. Althea had expected this skill on a bird-type, but wolves, even in Terran, were indeed known for their sensitivity to wind direction.

Without further ado, everyone prepared to leave, asking Althea to jump down immediately.

Althea was reluctant to leave, but she also knew that it had just become several times more dangerous than before.

This place had a high density of strong monsters. Once the wind stopped, they could pretty much say goodbye to a few members’ limbs and lives.

Althea jumped down and was carried by the largest elephant orc on his shoulder.

They didn’t have time to slaughter the monsters, so they just took what they could.

Althea’s space was the largest of them all, so she took the most meat. Of course, considering how much she already had inside, the free space left was just enough to take in one of the level 20 beast carcasses that had just been killed. The level 30 one was impossible for them to take away except for a bit of meat.

While they were rushing back to the cave to prepare the entire tribe for the upcoming mobs, Althea also did not forget to send a warning to her husband.

[The wind is about to stop. Please find a place to hide before it does. Let’s cancel our rendezvous for now.]

He couldn’t reply to her since his aether letter was not upgraded, but he should still be close enough to receive her messages.

At the same time, they did not have the leisure to completely take their time, so even on the run, and even when apart, they had to gain some progress.

They had already spent a few days here, and they had yet to find a confirmed clue to the target legendary tree. Heck, they hadn’t even gotten a single piece of the mission plant yet.

After Althea realized that the orcs were reasonable, Althea no longer worried too much for their safety, even when they were apart. Sure, it was still very dangerous, but being part of a community could do a lot of good.

[If you find the chance and encounter some orcs, can you find out more about the large, ancient forest in the East? It’s the only anomaly I found so far that could be related to our target.]

[Be careful, watch yourself well, and I will do the same. We will meet again soon, my love.]

...

The wind completely stopped while they were still on the way home.

ROAAAARRR!!

They were immediately mobbed by several monsters from various directions. They did not engage in battle with any of them—they could not afford to—and everyone focused on just running away.

This situation reminded Althea of their first upgrade mob. At the time, they had no idea it would get so intense. Sure, they had a heads-up from the aborigine hires, but seeing it with their own eyes was still different. Not to mention, it was already a well-known fact that Althea’s upgrade mobs had always been more intense than others.

The difference was that they had no walls and no sentries to guard them.

Brit, the avian orc with beast-repelling skills, screamed in the direction they were heading to decrease the beasts there. Meanwhile, Althea—still being carried—summoned several vines to hold down several others.

Many of the orcs got injured on the way, but they did reach their home not long after that. Althea immediately created an earth platform to temporarily block the way.

BANG!

BANG!

She’d try to manipulate the rocks around them to create a sturdier wall, but her mana had been drained by the earlier fights, so this would have to do for now.

BANG!

BANG!

The cave could not be completely airtight, though. Not to mention there were so many of them in there, everyone needed enough oxygen. Large orcs required even more, so it was inevitable for spots of the cave to have openings for ventilation.

These holes were natural and integrated into the hill itself, so it wouldn’t be easy for the monsters to dig through them. However, smelling people was absolutely easy during null winds.

Normally, in their area, the mobs heading in their direction would find nearby prey. If they couldn’t find them, then they would follow the wind, eventually joining the large number of monsters along the wall. But the wind wasn’t in their favor, so their spot was pretty much ’aromatic’ for the surrounding beasts.

To summarize, no matter how much Althea blocked the entrance, monsters would still come knocking in situations like these.

BANG!

BANG!

Althea used her remaining mana to stabilize the earth wall, at least for a while. She added some harder rocks as reinforcement, and she also widened the base, creating buttresses, to fight against the forces outside.

She heaved a deep breath when she was done before checking the state of her allies.

But when she turned, she saw the orcs gaping at her again.

”I’m...also an earth orc.”

”...”

...

BANG!

BANG!

Everyone knew that the walls wouldn’t last forever. They simply took this chance to recover, with every injured person eating meat appropriate for their levels.

Althea sat at the side, eating her own food (and those given to her by, like, a dozen orcs), her eyes fixed on the cavern’s mouth.

The windless days happen several times every year. She heard that normally, there were dozens of casualties each time, and deaths were not uncommon.

Living pretty much ’out in the open’ felt too cumbersome for Althea, who owned her own territory.

”Why don’t you go to that forest area further East?” she asked. ”I see that no monster tries to go there.” While she knew there was more to that place than meets the eye, she’d like to figure out more information about it as soon as possible.

”That area is called the Hollow Forest. We do not go there; nothing comes out.”

”I see...”

So very dangerous, then.

”It is a place even monsters avoid by instinct.” The orcs didn’t explain more, probably because they were not very clear on what went on there either, but Althea had her own guesses.

Anyway, this confirmed that there really was something on that side, and—after she figured out why the monsters were so afraid of it—it was definitely worth exploring.