After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 1074

Chapter 1074: Yelena and Kimmy

A/N: *cough* I’m scheduling tomorrow’s chapters right now so I know for sure we’re already done with pre-time skip xDD I get embarrassed too when I miscalculate, okay!?

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Meanwhile, at the back of the audience, three women stood together. It was Helen, Yelena, and a young lady with highlighted brown hair.

It was Samantha, Gian’s sister. 1She had reached her 18th birthday the previous week and was no longer under the orphanage. However, she took a full-time job as a staff there, and Helen was happy to have her.

She also kept her part-time job at the Supermarket, which she went to when the kids were at school.

“It’s so nice to have Miss Kimmy stay with us,” she said. “I can never tell decent stories.”

When she tried, she just droned and even she felt like she was going to fall asleep with her own voice.

She was the direct opposite of her gregarious friend Penny1, who—she heard—had resigned in her artist job at the newspaper, opting to do auditions for the entertainment company Elder Ansel was setting up instead.

It was a little out-of-character to be honest, but then she heard stories about what she probably experienced when she was a slave in Fargo, and Samantha realized that she—despite being abandoned by her brother—was still very lucky.

“Indeed,” Helen said, agreeing with her. “The kids loved her since she moved in here a few days ago.”

Samantha looked at her. “I thought you were agreeing with me not being a good storyteller.”

“That, too.”

“…”

She sighed. Well, it wasn’t as offensive if she just accepted it as fact. In the end, she turned her head to the kids and then to Kimmy, who had made great improvements from when she had arrived here more than a month ago.

It felt like it wasn’t long ago when Kimmy was the silent doll whom few people could interact with.

Of course, Kimmy was still not fully recovered and would spend most of the day brooding inside her room. However, whenever the children were in the orphanage, she would occasionally pop up to bond with them, as if getting used to handling children.

Alterra could heal people, that was for certain, and Kimmy—on top of her own strength, of course—was a testament to that.

“Kimmy is a great storyteller and could understand the hearts of children,” Samantha added. “I heard she was quite the movie fanatic back then. I guess it’s true.”

“Kimmy…” they heard a whisper from the side. It was from the newcomer, Yelena. She said Kimmy’s name repeatedly, as if trying to recall something.

“It’s that Kimmy,” Helen said. “I’m sure Lord Yassop told you about her.”

Yelena’s eyes flickered, fixing on the woman amidst the dozen children. She had indeed heard of this person, her father told her about what happened.

First of all, a female lord was something impossible in her mind. Even if her power later crumbled down when Patte ruined everything in the worst way, the fact that it happened was something difficult to wrap her head around.

Further, frankly speaking, what happened to Kimmy was worse than what had happened to her. Not only was she abused by more than one person—it was done in public, too.

The only reason they were certain it was Patte’s was because he was the only one who ‘unloaded’ inside.

Just the thought made Yelena shiver. The humiliation and degradation must’ve been unimaginable.

Yet… right now, Kimmy was lovingly holding her stomach, as if she adored whatever was in there.

Yelena remembered when she was pregnant. The bigger it got, the more disgusted she felt about herself. She wanted to stab it many times.

Was she okay? How?

Yelena felt complicated. She hadn’t talked much to her son, but this person with similar experiences was so… different from her, and she couldn’t fathom the reason why.

Did her father make a mistake? Perhaps Kimmy didn’t ‘hate’ it or Patte?

In theory, even if they were put in the same situation, Yelena should actually be much more accepting than Kimmy was.

After all, aborigine women were raised and conditioned by society to be obedient to men. In contrast, Terran women were more independent and prideful.

Psychologically, Yelena should’ve adjusted better with the situation, perhaps even ‘glad’ that she would marry ‘upwards’.

She was not the first to have been impregnated. There was another one from a subsidiary village. Perhaps the seeds he was spreading relentlessly bore fruit someplace else as well.

In any case, that woman was quick to enter Patte’s harem—or rather, her father was quick to send her to Basset. It was just that Patte got bored of her quickly and did not like staying in the Town at all, so she lived an isolated, lonely, and neglected life.

Ironically, Patte’s other women—who could not get pregnant—schemed to get her into an accident, ultimately killing the woman and her child.

However, Yelena and her father were different. They wanted nothing to do with Patte—they were thoroughly disgusted by him.

She just felt the evil in Patte’s heart and she believed the kid she was bringing into the world was the same kind. How could she not dislike him?

Didn’t Kimmy have the same concerns?

“You know…” Helen said. “She would love to talk to you, too.”

Yelena blinked. “Me?”

The older woman looked at her. “Don’t you have questions you want to ask her?”

…

“How can you… take it?” was the first thing Yelena asked as soon as she was alone with Kimmy.

They were in her room, which was in the layout of a staff member’s room. It was a fraction of the size of the dormitories, but it was private with one bed, a desk, and a closet. Kimmy sat on her bed, while Yelena sat on the chair.

“It was not easy,” Kimmy said. “I have only started to talk recently.”

She had long sessions with Juliet, who was now practically her best friend. She must’ve cried a lifetime’s worth of tears at the time. Maybe she could’ve pushed even more, but Juliet reminded her that being to stressed was not good for the child, so she ended up forcing herself to recover.

“Just don’t have to think of the child as a monster,” was all she said. “They’re different people, Yelena. Patte is one person, the child is another.”

“But that man…”

Kimmy turned to the other woman. “It doesn’t matter. Your child is a new person—one who was still so moldable and influenceable.

“We have a chance to guide them to become good people. On the contrary, if you left the child alone and let him grow up hating himself, he might turn evil—who do you think would be to blame, then?”

Yelena’s eyes widened and she shuddered. Her hands gripped her skirt and she bit her lips in bitterness.

Her eyes welled with tears as he whipped her head up, looking at the other woman who should understand her best.

What did she expect going here? Sympathy? Approval? She did not know.

“It’s not that I don’t feel bad for what I’m doing. I am not blind!” Yelena said, tone rising. Her voice was cracking in pain. “But… whenever I see that boy, I remember—”

Her voice died when she felt arms wrap around her, surrounding her with warmth.

“You don’t have to push yourself too much,” Kimmy said. “But it helps to just think of the boy as a separate entity. To do this, he has to live his own life, develop his own personality.”

“However, for him to grow up well, he should feel the proper guidance of adults—especially his mother.”

Yelena’s eyes were wide and she wrapped her arms around the other woman. She buried her face in her shoulder and wept.

Kimmy sighed, recalling her own state not that long ago, and patted the other girl’s head.

“First, accept him for who he is, just make him feel he is not a sin, he is not trash, and he is not unwanted.

“I’m not rushing you to love him—that is not easy,” she said. “Not when you no longer love yourself.”

“Work on yourself first. Get a job, buy things for yourself, see more of this place—which I guarantee is a whole new world for you.”

“Then… when you pick yourself back up, look back and open your heart again—first of all, to your own son.

“My child would not have a father—and he or she doesn’t need one. In our hearts, that bastard does not exist, and he will be forgotten like the useless dust that he is.”

“I can raise my baby on my own,” she said. “I am his mother, after all…”

They parted and Kimmy held Yelena’s face as if to make sure she was listening. “Similarly, that boy of yours… also needs his mother.

“As the person who gave birth to him, you—at least—must be the first to acknowledge his existence.”