After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 1076

Chapter 1076: The Strongest Village

Althea was learning a lot, and Jonathan was learning even more. Despite growing so old and meeting so many other Lords, this was the first time he had such a fruitful discussion with another Lord.

Most Lords were arrogant and overtly confident—especially Lords of Towns.

The Lords of Towns usually inherited their positions too, which was ironic. This was why many Town Lords often lacked the strength and discipline of their predecessors because things were just handed over to them.

“I know a good example. In a town Southwest, there was an arrogant Lord who had everything handed to him. The previous Lord had always kept the token in the Token Guard so when he died of mysterious circumstances, the territory remained standing. His son, who knew where it was located, immediately became the Lord.”

“He was so arrogant with the forces, believing them to be his servants. He would send them to missions for low rates, and even arbitrarily change up some taxes.

“Anyway, long story short, those people schemed to replace him—and they did.”

This made Althea narrow her eyes. “How were they able to do this even with oaths?”

Jonathan thought for a while before answering. “As a Town, there’d be more and more outside forces trying to enter and grab a piece,” he said. “You know how large the stakes are among wars between towns, which was why they were so rare.

“Towns have tens or even hundred times more population and resources than villages do, and their average power levels were also much higher.

“The thing is, everyone—whether they were born in Villages, Towns, and Cities—would start at a low level. However, because it was dangerous to go out of Towns and Cities as low-leveled people, some ‘level up farms’ were created so people could pay to kill captured low-level monsters so they could level up.”

“Commoners could barely afford such service, but they managed, but the extremely poor people—who could only afford their day-to-day food and shelter—would remain weak, no stronger than villages.”

“Improving the strength of thousands of people was too costly and, in their minds, a bit wasteful because people… die,” Jonathan said, shaking his head. “When a trained person died during a war or something else, all those resources spent on them would be wasted.”

“Some people with foresight do send their younger generation in villages to train, but they were the great minority. Town and Cityfolk simply looked down on villages so much that they cringed at the thought of sending their children there—it was as if it’d corrupt them.”

“In my opinion, this is a stupid unnecessary mistake, and what the Golds did for their younger generation was the smartest thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Point is, because of this imbalance, Towns and Cities preferred to hire mercenaries who were experts in their fields and had also sworn oaths to do their best to fight for whichever territory they served.

“It was expensive to hire from Mercenary Halls every time, but the cost of letting mercenary teams settle or have a base in a territory was just a piece of land they could call their own. This was the common practice.”

“However, at the same time, the oaths they took weren’t of undying loyalty—they were always transactional ones.

“The mercenaries would always leave leeway for themselves to separate from a territory—and usually not without taking some profit along the way.

“Betrayal was not uncommon, especially when the forces found the current Lord unable to do their part of the bargain.

“Even in Ferrol, I can only truly trust the Asusa Mercenary team—a team that had signed an oath with my father. You met Hoye and Webb 1before, didn’t you? That’s their team.”

She nodded. Hoye and Webb were Bart’s friends and, according to her husband, were instrumental in him finding their place so quickly.

“Oh, and there’s the Terran mercenary team too,” he said, smiling. “Anyway, I have about a dozen other mercenary teams based there that I don’t entirely trust—definitely not with my life.”

She nodded, taking note of everything.

She then looked at Jonathan. “Thank you for sharing, but… do you think my citizens would be left behind in terms of level?” she asked.

“Do you think we’ll actually ever be dependent on outside forces to defend ourselves?”

“…”

Jonathan’s eyes flickered. He remembered that even the most common of citizens here trained hard. Even the old people could be seen with the youngsters, stabbing at monsters outside the gates.

When asked—while the most common answer was ‘because I don’t want to grow old so quickly’—one could feel the consistent and strong motivation was there.

That, along with the superior defense systems and rules at their level, really made Jonathan rethink the current norms.

He sighed, body relaxing into his chair as he took another macaron into his mouth.

“Now that we can talk as lord to lord, I feel like I’m learning so much from you…” Jonathan said. “I feel both ashamed and amazed.”

Althea chuckled, sipping her jasmine tea. “I also learn a lot from you.”

Jonathan shook his head. In their discussion, he was definitely learning more. Instead, he took out a notebook of thick papyrus paper and handed it to her.

“Here.”

Her eyebrows rose. “What is it?” she asked, taking it into her palms.

The cover was leather, and its pages were tied together by coated ropes. There were scores of pages binded there but it seemed thicker because each sheet was made of papyrus. It was quite old and Althea immediately became extra careful in handling it.

“It’s my father’s journal back when the town was new.”

“What?”

She looked at the copy of Jonathan’s father’s journal which included a lot of information about how he handled towns. There were a lot of things that needed careful reading. She was still new to the language and each generation seemed to have their own style of speaking.

It wasn’t as changing as back in the modern Terran that changed so quickly due to social media and the like, but there were a lot of subtle differences which would take her a bit of time to decipher.

“This is extremely useful,” she said. “Thank you.”

Jonathan shrugged. “I’ve read it many times already,” he said. “But I think you’d get a lot more takeaways from it than I have.”

“Thank you…” she said again, but pausing in the end. She looked at the man with a mysterious smile. “To be honest you’re… being too kind, it’s almost suspicious.”

Jonathan blinked as he stared at her, before bursting into laughter.

However, even while laughing, his eyes were deep. When he calmed down, he couldn’t help but look away with dazed eyes.

“This world… it has so many things wrong,” he said. “I just thought that if a few more good territories were around, it’d be better for everyone else.”

An image of a handsome young lad passed through his mind—a good childhood friend of his he had known since he was a little boy.

That bright young man perished unjustly a long, long time ago, simply because of who he chose to love: Him.

Then he remembered this place, how everyone was free to do what they wanted, to love whoever they chose to do… and suddenly he felt that lad’s memory was no longer so bitter.

…

Jonathan soon left and went back to Ferrol after doing a shopping spree. Meanwhile, Althea held a meeting among the elders and this meeting would last for more than a day.

A series of announcements, rules, and restrictions echoed throughout the territory—as well as to all the satellites. It shook many people, but it definitely added a sense of urgency in everyone’s hearts.

For the months that followed, Alterra would continue to strengthen itself—preparing for the inevitable.

After Yassof, they were attacked a few more times. However, after the war with Guia, the other wars had become too easy.

As for the slaves they received during the wars, they sent them to associate villages to assist in their resource management and other things.

While they had a feeling that the wars was just a larger organization calibrating their strengths, it also meant that they were stable for a bit longer as long the attackers weren’t suicidal.

In the end—at least for a while—Alterra Village had become the undefeatable Top Village.

“Sigh, I wish it would always be like this,” Ansel said, very dreamily, a night after an easy win.

What a nice thought: their home—the unshakable strongest of its rank.

“Enjoy it while it lasts. When we upgrade, it might take a while again,” Winona said, voicing out everyone’s fears.

When they upgrade, they… will be among the bottom again.

“As long as the policies we planned are implemented, we can at most delay our upgrade by a few more months,” Althea said, comforting them.

“Let’s use this time to strengthen Alterra so that—in time—we can rise to the top again.”