After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 1099

Chapter 1099: Resso Village Slaves (Part 2)
Inside the walls

Contrary to what Tout thought, the slaves inside the territory were barely causing any damage at all.

Whenever slaves were ordered to attack on sight, they would do so regardless of who it was. By default, slaves didn’t choose their enemies, they just attacked whoever was closer.

It didn’t matter if it was an old woman, a child, or even a former lover—the slave ordered to attack would follow orders.

If there was no person nearby, slaves would automatically find openings until they found one. Slaves generally didn’t bother with the property. If a territory’s infrastructure and property got destroyed during wars, it was likely the work of normal guards and citizens.

Most of these slaves were given wood weapons (most of which were sponsored by Basset), while some stronger slaves even got bone weapons or something similarly superior.

One of these slaves was Cau, a level 15 spearman. He was one of the older slaves, and he had been captured more than 10 years ago even before Basset Town was a town.

Through the years, he had been sent to subsidiary villages to help subdue other territories and gain their money. Attacking villages via their subsidiaries was one of Basset Town’s main sources of income.

Amidst all that, Cau became one of the best performers. He was even prohibited from killing monsters again so he could maintain his level within the village cap.

He was in his 40s when he was captured. His level back then was Level 13. Now, in his early 50’s, he only climbed up two levels—and it was entirely due to experience gained from killing fellow human beings.

He was also on the verge of leveling up. If he killed a few more people, then he might go beyond the level cap. In that case, he’d be less used in Village Wars, which—while a cold thought—wasn’t entirely bad.

Of course, he never enjoyed killing people. How could he? It reminded him of the fall of his own village—the day he lost his entire family and his friends.

After so many years, only a few of them remained. Many perished due to natural disasters, and most due to wars. They attacked without regard for their own bodies, just using all of their beings to follow the orders sent to them.

Each time, they were just ordered to terrorize the enemy. [Attack!] echoed in their minds over and over, like a chant and their bodies would follow as if they didn’t know how to do better.

When he stabbed innocents—some were even children—he felt like dying inside.

However, they were slaves. They no longer owned their lives.

Coming here, he didn’t expect anything else but the same horror he had been going through for years.

However, he was shocked when he saw the large wall and the dense sentries and wondered if they had gone to the wrong territory. But then it was confirmed really was the place, he was both amazed and relieved.

Those sentries were dense and strong. Perhaps this would finally end his suffering.

He was tired. So tired.

However… he got excited too early.

Those sentries didn’t attack slaves at all! Why? Were they broken? Were they just displays?

But then he saw it attack someone from his side and realized it was working. If so, why didn’t it attack him or the other slaves?

Then the gates opened widely, letting them all inside!! His heart clenched, thinking the horrors and murders would happen again soon.

Thousands of slaves passed through the territory threshold, emerging into the widest streets they had ever seen.

Each street could carry several beast carts, right? And it seemed long and endless, as if it would pass through the entire territory.

The avenue was empty, however. There were no signs of life.

They could only enter, deeper and deeper, and they could only gape at the themed buildings, parks, and so on.

[Attack!] The sound echoed inside their minds again. There was no one there so by default they headed towards the streets to find their targets.

Whether it was on other throughfares or even above the houses, they would look for them. Slaves would automatically do this even if they had to climb over on top of each other.

But…

Where were the streets?

It was here that they realized the streets connecting to the avenues were all closed off by reinforced wooden walls!

Cau and the others could only be confused, not realizing that weird smoke began to flood where they stood.

He gasped when he felt a dull arrow buried on his legs. It was shallow and a bit painful, but he immediately felt numb all over.

Then…, everything went black.

…

“Let go of me!!” A bloodied man yelled as he was dragged by Gill through the battlement floor. Gill then threw him in front of Garan before kicking him again.

He sneered at the man before handing the aether letter to Garan, who skimmed through the messages.

“This should be the last of Resso and Basset’s main spies,” Gill said. “Though we’re still keeping our eyes open for them.”

Garan nodded, before turning to look down at the avenue filled with fainted slaves. The avenues were extremely wide and long and thousands of slaves could fit in. From above, the sheer amount of them was intimidating.

Dedicated teams sprayed them all with their paralysis smoke, with the gas floating several feet, with the wind users making sure it reached every slave. This particular batch had heavier gases so it didn’t flow outside of where the slaves were.

The archers also directly shot the stronger ones who did not fall down with arrows doused with a bit of paralysis potion.

It was a massive undertaking, and by no means cheap to others, but doable for Alterra.

They actually had large farms—some were even in vertical farms—for the raw materials of their sleep and paralysis potions and bombs. It was really no problem to spray a huge crowd like this.

“After the war, as always, we will study who to give the right to buy their own freedom— and who would become prisoners of war. For now, contain them in one area.”

“Yes, boss!” the guards yelled, and Garan watched them leave.

Who was to say all slaves were decent people? There could be evil ones among them, too.

This was a lot of trouble, and each war consumed a lot of man-hours just checking out the slaves they received. It was just that they didn’t have it in them to kill fellow humans blindly.

At least not yet.

This war would probably be the final war they’d set the sentries like this. At the Town level, he would ask his wife to take off the sentry prohibition of killing slaves. They’d set the sentries not to attack slaves with elementalist auras, but that would be about it.

Slaves in Towns would be stronger and more threatening—not to mention, Towns’ populations could reach hundreds of thousands. They did not dare be so ‘kind’ anymore.

So—at least this time—they wanted to rescue as many as they could before joining in massacres like other territories.

With this thought, Garan turned to the other side of the walls.

He looked at the enemy crowd, now stagnant beyond the reach of the sentries. This time, with most of their meatshields gone, they could only depend on their equipment and shields to cover for them. They were likely strategizing what to do now that their previous protection plan was messed up.

They had no idea… that the sentries would be the least of their problems.