After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 111

Chapter 111: Soldiers
Aberdeen City, Twenty-one years prior

Garan crossed his arms and watched in beffudlement as his little angel walked around, dragging several ducklings with a rope.

She was adorable, but he also felt a little pity for the ducklings being dragged.

“What…are you doing Althea?” He asked, leaning down so they were in eye level. “Are you sure you’re not hurting them?”

“No, no, Garan.” Althea corrected him ‘patiently’, looking like a cute little adult.  “This rope is used to guide them!”

“You don’t know. They’re so stupid.” Her cute eyebrows furrowed and her chubby cheeks puffed as she spoke. “They would jump out to the road if I didn’t do it!”

She then looked at him with all the seriousness she could muster. “I save them, like a hero!”

Garan held back his smile, patting her head. “Yes, yes, ropes saved their lives.” He chuckled, “My Althea is amazing.”

_____

Guia Village, Present

Garan watched as the lord of the territory gathered information about their imminent enemy with seriousness.

Before Bart left to go back to Twinwave, he told them a bit about the Lord of this village. Garan could still remember that they were a bit surprised to find out that the lord, Barton, was already in his 70s. He looked to be only in his 30s.

After thinking it through, it made sense. People here had an average life span of 100 years. Stronger people of levels higher than 20 can reach 150 years, not to mention level 30.

Goblins’ fecundity was strong, but their lifespans were much worse than humans, with an average lifespan of 40 years. Of course, these were for slaves, free goblins never subject to slavery were estimated to be able to live a decade or two longer.

Of course no matter how long the life span, it didn’t matter if you couldn’t keep your head.

Barton and his assistant listed down Lowell’s advice on how to handle goblin attacks. They discussed it among themselves for a while. There were plenty of arguments between the underlings, most of which was the assignment of the vanguards, to the point of a fight almost breaking out.

But Barton shut them up by assigning which guards and soldiers would be the vanguard. He had a very strong presence and no one dared argue with him at all.

Soon after, the entire territory mobilized everyone for a fee.

Garan and his team also helped. Although they didn’t know how they’d handle the actual goblins, they could at least help reinforce the defense of their side against them.

They did not agree on how humans dealt with goblins, but they definitely wouldn’t betray their humanity for them, either.

Lowell stepped forward to further detail his experiences with goblin wars, looking as if he was disgusted by the idea of Goblins themselves. “These things are the worst bugs you could imagine. They could dig as quickly as they could crawl.”

“Once the war starts, they would definitely start digging somewhere inwards. In a short span of time they could create a complex network of tunnels and traps, taking away our advantages in size and skill.”

To deal with this, everyone was asked to dig deep ditches, relatively deep about 2 meters in. The rare elementalists did a lot of the work in this and thus gained a lot of money than the others.

Stakes were placed inside these, so the enemy diggers would be stopped at a certain distance from the wall, ideally to be handled before they got too close.

Similarly, deep and sharp stakes were stuck in the ground to serve as underground gates.

They added deeper spikes that would vibrate and warn those above ground if there were suspicious movements underground.

Other than these, there were plenty of other ground traps that goblins, with their limited vertical size and strengths, would have difficulty coping with.

Barton looked satisfied with what was happening to the village and soon excused himself and left the rest to his men.

The Terrans watched as the entire village and visiting mercenary teams mobilize with full-force to defend against the goblins.

Garan and the others felt complicated. The goblins would face a helpless massacre, wouldn’t they?

…

The group felt heavy at the thought of the oncoming massacre.

It wasn’t that they even considered betrayal. After all, they were ultimately on the human side. It was just that no matter where, no matter who, useless killing was something that bogged them down.

They were soldiers. And because of this, they were particularly caring of life, despite being willing to sacrifice one’s own, if needed.

Were they really just going to watch this massacre happen helplessly?

It was here that Garan noticed a soldier hailing their tamed mounts to a different position, held by ropes. The creatures were a little unwilling but had no choice but to follow.

His cerulean eyes fixed on the ropes, and an idea dawned on to him, recalling that short but lovely memory of his Althea and her ducklings.

“Hear my orders:” He said with that baritone voice of his, and his subordinates instinctively straightened their bodies to listen in response.

“Gather as much rope as you can.” He told them, “I have an idea.”

…

The rule of territory wars was that the winner would receive 50% of the territory assets, and this included all resources: Including humans. However, this only referred to those within their enemy’s home territory.

That was to say, if one side could keep the attackers and their assets, the winning side could get a lot more than 50%.

In the same way, individuals participating in the wars could get a chance to receive the loot from the losers. This was what Garan and the others were targeting.

However, asking for loot was one thing. Asking for the very expensive goblins was a whole other thing. At the very least, even Gaudi had never heard of it being done before.

A few hours before the attack was set to begin, Garan approached Barton, who was then surrounded by a few mercenary leaders and their henchmen.

“Lord Barton.” Garan said, making the standard salute—placing their dominant hand on their chests. As long as they didn’t have to bow or kowtow, this little thing to show standard respect didn’t matter to them.

“You are… Garan, yes?” He said, remembering this person was introduced by Bart himself. Despite his level, he caught the attention of Bart and the others, which said a lot about this person’s ability.

“Yes, milord.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I have a bit of a request.” He paused. “Lord Barton said before we can keep the loot of the creatures we killed, in addition to 10 silver for every goblin killed, yes?”

“That is correct.” He said, and the others were also looking at him curiously, wanting to see what he wanted to ask for.

“We would like the exchange these for the right to sell all the goblins we capture alive.”

An awkward silence passed by the space.

Barton was a bit surprised, and he looked at this young man deeply. However the young man said it out loud, and a lot of the others were waiting for his answer. Before he could speak, Garan continued with his soliloquy.

“They are considered dead the moment they attacked your good territory. Instead of the gold, I would appreciate it if the lord would be so kind as to allow me to make a bit of a living out of this.”

Garan had grown up well past the prideful arrogance from the past. He had evolved to be someone who could bend and stretch. Even if he didn’t look up at the nobles here, he could give them the minimum respect they expected to receive.

He knew that lives were more important than his arrogance.

Barton was silent for a while.

This was highly unusual. Because generally, if people were spared in wars, they were automatic properties of the lord.

More importantly, goblins who had begun fighting would never stop doing so. They would never be slaves as they would definitely take their own lives if they were captured.

In his long years, no goblins with fighting spirit had been caught. Almost always, they died before they could get dragged into human territory.

He sighed. “Fine.” He said, looking nonchalant.

Then he walked away, not giving the chance to the others to ask for similar requests.

Garan knew he made things awkward for this lord, so he excused himself to focus on their next tasks.

He did not notice the same lord pausing his steps and looking back, sharp eyes sticking on him.

…

“Boss our spaces, except for some emergency supplies, are now filled with tools for captivity.” Logistics Officer Eagle reported, a little excited.

It had been a while since they’d done something worthy of their status as soldiers.

Pity the space was too small, or else they could’ve bought more.

Garan looked at each of the soldiers, obviously looking forward to this rescue mission.

He could understand their mood.

All this time they had no choice but to focus on themselves and on their survival. Because of their weak strength, they had no choice but to simply watch the incredible amount of injustice around them.

They could only watch when weaker people got abused and beaten up in front of them, commoners got exploited by nobles, and experienced the overall injustice that was the common practice in this world.

But they couldn’t do anything, because they knew prying would mean certain death.

It was logical and understandable, and very necessary for survival, but… it shamed them to death. It was a feeling oftentimes even worse than death.

But now they could actually do something worthy of their title!

They could finally stand upright and say proudly, with all their might: They are Soldiers!!