After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 1145

Chapter 1145: Before the Party
“You people are really business-minded,” Oslo said as they went on their way.

Ansel smiled. “Any indicator for growth is something we aspire to. Besides…” he paused, smugly nudging him (with each moment of skin contact killing a random female passerby). “More tax for Alterra.”

The two eventually reached the plaza, which was currently at the height of preparation. They oversaw the creation of the large platform in front of the village, er, town center, as well as the line of stalls and caravan games being built up.

Because Alterra seemed to find something to celebrate every couple of months, there were now shops and businesses that specialized in renting out modular pop-up stalls and caravan places. These could also be used for the marketplace stalls, within or outside the walls.

It was a very lucrative business because they could reuse the modules over and over again. They had to partner with a few people who owned or rented a warehouse in the Industrial zone, but they were saving up to buy one for themselves for the expansion.

According to the information, all zones would expand when the territory expanded its walls again, and that included the industrial zones.

Some workers, passersby, lurkers, and loiterers saw Ansel and Oslo and couldn’t help but approach. “Sir Ansel! Sir Oslo!” they greeted, happily but also with some reverence in their town. “Can you hint what the program will be?”

Ansel smiled, they naturally didn’t tell much—just that there’d be an anniversary party. “Well, mostly the usual—speeches, some music,” he said.

“Just look forward to it.”

…

Before the deferred celebratory dinner, a lot of the population made a point to pass by the new street or the plaza being built up, even if it was just literally to pass through them.

So… most of the people outside their homes at this time were concentrated within a few streets in and between these two places. This meant that there would be quite a number of encounters.

For instance, there was an encounter between Foxii,1 Thor, and Limbo2—all of whom were refugees from heat waves, but from different territories.

They were all seen happily eating ice cream after a ‘serendipitous’ encounter on the pedestrian lane in front of the store. The two men accompanied their friend through her break, and she treated them with the dessert in response.

Foxii was a Captain now—one of the few female captains in the guard team—while the other two men had very different jobs. Thor was a freelancer (who’d take random jobs when they were offered), while Limbo was an architect at the Construction and Design Department under Oslo.

This came as a shock to many though. Thor was not only athletic—he was a rare electricity elementalist, like Drake1, so people expected him to join in.

Thor was tempted, but he didn’t do it in the end. It was because he knew his personality wasn’t the type that would match with soldiers and their strict guidelines.

His goal was to build his own mercenary team, probably when he reached the level requirement. He would name it ‘Benatar1’ for no particular reason. He just thought it sounded cool.

“Sometimes those hellish first months we had in Xeno feels like a bad dream…” he said, combing back his now-short blonde hair. He looked at the pretty Faye, who was just enjoying her desert, with warm eyes.

She was still in her guard uniform. Thor knew this time was her break time; he memorized her schedule.

He specifically made sure to be around the area at this time, particularly near her favorite ice cream shop, so there they were now.

“I heard one of the new stores in Post Street is also a dessert shop,” he said.

Faye nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that too,” she said. “I heard they already secured cocoa deals with Miss Althea…”

“Hm… I would like to try it.”

Faye nodded, she did too.

“Foxii… would you like to join me?”

Faye blinked, lifting her head to look at the blonde staring at her. He was not strikingly handsome, but he had that carefree charm that was very much opposite to her own strictness.

Still, Faye nodded in the end, and Thor’s smile brightened and his hair lifted up a bit due to static electricity.

Limbo immediately felt like the third wheel.

He sighed. When would he get a girlfriend?

…

Across the street, there were the old men Al, Bones, and Cake 1who—outside their resource gathering gigs—were living off contribution points for their occasional help in the research center.

They simply had to answer some things they knew from back in the day—whether it was way of life or technology, they just had to write or enumerate what they remembered.

Their previous world Terran—as these children had known it—was too advanced. It had a lot of the technology that was impossible—at least not within the next few years—to replicate here.

That was why they were predominantly focused on developing technology considered advanced in Xeno, but probably about a hundred years old for Terran folks.

Although the three old men were definitely not that old, they had a lot of knowledge about the tech back then. So now they were helping with various things like the old computers, telecommunications, and so on.

Their day would be mostly gathering resources and staying in the Research Center for a couple of hours, leaving most of the day free.

Overall, although they would still hire some youngins to help them level up (they wanted to feel young again—figuratively and literally), they were pretty much in a semi-retired state.

Today was no different. After selling some basic resources to the Center, the trio decided to hang around where the fun was.

At first, they spent the early afternoon in the Plaza being built up. They went around while munching on snacks, acting like ‘supervisors’. Like normal old men, they had the tendency to blurt instructions like they knew how to do everything.

“No, no, I don’t think that’s symmetrical. A little to the left, ah, to the right. My right? Ah yesyes. Was it? No…”

“I think this game should be here instead of there…”

“That height is too small…” “This is just for kids? What about adults?”

“Are you sure you want to choose that color? Are you sure?”

Suffice to say, they irked a lot of the construction workers and were shooed away. They could only shake their old heads, mumbling ‘rude kids’ under their breaths.

Of course, after passing another stall and filling their hands and mouth with food, they were carefree old men again.

They headed to the Post Street this time, encountering Cathia and Bona— Cassie and Bumi’s grandmothers—there. Old souls just tended to vibe with each other more, and each party happily greeted the other side, and they made the spontaneous decision to go to the park together and play chess or backgammon there.

While the five old folks (some of whom had hunched back due to age) happily chattered on their way there, they passed by some visiting aborigines.

Aborigines looked at the group of old people lounging about happily and couldn’t help but feel complicated.

In most places, unless the old person was a noble and had managed to gather loyalty—by oath or without—of a lot of people and family members, they were practically left on their own.

Power speaks, after all, and it was an unspoken rule that anything that could hinder growth was something to get rid of.

If it was family, then you could get rid of them—people would understand.

This was ironic because filial piety was something seen as spiritually important—but only if you were a woman.

If you were a man with sufficient power, you could decide to ignore your parents if they became burdens. It would not even be too frowned upon.

And because women generally had little capability to survive on their own, once the men decided to get rid of them, they would struggle to survive. A lot of beggars in other towns were all old people.

In Alterra, there were no beggars at all, and the old people—even those without family—were living well with their own strength and capability. They heard that—as long as they served the territory for a certain amount of years—they could retire and not worry about the basics again.

It felt… right, somehow, to do this.

But… how come so many other territories fail to achieve this?