After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 145

Chapter 145: Cynicism (Part 1)
A few kilometers away from Altera another group of refugees had formed, heading towards its direction.

It was a group of about a hundred or so people, all covered in blood and grime, with their clothes mostly torn, making them look extremely pitiful.

As they dragged their legs forward, their backs were slumped, movement lethargic. After going through such long struggle, their overall disposition had become depressing.

Some of these people’s eyes were already dead, just walking along with the crowd. Some could still fight the mobs that they encountered, while most would just stand by as the monsters came.

If it weren’t for a new group of ‘guards’ guiding them to a new territory, half of them would’ve already perished ages ago.

So now they were following these guards, but with very low expectations.

Jun and his family were one of these people.

The were amongst the few that had just escaped the disaster of their territory. While they were thankful for being saved, they were a little unimpressed by the newcomers—even if they were indeed guarding their safeties.

Don’t get them wrong—they were incredibly thankful for them saving their group, but they couldn’t help but think these guards were just guiding them to their territory in order to milk them for their remaining money.

After all, it wasn’t the first time it had happened.

The previous territory did so, and when they got to the territory they charged exorbitant amounts for ‘guarding fees’.

But that territory had been destroyed by the beast tide and he witnessed hundreds of deaths in a single night.

However, he was also one of the rare few who had kept their entire family of three and, for that alone, he was thankful enough.

After all, they had gone through two territories already—and both gave him a lasting negative impression of these supposed ‘safe havens’.

But what could they do? They were only small humans—their existences were so small; they could only make do with what they could find.

The first one was breached the day they arrived, a few hours after they bought the residency.

It was like the beast tide just waited for them to arrive.

In retrospect, perhaps it did. From supposition, it seemed upgrading a territory had to do with population growth.

Similarly, an upgrade could also mean an attack to the territory.

He learned this the hard way, because he witnessed the fall of two territories, each time losing bulks of their already small wealth.

In the first territory, they lost nearly all their money. In that village, the monthly payment and food for housing alone was 1 gold per person, to be paid upfront.

At the time, 3 gold and a few silver was all they had. However, thinking that it was for the survival of their family of three, they naturally paid for it.

However, that same night, it was attacked by hordes of monsters. It failed to defend and fell relatively quickly.

Their money, gone in a few hours.

However, they had their lives and all their limbs, which was still infinitely better than others. So they gritted their teeth and did their best to escape.

They saw how many people died, but they pushed through with their wits and luck, eventually finding another territory soon after.

He could still remember the feeling of relief when they found a new territory after the tragedy of their first one.

But it was not without sadness and despair, because the entire family was broke.

But, again, they still had each other. They thought this one must not be worse than the first, right?

The second one they managed to stay for several days, long enough to meet the lord there.

It was indeed a lot better, but they still struggled, especially since they only had a few silver and copper left in their pockets.

There were restaurants, weapons stores, armory stores, and houses. It was fine, much better than living in the wild.

It was just that there were thousands of people there, and most could not afford the few built houses in the territory.

They had no choice but to just build flimsy straw and wooden houses themselves, joining a slum area formed at the edges of the village.

It was so dense that they barely had a square meter of space for themselves. Worse: because of the density, the cacophony of noise was stressful and the mixture of body odor could kill.

This was especially made worse by the fact that—underneath all the blood and grime accummulated since the Transfer—most of them still had the zombie grime from back in Terran.

He felt their brains died from the smell alone.

The people didn’t have access to the standard utilities either, every inch of soil had trash and human waste.

It was disgusting and he stepped on feces more than once a day, but it was their life, and the family still had each other. How dare they complain?

The food was also expensive and even if they worked the whole day cleaning the territory they could only afford a tasteless meal for one at the restaurant.

One meal, for the three of them.

The restaurant gruel was also the only source of water there.

Fortunately, many of the plants and fruits were edible so the three of them managed to live.

It was just that they had to go outside to gather, because gathering resources inside had a huge cost…

However, compared to living in the woods ready to be mauled by those monsters any time, they really had no complaints.

They were a very optimistic family.

It was just that that one got breached too and their little hope for a decent life was crushed to ashes.

This last territory was breached by a large beast tide filled with level 2 monsters. There were only a dozen level 3s in the territory, most of whom guarded the lord alone.

The people were left defenseless as soon as the walls fell, which frankly didn’t last long at all.

Several hundreds of people were slaughtered, just like that.

He and his family escaped because it was already their second territory. A similar light happened just before the beast tide that destroyed their first territory, and his instincts rang alarm bells inside him and he forced his family to be prepared to leave at any time.

At the time, he and his wife spent almost all of their remaining wealth to stock up on food and weapons… which wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

And now… they were heading to their third territory.

He no longer had any expectations. The tragic experiences he had with territories were fresh in his mind, to the point of cynicism.

It was the same with everyone else in their group.

And who could blame them?

Life here just really, really, sucked.