After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 160

Chapter 160: Mysterious Kid
Althea was very excited to go to her lab (children dutifully deposited in the neighbor auntie’s house) to finally develop the products she had in her head.

However, before she even settled in her lab, Sheila burst in, with wide red eyes, looking quite panicked. “Boss!”

Althea was a bit startled, “What is it?”

“Please help us! Someone has been poisoned, we are not sure how to handle it…” she mumbled, looking very worried. Without another word, Althea gently placed down her experimental tools and followed the other woman to the clinic.

After rushing, the two women got to their destination within a couple of minutes, with Sheila bringing her into one of the ward beds. When they arrived, they saw Betty was already there, and she was using her Healer ability to keep the patient’s vitality.

Walking closer, Althea realized it was a child. It was only a little boy, probably five or six years old, with chestnut hair and freckled skin.

It was just that this unique skin was now covered with bluish spots as if he had bruises all over his body.

“Oh my, what did you eat?” She mumbled but quickly saw the symptoms, realizing it was the same poison she fell victim to.

In fact, Sheila had also found it a little familiar, but she didn’t remember the formula so she had to call Althea. Not to mention, she wasn’t entirely sure it was the same poison either, as the symptoms were much more pronounced than Althea’s.

Some foragers gathering resources outside the territory found him in the forests. Because all intrinsically poisonous plants were displaced, there were really a lot of poisonous plants just outside the territory.

However, Althea had made a point for Sheila and Lily to teach people about these poisonous plants, at least to some degree, which significantly lowered the damage the plants brought to her citizens.

The child must be a newcomer.

Anyway, the boy was found very very late, so Betty’s ability could only maintain so much vitality in the poor child.

“I couldn’t keep it for long,” Betty said with furrowed eyebrows, her pretty blonde hair wet with sweat. Betty was a healer, but she couldn’t handle serious poisons, not when it already reached the bones.

Althea immediately took out Tori and handled the solution, using the same materials as she had before, but with differing concentration.

Before administering, she made sure to check for its approximate effects twice, in consideration of the boy’s light weight and degree of poisoning. Althea eventually judged the solution to be as safe and effective as it could be, considering the time.

They immediately got the little boy to drink it. However, it was not easy as the boy was unconscious and looked in so much pain.

He didn’t cry out though, his little eyebrows were just furrowed, and he was shaking in evident pain.

It broke the hearts of those who saw it, especially Sheila who had a brother not much older than this one, and Althea who had a young son.

Soon, the medicine started working a bit and he could utter words in his dazed state.

“Sister… sister…” The boy mumbled, voice stuttering and longing.

Sheila couldn’t help but hold the boy’s hand, acting like the sister he was looking for, and the boy immediately called, grabbing her hand for dear life.

After a while, the boy’s bluish complexion turned pinkish and he began to recover some of the complexion a little boy should have.

Seeing this, the women finally breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Who’s he?” Althea asked, looking around, belatedly realizing there was no one around who resembled a guardian.

“He came with the latest batch of refugees,” Sheila said, wiping her sweat.

“Doesn’t he have an adult?”

“No, no one knows him,” Sheila said, and Betty couldn’t help but add.

“I believe he was staying in the orphanage. The first orphan, so to speak.”

Speaking of, the concept of an orphanage was a rare thing to Betty. She only ever saw something somewhat similar in a few cities, but it was here in a small village and still with an arguably better setup.

In a few cities, there was an establishment just called ‘Shelter’ for these children, and basically it was a place where parent-less children were thrown, giving them just enough food to survive until they were twelve—the age people tended to start fighting monsters.

Here, the orphanage would take care of the child’s entire well-being, and all the way until the age of 18.

Then again, Altera Village seemed to be forward in so many things.

Althea looked at the boy as she heard that the boy had no adult with him, feeling heavy. With this, she knew that the child was probably alone for the past weeks.

How terrible.

The unfortunate fact was that defenseless children were likely to lose their lives first in the two tragedies that they simultaneously had to go through.

Surviving children, like Maya, tended to have their protectors with them.

So far, there were only a handful of children in the territory, and only this one was without a guardian.

“It’s amazing he got this far on his own…” she whispered, and the others nodded in agreement.

Sheila looked warmly at the boy, gently patting his head, and wiping his forehead.

“He’s a very good kid.” She said, heart suddenly longing for her own family.

She wondered where they were…

…

Meanwhile, the little boy, with the given name of Horus, was having a horrible dream.

He dreamed of life back in Terran, when he and his sister struggled through the slums, barely managing to eat.

His sister worked very hard, but even in his young age, he knew his sister’s work wasn’t good, because many people frowned at her, pointing with mean faces whenever she was there.

They also called her names, which he didn’t understand, but a child like him could still feel whether it was malicious or not.

He tried to help her many times, he tried looking for a job, but what could his small body do?

Eventually, he discovered that he had a talent.

It was the talent to take people’s things without them knowing.

And he was amazing at it.

With this skill, he bought his sister food and new clothes and told her people gave it to them.

Although she was questioning, she took it, playfully pinching his cheek, thinking that her brother was so cute, so people naturally wanted to help him.

This went on for weeks on end, and his final victim seemed like any other, but only much richer.

It was a big man in a suit with a bulging wallet as bloated as his stomach. He had an ugly beard on his face and cigars on his hand, his other hand holding the waist of the lady next to him.

He was very distracted, laughing loudly with his friends and teasing the ladies in his arms. He was so distracted and not minding his wallet hanging out of his pocket at all. It was as if he was asking him to take it.

Horus’ confident mind was already thinking of how to buy that pretty hair tie for his sister.

He thought that, like every other time, he would be able to get away with it.

Until, of course, he got caught.