After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 192

Chapter 192: Exordium
A week prior.

After the monsters had been cleared up, Cassandra’s group decided to rest near their rescuers, who were then very skilfully making a campfire.

Veronica couldn’t help but look at the handsome leader of the group. She heard that Garan was his name.

She combed her beautiful pink hair and approached the man, who was then observing how his team handled their meat. But she hadn’t even felt close when her body shivered, both in coldness and fear.

Unconsciously, she lost her balance and fell on her buttocks smack on the ground.

She made so much noise that everyone turned their head to her. Her face blushed—as pink as her hair—as she sensed the many stares directed in her direction.

Most of the soldiers lacked the usual empathy for a woman, and her guards were relatively far so she had to endure several grueling seconds of humiliation sitting on the ground until they got to her.

Or so she thought—

“Are you alright?” A gentle voice asked and she tilted her head to be met with gorgeous blue eyes and blonde locks that shone with the sun.

“A-Ah, yes…” She mumbled, though her eyes had metaphorical hearts in them by now. She took his hand and he helped her out, though he let go immediately and joined his friends to eat their barbeque.

It was like there was no interaction at all just a few seconds prior.

“…”

On the other hand, Cassandra wasn’t getting much luck with her own attempts for a connection either. She approached Gill, who was cleaning up his weapon.

She stopped just a meter away from him and he lifted his head to look at her with an eyebrow raised in puzzlement.

“May I know how we could thank this sir?” She asked, “I mean, you did save our lives.”

Gill looked at her weirdly. “We killed them for the meat.”

“…”

The man no longer bothered with her and also joined the campfire, completely ignoring her.

The two women looked at each other with weird expressions as they just watched the men and their maids fix their carriage and recapture the beast. Fortunately, they had spare whistles so they managed to regain control of the things.

The two groups no longer had any further interactions until a delicious whiff reached their side and they couldn’t help but turn to the source.

They saw the group eating the meat hungrily, looking very satisfied, and they couldn’t help but drool.

“Can you buy some from them?” Veronica asked, though she dared not approach for now, for fear of embarrassing herself again.

They then asked their guards to buy as much as they could, not minding the amount they charged.

In the end, they bought a couple of sticks for about a dozen gold. A bit expensive, but the aroma was killing their stomachs.

Then they took a bite and they felt they’d been brought to Elvendell.

No wonder they were so ignored. If it was for food so delicious, they could ignore everything too. At this thought, the women found themselves feeling better.

They were so engrossed that they didn’t notice that the other group had already packed up and went ahead.

It was too late to notice and they were already several meters away when it dawned on them. The girls couldn’t help but look in their direction wistfully.

“Where do you think they are heading?” Cassandra asked her guard, who analyzed the direction the group was moving towards.

“It’s in the direction of our destination, Miss.” The man said, smiling occasionally as he chewed on the barbeque.

Cassandra’s purple eyes brightened at his answer.

So they were going to Ferrol Town, then?

Goodness Elves! It must be destiny, then!

Later, she would meet members of their team and she would treat them a meal, gaining information that Gill was likely to like honest and forward women.

It was hard and shameful at first, but then she found a different sort of freedom from just expressing herself as she wanted. She was far from her parents anyway.

She never returned to how she was and, indirectly or not, a lot of this feeling of liberation was associated with Gill and her affection for him.

It just made her like him more.

_________________

Ferrol Town, Present

Cassandra was used to Gill ignoring her, so she didn’t mind him not answering her question.

Who would have thought she’d be willing to be so humble? Back in her town, she was basically a princess, no one would dare to do this.

Similarly, no one would look beyond her beauty and status—and just see ‘her’. She didn’t know why, but she felt Gill would.

All her actions though were being observed by two people not too far away.

Jonathan sighed, not knowing what he was thinking, while Bart looked at everything the Terrans built with a complicated expression.

Bart was also one of the visiting personnel at this time. He just happened to have business in the area and decided to check up on this quickly-growing partner of his. He was quite surprised by what they achieved in the time they were apart.

First, not every team could get a piece of land for themselves.

Sure, the sauce made a lot of money, but Jonathan was not someone who would give a piece of his territory to others just because of it.

Not to mention, it was to a team who seemed to have a subtle conflict with their own subsidiary village.

Then he saw how close the princesses of Jeronia and Hubble Towns were to the team.

It was even to the point that they let go of much of their expected lady-like restraints to openly cheer for men.

In his heart, it just ended up solidifying the team’s background even more.

He turned to Jonathan who was also intensely watching the soldiers train. “You seem to see a lot of potential with this team.”

Jonathan raised his sharp eyebrows. “Aren’t you the same?” he said. “A team filled with Elementalist, rising over several levels within a few months… there must be something special about this team.”

Bart didn’t speak and continued to observe the spar. It was true, of course. And their decision to make friends proved wise every day.

They really got a lot of money!

Clearing his throat, he decided to observe this new base of theirs. His black eyes shifted to look around this new ‘territory’ they had been building with such grandeur.

It was large with a number of buildings. He also didn’t expect such attention to the greeneries either.

Not far from the sparring area, there were also a lot of contraptions the team called ‘obstacle courses’ and other unknown mechanisms he didn’t understand. To be honest, Bart was a little shocked at the novel training methods.

But from what he was seeing, these things and methods worked. After all, he could see its effects on them. He could remember this team who was obviously much lower in level than his, but the killing rate was not much inferior. Could this be their secret?

He had always been surprised at the rate of growth of these guys. It was just that their sudden increase in enthusiasm to fight and hunt was beyond him. He didn’t even know people could be more passionate than how they already were.

After all, as far as he knew, if people leveled up, their physiques also improved. No one really bothered with this type of training.

Not only did they go out of their way to hunt for mobs for most of the day, but when they went back to the base they would still do some training.

He heard from their staff that this was done every single day without fail.

He thought that they had been working hard enough before, but after that fog… they began to train beyond their limits.

Why’d they suddenly become so… aggressive?

It was as if they were chasing a certain high goal and failure was absolutely not an option—that if they didn’t reach a certain threshold of strength, they would die.

He recalled the change that happened after that fog, coupled with some of the rumors he had been hearing lately, and he couldn’t help but look deeper at Garan and the others even more deeply than before.

Bart had an inexplicable feeling: That this was the exordium of something big.