After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 484

Chapter 484: Suspicious Smell
Altera.

That afternoon, while Althea’s group was carefully heading back with the injured, the rest of the territory was doing their usual lunch routine.

Those on their lunch break were lining up or exploring around, those who hunted near the territory during mornings were now heading back for a break, and the batch of guards who were preparing to change shifts was about to do their rounds inside the territory.

One of the guards was Gochi, the half-orc, who was walking towards the square with his team members. They were laughing and smiling, as if it was the most normal thing, and to be frank Gochi was still not used to it.

Speaking of, the fact that he could get a job and make good money with his own job, and have his own choices… this was something unimaginable to him.

He wished the others were with him.

“Okay, our shift starts now,” Their team lead—Reno—then showed them a hand-drawn map of the territory. “Although a lot of the main rule execution is done by the system, I want to remind everyone that our shifts is still important.

“For one, we are needed for emergency situations and to handle cases where the system—or the sentries—couldn’t or didn’t need to be deployed.”

“This is also a chance to let our people feel the presence of the guards even within the territory.”

He then assigned a few of them to their own areas. Because there weren’t many of them, they were only assigned in pairs to go around in a specific scope, each with their weapons prepared.

Gochi was assigned with Amos this time and they were assigned to go to the Southern Market Street area.

Some of the others looked at them in envy, and they only smiled as they headed towards it. The market streets were the best assignments!

Of course it also meant a lot more work than others. Especially, because it was lunch break, most of the food stores had queues. There were also a lot of ‘mobile stores’ that were carrying some snacks on a board tied to them.

“Gugu Sticks for sale! Comes in three flavors!”

“Dried Gouji Berry! A great appetizer AND dessert for the whole family!”

And so on.

Gochi smiled as someone who sold special flavor jerkies approached them. The two bought a handful each to snack to consume while they walked.

He didn’t eat immediately though, still relishing in the fact that he just bought delicious food and also bought it with money he earned.

“Not gonna eat that?” Amos asked, pointing at his food while chewing on his. It was super delicious and he wondered if their half-orc friend just bought some to be polite.

In which case, he would also not be polite and take it off his hands.

Gochi flinched but handed it over. Amos saw his facial expression and chuckled, knowing he didn’t want to.

“I’m kidding,” he said, handing it back to him. “You know, you can tell us No.”

Gochi stared at him, a little surprised, though he really shouldn’t be after staying here for so long.

“A-Ah,” he said, though not saying anything else as he ate his food in a partial daze.

The two made their rounds, all while watching if any chaos was happening or would happen. It was peaceful of course, because not only were the regulations extremely specific, but people just behaved better in general when there was ‘law enforcement’ in the vicinity.

However, sometime during their rounds, they passed through a large crowd who were going from the Market street and back to their respective workplaces.

Gochi’s steps halted and he abruptly turned his head in a direction. His eyes narrowed somewhere in the crowd which was slowly getting farther from them.

“Gochi?”

The half-orc didn’t say anything, concentrating, until eyes narrowed at a couple of men, quickly gesturing to follow.

“Oi—” Amos tried to call to him, but Gochi turned to him with a serious expression. His eyes had a different lightness to it, too, and somehow he was far more intimidating than before.

“They’re a bit suspicious.”

Amos blinked, following his sights. “Where?”

Gochi nodded, certain. A half-orc’s instincts with emotions and intent was next only to goblins.

Those two men… were extremely hostile to them.

Gochi’s eyes sharpened and shone a sharp light.

He wouldn’t allow anything to pose a threat to his current life.

…

Althea and the others soon reached the outskirts of their territory. The entire time, they couldn’t help but wonder about that poisonous territory.

They had been allies with Bright for a long time, they inevitably knew a lot of things. They worried if they managed to get information about them from the Bright citizens. Even if not immediately, they’d eventually come across the information.

“They must know of us,” Ansel said, referring to military strength.

Garan shook his head. “Our elements are indeed public knowledge, but we never revealed our levels. “Even if we did, most of us can’t participate anymore.”

Only Luis could participate in the wars now, actually. The rest could only defend.

“Wow. Didn’t know our leveling up so fast worked against us.”

“Well, the territory is already much stronger than others. While we can’t be complacent, with enough preparation we should be able to manage it.”

“The target is to minimize the losses as well,” Althea added. “It is likely Fargo had already deployed spies in our midst.”

“That jerk.”

“We will find them for sure! And torture them to death!”

More curses abound and Althea looked on, sighing.

“We have to be very careful,” Luis said. “Their forces are very strong. I know that they have a lot of level 20s on their side, and even if they didn’t participate directly in the war… they killed a lot of my people outside.”

Hopefully, she would get more useful hires by then, even if they were relatively low-level. As much as possible, she didn’t want to lose anyone and, with the number of strongmen Fargo had, it was likely they would lose a lot.

She looked at Garan who was in an obvious bad mood. It made Althea a little anxious, too.

The man noticed Althea’s worried look and his face eased. He held her hand, massaging it in comfort.

“Don’t worry, my love,” he told her, “It’s nothing we can’t handle.”