After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 507

Chapter 507: Gaming Hall
After filling their spaces up again with this and that, the group continued to walk along the streets, ending at the last shops.

Even when the entire territory was low-key preparing for something and people seemed to work a few more hours over time, they would still have time to rest and play.

At this time, a lot of people who had just gotten off work were heading in a direction. Curious, the Golds—who were winked at several times by the way—followed the crowd.

Most of these were women, too, and the Golds were very taken aback by the women’s forwardness here.

Speaking of forward women, they seemed to have themselves a fan group here. Golden god # 2 was Otto and #3 was Obi—which was something he was very bitter about because Oslo was #1.

Olga (a.k.a. Golden Goddess) really found this all amusing. She looked at a girl who was openly admiring their ‘golden gods’ and asked, “Where are so many people going?”

“The Gaming Hall, Miss Olga~!”

“A Gaming Hall?” she uttered, feeling it sounded familiar.

This place was something Ansel wanted to show the Golds at some point, but suddenly things happened and he just forgot about it. There were also so many things to explore in Altera and they somehow missed this newly-opened entertainment building.

The girl wasn’t surprised the Aborigines still hadn’t been there. Altera was not as big as a town for sure, but one simply couldn’t see everything it had to offer within a couple of days.

“Yes, it’s a place where people can play games. Usually after working hours, of course!”

The Golds looked at each other. Did this seem like a territory going to war and/or Beast Tide?

What they didn’t understand at this time was that people played because they knew and felt a big fight was coming. They had already done their work and trained. It was time to relax and balance their psyches!

Unlike the Aborigines, the Terrans were well aware of the need for balance. In Terran, there were various studies indicating that working too much had diminishing returns! Breaks were important for an efficient society!

Ahem.

Anyway, the Golds soon arrived at the building along with a small crowd of people who immediately went in, knowing where they were going.

It had three stories with plenty of color and activities for all ages. It was the preliminary development of Ansel’s entertainment plan. It was only one building for now but, eventually, he would expand it further.

Maybe it could extend to an entire street, but that needed a bit of begging-the-sister-lord on his part.

Back to the Game Hall. First off, there were a couple of indoor activities like that game they called squash, as well as a few fun games like hoop games and darts.

The newcomers were amazed by the vibrancy inside. Not only the color, but the energy was wild. There were plenty of cheers and laughter, usually centered around activity spots.

“Wow…” Honda uttered as he entered the building. His eyes widened at the sight. He didn’t know many of the activities but based on the laughter he was hearing, they seemed quite fun.

Little Honda found himself in front of a board where there were two people playing against each other. They were sliding a circle thing with a handle and they would get a point when the smaller flat circle entered the other’s slot.

“What is this?” Honda asked no one in particular. Unexpectedly, a cute little girl turned to him and he blushed a little.

“It’s you!”

“Ah, yes.”

They were the kids he met with Uncle Ansel before. He had always wondered when he’d encounter them again… but he was too shy to ask uncle where they were.

But the little girl—Mimi, he remembered her name—as well as her friend Maya saw him and greeted. “Hello~ You’re Uncle Oslo’s nephew! Honda, right?”

“H…Hello…” he said shyly, but internally reprimanding himself for not being more confident, like his dad.

The little girls weren’t privy to the various thoughts in his head though and just pulled him closer to their group. He already knew most of them, except for a tall girl around his age.

He blinked as he looked at her. She looked very sad and out of place. The younger kids saw where he was looking at and saw Lily, one of the newcomers and someone they were asked to bring.

“This is Lily!” Mimi said. “She’s a little worried for her dad right now, but it’ll be okay, and we’re trying to distract her.”

“I… see…”

“Anyway, this game is called Table Hockey! You shoot them all and you’ll gain points. Win enough and you can get prizes!”

Then, the girl looked at him and smiled, “Wanna play?”

As such, little Honda was pulled by the little girls to play with the others. The moment they started, laughs and giggles abounded. Even little-adult Horus chuckled.

At some point, Honda had started losing badly. He puffed his cheeks and his other hand blocked the puck from getting to the slot using his palms.

Maya gasped. “No! Stupid! You’re not supposed to touch it!”

“S-Stupid?”

“Silly goose!”

“Is that a bad word?” Honda asked, looking at them.

“It’s endewment!” Maya said and Mimi, daughter of a lawyer, corrected her.

“It’s endearment.”

“Oh.”

Anyway, after a few fun games playing table hockey, they traveled from game to game (politely waiting for their turn, of course), and had lots of fun.

In fact, a lot of the games for kids were designed to low-key train them.

Other than indoor sports like Squash to improve reaction time, there were also mini-games that could improve skills. For instance, there was a mini archery area where they could be introduced to the art of archery. There was also a pressure-matching game where the players (played by kids and kids at heart) would have to guess what element was being used and what to use against it.

The games were not free, of course, much like how arcades worked. It was pretty amazing. They didn’t have electricity yet, but with the cooperation of the woodworkers and Houser, they came up with a way for the mechanisms of the games to be blocked after a certain time of use.

They had to use special carved coins by Houser to make them work again, and powered by mechanisms (via water or wind) that would match with the patterns in the coins. It worked much like a key.

While it could be cheated by creative people after a year or two, hopefully they would have thought of better mechanisms by that time.

Regardless, even this ‘basic’ thing was extremely novel even to the Golds.

Maya showed Honda and Lily how to use the tokens. “You just put this token over here, and it’ll work!”

Honda blinked and held the cute little wood token, placing it in a slot of sorts. When he did, he heard some sounds inside the box and it started working!

“Amazing.”

They played a lot and Mimi and Maya were definitely the noisiest. The other kids were just following along with smiles on their faces.

Mimi looked at the others, realizing the differences in interactions. Her father had taught her a lot about people. There were extroverts and introverts and then the people in between.

She could tell Horus, Honda, and Lily were introverts. She knew that while they were not too fond of people, it didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy it.

Her father told her of something like a social battery. The people who like to talk a lot seem to have an inexhaustible social battery—rather, they were energized by talking and playing—while introverts had limited amounts of it. In any case, the two girls were determined to make their quiet friends enjoy this time together!

And so, the kids ran around—dragging the shyer friends—and having a blast.

The laughter of the children brought smiles to the adults with childish hearts roaming around. Soon enough, the adults would be doing the same.

“It looks simple but fun,” Otto said with a smile, then turned to Obi who was gaping at the game in front of them with apt attention. Not only was that coin thing impressive, but the games themselves were really interesting.

Soon, enough, they tried the games as well. They bought just a handful of coins at first, trying some random games, finding something special in each one.

To be honest, it could get quite addicting!

Would they get in trouble?

At this thought, they looked at the various machines and games they had yet to try and they felt a little giddy.

This was a unique place with novel machines and games—it was a place where everyone would have the heart to play.

This was fun to Terrans who had seen all sorts of entertainment, one could imagine the waves it would cause among aborigines!

This was what characterized Altera’s Game Hall, which would eventually be known throughout the region.

Further, these games were patented by the Elder of Economy, Ansel Witt, and would thus make a lot more money when people bought rights to them.

Hey, he needed his own money, too!