After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 771

Chapter 1071: Happy Hearts Home
The Happy Hearts Home was Alterra’s largest orphanage. It had dozens of children and minors under its care.

It was being funded directly by the territory, and it boasted of policies and facilities that would allow the children to grow physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy even without their parents.

Many better-off territories and villages actually had a version of this. However, those kids were raised with the expectations that they’d be serving the leading family, or whoever sponsored its creation in the first place.

So, in other territories, orphans were generally relegated to becoming maids or guards. They were raised to be servants, fed just enough, clothed just enough, but trained harshly. They were thankful for the care—rightfully so—even if the patron had a lot of underlying motives for doing it.

He investigated how it was for Alterra before bringing the children here. He knew that they were raised by the adults as if they were their own children, given education, and freedom to do what they wanted with their lives.

From what he heard, there were no kids from their old place except for a couple of teens about to reach adulthood. Most of their children were actually local, which made the effort and sincerity to give them genuinely better lives—just for the children’s own sakes—even more impressive.

As for why he was sending his daughter and grandson here… it wasn’t actually his decision. Not exactly.

He had wanted to rent a house, but because they weren’t temporary citizens, they could not do so. There were also no more openings for rooms or even leases remaining for them to take. The dormitory was too cluttered for his antisocial children—they might go berserk before the place could soften them up.

Later, during his attempts to secure a comfortable place for his family to live in (even occasionally using his Lordship to increase his ‘persuasiveness’), he found out that many of the villas were leased by people from Level 3 Towns and even Cities.

He could only be gobsmacked and accept that he was just a small bug in the larger scheme of things.

Alterra also refused to add more houses, opting to keep their plentiful parks and remaining forests inside the walls. It was a little counterintuitive at first until he remembered what happened during the Heat Wave.

There was also the fact that Alterra was apparently delaying an upgrade—which was really beyond his imagination before he met them—and adding more places to stay in could be opposing that idea.

Anyway, when he forwarded this concern to the Elders, they called in Miss Juliet and had a discussion about it.

He was quite surprised, to be honest. He just thought they’d throw an extra room and rent it to them. He wouldn’t have minded if all four people (including the servants) would get squeezed in one room. It was certainly better than nothing.

Instead, they had a serious discussion of what would be best for people in his children’s “situation”.

There, he met Miss Juliet for the first time, and he knew her specialization was how to help ‘victims’ like her daughter.

‘Psychologist’, they called her, which was an alien profession to Yassop until that point. However, the more he listened to their conversations, the more enlightened he became.

Some things, particularly women’s mysterious minds, suddenly made sense after a couple of minutes of listening to them.

In the end, after about a quarter of an hour of discussion, they recommended he send them to the orphanage instead.

“I’ll recommend Yelena to work there. There are plenty of jobs she can do so she can have a salary to sustain herself more than what you send her,” Juliet said.

This part got Yassop confused at first. He was planning to leave them a good allowance that would last them several months as long as they didn’t splurge.

“I know you’re not lacking money, but I recommend leaving them just enough for a month or two and then leaving them on their own,” Juliet said, seeing his expression.

“What she needs is a sense of independence: That she can do things on her own. She does not need you—or any man, for that matter.”

“This would allow her some sense of control over her own life that doesn’t involve hiding her son from the world.”

“As for the boy… he could live like other children would,” she said. “The orphanage is a place with children who also lived without parents—just as he did, in a sense. They would be able to connect with him better than any other peer.”

“In time, I hope, he’d go out of his shell on his own. After all—he still had his mother, how could he be sadder than those who did not?”

“Finally, living there would not pull them apart, but at the same time allow them to live their own lives at some distance from each other.”

Those were Juliet’s words and it added an immense amount of hope in him. So, now at the present, here they were, standing by the orphanage door.

He still felt nervous and didn’t know how to explain anymore to them. Fortunately, the door opened to reveal Helen, the orphanage head.

A few days back, before heading back to Yasof to fetch his daughter and grandson, he went to talk with Helen with Juliet. He explained the situation in as much detail as he could.

They ended up talking for hours, and even talked about personal things like Helen’s own child, a teenager, who perished before they left for this world.

In any case, the more he had talked to her, the more reassured he was that sending them here was the right decision.

The two chatted a bit more as they entered, revealing a room with seating used by some children doing their own thing. “The rest are at school, so it’s fairly quiet at this time,” Helen said.

There was a stair heading directly to the upper floors connected to this foyer, and they headed straight there.

“These will be your rooms,” Helen said, introducing two rooms with two beds on each corner. Each room also had two study tables set to serve each owner of the bed, as well as their own cabinets.

“Yelena and her maid, Peachie, will take on one room, while Yanno and his valet, Paulie, will stay in one.”

The two servants felt a bit awkward sharing rooms with their masters, but if there were no other rooms they did understand. They just silently swore to be so quiet and still it seemed like they weren’t there.

Yassop smiled, satisfied with this arrangement. He looked at the two, and could vaguely sense some interest—and maybe a bit of excitement—in them.

They were antisocial at this time and completely giving him their own space might just let them be hermits. At the same time, forcing them in many social situations could get them clam up even further.

The orphanage could be a great compromise for both needs. They would have their own rooms and the children were taught to respect people’s boundaries, while at the same time there was still an overall sense of liveliness and community that—hopefully—would slowly pry the two out of their rooms, and out of their shells.

“It’s time for me to go,” Yassop said, looking at his last two family members, giving them a month’s worth of allowance. “You’ll be on your own now.

“Live well, my children,” he said, patting Yelena’s shoulder, and Yanno’s head. “For now, this will be your new home.”