After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 865

Chapter 865: Heat Outside Alterra
Well, while territories like Bright, Belluga, Limestone Valley, and Iron Mountains—thanks to Alterra—were better than most, every other territory was doing very badly.

Shrao Village.

“We already lost a few older people,” one man reported to Shiro, who only sighed. This wasn’t their first heat wave and this came as no surprise.

In fact, his spies who went to Alterra seemed to have heard that they were preparing for it. They didn’t know how they found it but the entire territory had apparently mobilized so Shrao had decided to follow suit.

However, in the end, it was too late to react because it came before they could take action.

Although the housing situation in this place was much better than in their old home, there were still many people who ended up in makeshift houses.

When the heat wave hit and they were outside for a long time, their skins would burn at the peak of heat. Not only that, the heat in the atmosphere made it difficult to breathe.

Their bodies had adapted well to extreme temperatures but the young and the old might struggle to take such direct hits. It had been a day, and they already lost a few.

Although it generally wouldn’t get worse because the survivors would have stronger physiques, people’s bodies could only handle so much, so if they remained unprotected, more and more people would just die, even the strong adults.

“Burn them cleanly,” he said. The heat would make the corpses rot even more badly than usual, and the stench would weaken their wills.

So, his people did just that. However, someone in his team was just a bit careless because of the difficulty of movement. When they were burning the corpses, things got even worse.

Because the surrounding greeneries were too dry, when a small bit of clothing burned and flew, touching one of the trees, it quickly emblazed into a fire.

This was one of the few patches of forests within the walls, and everyone’s heart clenched to see it damaged.

“Fire!! Fire!!”

“Put it out!!”

“Nooo!”

Immediately the people tried to put it out, many heading outside from the shade to help out, but… they didn’t have enough water! Using it to kill the fire would be killing them in a few days! ‘

Fortunately (or not) they had experienced this plenty of times during droughts and fast-thinkers immediately began to move.

“Bury it in soil!” Shiro yelled, taking out his weapon and stabbing the ground, throwing the dry sandy soil to the fire. He also asked his men to dig around the fire in an attempt to save the rest of the area.

The citizens around worked together to either bury it with soil or stop its spread, but the fire spread quickly and they still lost a lot of trees.

By the time the fire was killed, almost a third of the internal forests had already burned down.

Such damage killed their hearts. This was a large portion of their limited sustenance during the heat wave, and they dreaded what would happen in a few days. A lot of people sobbed, though a few were dehydrated enough that they could only let out dry tears.

Shiro and his people sighed with heavy hearts, just hoping for this to be over.

…

Voumi Town

In a certain town, the slaves were huddling underground, silently enduring the simmering atmosphere caused by the heat outside and their combined body heat.

However, it was still better than burning outside.

To be frank, they were alive (for now) thanks to their horrid living conditions. Slaves in Voumi Town were kept in cell-like living spaces partially underground.

It ended up saving their lives during the heat wave.

When it happened, they were all outside doing various jobs. For the most part, they cleaned up poop, the bits of forests, did hard labor, and other similarly tiring tasks. A lot of the women were also pulled into that industry, and the only reason Sarah hadn’t been touched was because she dirtied herself very well.

At first, it was even with feces.

It disgusted the owners very much and the image stuck, leaving her safe to do her laborious jobs for the days that followed.

It made Milo cry in pity for his sister, but Gurnam was admiring. Inexplicably, he began to watch the girl more and more. Sarah was a bit embarrassed but pretended not to see. Their situation was not the time for romance.

However, she did not reject it when he was being kind to her, and she would occasionally do the same favor. Eventually, she did feel concerned for her own appearance.

Fortunately, she managed to keep some money in her space to get a secret bath and only covered herself with mud thereafter.

She found out that the money manifested and kept in the space wouldn’t be automatically taken away when they became slaves.

Thanks to those kind soldiers, she knew that slaves would lose their money once they were captured so, by instinct, she changed most of the money she had to physical form as soon as the war was announced.

Time passed like that and they were slowly getting used to their lives. It was extremely difficult, and dangerous, but they were alive and they were adjusting.

But fate decided to play with them.

When things changed, the group of them were cleaning up some chamber pots and cesspits. They were to shovel them up (since metals weren’t common they used wood) and hauled them out using buckets.

One by one, they were carried to the pits in the few indoor forests the place had. If this was too filled that the stech became too much, they would throw it outside the walls, which added a new set of dangers for the slaves.

Even if they just threw it by the gates, there was still a chance of monsters being there.

Monsters in Towns were at a different level than in villages. Getting caught by one was akin to a death sentence.

Not to mention, they had to do most of this at night in order not to inconvenience those using the gate as well, and there were plenty of times that some slaves fell down due to the darkness, bathing in the feces they cleaned up.

Their jobs were like those of ‘night soil men’ or ‘gong farmers’ which fit the sort of medieval culture this place had.

This clearing and disposal were usually done during the night, but the population here was dense so they also had to clean up in the mornings.

It was during that time that the wave hit.

It was Gurnam who noticed it first. Because Gurnam watched Sarah a lot, he noticed her skin was becoming abnormally redder and even sweltering a bit. He also felt the same but he was dark-skinned (and thick-skinned) so it wasn’t obvious.

Suddenly—seemingly out of nowhere—his instincts as a fighter flared and he immediately carried the two siblings to the dungeons, leaving a trail of pained yells behind.

That first heat wave directly killed about a dozen slaves in the territory and injured many more. This was followed by extreme drought and suffocating heat, increasing the torture.

At the time, they couldn’t help but think—becoming slaves wasn’t enough, they also had to fight against nature!

At the time, they could only hopelessly cry. What else was this place going to throw at them?!