After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 944

Chapter 944: Growing Too Fast

Alterra Village.

In the meantime, Alterra had already fully recovered. In fact, its lord was now finalizing the new costs with Mathilda and Ansel.

This was because the stats of the territory spiked up too much—and it wasn’t good.

It was just that… while they were meeting around her dining table (with lots of snacks in front of them), their meeting was always hindered by milky giggles in the play cot.

The play cot was now expanded considering the activity of the babies. Today, they were wearing giraffe and elephant onesies, both following after the aether ball.

Little Meatball was soon floating and Little Pepper occasionally flashing here and there, at least wherever she mused the ball would go (though not entirely with 100% accuracy).

She was adorable when she guessed wrong. Her rounded eyes would glisten a bit as she pouted, making those chubby cheeks redder and more prominent.

Althea would allow them to play with the magic toys once a day for half an hour in order to observe them, but nothing more until she figured things out.

The babies looked for it often, too, and they cried a lot as they asked for it. In the end, they figured to just condition them on a particular time of the day when they could have it—and therefore the only times they could use their powers.

If they used their powers outside of it, they would lessen their time with the ball, and so on…

Her babies were smart so this actually did work to some degree.

So far, she found out that the ball really did absorb aether. It was fine for adults, who could control it, but she feared it was not healthy for the babies.

It only absorbed when it was empty though (i.e. low battery), so they just made sure that only the adults activated it.

If the babies were impatient and activated it themselves, then the ball would go straight back to her space. They would cry loudly, of course, but they had the voice blocker for that.

Eventually, the babies learned to behave when they realized they wouldn’t get what they wanted by crying.

“Extraordinary,” Mathilda said, sighing as she watched the magical sight. “Is this why you’ve been limiting the babysitting duties? Lola and the others have been depressed.”

Althea nodded. “We wanted to master when they exhibited it…” She said, “And what do we do to get them to stop in case they did exhibit their powers outside.”

“There is progress, however, so we should be able to trust them to others again soon.”

Other than the conditioning, they were also trying to teach the kids to control their powers when they were already activated.

Winona held Little Meatball by his tiny armpits, putting him back on the ground.

“Googmamumwa?” His little eyebrows furrowed, chubby cheeks puffed. It was adorable but Winona tried to keep a straight face (ending up with a weird expression) as she gently patted his bum.

“Stay,” she said, patting the ground of the cot. “When we say “stay”, you keep here, okay?”

“Googmmwammmwa…?”

Under the baby’s innocent look, Winona let go of him. Almost immediately, the baby boy went to the ball again, but he was only crawling this time.

Meanwhile, Baby Pepper was being lazy as she held on to the aether ball. She was being lazy in the sense that she just held it without crawling anymore, letting it drag her a millimeter at a time.

Since the ball was moving especially slowly due to the added weight, Little Meatball caught up with it even when he wasn’t floating.

This was very good behavior so Winona rewarded him with a soft sweet snack in the form of sweetened gouji fruit goo.

Little Pepper saw it and mumbled, also opening her mouth. Winona’s heart softened and she gave food to the baby girl as well.

The other adults smiled at the sight before resuming a more professional air again, shifting their attention back to the topic at hand.

Gru was with them now and he was still looking at her in awe. He was the only elder unaware of her Lord status for a long time and it was getting inconvenient.

He almost fainted when they told him. Fortunately, he had a strong heart despite his old face.

As for why they ended up meeting in her house instead, it was because the meeting was relatively spontaneous. Most of the family were in the house, watching the babies play when Althea decided to look at the Panel.

[TERRITORY STATS

Status: Level 3 Village

Area: 50,265,600 square meters

Residents: 10985 (3113 permanent, 7872 temporary)

Total Population: 14324

Base Resources:

Wood: 17300/20000

Stone: 11200/15000

Money: 29731 Gold, 88699 Silver, 1098699 copper

Prestige: 885

Buildings: Village Center (Lv3) , Weaponry Shop (Lv3), Defensive Wall (Lv5), Warehouse (Lv3), Farm (Lv2), Training Hall (Lv2), BathHouse (Lv2), Prison (Lv1)

Bonus Building: Custom Buildingx3, Armory (Lv3), Restaurant (Lv3), Special Torch (Lv1), Well (Lv2), Barracks (Lv2)

Custom Aether Buildings: Library (Lv1), Lighthouse Watchtower (Lv1), Hospital (Lv1)

Building Slots: 8/9 (+11)]

Because she was so busy the entire time after the heat wave, she had neglected to look at the status. Anyway, they didn’t change too much—which was why other Lords would only look once in a blue moon—so she didn’t think too much about it.

She was so shocked when she saw the numbers and immediately called for a meeting.

Althea looked at her status with very very complex emotions. Other lords would be jumping for joy, but Althea and the others looked worried instead.

The requirement for becoming a town was 20000 population, 15000 residents, and 1000 prestige.

It seemed like they received a lot of things even after the Heat Wave, as if an after-effect of it.

The residencies had spiked a lot during this time.

For one, they took in a lot of refugees during and after the Heat Wave. Even before the disaster, they had already adjusted the salaries of the people and, of course, the cost of living to balance a bit with the outside.

This also meant that the residencies had become much more achievable, causing the residencies to spike. Even contribution points, due to continuous ‘easy’ mobs and the high contributions in wars contributed to this.

At this rate, they’d only need another month or two before they upgraded.

“Too fast, right?”

“Didn’t they say Prestige was difficult to achieve? What is this now?”

“Our products did help a lot of territories during the Heat Wave…”

“But still—”

They had heard of the harsh conditions outside of Towns. They quite like Alterra Village being in somewhat of a ‘comfort zone’!