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

Alterra

"Letters for the Gaea Team are in the Post Office."

Only the recipients could get the Posts addressed to them, so someone from the family dashed out to get it.

Althea and Garan’s posts were distributed the day they were sent out. It had a lot of greetings, news, information, and instructions for several people.

Ansel took his letter, which was more than a page long, and he also saw the remaining two stationeries attached within the same post. Clearly, they weren’t meant for him.

He smiled, looking in the direction of the playground in the yard. At this time, it was filled with echoing giggles and the sound of restless baby steps.

"Babies~ Your letters are here~" he announced, and the two kids playing their own games paused and then turned in his direction.

"Letuh! Letuh!"

The two-year-olds dashed over with their little legs. If they had been feeling better, Meatball might’ve been flying by now and Pepper teleporting directly.

The two kids got their letters and sat down beside the coffee table. Ansel was there, ready to be asked if there were unfamiliar words in the letter, so he could teach them.

By this time, the babies already knew a lot of spoken words and a number of written ones. Althea and Garan made it a point to use some words the babies knew on top of others, and Althea even doodled a few things for them.

Althea made a rough chibi sketch of orcs for them, and the orcs were being friendly and saying hi.

The two kids read what they could and asked Ansel how to read the others. Though they could not recognize each word visually, they knew the meanings by their sound. The couple made sure to use common and simple words for the babies.

The kids adorably read it a few times over and over, like reciting poetry at school, except they had adorable smiles on their faces. They even exchanged letters and read the other’s, repeating the poem reading.

While they did this, Ansel read the letter for him. It was a shared letter with Winona, and there had been a few notes, including giving orcs a taste of the various goods in Alterra.

Althea also mentioned more about the orcs preferred living conditions and asked him to assist in their integration to Alterra, provided they did not bring danger and troubles instead.

At some point, the two kids went to Ansel again, with the redhead thinking the babies probably forgot a word or something.

Wrong.

"Ankol! Ankoooll!" the baby girl started, looking up at him with those watery beady eyes. "Peppah wants to go to mummy and daddy!"

Meatball nodded. "Baby, too!"

Many toddlers tended to refer to themselves in the third person because of how the adults address them. This would typically last until they were four years old or something, until they learned the use of pronouns.

The baby boy found ’Meatball’ a mouthful, so he opted to refer to himself as baby instead. Many people call him that endearingly anyway, so Meatball’s impression was that it was a good word.

Ansel just laughed sarcastically at them. "Yeah...no."

The babies looked at him as if he was being stupid. His eyes twitched. "No."

At this point, everyone could agree: Babies can’t go on adventures!

Ansel knew he had to be stern this time—cut those thoughts off in the bud!

....

The babies cried for a long time, and Ansel had no choice but to carry the babies out, letting them play in the park. He hoped that he could brainwash them to think that they had just gone on an adventure.

It so happened to be the weekend that day, and there were people everywhere in the public spaces. The playgrounds destroyed during the Valov War had been completely rebuilt now and were even improved.

There was now a structure in some parks. Each one looked like a small castle, and the children loved them all.

When Ansel ’released’ the twins in there, there were already several other children like Pongo and Gururu, Nana’s half-orc babies, and about a dozen goblin babies who were not necessarily siblings (even if they looked exactly alike in his eyes).

"MEABOW! PEPAH!"

More little voices resounded, followed by giggles due to jokes only fellow babies understood. Hearing a cacophony of milky voices itself was comforting, regardless of what they were saying.

Ansel fondly watched as the twins integrated seamlessly into whatever the kids were already playing, and then went to find a bench for himself. The parks had plenty of benches and other seating areas, and there were plenty near the playground in consideration for the parents.

He blinked when, just as he was about to sit down, he saw someone standing on the side in a daze.

Normally, he’d be on guard in case there was someone having bad plans.

The kids were so cute, and children were relatively rare, especially outside Alterra, so there were many people who wanted to do wrong things.

The previous rules, despite being so detailed, still had loopholes. What if the bad person managed to lure the kid outside the territory with candy? What if the kidnapper was someone they knew, hired by other bad men?

Further, hostile intentions were detected by the sentries, but what if the sentries weren’t strong enough? Weren’t the twins taken by such a person?

After the kids were kidnapped, the Rules were naturally updated. It was made super specific, and the administrative group had a meeting for a whole day in formulating it.

It might sound like a simple rule to make, but if it were, they would’ve added it long ago. It wouldn’t do to send innocent parents to prison because they were dragging their stubborn kids off the playground, right?

They couldn’t even add things like disallowing adults ’unrelated’ to the child to take them away because what if it was a legitimate guardian? The current situation showed that many children had lost their blood relatives already. Besides, not all blood relatives were good people!

Anyway, there were a lot of debates then, and people’s brains felt like they turned to mush from all the overthinking, and some people even brought out some philosophical concepts to explain the sensitivity of certain laws.

It had to be so that only those who had truly hostile intentions towards the kidnapped-to-be children and adults were to be punished. They had to specify a lot of parameters too, but putting them in prison would overly complicate things.

In the end, the punishment for this transgression was blacklisting and kicking them out of the territory instead of capturing them. If there was a false alarm, they could just go to the gate and apply for an investigation. At least their innocence would be easy to prove, unlike other transgressions.

The cost was also astronomical. They reckoned not even level 3 towns would be willing to invest.

In some cases where the kidnapped-to-be deserved to be taken away, like a debtor who refused to pay, the creditor would have to report to the guards instead of using their own forces.

Anyway, if someone found another loophole, a lot of people were gonna be depressed.

That said, for this watcher, Ansel ended up being more interested than guarded.

Because it was a dwarf—an unfamiliar one!

Weren’t dwarves supposed to be ultra rare? What’s a new one doing here without anyone making a fuss?

...

During this time, quite a few additions found themselves in Alterra.

Taiso had snuck in along with the caravan, all the way from Bleulle. The original plan was for him to escape midway, once the carriage left the territory. It was just that he got trapped by baggage that was shoved after that. When he woke up, he was already in a strange place.

Even Alterra didn’t go so far as to look underneath carriages and inside people’s luggage. Anyway, the system was there, and it’d charge everyone with the entrance fees regardless of whether they were noticed by the guards.

The Bleulle Caravan had managed to secure a location in an inner marketplace. The marketplaces could be rented by anyone, and many of them were indeed foreigners looking for trade.

When Taiso woke up, he was already in the inner circle in one of the luggage. He was almost crushed when the items were placed down while the stall was being set up.

As soon as the items above him lightened up, Taiso once again activated his various skills to head out. Even if the Bleulle guards detected his presence, they wouldn’t care since they were too busy.

Taiso hid in a nearby park for a while, a bit scared. If there was any comfort, he realized this was a mere town, so the enemies were a bit weaker than those in the City.

Still, dwarves were much weaker than humans, so even town-level humans were troublesome to him. Humans were dangerous and vile creatures. He had to be well-hidden!

Then, out of nowhere, he was scooped up by the underarms.

"..."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!