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

The dwarves had been isolated from the outside world for a long time, but the chaos outside was really too much. They did not expect to watch such a good show though.

At first, only three dwarves were watching through rock openings hidden somewhere in the homogeneous granite surface. At some point, others saw them peeking through a hole for so long and ended up watching with them.

There were only a few holes with the right angles then, so there were even arguments on who would be able to watch the fights below.

They almost even used one of the tribe’s treasures, which was a vast-seeing crystal ball, but they were afraid of being hit by the elders, so they did not dare ask for it. Anyway, their angle could already capture much of the fight.

"He is already settled down," the dwarf said. "I can’t find him anymore..."

"I wonder if he’s alright..."

"Oh hush," another said. "It has nothing to do with us."

He said it as if he wasn’t one of the dwarves who cheered the most.

"But he got rid of that damned bird!"

The bird had indeed been a bit annoying. They were somewhat fine because their base was within the mountain, but sometimes some of them had to go out to, say, get the meat outside.

They had a tool to attract monsters near their main gate. It would not only deal with potential trespassers, but it was also their way to get meat without having to go too far away.

Usually, though, the bell would be rung on purpose and only for a few seconds to control the number of beasts attracted. If the monster was manageable (i.e. not too high in level), they would then deploy their other tools to attack it.

It required a lot of energy and mechanics, but it was enough to kill some average-level monsters that came their way. Doing it every couple of days was also enough to feed their tribe, whose meat intake wasn’t particularly high anyway.

The carcass had to be gathered manually, though, and this was where the risks lay.

Lately, that stinky bird had settled down in their area and had been a pest since then. It seemed to have realized that the bell meant there was a concentrated amount of food there—many of which were even weakened.

Sometimes it would steal their food, especially after the game was already attacked by their tools, but there were also some cases when it’d arrive when a dwarf was out and would target the dwarf instead.

While the dwarves were equipped with life saving equipment and tethers, they were all still injured after being targeted by the stinky bird. One even lost an arm, which was a death sentence for a dwarf!

Then...today happened. The bell rang for a record-long time. At first, the dwarves were annoyed and started nagging each other. "Why would you turn it on?!" "Why would you keep it on?!" "Can you change the ringtone?" echoed inside their vast cave network.

Then they found out no one had activated it. This meant that someone was trying to break through!

Everyone had their weapons out, though they thought it was probably that bird again.

Rabid Monsters usually weren’t smart, but that giant bird was, so they would not have been surprised if it were.

Unexpectedly, it wasn’t the bird at all. They were shocked to see it was two legendary humans! The younger generation had never seen one, so they were naturally curious.

Some even wanted to go out and help, but they were immediately punished by the older generation.

One even threatened to cut their precious beard if they dared step out!

Scary!!

The older generation hated humans very much, and they always told stories about them, so soon every dwarf calmed down. They just hadn’t seen a human before, so they weren’t able to truly wrap their heads around the concept before.

They saw how powerful humans were, and their skills were fascinating. Too bad they were so evil!

No, since they were so powerful, then wasn’t it all the more reason to fear them? To not associate with them at all?

Anyway, now that the guy was gone, they could only go through their day as they always did.

However, today, there had been a few seeds of curiosity planted on several dwarves’ heads. As for how it would manifest in the future, only time could tell.

...

Althea’s side was rather peaceful for the next two days or so. She bonded with Ohara and the others, also learning about the culture here as she befriended them all.

To summarize, the orcs of this place had not actually graduated from nomadic life. They did not have a permanent home at all, and their concept of ’home’ was transient.

They would still move around depending on the resources available in the area, though it was mostly limited to things like specific vegetation, water sources, and so on.

The meat wasn’t a problem; monsters would always regenerate as long as there were true living things—that was to say, those that could naturally control or facilitate aether, albeit in different ways.

Monsters were shadows to the light. As life was created, there would be waste and dark energy, and this was why monsters would never die, only be controlled, which was fine because the majority of the meat sources were from them. They kept people on their toes, ensuring the need to train and grow.

To some degree, it also kept the races united because they had a common enemy.

The orcs do take a while to move, more or less a year or two, but only because the resources refreshed fast. The orcs had massive requirements for food, so even with the high refresh rates, they really did not recover fast enough for permanent residency.

Further, the plants here might be large and their fruits appeared big, but their edibles were essentially not that big. A lot of them were similar to pinecones, and the majority of orcs didn’t like eating them.

Some orcs do eat some parts of the fruit, but they were the minority because their stomachs couldn’t get enough nutrients from them.

Orcs also look for specific fruits that could give nutrition as well, so they also considered proximity to these plants when they moved.

This reminded Althea of how many Terran fruits originally were. Weren’t the edible parts in those tiny, as well? They were just bred to their ’modern’ forms.

Another thing that consumed resources would be the monster mobs. The monsters here were quite a bit stronger than what she was used to on the other side.

The dinosaur-like beast she encountered before was definitely at least level 30. Ohara mentioned there were a lot of such monsters in the area, so one could imagine how stressful mobs could be here.

As such, the paths the mob took tended to be completely decimated, taking time to recover.

That said, she couldn’t help but wonder if she could introduce the sedentary life to them. The orcs on the other side managed to do so, didn’t they?

What would signal the difference between the nomadic life and sedentary life? Agriculture.

The forest was so lush. Wasn’t it a good thing? And she was a wood user, she could breed the existing fruits to make them more productive after a few generations.

They were said to be simple-minded, but this just meant they were straightforward and one didn’t have to guess any inner thoughts with them. At the same time, she could still have a decent conversation with them.

Other than these, she also learned a bit about the orcs’ behavioral patterns. As she already knew, Orcs did not group together according to appearance. They wouldn’t have ’monkey tribes,’ ’tiger tribes, ’ ’herbivores-only tribes, ’ and so on.

Some behaviors seemed in line with their appearances. Like carnivore-like orcs prefer meat and avians prefer to live higher up, and so on. It wasn’t a hundred percent accurate, and knowledge about them was a work in progress.

The orcs also moved on instinct, but not in a way many humans think. They had estrus cycles, so they didn’t make love whenever and wherever. Orc cycles were also rare, only once a year, which contributed to their low birth rates.

There was a common misconception back in the human realm. Because orcs were known to go by their instinct, and many human males equated instinct to sex, they believed that orcs should be the same.

There was also another trait associated with orcs back in the human regions—orcs were war-like.

They still were; it was just that they were against such strong monsters that their energy would almost always go to hunting, rather than the classical war of conquest between groups.

The resources on this side were generally enough, and there were not too many individuals to fight for them.

There were probably hundreds of tribes in this vast land, but the land area was massive, and each tribe might not encounter each other for many years.

Althea silently wondered how many she would encounter during her stay here.

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