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

The plan was to stay here for several days until the wind outside picked up again, hopefully making the mobs outside a bit more manageable. Right now, considering how constantly the ground vibrates, there should be hundreds of beasts above them now.

It was scary to think about. Hopefully, this place could really hold up.

The next few days would be her training herself, absorbing an aether crystal and also the dense wood energy around. She found that her progress was much faster than anywhere else, and it was comparable to the energy she could get when she was on system farms.

In between those times, she rested and spent time with the orcs. Just as sleep was essential to the body, rest and a pause in absorption were also needed to calibrate the body properly.

While humans were still figuring out the most efficient balance, Althea’s instincts were strong, so she knew when she needed to rest, even if she didn’t feel tired.

This was in contrast to the times she spent experimenting. In those times, she’d 100% forget about the time and could go a whole day without resting.

She enjoyed doing experiments, after all. Meditation was super boring, so she looked forward to rest times.

Anyway, she wanted to know more about the orcs, so it counted as hitting two birds with one stone. It was very effective, too. When was the best time to gather information? During casual eating times!

Most of all, she also hoped to gather something about her main mission here, which was finding the Urkfrut. It was such an elusive thing; she wondered when she’d actually find it, considering the only clue they had was that it was on this side of the continent.

While she didn’t get a clue about the Urkfrut, she did learn more about the orcs.

It was quite amusing how several of their habits were parallel to animals they knew from Terran. For example, the dog orc tilted his head a lot, especially when confused. For example, the feline orcs liked to lick their fur clean. And for example, the rabbit had a habit of thumping his feet while thinking.

"What are you writing?" Ohara asked at the side, looking at Althea taking notes while doing rough sketches.

Althea smiled. "Recording experiences," she said. "It helps me remember what I have experienced. I am also recording what I learned about you guys." This was also done by taking a few pictures here and there, but she didn’t reveal the phone too much. The orcs couldn’t quite handle that stimulation too often.

Speaking of stimulation, just her current writing was probably mind-blowing for them.

"So beautiful!" "I don’t understand it, but somehow I like it." "Ohhhhh! Baahh! Amazing!"

Althea nodded, shamelessly accepting the praise.

"What is this leaf made of? It’s so clean!" Ohara asked, with ’leaves’ referring to paper. When Althea shifted the page, Ohara then saw some familiar sketches and immediately exclaimed. "Ohh! That’s me! Why am I there?"

Althea naturally had records of Ohara and her habits. Speaking of which, the drawing was a bit cartoony. It was cute that Ohara was acting as if Althea drew it ultra realistically.

As always, the exclamation gathered attention on Althea. The place wasn’t big, so it was really easy to pull attention. Besides, many admired Althea, so their attention, or at least part of it, was always on her.

Amusingly, a few orcs looked for their likeness in the notebook. It was as if she drew each one of them.

"Did you write anything about me?" the beast-repelling avian orc asked. He was injured from the previous fight, and only a handful of feathers remained.

It was so pitiful, but Althea managed to stop herself from chuckling.

"Yes," she said, showing the page about avian orcs. It included him in his most glorious form. (It was chibi style, but he thought it was cool).

From what she gathered about avians— some through personal experience and some not— the birds had very good wind and weather sensitivity. She could see them adjust to where the wind was coming from, even if many of them were non-flight birds.

Nana, their avian half-orc, also showed this ability well, though she could not compare to the pureblooded orcs.

For example, Nana could passively feel the changes in the winds around a hundred meters away at most. High-level pureblooded orcs could probably feel a kilometer away.

They also had a fixation on shiny objects. In this case, they were attracted by her mirror and her phone.

Their eyes were literally glued to them every time she had them out of her space. It was one of the reasons why whenever she took out her phone to take pictures, the phone would immediately be taken back to space, lest a naughty bird bite it out of nowhere, just because of an intrusive thought.

The boars, on the other hand, had the tendency to snort when irritated, and it was amusing because they were so in sync. There was a group of three brothers in this tribe. They were so similar in how they reacted to everything.

Even the way they chewed on meat was in sync. It was very amusing.

They were known to be the strategists of the tribe, though sadly one of them had been injured so the other two got too distracted to show it. Pigs had always been very smart. In Terran, they were smarter than dogs, a.k.a. Man’s best friend.

That said, finding this new home of theirs was the boars’ credit. They were also the ones who recommended hunting along the walls in groups.

They then told her about the ursines, or the bears, known for their explosive strength. "A paw can remove the heads of monsters and their skins are super hardy!"

In a tribe, the ursines tended to be the willing vanguard, tank, and meatshields. The more they blocked, the prouder they were. They just had a tendency to overestimate themselves sometimes, going against beasts much stronger than they were.

They definitely had to be on a good team each time, otherwise, they’d have lost their lives.

"They also talk a bit slow though, oink!" the pig added very helpfully at the side, getting a glare from the tribe’s only black bear.

There were also the reptiles, the cold-blooded ones. Many of them genuinely looked like villains, but the ones Althea met were the sweetest things.

One gecko even offered her a cluster of flowers picked from her tomato plant, and he then asked her when new tomatoes would appear. Looking at the poor flower bouquet on her hand, she did not have the heart to explain it to him at the time.

The reptiles were also big on energy conservation (of their own bodies), and they also had high heat awareness. When an Extreme Heat was about to happen, they were one of the first to sense it.

Speaking of which, adding a few reptile orcs around the region could be like an early warning system, too. Other territories couldn’t rely too much on Alterra’s meteorology team, right? What if they were super far away? What if they were just villages and didn’t have easy ways to communicate?

The reptiles were also known for their sun-seeking behavior.

"Hmm, they like sunbathing a lot," Piggy bro #2 said at the time, sounding a bit bitter.

In fact, wherever there was a light brought in by the holes and natural light tunnels, they’d likely be there. Apparently, Piggy #2 quite liked to sunbathe his tummy too. It helped with digestion, he said.

Anyway, that dinner was lively. These meal times were pretty much the only times she truly rested since meditation could count as sleeping.

She watched as they ate their meat, which was rationed, so the orcs looked really repressed. It was fortunate that she also grew some tomato plants and mushrooms to supplement their meals, though it was just a few extra bites for them.

They looked super pitiful, like abandoned puppies. It made her animal-loving heart itch a bit.

She looked at her space and looked at her small garden there. Her eyebrows rose when she realized the plants had grown significantly over the past day, all without her actively making them grow.

Was it because she absorbed so much wood energy?

In particular, her little strawberry garden was lush and filled with big juicy strawberries. She really liked strawberries. It was also so convenient and cost-efficient because you only had to plant it once and it would fruit continuously.

In the Orc Region, the only tasty fruit was the bouti fruit, but even that was more astringent than sweet. For the most part, the fruits here seemed to be in the ancient forms, and their focus was to protect their seeds until they could be dispersed.

As such, the fruits’ edible flesh was often smaller, harder, more bitter, and less sugary.

That said, the delicious modern fruit she knew was human-made, developed after thousands of years of breeding, so the current state wasn’t too surprising. Even the ones that were originally sweet were not nearly as juicy or as big as their ’modern’ counterparts.

She took out a large basket overflowing with strawberries. "Would you like to taste a lil’ something from my hometown? It’s sweet this time."

They sniffled and were greeted by a pleasant, refreshing scent.

The orcs, forever curious, did not hesitate to take it. There was no such thing as polite ’reject-first-accept-after’ coyness among orcs. If someone offered and they wanted it, they’d get it!

Crunch!

Their eyes widened. SO JUICY! SO SWEET!

Althea smiled.

They definitely opened up another world today.

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