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

If Higson had plenty of loopholes in their deal—that was: they could kill as long as he didn’t see it directly and could even decide on the punishment because of their leverage—he, too, placed one for himself.

He simply couldn’t betray him or his party directly. If he didn’t give explicit assistance to whoever would deal with Higson, then he was safe.

Higson either didn’t notice or didn’t care because he was too confident in himself, his men, and his guns.

Anyway, because Vismont didn’t prohibit fighting, dealing with Higson’s group of men was surprisingly simple.

What’s more, there was someone who triumphed over everyone in level.

It could be said that Higson’s order to allow for violence—and with so many loopholes—had backfired on him horrendously.

Of course, per the lord Althea’s order never to coddle her citizens, except for dealing with the few people with guns, Rowan didn’t make a move. There was also the fact that he didn’t want to accidentally start a formal war.

It was uncertain to what degree he could fight, but he feared a Territory War would be triggered prematurely.

From what he heard, triggering a war without warning caused some consequences to the attacking territory. After all, there was conventionally a 28 hour warning before an attack, what would be its use if people could attack as they wanted?

At this point, Rowan was thinking too much. Even if they did exceed the force requirement to qualify as waging war (which they didn’t), the Lord of the defending territory—who will be alerted the moment it was triggered— must formalize it first.

Of course, if that was indeed to happen and Matthew decided not to trigger a war, then his life could be forfeited due to his deal with Higson.

But all of these were ’what ifs’. Things happened to go in the Alteran’s and Matthew’s favor, primarily due to Higson’s arrogance.

In any case, to be safe, while Rowan didn’t attack, he did defend. And his defense was explosive.

For instance, at the moment, Rowan was surrounded by a snake made of fire, which attacked people as he ordered, burning near them, destroying their guns, distracting them enough so that the Alterans could deal with them easily.

At this, Matthew couldn’t help but be in awe of Rowan, his dull eyes beginning to shine a bit of light.

Fire!

He could control fire!!

As the aborigine stared at the fire whip in marvel, Matthew seemed to have been brought back to his missing childhood. None of this showed in his face, however, and he continued to watch the fight from afar, looking quite professional.

Soon, he came to understand that the rest of the guards, and even some of their normal citizens, could fight really well.

Especially those twins, who were particularly fierce…

It was so… safe… that Rowan still had the time to send some critiques, especially to the normal citizens. ”Leo, don’t put too much force on your attacks. Take advantage of the other’s momentum instead.”

”Very good Cassie, you just need to commit more to your attacks.”

”What are you doing Dog? Do you want to destroy your teeth?”

The group also all had a plethora of weapons and techniques. And medicine!

Matthew’s eyes shone at the sight of medicine that stopped the bleeding so quickly.

This made his eyes brighten more than the magic.

Sure enough, there was medicine in their territory!

”How are you guys so powerful?” He asked out loud and Silvia, who happened to be standing next to him, was the one to answer.

The woman’s eyes never left the fight, and she smiled at this question. She, too, had a crossbow in her hand, shooting away in leisure.

She smiled at him, eyes filled with pride. ”Our territory is so good… all of us simply wanted to do our part in protecting it.”

…

They beat their way through the huge estate, dealing with the remaining gangsters.

Although they were only a few dozen people, the lowest of them was level 3, the other party had no chance.

Not to mention that backup Rowan was right behind them, to protect them from major injuries, mostly by shooting accurate fireballs when he needed to.

Eventually, they reached a large castle-like house in the middle of the forest. There were still about a dozen men with their bows and arrows and a few remaining guns.

They were behind a level 2 wall, and there were high risks of casualties if they attacked recklessly.

Rowan’s power wasn’t enough to deal with the level 2 fence straightforwardly either.

After all, he wasn’t a beast with iron skin. Those so-called guns could still damage a human of his level. Even if it wouldn’t be much, successive shots would definitely injure him.

If he was injured, others from his side would probably be as well.

Fortunately, the lord gave them a secret weapon to deal with similar situations.

He took a palm-sized ball from his space, lit it up with his ability, and threw it behind the walls.

Foosh!!

Nothing happened for a moment and Rowan thought he must’ve done something wrong. He frowned, feeling guilty of wasting the lord’s efforts.

However, before he could think of an apology, a dense fluff of violet smoke exploded from this tiny ball, and soon the people behind fell down one by one.

He blinked in surprise. He didn’t know what it did—the lord only told him when and how to use it—but Rowan was truly amazed.

How did that much force fit inside such a tiny ball the size of his finger?

”Gas bomb?!!” Someone yelled and they turned to Rowan with burning eyes.

”It’s Ms. Althea’s doing.” He looked at the sparkling eyes of the men. ”There’s only one.”

Their shoulders slumped visibly but they quickly recovered when they thought of the bomb eventually becoming available to them.

It wasn’t like the destructive bomb anyway.

It was just a… very potent gas bomb, hence there was a very high chance of it becoming commercially available in the future.

In any case, they effortlessly entered the gate after letting the wind pass. Of course, they did not put down their guards, unsure of what they would see inside.

They walked through the gate and walked along the dense forests, weapons raised high in case of an attack and traps. They dared not relax even if they got this far fairly easily and without injuries.

After all, they were in the enemy territory now!

Crack!

”Ah!”

Dog yelled when he felt imbalanced. Everyone raised their weapons while Crow was ready to rescue him, thinking it was a trap.

It wasn’t.

”A bone!” Dog yelled, throwing a human bone that he accidentally took on hand. Because it hadn’t been long since they transferred, these bones still had a lot of skin, making it even more disgusting.

The women screamed and the men yelled, realizing there was more than one.

”Shit!!”

”What the heck!”

A lot of people puked and some couldn’t even bear to look.

There were even carcasses, some were only a few days old.

And worse…

”Jimmy!!!” It was Sunny who yelled and Crow and Dog immediately ran.

It was Jimmy, the one who chatted with her deeply when she was selling stuff. He bought a lot of things and expressed interest in seeing the territory.

They were just talking yesterday!!!

The atmosphere was extremely heavy.

Matthew’s head was lowered in shame, fists clenched, avoiding the several glances that came his way.

No one spoke again after that and they just continued forward.

The difference was that before, it was just an attack based on interests. Now… it was personal.

They soon saw a structure in the middle of the forest. It was a small castle hidden in the woods. It was one of the premier buildings available, but everyone just found it vile.

This must end! Now!