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

Aberdeen City, Twenty-one years ago

The young Garan and little Bean stared at their stock of essential condiments with a bit of pride.

Winter was coming and it meant major rationing in the orphanage would happen.

When they were smaller, they had no choice but to eat what was available and when it was available. This often meant very painful stomachs and heavy shivering from the cold.

But nine-year-old Garan and his BFF Little Bean were already big kids and they were determined not to suffer so badly anymore.

So they worked very hard during the errands and part-time jobs to stock up long-lasting food. They also bought salt and, because the shopkeeper admired their independence (i.e. she thought they were adorable), she gave them a few pieces of candy.

”What is this? What are you doin’? Has it snowed already?” Little Althea asked as she saw the two boys putting salt on their meat.

Bean cackled at her stupidity while Garan smiled fondly, using the base of his hand (because his fingers had salt) to rub her small head.

”This is called salt, This would make our food last longer.” He said. ”It’s so we won’t go hungry when the snow falls.”

Although Garan did his best to feed Althea well, to the point that he himself went hungry, she still did experience it. Now that she found out that they wouldn’t be hungry again, Althea looked at Garan with admiration. This made him very proud.

She then decided to help them with their task, which Garan naturally allowed her to do.

She cutely mimicked the actions of the older boys, taking a bit of salt and rubbing it on the raw meat.

For some time, they could only hear the soft flap of meat being turned and the soft rubbing sound of salt.

It was peaceful for a while until the little girl exclaimed,

”Iiichhh! Salty! Pyew! Pyew!”

The boys turned to look at the four-year-old with a scrunched-up face, her chubby cheeks looking even more pinchable.

Bean laughed out loud. ”Who told you to eat it! That’s why it’s called salt, idiiooottttt.” He said, which earned him a little bump from Garan.

”Hey!”

In fact, Garan also wanted to chuckle at her cute scrunched-up face, but held back because he knew she’d cry.

Instead, he smiled at the little girl and told her about the powder. ”It is very salty, but all our food tastes good because of it.”

”Weally?”

”Yes, every delicious thing you have ever eaten probably has a pinch. Just a pinch for a load of meat.”

”Oh…”

He chuckled and, after wiping the salt off his hands, took out a piece of candy he got from the shopkeeper lady. He unwrapped it and gently put it in her mouth.

”Don’t swallow it whole, okay? Just chew.”

”What wis thwis?” She mumbled, but the moment the little thing touched her taste buds and melted there, a new unfamiliar sensation exploded her mind.

Little Althea felt like she climbed up the clouds.

It was her first taste of real sugar.

Garan looked at her reaction and smiled. ”It’s candy. Sugar. Do you like it?”

She bobbed her head passionately.

Her emerald eyes met the azure ones that looked at her so fondly, and she felt even sweeter.

Sugar. So sweet and lovely and melty in her mouth.

And it was a taste she had never forgotten.

_________________

Altera Village, Present

While waiting for her new citizens to settle down, Althea—as always—was in her laboratory.

This time her babies were being watched over by Harold and Maya in the living area so she could rest assured.

She had been reading about the purification of salt the previous night and was now putting it into practice. She had started out preparing early in the morning so that she’d take a shorter time with any trial and error that may happen.

She had too many things to do and could no longer afford to spend days on end stuck in her laboratory as often as she used to.

Going back to the task at hand, she looked at the translucent rock and the tools in front of her, determined to complete this task today. She must create consumable salt!

Doing a bit of pep talk, she soon immersed herself in her experiments.

Salt could be purified in two ways: Filtration and Evaporation.

There were plenty of ways to do these, but the most effective ones were modern and required a lot of tools.

Fortunately, she bought Tori with her so her basic set of glassware like beakers, test tubes, etc, was in her hands.

It was her only set, however, so she was very, very careful with it.

Speaking of glassware, she would have to put the production of glass in her to-do list once the situation had stabilized. For now, she’d have to settle with a set.

Anyway, she just needed it to get the correct formulas, especially since the salt here was different from Terran salt. After determining the proper ratio and methods, she and her factories would then be able to use the salt purification techniques by the ancients.

For the first filtration method, she took out the densest fabrics she could find. And since paper was still being perfected by Baron’s team, she could only use the cloth available.

She crushed the rock salt as instructed on her tablet and started to filter. She overlaid fabric on different orientations to get better filtering.

She then placed the filtrate on her only remaining evaporation disc, very careful with the heat so as to not break it.

If that happened, she would be so very heartbroken.

She tried many times, tried several concentrations, and tried different heats and timing. Each one resulted in different products, and every batch…had unhealthy amounts of impurities.

But she refused to give up. She had already gotten reports that some low-level people getting had already begun feeling sick due to the lack of sodium. High-level people wouldn’t be immune to it either, but they fortunately required less salt to function well.

But the fact was: Most of them were low-level people at this time.

Salt—it was much too important to Altera and its citizens!

It was only nausea and fatigue now, but soon it would be seizures and cramps and maybe even comas. How ironic would it be to improve their lifestyles so much, only to suffer because of the lack of salt—a resource they had taken for granted their whole lives?

Althea’s eyes flashed with determined light. In Altera, she was determined that it would never happen!