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

”It’s a bit crowded, but there should still be a few beds upstairs,” Maria said, asking them to follow her for a short tour. ”This is a local house and very backwards compared to our homes in Terran, but we try to make it livable.”

”We have one toilet with a hole there, and the water comes from the well. Only those who have signed a new oath can go out, of course, but they could also have a larger share of the water.”

They also had water users to reduce the water requirements for the group.

The newcomers gaped. Amazed.

Their life in Terran was a faraway thought now, almost a dream. Even a house like this, frankly, felt like a luxury to them now.

The newcomers also noticed a few more things the more they looked around.

The house was a simple townhouse with a small living room with a sofa, smaller chairs, and a coffee table. There were many materials on the ground though, mostly fabric.

There was a tiny kitchen where they could cook their own meals, and from what they could see in the pantry, it seemed enough and they wouldn’t go hungry.

”In any case, you are safe here,” she told them, smile widening a bit. ”Here, we can live as humans at least. Make yourselves at home. You have officially been rescued, after all.”

The three looked at each other and blinked. Rescued? Really rescued?

To be honest, they had just been going through the motions, not really absorbing what was happening. It was too odd and so different from what they had been going through the past year.

”So what are your names?” Maria asked again, first looking at the girl with a scar. She had peach-colored hair and was quite pretty, though it was sadly marred by the large scars on her face. A portion of her scalp was also burned, causing that part to be horrendously bald.

From the pattern, they knew they were burn marks that just missed her eyes.

”My name is Alyssa,” she said, her voice small. ”I was brought here some weeks ago..., but they saw my scar and...”

She stopped.

To be honest, there were men who didn’t mind the scar on her face. They said she was still a woman with a body. They just didn’t have to look at her face. However—fortunately—the damage was also on her body. That was enough to disgust the men.

It wasn’t that no one tried to heal her though. A female Elementalist was definitely worth much more than a few health potions.

But none of it worked. The fact was... her burn was made by an elementalist, so typical health potions wouldn’t be able to fix it.

And it was her own brother who did it.

Just before their village fell and they were defeated, he burned a side of her with teary eyes.

At the time, she hated him for hurting her so much. Alyssa was also a beauty lover and grew up a little vain. However, after all this time, she understood that it was what ultimately saved her from a much more tragic fate.

She wondered where her brother was...

Next was the man with a bent right arm. He was a man in his late 30s, though he looked to be a decade older than that because of his beard. ”My name is Hudson,” he said.

The bent arm was from a war. Because they lacked the medicine here and they didn’t have surviving doctors in his village, the bone grew incorrectly. Considering they healed faster here, they grew incorrectly fast. This was why for serious injuries, a doctor was still needed, even with potions and their improved physiques.

”I... I can still be useful though,” he said, raising his other arm and gripping it, showing off a bit of muscle.

He was actually left-handed. He had a feeling the lives of those who could fight would be much more difficult, so he acted like a useless man early on. Hence, for the past few weeks, he just rotted in the slave house and waited for a buyer.

He didn’t mind the meager meal every few days; as long as he wasn’t forced to kill people—possibly people he knew—he could endure anything.

And... it worked. His fate ended up even better than he thought, assuming this was truly a ’rescue’ at all.

Still, he had been through so much in his life, so he still felt cynical, not putting down his guard lest he get betrayed. In the slave market, there were plenty of people who had been sold by fellow Terrans. It was disheartening.

Next was the teenager who was bald because of deep claw marks. He no longer had eyebrows, and his nose was partially lost, but his smile was pure. It was creepy and heartwarming at the same time.

”My name is Mattie,” he said. He could be healed by several healing potions, probably, but no one bothered with him yet, considering there were still other options. He was also quite young, so there were better options to invest in.

Maria nodded. ”Nice to meet you, Alyssa, Hudson, and Matthie,” she said and stopped right outside the bedrooms. She showed them their beds. One room was for the girls, and another for the boys. She also showed them the bathroom, which, like most places in Xeno, was just a hole on the ground.

”We can also use it to throw organic wastes,” she said, though they were unlikely to have enough leftovers for that.

Other materials weren’t accepted by the hole, but it wasn’t much of an issue here because most things were made of natural materials.

On the other hand, throwing things like plastics (someone had used wrappers in their space) threw some once and it was thrown back at his face instead.

They continued to observe the place and then realized the mess was actually materials for some crafts.

”To earn our keep, we sew,” Maria said, pointing at the area where there were three people sewing. ”We take turns in this area, usually taking half a day working.”

To make sure they were earning their keep, Gian would buy cheap bolts of cloth from merchants and would ask them, the rescues, to make something out of them.

”You can also choose other crafts or just gather resources—the Master worked hard for the amount he bought us with, after all. We cannot be wastes.”