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

”Urghhh...” Ansel groaned, sitting up with a pout. His body was sore. And was this a record? She took him down in around two to three minutes...

Sigh.

After a breather, Ansel stood up with the tree as support, only to see a soft and fluttering atmosphere a meter away from him. It was none other than the other two people with him, of course.

Garan was smiling as he wiped his wife’s sweat. ”Good work. Have a break.”

Althea smiled. ”Thank you,” she said. Her gestures were simple, but they apparently made Garan unable to stop himself from leaning down and giving her a peck on the lips.

Ansel rolled his eyes. ”Ugh.”

Then he noticed that a small camping spot was prepared. There were low chairs and small tables there, complete with a lunch box and a tumbler with juice.

Garan led Althea there to relax after several rounds of fighting with him. They totally forgot he was right there.

Ansel sniffled. He suddenly missed his wife.

Of course, he would never fault her for not giving him a lunchbox. He could take care of himself, and she was busy with her own work and the baby.

Rather, he just wanted to head back, act like a baby beaten up by siblings, and then get a hug.

It was only after the two of them sat down that they turned to his direction, wondering why he hadn’t sat down yet.

Garan shook his head at him, silently disapproving of his slowness. No doubt he was thinking that he literally just slipped, and he’s acting like he’s injured.

”...”

Well, to be fair, he really wasn’t injured. Couldn’t he just take a breather to miss his own wife? This jerk must be showing off that he has his wife in his arms right now!

Althea was unaware of the men’s silent communication. She just happily set up the lunchboxes and handed her husband her utensils. He seemed to have forgotten to prepare anything for Ansel, though, so she just handed him a nice croissant she bought on the way out.

Ansel munched on the bread while giving Garan a sad look for forgetting him. Sad for him, Garan had once again forgotten his existence.

It took about five minutes to notice that the temperature was a bit low, considering it was noon. They didn’t notice immediately because they were on the move, but now it seemed like it really was cool.

”It’s getting cold,” he said, and since he had a higher body temperature as a fire user, some of the surrounding moisture condensed around him. Althea silently pulled the moisture from his clothes, throwing back the little waterball to the forest.

”Thanks.”

He still shivered.

Althea saw him like this and blinked, looking around. ”Indeed, the wind is cool and comfortable.”

However, when they thought about it, it was more likely because they had Garan, the ice user, on their side, so they didn’t think much of it. They just told him to tone it down. On the other hand, Garan thought he had just emitted his element without noticing. It was a fairly common occurrence with him, especially when he got angry.

The group finished their meal and prepared to go another round when Fufi and Snow ran to them.

At first, they thought they just smelled the food (Garan handed them a few slabs of medium-rare meat), but they apparently had something to say (after eating their snacks, of course).

’Sus humans! Sus humans!!’ Fufi said.

Althea tilted her head, a bit confused. ”Sus humans?”

It was Ansel who translated it. ”Suspicious humans,” he said. ”They...they’ve been hanging out a lot with the kids and absorbed their lingo.”

”...I see...” she said.

Similarly, Garan looked at Snow, who said something similar. ’Smelly people!’

”...”

Whenever Snow didn’t like someone, she’d call them smelly, regardless of how they actually smelled.

Anyway, since both canines judged that there were suspicious people, the three immediately cleaned up.

Garan and Althea jumped on Fufi’s back, while Ansel was on Snow’s. Each ride activated a voice blocker, and they quickly headed to where these people were.

The dogs were extremely quick and agile, jumping across the terrain in a blur. With the voice blocker on, they barely made any sound.

They still made sure to keep their distance of course, though Althea lessened their presence even further by using the surrounding wood and vines around them, just in case.

Interestingly, this didn’t just cover them physically—especially not when they could still see clearly—but it lowered their presence too.

This was something she had been practicing after mastering the Woodland Camouflage skill.

The concept was to use the surrounding vegetation and expand their aura to theirs as well, covering them up well. She did this by willing wood energy in front of them as if a cover. Because wood energy was abundant in the forest, it was difficult to detect the anomaly.

Her hold on it wasn’t good enough to activate an official skill, but it did have some effect. Fortunately, even when they were less than a hundred meters away from the targets, even powerhouses wouldn’t notice them at all.

It was an entire group of people camping. They placed themselves between changes in elevation. They also had a few earth elementalists who made a few hills from below, taking the trees and vegetation up, to hide their camp.

The world was so big, and they could only scout so many places, only so often. It was normal to miss a few things, especially when they were still relatively far away from the walls. They did not fault their scouts for missing such a camp. They had obviously come prepared.

They also saw a rare wood user making vines climb up, making everything look completely natural. There were also those braiding the vines into ropes, with a fire user drying them slowly as they formed. Judging by the usual warfare tactics, this would probably be used as attempts to sneakily climb their walls.

There were scores of people immediately visible, not including those who were hidden behind the new hills, the existing caves next to it, and so on.

Further, looking at the provisions and how several people were expanding the camp, there would be more soon.

Except for those who were obviously slaves, the rest were also well equipped—at least Class D weapons—and had a decent amount of items on them. The three of them were all fighters, so they were sure these people weren’t refugees at all.

This was a common strategy in this place, and Alterra had used it plenty of times as well. They would send people in advance either because they were beyond the level cap or were allies and weren’t near the territory.

They would weaken the territory to be attacked by reducing their numbers or harassing them bit by bit from the outside. They would also be there as part of the forces once the main fight had begun.

They looked here out of curiosity, but seeing this, the three’s faces had turned dark and solemn.

Garan’s jaw clenched, looking sharply at the bastards.

”They are preparing for war.”