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

Soon, the cart reached the hospital and saw the massive structure. The family gaped at the sight, and when they entered the well-lit and well-heated hospital, they were really not sure how to react anymore.

A nurse greeted them and led them to the emergency bay.

Every aether blueprint Alterrans made was also designed with consideration of every utility, very much inspired by their customized houses.

This meant that the hospital also had floor heating on top of the floor-mounted ones, though the maintenance of it was quite costly.

There were also people who wanted to take advantage and stayed in the hospital, but if they weren’t patients or a family member (who still had to pay some medical bills or contribution point), they would be asked to leave, if they didn’t want some negatives on their records.

Negative Points were the opposite of Contribution Points, but also not quite Atonement Points. They were just subtractions, really, and the fastest place to get those was to be sent to prison. After the cold, insubordination was also added to the reasons to get negatives.

Negatives were counted as a separate unit and required ten contribution points each to deduct. This was to avoid people just treating it as ’credit’ or something. They didn’t want people to do something bad and expect to cover it up with succeeding contribution points.

Furthermore, the cumulative amount of negatives would be placed in their records, which can affect their future employment opportunities and promotions, depending on the employer.

The employer also had the prerogative to consider the timeline. For example, some might only look at the accumulated negatives for the past year, believing in giving people a chance.

Anyway, Urkin and the family were in a daze, and even more so when all of them were taken to the emergency room and taken care of. Many were frostbitten, but there were healers on board, so they fortunately managed to keep their fingers.

Their clothes—cold and wet— were removed and replaced with ’hospital gowns’. They were further covered with blankets, and they hadn’t remembered when they felt so warm.

There were so many staff members, and they were quickly handled, treated, and made to drink some medicine that made them warm from the stomach out.

Almost immediately, they fell from dying to decent, and it wouldn’t take long for them to recover.

”Thank you...” Urkin said. ”I...please take care of my family, I will pay whatever the cost.”

Fortunately, they were warned before they got captured, so they managed to take much of their wealth with them. Hopefully, this visit to such a large and sophisticated healing center wouldn’t consume all of it.

”You guys have really been thrashed. What are you doing outside in this weather?” one of the male nurses couldn’t help but ask. He was professional, but he also seemed to like gossip.

They did not mind. Idle chatter softened up the trauma they had just gone through.

”We were already heading here when it happened, and we had been trapped in some places, slowly making our way here,” he said. ”But as you can see...the trip wasn’t easy.”

”Where were you from?”

”Jacoba Town.”

The head nurse, who was checking on the other patients, flinched at this and looked at them.

”...so far away? Then, is there someone here you know so I can call on them?” she asked, already taking out her aether letter.

This was Sheila, and she also knew that Cassandra was from there. However, she knew of the girl’s situation and didn’t get careless in revealing information.

Unexpectedly, the man nodded. He indeed had someone in mind, but it just wasn’t the person Sheila expected it to be.

”Gill. I hope to see Gill.”

...

The next day, Gill went to visit the family who now occupied an entire ward.

Urkin also paid for their hospital fees, which were much less expensive than he thought. He almost wanted to pay twice, but the nurses just laughed at him, asking him to just buy the Alterran goods and pay taxes instead.

Cassandra had wanted to take a look, but they feared that even if Urkin was decent, perhaps someone from his family would write a post back to Jacoba. Granted, Jacoba wouldn’t be able to do anything to them now, but trouble was still worth avoiding when it could.

”I didn’t think I’d meet you again.”

”Well.”

The two of them headed out to one of the interior gardens. It was in an atrium and had a glass cover above. On normal days, this place looked like the outside; now it was a bit dim due to the weather, though the plants were healthy thanks to artificial lighting.

Urkin gulped at its beauty and also appreciated how he could walk around so many plants in this type of weather.

Gill asked what happened, and Urkin told him everything.

”Ah, I heard the Lord there is very narrow-minded,” he said, as if they weren’t technically talking about his father-in-law.

Urkin nodded. ”The only reason that place is still standing is because of the mercenaries and the nobles that had too much vested interest in the Town to let it fall.”

They managed to hide a bit of money so they could rent a unit from a landlord citizen (they couldn’t buy any unit since they didn’t have contribution points). He also connected them to the ’strongman delivery team’, who amusingly had a list of items they could choose from, like a menu.

That said, most delivery teams had added markup to each item on top of their own delivery fees, as well as a portion of the purchase limit slots.

No one complained, however. The longer the cold lasted, the more value the deliverymen had. If they didn’t want to give business, someone else would!

Urkin’s eyes twitched when he saw all these operations.

Things worked too smoothly in this place, right?

...

Althea and the others found out about this situation and added some signals outside the territory. Urkin and the others were lucky they had a fire elementalist, and one who still had enough mana to make a signal.

But what were the chances of this? It was more likely that even if people reach their walls in a horrid state, they might not be able to do anything anymore.

However, their guards could only be placed every couple of sentry towers, and if the weather was unfriendly, they might not hear people even if they yelled with their whole being.

To assist refugees like this, they placed a tall sign where snow would slip and wouldn’t stick (it was a rare woodworker skill that Houser received) to tell people of the instructions.

People only had to step or sit on it (or pull a lever, depending on what they could reach) and it would release a fireball upwards, which should be enough for the people on guard to take notice. This fireball was more like a firework, of course.

The mechanism was relatively simple to them now. When activated, it would simply trigger ignition, as if rubbing a match, and activate the small firework.

Alterrans also leveled up the clearing missions, increasing a round and even passing through a few more places. They also added a few ladders on the walls that were too far from the gates.

Other than these, as weak living creatures, all they could do was be passive under the attack of the world.

How long would this cold wave last, they wondered?