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

The plague this time started Northeast and East, near the Orc territory, but there were also cases mid-north, directly opposite to where it originated the previous time.

This meant that no one who had seen it before was there, and no one could detect the signs of a growing threat in time, which were not obvious in the first place.

Worse, this time, it spread even more quickly from the start. It started even while the Great Cold was happening.

The air right after the Cold Wave was still cold, and this meant it was still heavy.

Heavier air would contain more smoke. Then, natural wind would come in and spread it out, affecting even more people than usual. Add this to people’s naturally weakened immune system due to the disaster, and the effect was even worse.

Even isolated villages, if they were near enough and if they were downwind, would’ve faced this right after the cold. They might even face the disease’s maturity during or after the large beast mobs that came after the cold.

The previous Fire Plague did not happen right after a disaster, and it started in the less dense desert areas, so the current spread was estimated to be far worse than the one before.

People also had less immunity after going through the extreme weather. Although people past level 10 had higher tolerance to changes in their bodies, they still had limits.

Their bodies would’ve been stretched thin during the disaster, allowing less energy to fight the new disease from spreading. They would not even realize it was there until the incubation period ended.

Further, if it hadn’t afflicted the orc and halforc territories first, it was estimated that there would even be more victims and more deaths.

In this case, since everyone was still recovering from the cold and the beast mobs, they didn’t really travel much. What made sure things spread fast was the wind itself.

Then, after a week or two, during incubation, people would’ve already been travelling around again, from village to towns, towns to cities, and vice versa.

By the time the symptoms started showing, dozens of human territories were affected. As soon as one person got affected, it would multiply exponentially every day, and soon everyone would feel the symptoms.

Even if one was very strong, they’d still feel weakened, and if they were unlucky, they could die from handling beasts and things that shouldn’t have been a threat at all.

The fortunate part was that because most of the adults had experienced it before, they also knew how it spread out. They might not be able to stop it, but the determination of what was happening was the first step of the way.

As soon as the disease was determined, they knew to isolate the illness.

They also knew to cover their mouths and noses. This was something the previous generation learned the hard way, after hundreds of thousands of people had already lost their lives.

However, despite these, the spread could not be stopped. Not to mention the fact that information travelled so slowly that not everyone could react fast enough or prepare for it, even if one had masks.

Further, if one were low in level, even contact with skin could get dangerous as well.

Still, the reaction was supposed to be much faster this time because most people had an idea how to avoid getting infected.

It was just that many territories, driven by fear and trauma, opted for something very harsh as soon as they found out what it was.

They chose to do inhuman things from the start.

Some territories burned the people afflicted, some even burned their family members and friends, regardless of whether they were showing symptoms.

They said it was to avoid the horrors of the previous fire plague, not realizing that they were part of its spread.

The terrified people started hunting for the victims. Many were even more cruel than necessary, as if it was the goal of these afflicted was to spread the disease and kill others, forgetting they were victims, too.

Some territories, especially many villages, even held sacrificial rites. They gathered people who ’breathed smoke’ and burned them on a stake as if the smoke from actual fire could purify the illness.

However, due to the lack of records and communication, even in the past, many did not know that mixing the infected smoke with the smoke of actual fire would convert the latter, spreading the disease even more.

This was what was happening in a certain territory in the North, about 10,000 kilometers away from Alterra.

”Please...Please...I’m not sick, I’m not sick...” a woman cried as she was dragged to the pyre by her neighbors. One was even her childhood sweetheart!

Her eyes were wide and her mouth agape as she was dragged closer to the massive fire with bellowing smoke. This fire already had several corpses, some were still moving, trying to get out, albeit to no avail.

Rhea cried. Would they all really die like this?

”No! No!!” she screamed her heart out, flailing her whole body in an attempt to loosen their hold on her. And because she herself fought a bit, her level was about the same as theirs, so she wasn’t completely helpless.

The struggle caused the stakes to fall, spreading the thick smoke horizontally.

Village-level people were especially susceptible to the spread because of their levels, so infected smoke was almost guaranteed to affect whoever smelled the smoke.

Worse, many of the people still alive ran about as they burned, begging for help.

”AHHHH!”

”KYAAA!”

”NOO! GET AWAY FROM ME GET AWAY FROM ME!”

This was even a wife, running away from her burning husband.

It was a tragic sight, and was in no way an isolated case.

...

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A/N: We’re entering the Adventure Arc soon (