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

Mafo headed down the stairs and observed the room, with his nephew and the others following behind him.

As they walked down, they could hear the good words on their feast. Most towns seemed to enjoy themselves, and the nobles from various cities didn't have distaste on their faces.

After all, those people's standards were different. This time, their eyebrows were not furrowed, which was good enough, let alone that there were good words the majority of the others gave out.

"This is really good."

"Hmn, the Lord definitely invested a bit in this."

He smirked.

With this, the prestige of Voumi Town was sure to rise! They had been stuck at Level 1 for decades. It was about time for them to get to Level 2. They needed new land and new power!

However, at some point, he overheard some discussion that caught his attention.

"It's amazing… how'd they get so many elementalists?"

"We will find out," another said, and his partner looked around.

"Hmnn… I realized everyone here are from certain regions, I recognize many," he said.

Another nodded. "I heard from my cousins here that they were getting them some thousand kilometers or so from the East."

"That's quite a distance," he said. "No wonder I don't see many from the East."

"I don't even see anyone from Twinwave. Isn't that the nearest Town here?"

The mention of Twinwave irked Mafo quite a bit.

Twinwave Town was indeed the nearest Town to Voumi. It was located around 500 kilometers Southeast. They were even nearer to the Terran regions than they were. 1

Twinwave was also a Level 2 Town, and they had been at this level even before Voumi became a Town. Further, its location made it into a good trading hub in this area, especially because it was connected to the resource-rich central plains.

Most businesses in the region would naturally go there, which ultimately grew its power.

They were also the greatest threat when he upgraded within—hopefully—less than a decade.

At the mention of Twinwave many people, particularly those from the South and Southwest, had expressions of longing.

"Ah, Twinwave. They're really upgrading… I'm in love with their new products, especially the sauces."

"Ah yes, I love the condiments there. If only they didn't have purchase limits!"

"To be honest, if I hadn't tasted the goods from there, I would've been impressed by the food here."

Mafo was not able to hear more because he was approached by other amicable people, who asked him if he could increase the numbers—and quality—next time.

The conversation reminded him of his subsidiaries' mission to get more samples. After all, he'd still prefer to keep most and just sell those who didn't seem worth the investment anymore. This meant he'd need at least a thousand samples each month to have a good pool to choose from.

It reminded him that they had not received anything in the past few weeks.

Mafo turned to look at Hassen. "What happened to the Inko war, anyway?"

He was kind enough to lend a few to Inko as an impulse of sadism. He was looking forward to the account of how those people had felt hopeless to be killed by fellowmen who were much more powerful than they were.

However, they did not receive any good news! Rather, they didn't receive any news at all!

Information in Xeno travelled slowly, especially for territories without a Post Office like villages. Subsidiaries and allies had to send news manually and the system would only alert the Lord if the Token itself changed hands, like what happened with Bright back then.

Until recently, when Alterra followed up on their request to buy out the 'slaves', Mafo had no idea about what happened there.

Alterra sent the letter just focusing on the slaves, and Inko had been so weakened that they didn't have the time to report anything.

"Have the 100 elementalist slaves returned yet?" he asked. There should have been an update from Inko by now.

"Perhaps the village's master territory intervened," Houlu, his right hand man, said, though it was mostly supposition. After all, they sent a lot of assistance. There was no explanation how a mere village would cause Inko much trouble.

Hopefully, Inko was simply careless and was late to report.

"Didn't they send you a letter, Milord?"

"What?"

"That Village?" They naturally investigated the place to some degree before attacking it. They knew it was a satellite, but it was a satellite to a mere village!

"It's a Town now, apparently," the man said. The letter they had just received was directly from Alterra, so they knew that it had been upgraded to Town, but very recently.

Mafo really didn't think much of it at first. At the time, they just mocked it for daring to buy off so many elementalists for such low costs!

In the letter, they asked to buy each Elementalist slave they had—they called them 'Terran'—for 20 Gold! It did not matter, the letter said, if they sent the weak ones.

Normally, it would not be a small amount overall, considering they had thousands, and he had already been planning on selling the weak ones anyway, but these were elementalists who could sell for more, as one could see during the auctions!

At this, he couldn't help but take out the letters he received from them. The paper was thin and smooth, but when he saw how laughable the content was, he just put it in his space without thought again!

When they ignored it, this Alterra sent another letter after a few days. This time, they increased their offer to 30 Gold each, and indicated it was their final offer. They also mentioned that they were willing to take a thousand or two of the weaker or dying ones first to initiate the process.

Thirty gold for a thousand weak slaves was 30,000 gold! Was he supposed to believe a new town had that much money to spend on dying slaves?! Besides, even if they did, it made Mafo think they were even more valuable than that and made him reluctant to sell them even more!

At the end, that presumptuous new town even added that if this deal could be met, then future deals with any of their products and services might be difficult to complete.

PTOOEY!

They hadn't even heard of their products. How could they care for them!?

Twinwave Town is the first Town we got introduced to + Bart's home town