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

Another day passed and Rowan and Silvia received the Go signal for the mission.

Apparently, Alterra had sent another warning letter to Voumi via the Post Office, which finally received a reply.

There, Mafo resolutely refused to sell the slaves for less than 40 gold each, and they had no right to complain about the state of the slaves afterwards, as long as they were breathing when they left the territory.

Althea had seriously considered buying them anyway, but she was advised against it by the other elders.

A territory like Voumi would not stop until it drained them.

Alterra had too much to use that money on. For one, the new wall would not be cheap. Regardless of where it'd be spent, thousands of lives depended on it.

Not to mention, that bastard would definitely send them the dying ones, possibly invalid. It was a bit heartless and cold to even be thinking of abandonment, but they should not risk what they already had.

In the end, for now, Alterra simply sent out a block of supply of Alterran products to Voumi Town. Anyone caught selling Voumi any of their products would be suspended from bulk buying, with the duration depending on the value of the items sold.

In this case, it was mostly Twinwave who was supplying the area near Voumi and, considering they had a large market there, stopping the supply to Voumi shouldn't hurt them. They were also more powerful and were of a higher tier, so there was no risk of wars.

Althea and the others definitely didn't want Alterra to become that entity that would bully others, forcing their will upon them. However, this was the lives of brethren on the line.

At the very least, they didn't make it too hard for others lest they just decide to team up and try to take Alterra for themselves. Not that they'd succeed, but Alterra preferred peace over everything.

This move might not have much use in terms of getting back their people, but it would serve as a distraction, with Voumi believing they were just trying to use this to get Terrans back.

For now, they were too far to be a true threat to Voumi. As far as they knew, the deepest connection they had was that their subsidiary went against their satellite. Fortunately, aborigines had a certain arrogance about them that reassured the Terrans the movements wouldn't be so quick.

For now, they sent Rowan and Silvia to check the status and to know more about their systems there, hopefully to find a way to rescue as many brethren as they could without triggering anything.

Anyway, while the two were on their way to Voumi Town, Alterra would also do their parts. They hoped this would not escalate into another war and hoped it'd remain a simple rescue mission, but they were getting ready regardless.

First off, they never stopped preparing for war. Certain standards of operations were active at all times. They always maintained a stockpile of necessary medicine, weapons, and the like.

If they had to get to a war, or just to formulate a rescue plan, they needed more information. They weren't going in blind.

One major issue to watch out for was that not all Terrans there could be trusted. For instance, many Terran slaves there should never become privy to their plans.

Most of them were suffering, but there were a handful of people who had adjusted too well. These people… If push came to shove, would not risk their earned comforts for an unguaranteed rescue.

Other than that, they also needed to find many angles from which they could attack Voumi—ideally without them noticing—and rescue their brethren at the minimal cost.

What they knew so far about Voumi, according to Gurnam and Sarah, was a rough map of the place as well as a list of nobles they knew of and their relationships to each other.

For one, they knew where the nobles' zones were (which was, as usual, near the central areas), where the Lord's palace was, where their industries were set, as well as where they were keeping the slaves.

It seemed like the Elementalist slaves and the 'more useful' slaves lived in a different place from the pigsty all the other slaves had to endure.

They also told them the level of the walls Voumi had, the spacing of their sentries, and so on. As usual, the inner wall had the higher level walls and the denser sentries.

In terms of average level, they were also a bit more powerful than Basset Town, with a lot more level 30s and level 40s, on top of having several in-house mercenary bases.

The human territory West of Alterra was far more vast than the one East, because it was cut by the mountain range that orcs took over.

This was why, unsurprisingly, the territories on this side were more developed, though it was leveled by the fact that wars were more common in this area because they didn't have orcs as a direct threat.

For the noble familes, they said that—so far—they had not encountered decent nobles. At the very least, the 'noisiest' and most active ones were the families in line with the current Lord, his vices, and his tastes.

The couple had also once served a man called Hesso, the nephew of the Lord. He was also one of the people responsible for gathering so many Terran slaves.

His maternal family, the Hawl, was the biggest brick producer in the area. This was also Voumi Town's primary industry, so it was obvious why it was so powerful.

His closest friend Surut was from the Lintik family, the Lord of a subsidiary village.

Voumi Town had a lot of subsidiary and satellite villages up north. These places were known as their clay pits, and would provide the Town of their required clay for the main industry.

Alterra's plan was—hopefully— to hit this enemy where it was subtle, but would ideally have some lasting damage.

It was too risky to try damaging their military strength, particularly when they only had 2 people heading there for now.

So… they decided to hit their economy, instead.