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

Alterra Town

[The war between Alterra Town (Lv1) and Basset Town (Lv1) has now begun. Remaining Time: 27:59:59]

As the war started, the bell rang 14 times. Everyone fighting head-on in the war headed out, fully equipped, while there were also those who were set to fight from the safety of their homes.

That said, there would also be guards assigned to guard above roofs, just in case there were spies that couldn't be shot by interior sentries.

There were also guards in every zone on the ground to watch out for those enemies who were inside. They put special attention to the people tagged as 'suspicious individuals' but had not actually done anything that'd warrant their arrests yet.

For these spies, the Alterrans subtly gave them some false information. Some were even allowed to head back to Bassett and report.

The information included some fake data about key people, their force values (around a half of what was accurate), their allies in the vicinity (which was 'none'), and the like.

However, they weren't naive enough to think that no one was left behind to cause chaos. The level limit was so much higher now, and the breadth of people who could attack from within had increased by folds.

It was inevitable, such was the way of the world here. What they could do was to discourage and minimize the damage.

One of the methods Althea used was to add a couple more sentries in certain areas. She did her best to modify it so they still looked pretty, of course.

Call her vain and shallow, but she didn't want her mood affected by random towers popping up and blocking the beautiful view.

They also improved the reporting functions. Though the aether letters were finite and couldn't be given to more guards, Garan and the others at least developed a system wherein smaller flares could get activated to alert the others depending on the level of urgency, suspiciousness, and the like.

Nearby 'floating' guards would see the flare and asses, judging the urgency of the situation with a look without compromising the safety of the zones they were assigned in.

Garan even had SOPs in the event that the enemy figured their signalling methods and used it to distract or redirect the forces instead.

In such cases, the flare would let out an extra color, indicating it had been compromised.

Garan and his people went over various cases, scenarios, and situations. Although the new hires had a lot to learn, the rest should be able to react well.

The focus now was the huge number of enemies coming in from the other side.

Wars in Towns were rare, supposedly. They were far apart, simply because there was too much to lose.

For one, the population of Towns was much larger, and the overall strength stronger by folds. A lot of these people had taken resources from various territories to develop such a level.

Towns could have hundreds of thousands of people. A young town like Basset Town might only have a hundred thousand or two, but that was still at least three times their own population.

This could be seen with the large amount of people they could see from the walls. From where they were, they could already see tens of thousands of enemies in a single sector, and there was no doubt they were spread out, aiming to find openings in their defense.

The Alterrans had known the numbers, but after seeing the large mob firsthand, they felt like there was a heavy air above them.

"Focus!" Garan's voice resounded across the territory, powered by their voice amplification systems. "We have always been outnumbered, but Alterra always came out as victors each time.

"Just remember: What are you fighting for!?"

This shook most of the fear out of their systems, replaced by their hearts growing stern. Indeed. They were fighting for Alterra and the lives they had in it!

"Yes, sir!"

Like this, the fighters remained strong, standing around the battlements with no space left unguarded.

The guests who were helping out—like a few mercenaries—saw this and were impressed. These people were half or less in level and in number of their enemies, but no one had deserted yet.

Many of the guests joined in not only for the famous contribution points, but also the assess Alterra's strength. If it got too much, they'd just desert, but because they helped out, there was still goodwill when Alterra won. It was something completely normal and nothing personal.

However, seeing the locals like this—people so sincere in their protection—touched something in their hearts.

How would it feel like, they wondered, to be so earnest in protecting a place?

…

Soon, they felt and saw the massive wave of enemies approaching the walls. They were coming from all directions, as could be seen by the rusting canopies of the trees.

According to their information, Basset Town had nearly 120,000 population, a third of which were slaves. That was easily a few times that of their entire population.

The massive line of meatshields appeared, but unlike many territories they had encountered, the Basset Town vanguards did not attack immediately.

Unlike villages, the vanguards would not uselessly use their own bodies to consume sentry arrows—at least not unless it was truly advantageous and worth the loss. After all, the resources spent on them were likely a lot more than what were spent on random slaves captured in a village.

Every one of the slaves, however, had their weapons out, ready to fight to the death as ordered of them.

Unlike Village, Towns could afford to actually equip their slaves with some weapons to increase their usefulness. Even if most of it were just basic weapons, it was miles better than what the slaves from most Villages had.

On the other hand, the strongmen stood some distance away from the front line. Fargo, surprisingly, was with these people. He looked at the thousands of level 20s on his side, as well as the dozens of level 30 powerhouses, in satisfaction.

Basset Town was only at Level 1 and had been a town only for a decade. Its average guards were level 20s, but they did have quite a few people in their level 30s—especially with the addition of the Rongo Mercenary team. The lord, as well as a few other Elders, were the only ones in level 40s.

The mob stopped just beyond the 100 meter scope of the sentries. A line of people stepped forward… taking out crossbows.

Back in the battlement with their scopes, Jake and the others narrowed their eyes. "They really all have crossbows now."

They had expected the older models to appear in other territories, but not so soon.

Decent crossbows could have more than a hundred-meter range, which was beyond the sentries'. For sentries, the focus had always been more on its power and critical damage, rather than its range.

Anyway, this meant that the enemies could rain arrows on the people standing on the battlement while standing safely beyond the sentry scopes.

"They probably used a lot of weaponsmiths to do that," another said, sneering. "Quite an investment."

"Fargo's work, definitely," another said, wanting to spit on the ground as he sneered.

They saw thousands of archers line up, all pointing in their direction.

No one panicked too much, however.

Alterra had been continuously innovating; how could that old thing threaten them?