After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World-Chapter 1883: Following Smoke

The first hundred Terrans to awaken received skills early on.

An element of luck was involved in this. They were in the right place, at the right time, and had access to some defense weapons that they were able to do this.

The apocalypse happened at the same time, but people lived in different time zones. Many people were deep asleep when this happened, while others were already ending their days, and had low energies and their guards were down.

For these people, people who mostly landed North of Alterra, it hit most of them midday. While the sun was up and everyone was energetic, others suddenly fell down, and when they got up, they were no longer human.

Cardinal was the highest among them, ranked at 007. Cardinal was part of the seminary; his parents named him this because they wanted him to be a priest, though ultimately he went on to apprentice as a chef.

When the Change happened, he was on itchen duty with a very old head chef. He was even holding a knife.

The old man suddenly fell down while cooking, taking down a few pans and ingredients with him.

The old man woke up without pupils and his teeth a little sharper than usual. Fortunately, a turnip was there, and it ended up being sacrificed instead of his arm.

Cardinal’s instincts flared, knowing danger was here. When the old man continued to attack him with clear intent to eat him, he just did what he could to defend himself from the attack.

By luck, he slashed the old man’s already fragile neck with his knife, killing him, and ultimately becoming one of the first people to awaken by accident.

The others had similar experiences.

Anyway, they were ostracized so much. Sometime during the height of the Fire Plague (it was what the Lord allegedly named the disease), some people from their party started getting sick, and it only got worse.

They changed not only because they couldn’t handle the treatment, but also because the evil of the upper class became clear to them.

It happened when one of them desperately needed a potion from the administration team.

Wolfe, survivor #048, covered himself up well and wanted to sneak in, getting at least an inhibitor. There, he saw some of the Lord’s cronies fighting, and he heard a few things in the process.

"Alterra only sold this number to us."

"Damn," another said. "That’s not enough for the Lord and his women, let alone us at the bottom!"

"Did you think that place found out what we’re doing?"

"That we’re abusing the items? It’s not possible! We’re so far away!"

"I bet other subsidiaries got more copies," another muttered bitterly. "You know I visited my brother in the other village, right? They had a lottery there. Not only did the Lord and his immediate family receive it, but they could also afford to give it to normal citizens? What did that mean? They had more!"

"We have to go there for more."

"Would they sell more to us?"

"We’ll make a scene if we have to!"

"Idiot! Do you wanna get blacklisted? I heard they’ve developed a cure, too!"

"A cure? Already!? Shit!"

"Tsk. We earned quite a bit from our last sale. We should be able to afford more. We’d just have to make sure to mark-up massively to make a profit."

Only the cities that received the formulas made oaths that put a cap on the medicines’ markup. Having the formula meant they could produce the medicine themselves, indefinitely, as long as they had the ingredient after all.

As for the others in the region directly buying medicine from Alterra, because it was very rationed, there was no need to do so. Alterra gave them the freedom to handle the medicine they purchased on their own. Putting so much control over the direct buyers wasn’t good. People instinctively wanted to develop on their own, so micromanaging could become counterproductive at some point.

Sadly, there would always be people taking advantage.

"We’ll leave at midnight. Be ready," the Lord’s cronie said, and the others nodded.

Like this, Wolfe made a snap decision to leave for this ’Alterra’. If these bastards weren’t willing to give them anything, then they’d get them themselves!

...

The group decided to follow the caravan heading towards Alterra. They had to keep their distance, though, as the caravan had a few strongmen (hired aborigines) with them.

Of course, some of the strongest Terran guards on the Lord’s side—and had even made that pseudo-slave oath—were with them, too. There was nothing good that’d happen to them if they were found out.

The ’tail’ party was led by Wolfe. He was a 29-year-old soldier, so he had the most capability to lead a mish-mash team like theirs.

He had very short ash blonde hair that was always combed backwards. He was in battle when the apocalypse happened, and with his gun, he entered one of the first awakeners.

For the first day or so, the group followed the official caravan a few hundred meters away by following their path.

This wasn’t difficult because the caravan wasn’t small, so the path they cleared would remain clear for a while. Plants generally took days if not weeks to grow back up, so Wolfe and the rest didn’t have to risk exposing themselves by following too closely.

That said, even if they did lose them in case the path was obliterated by, say, mobs, they could still find them anyway, though it was just a bit more cumbersome.

How, you ask? It was because of Wolfe’s skill.

Wolfe was Terran Survivor Number 48, a soldier and a tracker. His skill was called [Colorful Traces], which sounded girly, but was a pretty handy skill. Basically, he could attach a ’color’ to a person, and he could get a trace of them until the ends of the planet.

It appeared in the form of a colorful translucent smoke he just had to follow. He could only have three trackers activated at a time, though. This meant that he could not monitor more than three people.

Further, he had to have had physical contact with the target at least once and within a month of the skill activation. He specifically chose to contact people they knew were coming to this mission. Two out of three slots were taken by them, with one on his teammate, Cardinal.

It was fortunate he had this skill and dedicated the slots to them, because at some point, they really needed it.

More than a day or so after traveling, the path they were following was flattened, and there was a lot of blood and corpses, some from humans and some monsters, indicating they had encountered a rather large mob.

No, the fact that there were humans among the corpses was indicative that the mob was far stronger than the caravan initially thought.

There were actually still a couple of monsters around, but the rest handled them well, so Wolfe could concentrate in his tracking. The colorful smoke was very translucent and he needed to focus to follow it.

But then the trace disappeared, as if the line was cut abruptly.

"..."

He tried to recover the smoke, but he couldn’t anymore, and that meant one thing.

"What is it?" Cardinal asked, voice gentle as always, but also quite worried.

Wolfe looked awkward. "It’s gone. Both smokes are."

"What?"

The rest of them flinched too, because a sudden disappearance of the traces could only mean death.

And because it was both colors, which were assigned to village powerhouses, it meant that there were a lot of deaths.

Wolfe summoned the rest of the smoke, and it concentrated in front of him. While he was doing this, the rest of the team handled the mobs that came their way. This needed quite a bit of concentration, however.

"Watch out!" Cardinal yelled, shielding Wolfe just in time before a monster of their level lunged at him. He used the skill he received upon awakening called [Instant Shield].

[Instant Shield (B): Creates a small 1-sided barrier that can block an attack with two-thirds of the user’s energy level. Lasts until the damage cap is consumed. Cool down: 5 Minutes, counting from activation. Mana Usage: 25 Mana]

The air around him condensed, creating an invisible wall that blocked the monster. The shield was enough to hold it back, giving time for the close combat folks to immediately attack the beast.

Wolfe snapped back to the present and lunged over, while Cardinal was sweating as the beasts rammed against his shield over and over.

They had been working together nearly as soon as they transferred to this place, so they naturally had some combos developed. Wolf jumped over Cardinal’s shoulder, just above his shield, and he maneuvered so his weapon could stab at a monster.

He used his legs to kick another, and Cardinal would also shift his shield whenever the cooldown was done, and it would always be at an angle that would produce a lot of blind spot for the beasts.

The five-minute cooldown started when he activated the shield. This meant that, if he used the shield efficiently, the actual cooldown between uses would be shortened.

Cardinal didn’t know if it was because he was a cook who was used to multitasking, but he found himself quite good with this.

Similarly, Wolfe’s attacks leaned more towards agility and speed rather than brute strength, and this kind of fighting style really suited him well.

Similarly, the rest of the team also handled the beasts that came their way, eventually killing them off.

After dealing with the beasts, they went back to the task at hand, which was to leave the bloodied mess and find their way to their destination.

But...without the guidance of the now-dead people, how would they find it at all?