After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World-Chapter 1892: Rock Salt Incident (Part 1)
A/N: Three months into 2026! GOSH. Thank you for sticking with us until now, Alterrans! HUGGGGSSS!
Also, shoutout to last month (Feb 2026) top 3 golden givers! Foxiidust, TheBigHoss, Rebeckels_Woollis, and B_206~! Thank you! Also thank you to everyone who sent tickets, gifts, and the like!
...
___
Althea and Garan weren’t the only ones training outside at this time.
Rather, unless the territory explicitly told people not to stay outside (like in or before wars), there would always be several hundred (if not thousands) of people around the territory.
This wasn’t counting the hundreds more spread out in different territories, either as merchants, spies, or people on reconnaissance missions.
There were several groups going around on their own. Not including the teams doing clearing missions, there were also plenty of civilians.
They were training, for the most part. Alterra had never quite lacked in reminding people that their average levels—not including the powerhouses who decided to settle with them—were below average of their peers.
It also happened that the administration was holding a monthly contribution point ranking, wherein the top ten contributors for the month would receive an extra 10% of the contribution points they gained that month, along with other bonuses.
Other than that, people simply aimed to be stronger and stronger. They had experienced what it was like to be at the bottom of the food chain. Because they knew how it felt like, they were much more desperate to guarantee they would never fall like that again.
When so many people around aim to be strong, even the lazy ones could get pressured.
In this sense, the saying that a person was the average of the people he surrounded himself with was accurate.
One of the areas that never lacked people training along it was the path to the rock salt mines.
As a resource point, there would always be people heading there, so this route was always one with people.
Their bodies might need less salt as their levels went up, but their tongues might never tire of it!
Not to mention, that it was still an essential resource for food preservation, food, and sauces that required pickling, and the like.
After the recent expansion, the rock salt mines became fairly close to their borders, so the roads became clearer, there were more resting places, and more camping areas in this location, making it one of the more ideal places to train outside the walls.
Although Alterra didn’t block others from gathering the resource as it wasn’t within their territory lines, informally, it was Alterra’s resource. The citizens who mined there were also more likely to sell it to Alterra than privately, simply because there were a few contribution points added on top of the money during its purchase.
It wasn’t easy to mine there anyway. Since it was close to Alterra, a lot of the monsters there were Town-level, so not many unofficial miners go there, but there were enough, and they were generally stronger than average.
The number of people traveling would, in turn, attract more monsters, which the teams would then hunt down, all the way until they get to the rock salt mines to get their resources.
The consistent flow of traffic naturally cleared the paths, creating trekking paths, maintained by constant traffic, which was the current state.
At this time, a certain earth user and his battle pet were hired to guard a large group. Like before, guards were free to take private quests as long as it was beyond their shift’s working hours.
"Go, Pang, go!!" Mao yelled as he cheered for his battle pet rolling around the forest and against a beast at its level.
They watched with amusement as its chubby butt rammed into a monster’s head, causing it to be pushed at an awkward angle. It would bounce to a tree or another monster, gaining momentum as it bounced, especially going downhill.
From an aerial view, it looked like a pinball.
Pang was basically a slow tank. Very slow. On foot, he trudged and waddled, and sometimes he’d just sit down after three steps, refusing to get up. The panda was not light. How much of a hassle did people have to go through to get him up?
However, they serendipitously found out he rolled very well, and it was something they used well during the Basset-Alterra war back then.
They were training with a few level 15 Alterrans, and they were dealing with stronger enemies.
Several teams were here. Generally speaking, to make sure the people were safe, mining teams organized to go together on their own, at least until they had fifty people in the team, and they would also hire a guard or two, or a few mercenaries to guard them while helping them train at the same time.
Since there were no official miners, the guards could be hired for the day. Of course, these guards heading far from the walls could only be hired during their days off, which were two days a week, so most hired mercenaries instead.
Interestingly, while most soldiers had high levels and not many monsters would have rewards for them, one could still see one or two here and there. They themselves might not get points, but their pets certainly could.
Other than Mao, the couple Gochi and Maomao were also there, but they were guarding separate teams.
The two half-orcs settled about a hundred meters away from the main flight, filtering out the strong monsters that were way above average for what the parties could handle.
By this time, both half-orcs had reached level 20 as well after relentless training and fighting. They had higher requirements to level up, but they also worked harder than others (they also had higher staminas so they could work longer), because they wanted to always be looked at by their peers as strongmen.
Considering how quickly their comrades leveled up, if they, the half-orcs, did not keep up, wouldn’t they be left behind as well? They feared that it would be unlike how it started, where the humans admired them for their strength.
They were overthinking, of course. However, it was a natural want, and they loved Alterra so much that they naturally wanted to keep being relevant to it.
