After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World novel Chapter 315

Aberdeen City, Eighteen Years prior

"Awww, little one, you don’t have to miss me." The teary Althea pouted, making the chubby tanned boy grin. However, if one were to take note of his runny nose and red eyes, any adult could see he had been crying.

A moment later though, his pretentiousness cracked like a normal little boy. "Wuuu—"

He then began to sob, hugging his two friends and rubbing snot all over both of them. "I’ll definitely miss you guys though!"

He then parted with them eyes filled with tears, before reluctantly parting with them for real.

Before going, he grasped arms with his best friend, Garan. "Be happy." And then he patted little Althea’s head.

"Don’t get fatter!" She said. Obviously, he ate just as much as they did, but he was so chubby!

The boy grinned. "I will get fatter, for your information!" He got fat with eating minimal, he could only imagine how it would be when he could eat normally.

It was both an exciting and worrying image!

After a while longer of farewells, Beany joined his new parents in their car, not forgetting to open the window and wave until they were no longer in sight.

The two of them watched the car disappear from view, and Althea sighed like a little adult. "There’s just the two of us now."

Garan’s heart broke. If only she had more friends…

He leaned down and patted her head. "And we will always have each other."

___________________

Fargo Village, Present.

The group looked at the five in question, wondering, "How could you tell?"

At this, Orz and Ben’s shoulders slumped, as if ashamed, their eyes narrowed in pain.

"We met Tagashi Sister-in-law…" Orz paused, before clarifying. "We met Jiro’s wife."

Silence occupied the room.

Before losing Johnny, the previous one they had lost was a man named Jiro, the last person in logistics other than Eagle. He was a kind, soft-spoken man liked by everyone, and his death was particularly painful for a lot of people.

He died on the way to Twinwave inside a large mob that killed a dozen of them.

Eagle looked at the men with furrowed eyebrows. Among them, even if they were from different countries, he spent most time with Jiro as a fellow logistics soldier.

"How… did she handle it?"

It was Minko, the pale archer, who spoke up. "Not very good," he said, looking at the silent companions next to him. "She was hysterical, actually."

Then Ben, scratched his now-curly hair (he used to don a half-bald look), before dragging the topic to the information asked of them. "They were refugees from another territory." They said, "The territories further West and northwest were mostly from our country."

No one spoke, because they knew of the implications:

Their next stop would then be towards the West, while those of Eden and the nearby countries would be heading East.

After a long moment of silence, the five awkwardly looked at each other before turning to the captain, donning complicated expressions.

They were happy to finally find some clues, but they knew they wouldn’t have gotten so far without the captain.

"Captain, we—"

How could Garan not know of their internal conflicts?

"You will always be members of the Terran Mercenary Team," Garan said with a small smile. "We could contact each other through the mercenary union, can’t we?"

The five choked up a bit, touched, and their tears fell when Garan then took out dozens of gold and handed a handful to each one.

"You would definitely want to leave as soon as possible," he told them with that characteristic baritone voice of his. "The sun is still high, it is safer to go now."

"Captain…" the soldiers uttered, sniffing.

How lucky they were!

…

The rest of the team returned with similar news, quickly noticing the atmosphere. There were a few people packing up!

"What happened?"