After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World novel Chapter 614

While Fargo was getting cleaned up, bit by bit, a few more people were invited to the Village Center. These were the respected citizens of Fargo other than Henry, who were the doctors. Their representative was Volohov as well as his wife, Liana.

They also called some of the erudite citizens who had seen and experienced the events, but would still be able to help with the objective and logical decision-making. Among these people was Vivian and, by extension, her husband Thomas.

While the confessions and the recording of accounts with the local citizens were going on below, Althea and the others still hoped to find other perspectives as well. After all, most citizens were at the height of emotions, and they might miss or exaggerate a few things.

However, what they would hear still made their blood boil.

The type of abuse and oppression was so medieval—it was a shame that modern Terrans propagated it!

The Alterans also looked at Henry and the others in pity. Having to endure such oppression while trying to protect citizens must not have been easy. No wonder the old man wanted to retire. Considering everyone had longer lifespans here, the old man must’ve felt he still lost a few years.

After much discussion, they decided to divide the punishments into two: Execution and Prisoner of War.

Execution would be the painful and prolonged deaths of the Thousand Slashes, where their victims would be allowed to damage them, to contribute to their painful and imminent deaths.

The Prisoners of War would be the exception to the ’no slave’ rule of Altera. They would basically be ’slaves’ in a sense, where they’d be punished by doing hard labor jobs for Altera or its satellites.

As for the duration of this sentence, it would depend on their transgressions.

Besides, it so happened that Fargo had limestone and copper deposits that Altera needed. As they said so themselves: Slaves were convenient to dig!

There were naturally some ’idealistic and humanitarian’ voices around, of course, who had voiced their opinion against such blatant ’disrespect for human rights’.

For instance, there was Vanessa, who wasn’t comfortable with not having a bigger part in the discussion.

"They’re human beings! We shouldn’t be deciding life or death like this, nor should we allow for slavery!" she said, a bit meekly but with chest out as if she was a kind-hearted woman speaking her mind against some oppressive force.

Oppressive-force-Althea looked at her. "So, what do you suggest?"

"I… we let them go," she said, "Surviving out in their states—"

"Haven’t you heard that cockroaches live forever? What will you do if someone survived and caused harm to Alterans? You might not care, but I do."

"That’s not what I meant—"

"You think just because people are injured, they wouldn’t be able to cause damage? Vanessa, don’t be naive."

"I’m not!" Vanessa said, voice rising a bit. Her upbringing and the fact that she had an image to maintain in front of Garan kept her from losing her cool. "I’m just saying we shouldn’t be playing god—"

"In a world where strength is language and killing is everywhere, taking a life is not playing god—it’s a means of survival."

"You can’t possibly say that if those men did what they did to you, you would be able to let them be?"

"I—"

"Will you?"