Chapter 2095: Quo Town (Part 2)

A/N: I think we’re back to 2ch/day~! Have been outlining some events and have typed a few things in advance, and hopefully I can type them all in time. Thank you for understanding, Alterrans~!

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How many such settlements were there, and what was their composition? Did they live like normal villages? Do all villagers fight monsters? How do they handle the occasional extreme weather?

...could she have something like this in the Alterra region?

Although the region had been allied and had consolidated, the continent was vast, and the distance between neighboring territories was still large and massive.

There were still many places for enemies to hide in. Even if they had allied with everyone, there was still a far larger area that was not owned by anyone.

Even if they had allied with every territory in the region, there were still plenty of ways for large armies to enter their area without getting noticed, especially if the enemy had good scouts and generals.

This model could be the way to cover that flaw. Of course, the success of it would depend on many variables, some of which she might not know yet.

If there could be allied forces in these ’blank’ patches of land, wouldn’t the breaches be minimized?

If only there weren’t the whole elemental experimentation thing hanging above their heads, and if they didn’t have their own missions, Althea would have definitely been in the mood to walk through that area and study this model closely.

Far from the walls, they were notified that they had actually entered the territory.

[You have entered Quo Town (Lv1)]

"The wall is so far," someone from their party couldn’t help but exclaim. "Aren’t they walling this?"

"They didn’t expand all the way, it seems like."

Anyway, they paid the visitor’s fee, which was standard for towns, lest they got kicked out when they were in open space.

The areas in front of the gates were unoccupied, but they did see some neighborhoods right outside of them. From where they were walking, they could see one at a distance, about a kilometer.

They could see it clearly not only because of their good eyesight, but also because the camp was located on a hill facing them.

It was a collection of treehouses. There were flying orcs and landgrubbers and arboreal ones like the monkeys. They looked like they were living decently despite living outside the walls.

Among humankind, this was outside of common sense. It seemed like this common sense was about to be updated.

At the very least, the lives of ordinary people (or orcs) here seemed better than the village. She saw one little monkey fall down a tree, grabbed by the beak by a flying orc.

It was small and could fit into the avian’s mouth. A little more movement, and it would’ve been swallowed.

Gulp

Fortunately, orcs here were the same species, so they didn’t eat each other like the animals Terrans knew. Here, that would’ve been cannibalism, which was against the instinct of most species.

The bird orc spit out the monkey near ground level before flying up again.

The orcs outside the territories did indeed feel like they were in their natural habitat. Was that why Baku and the others were fine staying outside the walls when their villa was first being built? Of course, the area was walled now.

Perhaps half-orcs also shared half-human sensibility when it came to instinctive security, while pure orcs had completely different preferences.

While peeking at the distant mini-village, Althea and Garan reached the gate.

Virion separated from the couple and entered through a different gate, assigning an area to investigate before they parted for efficiency.

Virion would handle the information gathering among the upper class, while the couple would handle the commoners’ side. Each one would try to determine where the experiments could be happening and who was involved in it.

Of course, depending on how deep this problem was, Althea and Garan’s assistance would likely stop at this investigation. They still had their own mission, and they’d definitely be researching that while they tried to find out more about the experiments.

The best places to gather gossip were the market, the parks, the taverns, teahouses, and restaurants. It was one of the lessons in Spying 101 classes and books taught in certain top-level classes.

Another, if they find aunties gathered together, mostly doing handicrafts and other jobs together, they (or rather, Althea) would find a way to integrate.

In any culture, the aunties would always be the best source of gossip, er, subjective news.

Althea and Garan separated to go through different areas. Anyway, their levels were considered upper level in a town, with Garan even a powerhouse, so they didn’t have to worry about getting bullied. The people and orcs here weren’t openly hostile, anyway, so they were unlikely to get mobbed unless they gathered aggro on purpose.

They also didn’t have to hide their origins, so that if people asked why they were there, they were known to be simply expanding their town’s influence and market share.

This would lessen any suspicions about them, but would also spread out Alterra’s name.

Garan went straight to the taverns and restaurants, while Althea would go to restaurants as well as the auntie’s gathering place.

Anyway, there weren’t many such places here. It certainly had fewer leisure areas and amenities than the typical level 1 town.

Quo Town, like any other orc territory, had pretty much stagnated after being taken over by orcs, at least in the sense of urban planning. The current ’okay’ state was already with the guidance of Warrior City, which had become the master territory before it was upgraded to a town.

In a sense, except for adding a Pharmacy and a Post Office, it had changed very little from when it was a level 3 village.

Rather, if Warrior City hadn’t taken over, they might not have bothered with these buildings at all.

Further, orcs simply didn’t have much of the extra ’sensibilities’.

They innately never cared about things like art, did not care more about beauty than they cared about the ease of movement, and they were not particular about ambiance. Since they were the power holders in this territory, it was natural that the development of these things wasn’t given attention to.

They did not even expand the original wall coverage, choosing to leave the new area received as a Town wall-less. As mentioned, stronger orcs had an instinct against being enclosed by walls, so this was actually a great compromise.

Of course, those who still stay within the territory walls also have to consider the residency payments. Orcs could kill monsters easily, so daily payments were not a problem.

In order to keep growing, through Warrior City’s guidance over the years, they just upgraded the existing walls bit by bit to protect the internal heart of the territory.

Now, one would ask, if many of the strong orcs lived outside, what was their citizenship?

The answer was: if they stayed inside, then they just paid for the visitor’s fee or the temporary residency fee. If they stayed outside the territory lines, then they simply weren’t citizens.

Their existence was more like a peaceful coexistence.

As for whether it really was peaceful, only those involved would know.