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

Chapter 2115: Wall Battle

The new playground castle also had its own battlement section and even mini sentries. The construction team had a lot of fun with this.

It would certainly let the children get used to these things, making it easier for them to move on to the real thing when they grew up.

They didn’t encourage wars or fighting, of course, and those sentries served more as viewpoints than anything. It was also made to train their height tolerance.

"You wee nevah catchu this beibee!" Meatball declared as he zoomed out of the area, very quick for his short legs.

Queen Pepper naturally could not let him go so easily. "Catchum! Catchum!!" she ordered, thinking her milky voice was powerful.

And so, the game of tag began, and the role play seamlessly changed to another game.

Baby Meatball ran very fast. Fortunately, he still listened to the adults and didn’t use his powers. It would’ve been unfair, anyway.

That was until Koko, one of Nana’s bird babies, flapped his wings in an attempt to catch Meatball.

Ansel flinched. Though it was no longer a secret that the babies had powers, it wasn’t exactly spread out on purpose. The majority was still unaware, and spies from other places naturally wouldn’t spread it outside of their superior’s ears either.

Pepper kept to her role, and this included being royally easy to get distracted and ignore everyone. At some point, she had already gone inside the playground palace and played something else, like blocks or something.

"Yow it!"

After going around the park and circling again, the kids’ gameplay eventually reached their area.

The kids even used the adults as cover. For example, Meatball suddenly climbed over Ansel, escaping the direct line of sight of his enemies.

When the kid rudely grabbed his nose, Ansel was seriously considering ’betraying’ this good nephew and dropping him down to ground level.

They played tag for another quarter of an hour, and it wasn’t long until the three dwarves Cotto, Batto, and Sotto arrived.

As for the dwarven guard Eckle, he had his own life independent of the trio he was supposed to be guarding. He spent most of it in the barracks.

The trio, as always, arrived in relative high fashion—on hoverboards.

Taiso looked at the contraption under their feet and was immediately fascinated. The three also saw Taiso and were curious about him. They had never seen him before.

There had never been dwarves they had never seen before. It was to the point that they thought only their dwarf tribe existed.

They did the greetings of dwarves, which involved their beards. They’d pat their beards before slapping the other’s hands. It was a bit like high-fives, but with more solemnity; in dwarf culture, it was to bless the other’s hand in crafting.

Unsurprisingly, the two sides had varying greetings, but the message was the same. The different dwarves showed how they did greetings, and they each did the other’s to show respect.

Frankly, they also felt a bit of awe.

They honestly never thought they’d see the other, though, especially not in human territory.

Ansel watched all this with blunt interest. "How many tribes do you guys have?"

The three younger ones were not sure, but Taiso answered for them. "There should only be two tribes. The dwarven tribes were never large to begin with."

Their fecundity was not too far from orcs, but they didn’t have the orcs’ advantage in strength and survivability, so the dwarves had always been the smallest race in terms of population.

"How far east does your tribe live? Is it near any human territory?"

"No. Quite far," Taiso said. "We live in a tall mountain most people wouldn’t be able to go over."

"Is it Orcspire Mountain?" Ansel couldn’t help but ask, recalling the contents of Althea’s letter.

Taiso nodded. "We just call it the Wall."

...

Althea stared at the large wall-like mountain until her neck felt sore.

Garan helpfully massaged her shoulder.

They then focused their attention on what seemed like an elevator. Rather, to be more accurate. They were looking at the elevator tracks.

The elevator car itself was not within sight, and she was actually just looking at the elevator rails. They judged it was something of a lift—or something similar—based on the mechanisms.

This world might be magical, but a lot of its workings still followed the rules of nature she knew as a Terran.

The two of them took out their scopes to study it, walking towards it bit by bit. There was an occasional turbulent air descending from above, but it was manageable.

That said, even if it was manageable, it wasn’t exactly weak. One could imagine how the winds at higher elevations.

As they got closer to the tracks, Althea became more and more certain. "It’s a magic tool."

This meant it was definitely not orcs here, a place associated with them.

"What’s going on...?" Althea muttered, though her tone was more intrigued than confused. Garan saw it all but didn’t point it out. He simply fought off the monsters that came their way.

The trees here were a bit sparse now, and the soil drier and rocky. It was easier to be surrounded by monsters. Further, there were quite a number of them, and most were no less dextrous in the same terrain.

Soon, they reached the bottom of the tracks and indeed found something that should serve as the buffers.

Looking up, the lines upwards looked like they would climb all the way up. However, when they looked through the scope, their superior eyesight told them that it wasn’t.

The line was only around a third or a fourth of the way up. They couldn’t see the upper end, though, as it seemed to enter a depression along the mountain face, hiding it from their view.

"At least the climb is lesser," Althea said, shrugging, and the two of them proceeded to climb up.

Using the belay device and carabiner they made before, they equipped themselves for a long and arduous climbing journey. They also rubbed a lot of chalk on their hands to ensure some friction. It wasn’t the preferred climbing chalk, but it’d have to do.

Climbing chalk was not the classic chalk, which they had a lot of. It was made of magnesium carbonate (unlike their usual chalk, derived from gypsum sourced from Limestone Valley). It was needed because it could absorb sweat and heat. For now, they’d just have to make do with what they had.

Garan made Althea go first so he could catch her in case of emergencies.

Althea could also try to create an occasional rock protrusion, but it’d probably be very rare since the rock was granite and not her specialization.

As for whether she’d master it in this, who knows...

One of the things she learned about earth users, partially due to the studies, was that they could learn to control different rock types, but they had to practice and understand its makeup. It was why Althea could control soil and rocks, and make quicksand while others were limited to rocks or soil.

One method to improve the chances of learning was access to a massive sample of the rock. It was to be familiar with its composition and know the variances within it.

It was also connected to being surrounded by the material and eventually becoming familiar with it, as if one could be one with it and control it better.

Hence, although she couldn’t make spontaneous granite rock ledges right now, Althea believed it was just a matter of time.

Anyway, granite was one of the best kinds of rocks to climb on. It was stable and sturdy, had a rough surface, and had a lot of naturally-formed ledges and overhangs.

Hence, even if its slope was extremely steep, it wasn’t impossible to climb, especially for their level and the equipment they brought in to assist them..

Find a suitable crack, insert the nut or the cam, clip a quickdraw, clip the rope to the quickdraw, and then climb, and so on. Garan and Althea had gone climbing many times even in Terran, so Althea knew what to do and what to take note of.

It took them nearly half a day to reach the 200-meter mark where they could last see the rope of the elevator. It took a while because there were climbers and avian monsters attacking them.

They had worn beast-repelling potions on their bodies, but the winds here were stronger and stronger as one went up, rendering their potions useless, even if the monsters were only town-level at most.

The most horrifying one looked similar to a spider, except its legs were hairier, its mouth sharper. Fortunately or unfortunately, it didn’t spew webs.

However, it did release a lot of slimy irritants. A splatter and it would feel like that spot had been bitten by hundreds of ants. And this was already because their levels were high. If someone around level 15 encountered this slime, it would be akin to getting splashed by acid.

Worse: the damned buggers came in groups!