After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World novel Chapter 1376

Chapter 1376: Mission to Voumi Town (Part 2)

Voumi Town’s main industry was brick creation, which was... an interesting choice.

One had to be reminded that this world was a place where a Lord could build an entire palace at the press of a button. There were very, very few territories like Alterra that’d do manual construction.

So what could bricks be used for?

The bricks... were mostly for decorative purposes.

Rather than being used for construction purposes, the bricks were made with intricate mouldings on them fired through this world’s equivalent to a high-temperature slip-cast kiln, which preserved the patterns and added a light sheen.

The nobles here (or in any world) needed various unnecessary things to show their status, so the industry was still pretty big.

It was like showing off an expensive car when it had such a low chassis that could get damaged when passing humps, two seats, and an impractically small amount of storage.

It was as if buying useless but expensive stuff somehow made one’s status higher, much more effectively than buying an expensive but useful item.

This was the same concept here. For instance, if a house had a pile of these decorative bricks, then people would admire them as if they were amazing.

It was both odd and an understandable part of human nature.

Another industry was their potteries, though it was just earthenware items. Because there were other territories that also offered this, this wasn’t their focus industry, but it was still very big.

At this, Althea looked to the side, staring at Eugene, the person in charge of product development in Alterra.

"Expand the kiln, and add the pigments in our products," she said.

"It’s time to mass produce porcelain."

...

Voumi Town

Silvia and Rowan arrived a few days later, reaching Voumi’s territory after traveling with little rest. They borrowed a beast car from Ferrol, which reduced a possible one or two-week trek to a little more than two days.

They went down the carriage a kilometer or so away from the walls, and walked on foot, pretending to be normal travellers and refugees. They wore coats, a large basket backpack, and Rowan also changed his hair color to give himself a bit more time before he could get recognized.

Voumi Town had a 4 meter high outer wall—a Level 4 wall—with sentries about 300 meters apart, but there were people walking around the battlement. It wasn’t nearly as dense as Alterra’s defense though.

The couple looked at each other and, holding hands, joined the queue with a bit of anxiety in their hearts.

There was a short line outside the gate and it didn’t take them long to enter. The visitor fee was not cheap, already at 80 copper.

From where they were, they could see a distant taller wall guarding the inner circle. Because the area it surrounded was small, the sentries around 150 meters apart looked especially dense.

"The Level 5 wall guards the Lord’s Palace and the land surrounding it," he explained as they walked along the town’s lively streets. "There are also villas there, but no one lives there normally.

"Only in case of attacks, he would let in nobles and people he liked inside."

This was a way to minimize the cost of a Level 5 wall, while at the same time perpetuating the separation between people in the Lord’s graces and everyone else. Basically, those the Lord liked would get extra defenses during the war, so a lot of people pandered to him more than they would other Lords.

As they walked, Silvia noticed that there were a lot of clay being hauled to different places of the town. Some were in hauled by people, some by carts, and so on.