After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 1606

Chapter 1606: The Red Settling Down (Part 1)

Meanwhile, the girl’s tea time ended soon, with the Terrans Aditi and Ria having to go elsewhere for a group project or something related to their jobs, leaving the three aborigine women behind.

Cassandra, Veronica, and Estra stared at each other. Veronica then told her friend she’d be touring Estra. “Wanna come with us?”

Cassandra blinked and pondered.

“Isn’t it your free day today?” Veronica said with a smile, gently poking her friend. “I’m sure your husband would be glad to know you maximized your day~”

Cassandra was making a living helping in clearing missions, as well as being one of the managers in Olga’s business. The rest of the time, she spent with her daughter.

Today was her day off at work, but her mother-in-law and sister-in-law insisted on bonding with the child, leaving her with a lot of time on her hands and unsure what to do with it.

Her eyes met with Estra’s…a woman who was once proud and arrogant and someone she didn’t think she’d ever befriend in any meaningful way.

This one still had a lot to prove, and a lot to fix and make up for, but Cassandra felt for her situation. There was also a faint feeling of approval. After all, there were very, very few women—especially noble women—who’d take the risks she took.

In the end, she smiled and shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

She’d also take this time to get to know her more and determine whether she’d be an asset or a liability for her new home.

…

After the short tour, Estra dragged Veronica and Cassandra to the Bathhouse.

They had introduced this to her during their tour, and Estra was determined to experience the place. As a noblewoman, she had naturally been to a few bathhouses, but it looked so different from the outside, and she wondered what else was different.

Not to mention…

“I deserve this,” she said, entering the threshold as she looked around with interest sparking in her eyes.

“I’ll allow this for now, but you do know you can’t splurge like this every day—not unless you find a stable source of income,” Veronica said as advice. The previous Estra might see this as her overstepping, but right now she understood that she was right.

“Yes, yes, help me out with that,” Estra said. “In exchange, I’ll treat you to the spa.”

Well, it’s not too bad a deal.

Of course, they also didn’t expect it to be easy. Estra was raised as a noblewoman. It was hard to imagine her in any kind of job.

The fortunate part was that Estra was from a City, so even if she wasn’t a fighter, at level 29, most town-level monsters were doable to her. She could even just hang around the battlements and clear monsters from there, like many others did, which was safe and easy.

In Alterra, they called this Battlement Farming, where people would literally shoot down or slash down monsters weakened by the sentries for easy contribution points.

Even if most monsters wouldn’t give her EXP points or copper due to level differences, the contribution points counted, so if she couldn’t find a job, she could just join this set of people and be among those who wished for monster mobs to come.

They even heard that there were people actively creating prayer groups to ask for more mobs…

Anyway, pushing aside some of the Alterran populations’ eccentricities, the group entered the wondrous world of the spa.

They settled in one of the smaller hot tubs, one mixed with herbs and with some lavender floating on the surface. To be honest, this was a bit awkward.

Sitting together naked for hours with someone you weren’t close with was bound to be awkward, especially when most of the ‘meaningful’ chatter was already done in the tea house.

What were they supposed to talk about now? How obsessed Estra was with Otto? Which one of those women who suffered she hated the most?

That said, like with the Elders, Estra did tell them her point of view about that, too. They kind of believed her, and they couldn’t imagine such evil in her; Otherwise, they would’ve cut ties with her early on instead of guiding her around the territory.

Still… they weren’t exactly close, so… the three were silent, just enjoying the envelope of the warm water, as well as the silence and the distant chatter from other pools.

It was broken some minutes later by Estra. She was resting her head at the edge of the pool, looking up at the ceiling with beautiful paintings—Veronica told her the people here called them ‘frescoes’—of the sky and forests.

For a while, she was just deep in thought until words escaped her mouth. “I saw them…”

This made the two open their serene eyes and look at her. “Who?”

“Otto and his lover,” she said, making the two flinch.

“Huh? When?”

“They were across the road while you two were gaping at Andrei’s latest dress…” she said. She was fascinated with the dress, too, but she heard his voice from a distance, so her attention was quickly stolen.

The couple was walking hand-in-hand with food in their free hands, feeding each other as they walked leisurely across the street.

She had never seen Otto’s smile so brightly before. She wanted to call them by impulsiveness, but they disappeared into another street, and Veronica also pulled her into Andrei’s shop to get a closer look at the dresses.

Unfortunately, as beautiful as the dresses were, the sight from before made her whole body heavy and made her desperate for the famous spa, which was the main reason she was desperate to get here.

However, while she relaxed her body, her heart had yet to settle.

The other women didn’t say anything. They didn’t need to. They didn’t have to.

Both of them had been heartbroken at some point, so they knew how it felt.

One of the greatest lessons they learned from Alterra was to love oneself first, to be happy in one’s own skin, and the rest would follow.

Now…relaxing in the spa, surrounded by fellow beautiful women and the wondrous scent of herbs and flowers…wasn’t it just the perfect setting to do so?

Thank you for reading~!