After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World - Chapter 1608

Chapter 1608: Leasing Property

Something like that, especially for a girl like Estra, wasn’t easy, nor was it straightforward. Cassandra and Veronica didn’t force her either, letting the redhead handle this issue on her own terms.

When the three of them left about an hour later, they did pass by Sahara and her mother’s tub, and Estra gave them a (shy) polite nod, which made Sahara blink a bit and she awkwardly nodded back.

After that, as advised by the two, Estra went to find a long-term lease on one of the studio units. It wouldn’t be as glamorous as the hotel, or even the premium inn, but it was good enough and practical in her case, and would allow her limited gold to go a long way.

In this case, because most of the properties had been purchased or had already been swept away by others, they had to find an Alterran who was renting out their property.

For this, there were listings available in the Town Center. The platforms were highly adjustable, and Althea didn’t even have to handle them herself. She could give access to others, and this was given to Mathilda’s department for efficiency.

Of course, the listings weren’t entirely free, and the platforms would ask a bit of a listing fee that had to be replenished every week or so. It wasn’t big, but it was there to make sure the owners would make an effort to do a bit of marketing, too, unless they were fine with losing a handful of copper a day.

The three went to one of the free platforms to check the selection of properties up for rent. There weren’t many options available anymore, and this was not a surprise considering how high the demand was.

The one with a good size for Estra was under the name of Baron, who happened to be one of the richest Alterrans.

“The location is also very good,” Veronica noted. The unit was one of the mid-rise buildings next to a large park and a commercial area. It was very convenient.

“Baron has a good reputation in Alterra,” Cassandra said. “You should be able to get a good deal.”

They selected the listing to reserve it. The reservation would be valid for 3 days, and a person could only make a free reservation once a week unless they made an advanced deposit.

After this, the concierge would then use her aether letter to contact their network (which could be the guards or other administrative personnel around the territory), who would then find Baron wherever he was at this time. If they had Baron’s aether letter signature, then all the better.

Estra and Baron met at one of the cafes near the center, and they… did not hit it off.

No. “Not hitting it off” was an understatement.

It was to the point that if there were no rules against the destruction of other people’s property, the table between them would’ve been thrashed.

It started with Estra’s mountain of requests.

As much as she wanted to adjust well, her worldview was still quite narrow, and there were still quite a few things that she didn’t truly understand that would no longer be available to her.

She was still in need of a couple more reality checks.

For example, she asked for a few maids and a hot tub in her unit. The unit she was renting was a 1-bedroom unit. How could a hot tub fit inside?

Baron’s eyes twitched. “Look here, Lady,” he said. “Maids aren’t in my jurisdiction. Find them somewhere else.

“As for the tub…I dunno where you came from, but that’s not possible in my unit.”

“It’s your unit, do something about it!” she said, handing him a few gold coins to expedite the process. She was also an utter beauty lover, and her patience was particularly thin when looking at his pudgy face.

She was starting to physically cringe, in fact, the longer she talked with this guy.

She had also always solved everything with money, so she didn’t really think it was possible.

To Baron, who had never lacked money, this move was extremely arrogant. Not to mention, the look she was giving him was too familiar, so he couldn’t help but dislike her more and more.

It did not help that he was still a bit drunk, so his patience wasn’t at its best right now. He also couldn’t believe she found this woman gorgeous when he first saw her.

“No. It doesn’t work like that, Lady,” he said. His words were relatively polite, but the way his tone was getting squeezed indicated he was annoyed.

Estra felt this, and she also felt even more annoyed. How could this guy, who was nearly a third of her level, talk to her like this? “I’m paying you, aren’t I?”

“Paying me doesn’t mean you own me, woman! What a waste of a pretty face, when your attitude is…like that!” Baron barely stopped himself from uttering an insult.

Sadly, Estra did not get the message and was just offended. “Don’t talk to me about face, you pudgy-faced broat!”

GASP!

Veronica and Cassandra, who accompanied Estra to arbitrate, couldn’t help but facepalm. Veronica looked at Cassandra. “Aren’t there other units available?”

“They’re all taken, unfortunately,” the purple-haired woman said. “Besides, Estra would definitely need her own space. Anything less than this unit would make her—and everyone else nearby—suffer.”

Fortunately, at some point, Veronica and Cassandra were there to calm things down between the two before things could get uglier. In the end, it was Cassandra making the deal with Baron and Estra just paid her instead.

In their minds, this was the perfect deal for them. Estra was glad she didn’t have to hurt her eyes every time she had to pay rent, while Baron was all ‘good riddance’ and cursed at his bad luck for encountering such a woman.

Cassandra sighed. She was not planning on getting too involved with Estra, but here she was, becoming a damned middlewoman.

…

Cassandra mumbled about it during bedtime with her husband, after lovemaking.

“Sigh, it was so stressful,” she said, resting her head on her husband’s chest. “Being a middle person… I don’t know how Mother does it.”

She was referring to her mother-in-law, Mathilda.

“You seem to be quite concerned, though,” Gill said, patting her bare back. “You wouldn’t have bothered helping otherwise.”

Cassandra would’ve preferred to just stay with the baby the entire day rather than guide someone she wasn’t close to.

At this, Cassandra paused. “When she said she didn’t order all those things, I believed her,” she told him. “I also felt bad for believing them so much when I first heard of it.”

“I can tell a woman’s scheme now that I see most of the pieces, and I can tell she’s mostly a victim—at the very least, she’s not an irredeemable villain.”

Estra had definitely made a lot of wrong moves, her bullying of Sahara and her servants included. Even if someone was fanning the flames behind her, the choice was ultimately hers in the end.

Still, she could see that a lot of that was due to desperation, and she didn’t enjoy hurting other people, per se.

“Many of us are victims,” she said. “But I also want to help them overcome it, like I did.”

She snuggled into Gill’s embrace, and the man wrapped his other arm around her soft body so they could hug as intimately as possible. “Not everyone was lucky to have met their own Gills, and not everyone was lucky enough to have found their own Alterras.”

Gill kissed her head. “Well, we can really use forces from cities. Even if she wasn’t particularly skilled or high-leveled there, it is a proper powerhouse in a Level 1 Town.

“Besides, we have plenty of departments now, perhaps we can find a place for her.”

She lifted her head to look at him, a bit confused. “Your idea is to get her a government job?” This was a term she learned after staying here.

“Hmn, you said she’s a great stalker and she gathered information about Veronica and the rest, ultimately helping them cover things up. You mentioned she had also gathered clues about the Golds by herself, which was a lot more than what those other people hunting for the Golds could gather…

“Not to mention, she also managed to follow Vaughn all the way here. That is not easy, especially for a woman.”

Cassandra blinked, nodding pensively. “…that’s true.”

“Perhaps we can get her into the information department, put that obsession of hers into good use.”

“Besides, as a person from a City, she would be privy to more subtleties than other members of the team. Perhaps she could teach them so that when the time comes that we’d need to infiltrate that level, we would not be unprepared.”

She was a noblewoman, but she was still higher leveled than many of them. She had over-compulsive obsessions which could become invaluable in finding certain details.

As long as she wasn’t so overtly emotionally invested, of course. That particular aspect… needed a lot of work.

If she had just been a bit more objective with investigating the Golds back then, she might have found a lot more clues and at a much earlier time, just by virtue of her obsessiveness.

“It could be a double-edged sword,” she said. “However, as far as I know, her only weakness was Otto and, partially, Vaughn too.”

“Basically men.”

“That is an internal challenge,” she told him. “If she gets out of that phase—then you’re right, perhaps… we could really have a use for her.”

Nobody: A BaronxEstra pairing? But, author, that’s a CRACK ship!

Author: Challenge accepted.