After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World-Chapter 1803: The State of Others (Part 1)

The cold would last longer than anyone thought, however.

Valov Town.

"It’s been more than two weeks since the cold began," Tanod said as he shivered under the cold. "I don’t think the temperature has any sign of increasing."

"I know," he said. "We’ve run out of our Alterran food days ago, and it’s so horrible that we’re stuck with that rough restaurant food..."

Just thinking about it made them feel like they were eating sand! They were making do by adding a few sprinkles of the sauces and condiments they had in the space, but that could only do so much.

Imagine adding jam to a softened tree bark or condensed sand. Yes, it was exactly like that.

"Worse is that the restaurant increased its prices again. We’d be in deep orcshit if we hadn’t saved so much money."

They still had so much money left over because they saved up in case they hired a few mid-level mercenaries to help them get to their town, which was still days away from here. This was the worst-case scenario though, because they also invested in beast-repelling potions.

But if this cold lasted longer and the prices spiked up even more, then they could get in trouble.

The restaurant prices were determined only by one thing: The Lord. The restaurant could produce a certain amount every day, and could produce more if they supplied flute plants and the like, but with the cold, the stock of raw materials had gone down.

The price increase was understandable because of this. The problem was that it increased ten times at the beginning of the cold, and was just getting more expensive!

People could not even complain because they knew the few functional farms were being maintained by fire elementalists and expensive fertilizers.

"Alterra wouldn’t have this problem, tsk," Tanod mumbled, but his teeth were chattering from the cold.

"Well, we’re so far from there, and we already invested so much money," Tambai countered, also shivering.

The usual houses did have decent insulation from typical colds; however, the current temperatures were beyond that, and they had to keep the fires running if they didn’t want to freeze to death even in their own homes.

Sigh. Just go away already, you damned cold!

...

Dune Town

Even the desert areas were not exempt from these problems.

Rather, facing the extreme cold in the desert was actually more brutal than anywhere else.

Deserts already had cold nights because of the lack of things that could absorb the heat in the sunlight. In other places, the heat would release at night, warming up the surroundings, even if only by a degree or two. The desert did not have such a thing.

The dry air also accelerated heat loss; there was less firewood to burn, and their beasts didn’t have fur to transform into coats.

Another, the infrastructure in the desert was generally not built for extreme cold. Many also improved their insulation from the heat, which could also help in the cold, but extreme weather was simply too extreme.

Even if the population did experience it before, the most they could do was stockpile long-term food and import pelts.

Fortunately, Alterra sent them a warning before it happened, but there were limited things they could do within a few days.

In haste, every citizen hurried to increase the number of their cellars, to line more with rugs, cloths, and sandbags, and thicken those they already had.

They gathered a lot of fuel, including animal dung and animal fat. They collected stones they could heat in the fire pits, and they prepared animal-fat-soaked cloths or moss to burn.

They were also taught how to use ’petrol’, their main resource.

It was a newly discovered resource back then, and all they knew was that it burned well. However, they also found it burned too fast on its own.

They also tried to use it as lighting before, but it smoked a lot and smelled bad, which was why, even if it was a new resource, they didn’t have much use for it until they introduced it to Alterra.

After Alterra studied it, they passed along some techniques and technology to use it in exchange for tons of the item.

First, to avoid it burning too fast on its own, they were told never to use it raw and directly. It should be mixed with either animal fats, resins, plant oils, or charcoal. They were also to heat and stir it to a gel or syrup.

As a result, it would burn more slowly, would stick to surfaces, and would produce steadier flames!

They could pour a little in their torches or rags, and it’d last a long time, and also mixed with straw and the like to create effective fire starters.

As for the smoke and smell, they were taught to do ’distillation by heat’. They were to gently heat the petrol in sealed vessels, which would capture different vapors at different temperatures.

It was like drawing the spirit out of the oil, creating a portion used for cleaner-burning lamp fuel, and then the items for waterproofing and incendiaries.

Speaking of this, they also learned how to use it as bitumen and waterproofing!

Since it didn’t rain much in the desert, there were few instances to see the amazingness of this.

Now, in winter, they could really feel the changes. For example, there could be two leather cloaks. One was soaked with heated bitumen, and the other was left behind.

If one poured snow or water, it would slide off the one poured with bitumen, and it was also much, much warmer inside.

The people who had experienced the winter before would say that their old coats would absorb the snow, the leather would stiffen and crack, and boots would freeze overnight.

Now, that was no longer a problem! And because they had so much of the black liquid, every citizen had equipment that was waterproofed even before the cold wave!

They could also seal more joints; there was less rot in their buildings, and roofs survived the heavy snow.

Their town had a lot fewer coats and so on compared to their forest-dwelling peers. However, thanks to this, their survival rate was no less than theirs!