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

Zinnia paused and looked at her daughter. There…was indeed a way. She had long lost hope for herself, but her children were still so young. Her brother was kind; he'd take them in and raise them as his own!

"Did you… meet them?" she asked, referring to meeting her maternal family.

Zinnia was sent to Hassen because of her stepmother's greed. She was not allowed to make contact outside and had been trapped inside the large palace that had always felt suffocating to her.

It wasn't that her husband found the Golds to be a threat. Even if he did acknowledge that they were powerful in their own right, what could they have against him, a city lord in a city with a deep legacy?

That man simply liked everything to be under his complete control. Seeing her want to be with her family so much—oh, how much she had begged him to let her visit her family when she was younger—made him want to prevent it from happening even more.

When she was a young woman, after being on the verge of insanity, she decided to make an escape. She wanted to go home! However, she was caught and punished.

And then she got pregnant.

When her daughter was born, she became his pawn to completely kill Zinnia's will to defy him.

Who would use his own daughter to threaten his own wife? Evos could.

In any case, Zinnia had never seen her family since the decades she was here… and she didn't even have news about them at all. Oh, how she missed her brother!

The question made Margaery flinch and grip her skirt with her free hand. She had been dreading this question.

In the end, she took a deep breath and held her mother's hand tighter.

"I did meet them…" she began, already feeling pained by the memory. Before she could say more though, the door burst open, revealing her 17-year-old brother. "Sister!!"

He was like a younger and male version of Margaery. And as every Gold was, he also inherited the Gold's characteristic hair.

His name was Marcus. He had rushed over when he heard she was here. He was outside the territory when she arrived and it wasn't like he had people reporting to him about what was going on in the City.

He simply overheard people saying his half-brother was married (his father apparently forgot about inviting him) and that he was married to someone from Bleulle. He knew his sister wouldn't miss coming to visit Hassen, so he rushed home the moment he listened the news.

That said, he was in such a rush that he forgot to change clothing. He now looked like a mess, covered with bruises and wounds. "What happened to you?"

"I was training…"

"Not bullied?"

"No, not lately, no," Marcus said as he sat down next to them. He was very honest. He thought at first that his training was finally seeing an effect, so those people didn't bother him anymore. But, in retrospect, it was probably because everyone was too busy with the wedding to look at him.

When they get bored again, maybe they'd hunt him down again to beat him up. He needed to grow more before that happened!

When he lost his sister, he…

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but stare at his pitiful sister. "Sister… if I had been stronger…"

If he had been stronger, would he have been able to fight those bastards trying to sell and buy her? Would he have had the influence to find her a better husband who'd actually treat her well?

Margaery patted his shoulder and smiled. "It's good you want to be stronger, but don't think of defying that man…"

"But…"

"I don't want to lose my brother," she said. "At the very least, you are a son. If you showed enough growth, you will get resources. Your path is not hopeless."

Not like them, the women.

Marcus pursed his lips and looked down, his eyes a bit teary.

This made the woman smile gently at him, with Margaery even poking his cheek in teasing. "Still a crybaby."

The young lad glared at her. "It's not my fault…"

He was too soft, and it was the primary reason why he got bullied by the other nobles and why his father, Evos, ignored him.

Zinnia watched her children's closeness and felt nostalgic. A long time ago, she was also very close to her sibling and it was a time she felt… protected and seen.

Her brother was so kind, and she was happy her son took after him. She did worry he was too soft though, but at the same time she didn't want him to become like those men. Could it only be just one over the other? Couldn't a man be decent and strong at the same time?

Speaking of this, she wondered how his brother fared. "How is my brother?" she asked. Thanks to Evos' blocking, she had no idea how her brother fared in that house after she left.

However, she refused to believe he was living a bad life. Her psyche wouldn't be able to handle it. After all, before her children were born, and partially after, the thought of returning to her brother's side was one of the things that allowed her to hold on.

Margaery knew this, so she had to be very careful. "I met them… they are very kind. They are unlike other nobles."

She leaned over with a smile on her face. "The Golds were the top noble family in Bleulle—and Uncle Zaol was the patriarch!"

"He's the patriarch?" Zinnia gasped, surprised. "How...?"

Her other brothers were so strong and had strong families backing them!

How could her kind, meek, brother triumph over that?

In her mind, he was living well while living low-key. Perhaps he was assigned to handle an industry (he was very smart) and was left alone in exchange for his talents!

In his mind, he had married a kind woman who bore him good children, and they lived a simple life, just outside the thumb of their brothers.

"I wasn't able to get the details yet because…" Margaery paused, shaking her head.

"The point is that they did live well. Under uncle, the Gold family reached a new height!

"He even had five children, four sons and a daughter! I'm surprised people could have so many!"

"They're all good kids," she said. "They're all strong, smart, and kind…"

"I was expecting a bit because of your stories, but I'm honestly surprised."

How rare was it to find noblemen and women like the Golds? It was estimated that there were probably only a handful in this world, right?

"My brother raised them well," Zinnia said, feeling a pool of pride well in her heart. However, she saw her daughter's eyes shift elsewhere, she realized there was something more to it.

They started doing small talk and she asked more and more details about their lives. Margaery naturally didn't know that much detail as she had just moved to Bleulle and her movements were controlled, but Zinnia knew her daughter well.

She was hiding something. Look at her now, she would shift gazes every now and then as if afraid to meet her eyes.

Zinnia's heart clenched. "You're not telling me something."

"I… they really lived well," she said. "One cannot be so kind-hearted without some power…"

Marcus blinked, nodding. As he grew older, he learned that the only way to keep himself from falling down the wrong path was to gain power too.

"Tell me everything," Zinnia said, her voice firm. "Don't hide anything from me, daughter, it'll only make things worse."

"But…" Margaery's voice cracked and her eyes pooled with tears. Her mother always had a way of making her confess, and she could only blurt out everything she had been holding back.

When the Golds were taken, she was locked in her room by Bleumrick. She didn't fight too much at the time. After all, she was used to it.

When her house arrest ended, she found out the entire Gold family was gone, their assets divided.

She didn't know them well, but her mother told her many stories. How her brother was the kindest man with a rare, pure heart, and how she hoped she could meet him someday.

She had also felt their kind hearts when she met them. They were genuinely concerned for her well-being and had offered their hands many times, though she was too afraid of her husband—and afraid of destroying their peace—by taking it.

In their short interactions, they had become her support, even emotionally— and even when she hadn't talked to them much— and just thinking they were in the same place as she was was reassuring to her.

"The bastard…" she gasped. "He decided it was time to get rid of them."

"They… they're gone.. Mother."

"I'm so sorry I wasn't able to do anything to protect them…"

At this time, Zinnia's ears were ringing in shock, and the images of her brother that she had been holding on to showed cracks, and so did her heart.

Zinnia covered her face and cried her heart out.