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

"I've been hearing rumors about a strange disease lately. Is it this one?!" one asked, making the others pale. They had also been hearing about this! Has it really reached their borders?!

The chaos this news created was palpable. Even from outside the Lord's palace, people could see the many guards exiting the compound, no doubt heading to the Elementalist Dorms area.

Silvia and Rowan watched this happen from the teahouse on the abutting street. They had the voice blocker on, though they still made sure no one was around just in case someone had the opposing tools for it.

"Well, it seems like they've successfully managed to do their part," Rowan said, nodding. This had been a bit of an impromptu plan that Silvia hatched when she encountered Misha for the first time.

"I'm worried though… what if they decided to… purge, instead?" Silvia looked out the window to see the chaos near the Elementalist Slave dorms. They purposely rented a place near it so they could monitor the happenings there.

Silvia was really worried. She dared not underestimate the cruelty of people here. She didn't assume her common sense would work here. Now that the plan was happening, she suddenly got cold feet.

Further, this was her idea. If anyone died because of this—

"No, they're too valuable in terms of money," Rowan corrected her as he patted her head (though this did earn them a couple of distasteful stares because Silvia was "Silvio" at this time).

"At most, they'll isolate the infected ones and wait it out. They'd probably throw in some normal slaves to see what would happen."

The soap could only give a surface affliction and was not really infectious, no matter how it looked to be so.

This meant that they had to handle this before people found out that it wasn't infectious at all. At this point, Mafo wouldn't carelessly get rid of merchandise because they had already made too much noise.

Not to mention, Hesso had gone into a bit of a scandal with the mercenaries from Valov Town, so they couldn't afford their reputation to plummet even more.

The scandal was that Hesso killed important mercenaries. This had been causing a bit of hostility and tension between the two territories, which was troublesome for Voumi because they were undoubtedly weaker than the other.

The mercenaries were the ones Silvia killed with Althea's poison, of course, but it wasn't even difficult to spread rumors it was Hesso simply because it could really be something he would do.

To add to the panic, they also disseminated out via rumors, particularly among merchants, that one of the mercenaries who perished was very close to the Lord of Valov Town.

This meant that a war would be bound to happen because they would likely retaliate, and a lot of merchants rushed to leave because of it.

Anyway, the Voumi lord would definitely not risk losing more money and forces at this juncture.

Now for the next step: Actually rescuing the slaves, or at least a good portion of them. As long as they actually used the soap, then it would be possible for them to be rescued.

A few days before the plan commenced, the two of them subtly mentioned a 'strange disease' in the bars and restaurants they were in.

They made sure not to reveal themselves, making the source untraceable, and they went through a couple of disguises. When Rowan asked Silvia about it, she said it would be good to have many faces, though Rowan knew it was also another way to protect herself from this world.

They mentioned the symptoms, the reddening skin, the swelling, and then pus. They spread that territories were wiped out, and if an infected was killed within a certain range, they'd spread it out by air and it could no longer be avoided by normal methods.

Spreading rumors like 'the disease only affects slaves' and the like was too convenient and suspicious, taking away the plausibility of the previous rumors. Rather, it could botch the entire thing instead.

Spreading rumors like 'Only affects Elementalists' was even more dangerous, because that would definitely have unintended consequences for the future.

One possibility these rumors could cause was to scare the Lord enough to push the Terrans outside the territory. In that case, they'd likely order the slaves to get out themselves and not to return, with Misha ensuring the orders weren't anything gruesome like jumping into monsters' mouths.

One of the risks was that the slaves would tell what happened when they asked. It's why they asked Misha, who allowed a few other girls, to start it.

Aborigines had this strong tendency not to care for women's opinions, and they would take advantage of that.

They would be the main enactors of the plan internally, and they did it without being noticed. Slaves shared bathwater and they would come in tubs. Yulia exchanged places with one of the people assigned to collect the water, mixing a portion of the green soap to infect the waters.

Although the dissolved soap was also a bit green and would make the water a little murky, it wasn't anything too obvious because the water they got was always murky in the first place.

Things would just be a little bit greener than before, but they had seen worse so it was doubtful anyone would be suspicious enough to investigate it. Of course, the soap was diluted and so would the effects. However, it should be sufficient to show some symptoms, considering how much they spread the news.

However, even if it worked, there were still some risks.

In order for a slave to be truly freed, the owner themselves had to put them up for sale. On top of paying the 5 gold to the system, this was done by registering their names in the Village Center, giving them a temporary entity beyond a faceless 'population' in their stats.

Another way was for the Lord to just free them directly after paying the money, though this was rarely the case.

Just by this method alone, even if the Lord kicked them out of the territory as they were, they still were not free.

If they encountered anyone with a Voumi citizenship, then they could be ordered around. Even if they swear oaths to Alterra or wherever they'd end up in, the System Slave oaths would still be prioritized.

Alterra didn't want thousands of 'bombs' that could explode on its face.

So for now, they'd had to make do with rescuing them while they were still technically slaves, and then find a way to get the Lord to free them on his own.

They were not willing to start a war with Voumi for them, though things were not so bad that they'd even consider abandoning them.

They'd probably just be spread out amongst the associate territories. As long as a Voumi person didn't know they were their slaves, then there wouldn't be much of a problem. Even if they did, the numbers after separation wouldn't be big enough to cause trouble.

At worst, according to Miss Althea's coded letters, they'd just have to create a separate zone for the slaves, if Voumi decided to attack them.

This way, they could at least be contained in an area, preventing the enemies from making use of them.

Miss Althea did reassure them that they were sending help, and this 'help' should increase the chances of everyone getting home safely.

When the next letter arrived, the very next day, it detailed the next stage of the plan. Silvia's eyebrows rose when she read its contents.

When her eyes lifted from the letter, she couldn't help but give Rowan a smile.

"We might really just pull this off, after all."