As gratitude for her help, Althea and the rest gave Naia the best of the best. She could not stay for long, but she was lent the penthouse unit of the Grand Hotel, as well as allowing her to take whatever she wanted to buy for free.

She tried to pay for it, but the couple insisted. "Instead, if you get any more news, please tell us."

In the end, Althea and Garan made plans for the next step. They didn’t even have to discuss the main decision; they had already decided that both of them would leave Alterra.

It was just that they needed to prepare a lot of things, ensuring everything would run smoothly, and the place would be safe even without them.

What’s the meaning of leaving when there was nowhere to return to? Most importantly, the children would remain in Alterra, so they naturally would not risk the territory getting into deep trouble, especially while they were not there.

Naia’s party was hosted by Mathilda’s side, and they were guided to different amenity areas and treated to different cuisines. Naia’s standards were definitely not low, and many chefs and business owners even asked her for honest feedback.

They were delicious, she said. Though the aether effects weren’t there for most, in terms of the taste, they were among the better ones she had ever eaten.

It was a very high praise indeed.

In terms of facilities, the ones that caught Naia’s eye were the library, which was accessible to the public, provided they had points. Everything else, Holt already had, though with a different approach and charm.

For example, Holt also customized their bathhouse and had a spa, but the restaurant concept serving ’refreshing food’ was new.

They also did not have a hot spring, but they had a nearby subsidiary town which had one, and the facilities here were quite a bit more well-thought-out.

Naia was granted thousands of points for the information she gave about the children, and she would spend hours here. She would learn more about the other world and its ideologies, mostly in the form of stories, and she enjoyed her time very much.

Sadly, she had to leave soon, as someone in her position could not be absent for too long, especially since she had been gone for weeks due to the isolation.

She bought a lot of things like fabric, sauces, condiments, and other types of food. The Glen’s cafe had also started making a name in Holt City, and coffee and chocolate were already growing in popularity.

While Cauis had a franchise deal, the supplies were just enough to run the stores. He might’ve given some goods to the royal family, but those are important to the operations of the cafes, so they probably couldn’t give too many.

Hence, Naia bought a lot of those as well. Other than these, she also bought books, stationery, and so on. She was the type to read a lot, and she adored these things in particular.

Before leaving, Althea’s family went to see her off. The couple carried a child each, which softened the woman’s heart even further.

They really were beautiful children. The pearl had some effects, but they still seemed visibly weak. When their parents asked them to say goodbye, they raised their little hands and waved, except it looked like they just opened and closed their tiny palms.

"Goodbye for now," she told them, though she couldn’t help but touch each baby’s soft cheek. "We will see each other again soon."

...

They set the schedule to leave in one month from now, though only those in the know were aware of it.

The couple had several goals before they started their trip: stabilise everything, make sure that Alterra would stand strong no matter what, even without them, grow a bit more, and wait for the Token Guard upgrade to be perfected.

The new ’slaves’ were in charge of guarding the place. They were very powerful, at least level 20, and many were past level 30.

Now that they also had plenty of powerhouses, as long as the powerhouse wasn’t completely irredeemably evil, they would make use of them.

Another major deterrent they received was the trebuchets. Alterra now had a total of seven trebuchets, placed at equidistant locations around the easement zones.

Those who had lost effects due to the dwarves’ meddling had naturally been restored by them.

They also added a fixed warehouse to stock up on projectiles, and it would become one of the Earth users’ assignments to fill. It could also serve as practice for them. They had to take soil from outside, though.

Where would they dig up so much soil inside? They needed to keep that for times they could not go out of the walls.

Along with the dwarves were several toolmakers and array scholars, looking like they were having a field trip.

"These are really fascinating," Limbo, scholar for the memory stone tool studies, said as he chewed on a corndog. "The model itself is really medieval, but the effects are far superior to our cannons."

He was among the brave toolmakers who went to war to observe the performances of the tools, and he had seen a projectile, unfortunately, crush an acquaintance. If there was any comfort, that same projectile killed 3 of the enemies as well.

"Layers and layers of arrays work in conjunction with each other to create such an effect."

The aborigine toolmakers like Sleuth, Kalfene, Menzon, and even the newly-arrived Prague, were with this group and seemed to have adopted the same exploratory and scholarly attitude as the locals.

In most places outside, because knowledge was so well-protected and exclusive, acting like this was seen as low-brow behavior.

It was akin to openly acting like a thief.

If one kept doing so, like many villainous territories, then they were called shameless. Many people did this, of course, just that many ’higher’ experts looked down on them, calling them crude, ugly, and unseemly.

In areas specializing in certain tools, such behavior could even be considered as social suicide.

Here, it was completely acceptable and even encouraged. Looking at how the aborigine toolmakers were acting, some even eating something while they studied, took notes, and the like, one could see how well they had already integrated.

As for what they could find and create with such an atmosphere, time would tell, but it certainly would be more than others.