While the preparations were ongoing, the territory slowly recovered more and more. While there was a lot of tragic news and a lot of depressed households, there were also plenty who received their happy endings.

For example, the half-orcs. Maomao and Nana had been pretty much inseparable since they met, holding each other’s arms with tears on their faces, catching up on the past two years they were apart.

Nana’s two children were hanging out with Gochi while they peacefully followed after the two women.

While the two reunited like this, Baku and the rest handled the other newcomers. They brought them over to the Half-orc villa, shocking them with how big it actually was and how much it was customized for them.

Sephra, the snake-orc, was assigned to a room on the second floor. Some rooms were plain because they did not know how to customize them or who would use them. It was an open plan, though, and the new room owner could find a way to make it their own.

Baku looked at the snake and smiled, happy to see a new half-orc face there. "There are companies that could help you with your interior design needs," he said. "We can guide you later."

Amazingly, the designers could really do things in a way that even the clients themselves did not understand. After all, how many could actually verbalize what they wanted? How many actually knew what they would need in a space? Not many.

What was more amazing was that they also got some ’animal experts’ in the teams dealing with half-orcs, because they realized that some animalistic habits were good to consider.

For example, Gochi hated completely enclosed spaces. So his room was very open and had two extra windows. His bed was also in an elevated area, like a small mezzanine.

As for Maomao, she had a lot of alcoves, niches, and seating bays. It occupied the space of her room, but she found it more comforting than a completely open space.

The walls were soft and covered with fabric panels with acoustic properties. It was quite cozy.

Although Gochi and Maomao were a couple, they didn’t get into the habit of sleeping together every day. It was simply not their instinct, unlike how humans handle romantic relationships.

Half-orcs still preferred their own space at night, only mating whenever they were in heat, which was every few weeks in their case. The fertility potion from Cheman did, however, temporarily increase their libido, so those months they had been actively trying to conceive were the exception.

Anyway, after settling Sephra, Baku then helped out Freya with her own room, which was located next to his. The ground floor bedrooms had high ceilings, specifically made for bigger half-orcs like them.

"This is your room," he said, looking at his own room across the hall. He cleared his throat, repeating what he said about designers. "Your friend will likely use their services, so you can go together. I will take you."

Freya looked at him and then his bulging muscles, making Baku flinch, flush, and heat up. Freya looked away, seemingly confused as well.

He also looked back at the woman he ’hated’, vaguely realizing that he didn’t hate her at all. In fact, his instincts were telling him to keep her close by.

Very close by.

Baku was also very confused. What’s going on?

...

Other than Nana, Freya, and Sephra, there were also other new half-orcs. However, unlike them, who immediately had a nice place to live, the others became prisoners of war.

Even if they were slaves, they were still part of the enemy forces, so they’d have to serve their time.

The plus side was that, because their interrogation revealed they were not bad seeds, their required atonement points weren’t too high.

Rather, because they were skilled half-orcs, it was estimated they could get the option to free themselves within the next few months.

...

Back to the Half-orc villa, the orcs went to have a little picnic in their large garden area.

They got food delivery for now, boxes and boxes of them, and Gochi decided to let them adjust in the new place first before showing them off outside (though there had indeed been quite a few inquiries).

Unlike them, these half-orcs had been used to derisive or hostile stares whenever they were in a human territory. It was naturally going to be a work in progress.

Even if Alterrans were very friendly, there was still a sense of discomfort and unreality. However, Gochi and the rest knew it was only a matter of time before they got used to it.

They initially came here because Nana wanted to see her friends, whom she heard about from the dwarves. However, it didn’t mean she believed she’d live peacefully and freely inside a human territory. It was simply not in her imagination.

So, when she found out how Maomao and the others lived in Alterra, she found it a bit difficult to comprehend.

Anyway, the food delivery arrived around 20 minutes after they made their orders. They ordered a small mountain of food and a good variety of them, like pizzas, shawarmas, salads with different dressings, burgers, fries, and so on.

As they ate happily, they all caught up with each other, finding out more about how the others lived before coming to Alterra.

With delicious and ample food, the new half-orcs found their remaining guardedness towards this place reduced a lot.

In their simple minds, a territory that could make such delicious food—and share it with half-orcs— couldn’t be too bad!

...

As for the dwarves, they seemed to be adjusting well to being surrounded by goblins. They were quite fond of the creatures, even shorter than they were! For the first time, they actually triggered some protective instincts!

Unlike how it was with the humans, dwarves were friendly with goblins, and they had some interactions. The three teen dwarves had also seen some who were passing by back in the home village, so this further facilitated their integration into the community.

It was just that they were getting a lot of stares and visits, with people purposely or not showing those rectangle things they loved so much! 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

This time, they were not gonna get tied up! They could borrow those boxes freely! Even watch fun shows like Telechubbies!

The forefront ’lender’ of the phones was none other than Limbo, the architect-turned-toolmaker.

Unlike many of his introverted colleagues, he, who had won Mister Congeniality back in College, was sent out to seduce the dwarves so they willingly worked with them— permanently.

While they had been cooperating with the trebuchets before, the long-term cooperation required a bit more than that.

"Don’t you want to see the various inventions of Alterra?"

"We’d like to invite you to be part of our Toolmakers’ team! The benefits are quite good!"

Then he paused, remembering that they had plenty of unused phones in the Research Center’s storage area. They had been taken from either dead people, slaves, or traded away at some point.

"Maybe we can even give you your own phones!"

"...maybe we can even customize them like how we can customize hover boards!"

Dwarves: !!!

...

Other than these, Garan and the other members of the original Terran Mercenary Team were doing mission after mission without much rest, aiming to upgrade to a C-Class Mercenary Team before the month was over!

Class C Mercenaries could increase members from 200 to 300, and most importantly, they could travel up to 10,000 kilometers distance!

This was in contrast to the distance they could travel for now, which was just 5000 kilometers. Of course, these 5000 kilometers were a good continent in Terran, but here it was just one or two regions.

Althea and Garan were set to travel to places much, much farther than that, so they naturally wanted to minimize the travel time as much as possible.

Not to mention, they had to complete missions every time they travelled through the Mercenary Hall array. Minimizing the number of territories they had to pass through could halve their travel time, let alone considering the actual distance covered.

Hence, over the past month or so (sometimes with Garan, sometimes not as he was looking over his wife’s training), the team divided into several teams and completed several missions in parallel.

They separated into groups of four or five, heading out to missions in Towns less than 5000 kilometers away. Actually, not just the Terran Mercenary team was doing this, but various other teams as well.

They were choosing either the farthest mission locations available to them or the locations they did not have on their maps. This was their way of further filling up the map and reducing the ’blanks’ in there.

They didn’t want Althea and Garan jumping farther away from their target location just because they chose the wrong mission point.

As such, for the next month or two, hundreds of Alterran mercenaries graced dozens of territories outside the Alterran Region, taking random missions and slowly making a name for themselves there.