Chapter 2192: Virion in Alterra

Meanwhile, Virion and his men continued to explore Alterra with a very intrigued and amused stance. Virion only took two guards with him and, considering his strength, they were more like assistants than actual guards.

Anyway, they had high expectations, but they didn’t realize that their expectations were actually not high at all!

It was definitely not bigger than a city, and nowhere near as dense, but it felt so...comfortable?

It felt a bit quaint but also very advanced and convenient. It was an odd feeling, but they really liked it. The group went around for hours without getting tired.

"It’s why I like traveling so much," Virion told his companions. "It lets me see things I didn’t know existed."

At some point, they encountered a small ’family’ of half-orcs. Specifically, an avian type, a serpent type, and four kids!

Hey, didn’t these kids almost become his nephew and niece?

Speaking of which, he was still amazed a half-orc could give birth to four surviving kids. Had they figured out how this happened? He should go and interview them, for the sake of his brother’s lineage...

The children were all carrying that cotton candy thing they had seen (and eaten) in the market before, and the shapes were adorably mimicking their forms.

For example, one baby bird had fluffy bird cotton candy, the other baby bird had an angry bird cotton candy, and the two bear cubs also had bear candy fluffs in different poses.

They were all walking very leisurely, and the people they encountered would greet them in a friendly manner and even give treats to the little ones. Looking at the two smiling women, this didn’t seem like a rare thing for them.

This intrigued the three from Warrior City.

Other than their home city, it was rare to see half-orcs going around in such a leisurely way. Med, the middle-aged half-orc guard, had been a slave in another city when he was young.

He was assigned to guard caravans at the time, so he had seen a number of territories in his youth. By the time he was bought off and brought to Warrior City, he was amazed. He always thought Warrior City was the only place for things like them, it was comforting to know there was at least such a place.

Before this, he always had the impression that half-orcs outside Warrior City were suffering. It was good to know that were not the case.

"Hnggg! Hnggg!!"

The two seemed to have captured his scent too since at some point, the two of them flinched and turned at the same time and then toddled straight to him.

Of course, half-orc toddlers didn’t shakily waddle like human babies, but their short legs and chonky feet made them look very busy with every movement.

The two women were a bit flustered as they went after the kids, though they paused when they saw them embrace someone.

"You..." the avian mumbled, a bit confused. Virion looked at her and also the beautiful snake half-orc next to her.

"Virion. From Warrior City. At one point, I was their uncle."

...

Virion was greeted by Nana and the others, a good impression because he was part of Warrior City, who kindly sent back her children for free.

She decided to treat them to the open-air jungle restaurant. It was one of the new standalone restaurants in the territory. It was a detached structure surrounded by open space that became its own garden and al fresco dining.

Since it had the jungle theme, there were several independent huts surrounded by tropical-looking vegetation (or whatever plant looked like tropical plants, though technically none of them were exactly tropical). There were even some treehouse seats.

Other than mercenary teams, commercial teams could also lease out the same areas of land, albeit for a shorter amount of time and a higher per-year cost. This was limited to one per street per commercial group.

This land was leased by Baron’s Commercial Team in partnership with a few cooks among the masses. Baron creatively held some sort of investment summit every quarter of the year.

It was a gathering for those with entrepreneurial spirit. They would come to him, make a pitch, and hope to get investments. It was not an open program, and each pitch was for Baron’s (and his team’s) eyes only, which would protect their interests as well.

That said, if there was a project he didn’t want but saw potential, he might broker a few connections with a little commission. There were plenty of rich people in Alterra now, Terran and otherwise, but they did not have Baron’s business savvy to know where to invest on. Basically, finding places to invest on through Baron was a win-win-win situation.

It could be leased by both Alterrans and outside partners, though obviously the former had a lot more benefits and better terms of payment. Both had to make a number of oaths though, like mercenaries. It wouldn’t do if the enemies made these places hiding places for their weapons and forces.

Next to this jungle open-air place was, interestingly, owned by Cauis, in partnership with the Cooke Brothers. It was designed by Brianna’s Design Company and took the concept of relaxing open air and exclusive dining.

The funding came from the Glen family, but the operations and design came from the Farrol brothers, and the main concept came from them as well.

There were high ceilings here and the dining rooms opened up to gardens, making them very comfortable, even to the larger-than-usual half orcs. It was just that they had kids and they needed to be occupied, so they ultimately chose the more family-friendly jungle restaurant, which had its own jungle-themed playground.

Nana called the others, and soon Maomao, Gochi, Baku, and Freya arrived.

They ordered some of Alterra’s strongest alcohol, which was famous for getting people past level 30 to get drunk, which was not an easy task.

But Alterra was full of talents, and there were also rich people who were willing to invest in their ventures (not to mention the availability of loans) so people could really fly and get rich regardless of their fighting capabilities.

To Virion, who had only known how to fight, it was truly an interesting facet to explore.