"...Unbelievable."
"Is this really the same place we visited last time?"
Following the guard's footsteps, from the moment he stepped through the south gate of Water Caltrop Lake Wetland Park, the look of astonishment never left Lister's face.
A straight concrete road lay beneath their feet, stretching from the park's southern entrance all the way to the fortress in the forest.
The road looked like it had only recently been built.
There was nothing particularly surprising about that by itself.
All it took was leveling the ground a little and covering it with a layer of concrete. Any survivor settlement with even a modest scale could accomplish something like that, provided they wanted to.
But for a survivor settlement with fewer than a hundred people, it was genuinely astonishing.
Lister suddenly spoke.
"What month was it when we came here last time?"
The guard walking beside Lister paused slightly. After hesitating for a moment, he replied.
"...I think it was October."
Winter had come early last year. Temperatures had been dropping steadily after October began, and by November, the road from Boulder City to the northern suburbs had become completely impassable.
Thinking of that, Lister fell into deep thought.
In less than three months, these blue jackets had cut down more than a third of the trees in the entire Water Caltrop Lake Wetland Park.
What exactly were they planning to do?
Just as Lister was puzzled, the view ahead suddenly opened up.
At the end of the concrete road stood rows upon rows of brick-and-timber houses. A rough count put them at over a hundred.
And this was only the south gate.
Looking east, he saw two villages nestled there. The sight to the north was even more spectacular. That was probably the marketplace, where rows of bustling stalls