Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

Therefore, the lamb's parents had to switch to researching whether it was possible to directly fix Originium particles from volcanic eruptions into small, pure Originium particles. At least this kind of research had investors.

These fixed Originium, along with the pure Originium refined from high-grade Originium ore mined by mining teams on lava beaches, flowed south through Amiya Logistics and these buyers. Under the pretext of the blockade, they were able to monopolize this trade.

It can be said that, apart from the factory owners who need Originium, everyone from the army on the blockade line to the nobles to these monopolistic merchants benefits.

Even factory owners can drastically reduce workers' wages by using blockades and forced relocations to maintain costs while simultaneously raising prices for consumer goods.

The only ones who suffered were the farms that had their Originium purchased at low prices and the ordinary people in the south. These unobstructed logistics channels that traversed the blockade were like fuses leading from the ice plains to the heart of Ursus, and they were emitting a hissing sound as they burned.

Such a massive web of interests was beyond even Black Serpent's control. And with such enormous profits at stake, some people would inevitably take risks and try to completely monopolize the farm's output. The Patriots' enemies also changed from Ursus's regular army to various mercenaries.

Amiya Logistics has also been squeezed and attacked by many competitors, after all, they can make a fortune just from trading Originium.

If Amiya Logistics were to further monopolize the logistics channels for agricultural products, luxury goods, and technological products that it currently controls, it could exploit both suppliers and consumers, fully demonstrating the excellent nature of a middleman.

"Sizzle!" A crimson stream of molten fire swept across the abandoned mobile city. Before the ambushing mercenaries could pull out various explosive weapons to attack Amiya Logistics' trucks, a huge object slowly reversed off a "discarded military transport boat" covered with a tarpaulin at the back of the convoy.

“Sarkaz swear word!” Although I don’t know what combat power this thing of a tonnage has, those two things the size of city defense cannons look like they’re not to be messed with!

"Loaders!" Two loaders worked together to take an anti-cluster shell from the ammunition rack, which we'll call the "Talulah All-Around Plasma Shell." The reason four loaders were needed was because this kind of thing required two Ursus bearmen to handle.

Each vehicle only needs four of these. Weighing 680 kg, the railgun fires a curved trajectory at low speed. The plasma, with a temperature of around 1000 degrees Celsius, has a kill radius of about one kilometer, making it an excellent weapon for countering clustered units and urban infantry groups.

Even if they weren't burned to death on the spot, the scorching air would burn their lungs, turning them into morale bombs that would suffocate to death little by little while wailing in the wounded soldiers' camp. "Firing data adjusted." The gun rail was slightly raised. Even this small version used by Amiya Logistics had a direct kill radius of over 500 meters, which was roughly enough to kill the people in a football field with one shot.

"Charge!" Amiya Logistics' vehicles began to reverse, quickly withdrawing from the encirclement. The enemy was also running away at top speed. Of course, with such a large cruiser-class cannon pointed at them, why wouldn't they run and try to see if their explosive crossbow bolts could break through the enemy's armor?

Even though she had already mentally sent her employer's entire family to outer space, she was still running at a fast pace.

The biggest drawback of the Titan's "Shouter" main gun is its slow charging speed, so it uses a twin-barreled system for alternating firing. A salvo is impossible, as the recoil would cause this nearly 200-ton load to slide backward on the ground. If it were to fire sideways or in a salvo, it would most likely overturn.

The firing rate of a single main gun is about one shot per minute, and the firing rate of the entire turret is about two shots per minute when firing in rotation.

But that's enough. Although it's only 203mm long and the rail diameter is only 155mm, the shell's power is 460, enough to clear the area in one shot.

"Bang!" Like a firework trailing a purple-red butterfly of light, the low-speed projectile flew into the air and then fell towards the fleeing vanguard. After the built-in timed fuse was in place, the four tower launchers were ejected, and then pale golden fragments of pure Originium began to fly in the air. The next second, a blazing red sun fell to the ground.

After the spherical dragon flame landed, it spread in all directions, like surging waves. Strictly speaking, it was an incendiary bomb rather than a high-explosive bomb. The explosive impact came only from the thermal shock wave formed by the high-speed burning and energy-releasing Originium fragments. Compared to cannonballs with the same destructive range, it was much quieter.

It wasn't enough to destroy permanent fortifications. However, it was a different story when it came to killing infantry. The wall of fire, several meters high, came crashing down like a tsunami, and the flames at 800-1000 degrees Celsius instantly turned even the fastest mercenaries into burning balls of fire.

Even those who managed to hide in the bunkers and avoid being directly burned by the flames quickly had their tracheas, nasal cavities, and lungs scalded by the air heated to near thermal ionization, causing them to suffocate and frantically scratch their necks as they collapsed.

The flames continued to burn on the ground, and it slowly died down after about two or three minutes as the last bit of Originium particles were exhausted. Not to mention people, even the ground was cracked from the heat, and the entire abandoned city looked like a piece of baked chocolate, softened and charred.

"The road is open!" After several robberies and ambushes of their convoy, Amiya Logistics brought tanks to conduct a sting operation, and unexpectedly, they actually succeeded. "Should we terminate our cooperation with these people?"

"How could that be? Fighting is fighting, and business is business!" Such situations are not uncommon in the logistics channels along the blockade line. Not only will they attack Amiya Logistics personnel, but they will also attack other competitors. Everyone wants to monopolize this channel that flows with gold.

However, after this attack, no one should target Amiya Logistics anymore, even though their trade routes are enviable and the prospect of profiting from both ends is very tempting.

But just as no one would launch an invasion of the U.S. mainland simply because Texas has 20 billion tons of recoverable oil reserves—

With Titans escorting Amiya Logistics, it's like having the US Navy protecting you; you'd be lucky if they didn't come and destroy you.

At the same time, Mr. Witt arrived near the Xia Group's production base. The first thing he saw was the huge heat collection tower, which looked like a giant obsidian pillar under the summer sun. Occasionally, steam released from the base would be shrouded in a thin layer of water mist.

"what is that?"

"The solar collector tower uses the surrounding mirrors to concentrate sunlight and heat the water inside," a member of the Shield Guard who accompanied us explained briefly. "The hot water is used to generate electricity, and the excess is used for heating in winter. However, in winter the sunlight isn't strong enough, so there's only a short period of hot water available for a shower around noon."

"What an ingenious design idea," Witt nodded after carefully observing the mirror array and the heat collection tower. It was indeed based on the same principle, but he knew that achieving this would not be easy, otherwise the Empire would have used it everywhere.

What's the purpose of that tower over there?

"I don't know, the boss built it, we don't know what it's for..." The shield guard shrugged. No one had ever said what the communication tower was for, and the locals weren't interested in knowing.

"That's your production workshop over there. It looks rather rudimentary..." After all, it's essentially a corrugated steel shed and a carbon fiber panel factory. Only Dr. Kal'tsit's medical station and Old Xia's tissue culture station look like high-tech facilities.

"Gongfang Street is where people come to do some handicrafts during their off-season from farming." Indeed, it can only be called handicrafts; there are no automated production lines.

Although the machine tools were fairly complete and of good precision, and they even imported some Terra-style production machinery for maintenance and production in small mobile towns, it could still only be described as handicrafts.

"What about over there?"

"The brewery, does it need an introduction?" Huge distillation boilers, spherical pressure vessels, and tower boilers that run non-stop provide heat, producing various mixed alcohols.

This mixed alcohol, containing a significant amount of methanol and impurities, is made from a variety of random materials including bran, rice husks, wheat straw, beet leaves, and some household waste.

Its purpose is as fuel, used in conjunction with biogas digesters for cooking and heating in households. After all, the trees on the hillside are now economic trees, and it's not acceptable to cut them down for firewood. Everyone is still counting on these apple trees to bear fruit in a couple of years.

"You can brew wine? And on this scale?" Witt was astonished. It was already strange enough to have enough to eat on the snowfield, but it was even stranger to be able to produce grain and meat products. And you're brewing wine?

"It started recently... We didn't have that many ingredients before, but things have become a bit more relaxed lately. Would you like to try some?"

Talulah gave the men who accompanied her on the tour a special task: to promote the farm's various products. These shrewd men were always quick to understand what she was implying.

The Titan tanks alone could only make them set aside their arrogance; what truly made them set aside their greed were these seemingly harmless commodities—meaning that the tanks they had seen earlier were manufactured without them using their wartime economy.

They can eat their fill, are not afraid of blockades and sieges, and can produce luxury goods and consumables, which means that the morale of the legion can remain high.

This also means that, if necessary, breweries will become fuel bomb production plants, pesticide factories will become poison gas plants, and tractor workshops will become armor factories. The choice is to fight a war and destroy them all, gaining nothing and possibly being defeated in return, or to cooperate honestly and develop the economy.

You have to understand, DuPont is just a chemical plant, and GE is just an appliance seller. If you really fight, just look at what their chemical plants and production bases will become. Not to mention they also have dedicated military supply production bases.

"Give me some, let me see what good wines I have..." Witt smiled slightly, he understood the dilemma his current manager had presented him with.

However, he didn't take it seriously, since he was just there to sound out what was going on and see if he could make some money.

The royal order that the army cannot leave St. Martial Castle is simply because they don't have money. If they boost the economy of Ursus, everyone will naturally support an emperor who leads them to wealth. And if the royal family has money, it means they can afford to support the army, instead of leaving it to the nobles.

With a purse in one hand and a gun in the other, he could truly achieve the little emperor's dream, making Ursus his own, rather than something nominally his but actually belonging to nobles, warlords, tycoons, and landowners.

"Rum, made from honey residue and sugar, distilled spirit, 71% vol, would you like some?"

Patriot forbids his Shield Guards from drinking this strong liquor; he doesn't want his men to become a bunch of drunkards. However, since they're on a mission, a little bit is acceptable.

“S...that’s really good—” This strong liquor suits the tastes of the Ursus people very well.

However, Witt looked at the other bottles, "Sweet malt whisky, made from selected young malt and premium yeast..."

"Wild apple cider, this stuff is almost extinct, you'll have to wait two years to get some."

"Cloudberry mead, our flagship product..."

“Mead?” Witt suddenly looked at the bottle in his hand. The amber-gold liquid rippled inside, clear and beautiful, as if it came from heaven.

"You still have honey?"

"Of course there is! That's a honeycomb tower for bees. But don't get too close, they don't really recognize people..."

"Yield?"

"The yield wasn't very high at first. There was no cloudberry harvest, so we could only sell honey directly. But it's much better now. We can process them into cloudberry mead and cloudberry jam to sell, which tastes much better than the sugared version."

Cloudberries are a luxury item, so there's no need to make them into affordable products.

Talulah had almost come up with advertising slogans: Arctic produce, rare berries, Arctic specialty honey, plus the golden appearance and the gimmick of "hand-picked by young girls" (actually picked by burly, tough, middle-aged women of Ursus, who have the time and patience to do so), she thought many nobles would be willing to spend money to buy them to show off.

In this regard, even Lao Xia is not as knowledgeable as her. After all, she grew up in such an aristocratic family and knows exactly what the Ursus nobles like and why they are willing to spend money.

So, he insisted on having Alina design a completely new packaging and bottle, emphasizing a classic elegance. Even if you don't drink it, it looks like a refined blonde beauty on the wine shelf.

“Not bad, really not bad—” Witt twirled the bottle, not caring whether it tasted good or not, he wanted to take a bottle back as a souvenir of his trip.

“Lord Kal'tsit, I never expected to see you here.” Witt quickly and unsurprisingly spotted a familiar face. Although not surprised by her appearance, he still feigned delight and walked over. “And this is…”

Amiya, the little brown rabbit, gave a sweet smile, and then Witt said, "Ah, this must be the logo of Amiya Logistics. What a cute little donkey."

“Little…donkey?” Amiya’s smile froze, and she looked at Kal’tsit with a puzzled expression, while Dr. Kal’tsit’s expression also turned strange. “Actually, it’s Katarus.”

"Sorry, sorry—" Witt immediately realized he had said the wrong thing, after all, the fact that Amiya Logistics' symbol was a race called Amiya Talu had already spread.

However, after Witt said that, Kal'tsit looked at Amiya and fell into deep thought. Amiya is a chimera, which is a hybrid of different races. It is known that part of her bloodline is the little rabbit of Katarus, so what about the other part?

Although I had always thought it was a Sarkaz, otherwise it would be unlikely that she would have the abilities of a Sarkaz Demon Lord. But... Old Xia's demonic voice, "It's Amiya Talu!" kept echoing in my mind.

"Amiya, is the other half of your blood really a donkey?"

"It's not a donkey!!"

“Amiya, I’ll get a blood sample from you in a bit…” Kal’tsit said, arms crossed. She was ready to immediately verify her idea and send Amiya’s blood sample to Old Xia to see if she could find anything, such as whether her other half of her blood was Sarkaz or donkey.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries and a tour, Victor was led into the reception area prepared by Talulah. It was a standard prefabricated house, no different from the houses in the farmers' settlements, except that the interior decoration was a little more elaborate.

Witt was still somewhat aware that he hadn't been placed in the prototype building. He knew that the other party was actually quite wary of his arrival. Despite their warm hospitality, all the displays were actually conveying the same message.

That is to say: We are not a bunch of barbarians struggling to survive on the ice plains. We have industry, agriculture, land to feed a large population, and advanced technology. If things really fall apart, starting tomorrow, half of Ursus's territory will be split apart.

Of course, Witt wasn't there to mess things up. He knew what the Emperor wanted, and if these people wanted the ice plains, the Emperor would probably laugh out loud.

Since the entire Ursus was never in his hands to begin with, by abandoning the Ice Plains, which he already didn't have and couldn't handle, he firmly grasped the remaining essence of Ursus. This deal was perfectly executed.

Politics is the art of compromise and negotiation. Now that both sides know a portion of each other's bottom line, and this bottom line is acceptable to both sides, then a smooth negotiation is inevitable. The only difference is how to compromise in the specific process and who will earn less.

Chapter Thirty-Three: Asking for an exorbitant price, negotiating on the spot.

Chapter 33

"What a resource-rich place! The technological prowess to achieve this level of development on the snowfield is truly astonishing. However, it seems that all the facilities are fixed. Aren't they afraid of natural disasters?"

This is what puzzled Victor the most: most of Terra's cities and settlements can move around in order to escape natural disasters.

However, there were no moving vehicles on the farm, making it seem like the kind of place where, in the event of a natural disaster, the whole family, young and old, would be together.

"Or is this one of those legendary blessed lands?" Witt asked tentatively. Terra does indeed have places of all sizes that are free from natural disasters or have extremely long disaster cycles. However, their distribution is uneven and changes with the flow of natural disasters and Originium resources. For example, in terrains like Lop Nur where things move around randomly, mobile cities chase after these mobile safe zones.

Moreover, they vary in size. Some are even scattered and can barely fit a small village of a dozen or so households, but anything larger would be too much. In contrast, continuous and stable safe zones that are connected and do not move around are extremely rare.

“How could that be? That’s the result of the last natural disaster.” Talulah shook her head and pointed to the place outside the window that looked like a doomsday volcano. Lava gushed out from the gap like a waterfall, flowing down the hillside into a winding lava river, the end of which was an extremely wide, low-lying lava pool or obsidian plain.

The mining team mainly collects ore from these cooled magma impact fans. They usually go out once every morning and return in the middle of the night, carrying hundreds of tons of various high-quality ores. For iron ore, which has the largest consumption, the smelter built a diversion facility to directly introduce molten iron-nickel fluid into a cooling pool. After cooling, it becomes high-quality nickel steel that is almost naturally formed.

All you need to do is knock off the obsidian and other random components inside, which will also produce a lot of impurity-like gems and all sorts of strange and unusual ores. The rest can be recycled into high-quality structural steel and armor steel.

Because of the abundance of metal resources, some people have suggested building a reinforced concrete wall made of volcanic ash around the farm's boundary.

However, they were dissuaded because such engineering projects are meaningless in the face of natural disasters and cannot withstand the impact of truly large-scale mobile facilities.

“We’ve only built very sturdy semi-underground bunkers; they’re barely enough to withstand the local types of natural disasters.” Talulah pointed to the rows of solid reinforced concrete buildings. “Some of them can be used as factories and future laboratories. But I don’t think Mr. Witt came here out of curiosity, did he?”

"Yes, I have a question, which is also a question for the Empire's finances: why do you transport your products all the way to Lungmen and Victoria for sale?"

“Hmm…” Talulah was taken aback. She had thought that Witt would probe whether the farm land was in compliance with regulations, or perhaps about military, security, and the current war, but she hadn’t expected this.

She certainly didn't think Witt was asking a question she already knew the answer to. Why not ship them to Ursus for sale? Of course, it was because the noble factions in Ursus were fighting with them. With such a large force and blockade, the emperor wasn't really blind to see it.