Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

Because it did seem profitable, but the profit was too meager, this golden shaded cat was already saving money for her husband's family before she was even married. This made Tiger feel very aggrieved, and he wanted to suppress his emotions and calm down before making any further moves.

“We’re all from the same company.” Razer spoke with a Vailli accent. “Skilled workers, used to work at Blacksteel.”

After submitting my resume, the receptionist hesitated for a moment, then finally took it and put it in the file basket. "I'll notify you within three days. If not, you've been rejected."

"Is this really going to work?" Franka looked at the mountain of resumes. Several burly men from the Fengti tribe were huffing and puffing as they moved file baskets. In the distance, the workstations responsible for preliminary manual review and scanning were almost buried under snowflakes of scrap paper.

"Probably, we're both professionals..." Razer was very confident. As someone who wanted to start her own PMC, she desperately needed work experience, connections, and money, all of which the Xia Group's security company could provide for her.

So, when faced with the temptation of a 70% increase in net income, Razer, who was originally just there for the money, pulled Franka to resign from Blacksteel—after all, they were just working people. When they joined the company, they naturally said that they were there for the company culture and to improve themselves.

After joining the company, of course, we talk about money. Isn't the purpose of working for money? Otherwise, what else could it be for our dreams?

Who the hell would come to Black Steel if they were after a dream? Besides, dreams need money to come true! So, the Xia Group, which talks about money so bluntly, naturally attracted Razer, who came purely for money.

Moreover, she can build connections here. Razer isn't stupid. Although Blacksteel has a wide network of connections, most of them are divided among managers and executives, leaving nothing for her. But it's different here. Better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.

Fat Fox and Razer share the same goal, but the newcomer Jessica isn't there for the money. As a wealthy woman on par with Swire, she's there for her dreams and to challenge herself.

While Black Steel can help me develop myself, the problem is: Black Steel is her family's... company heiress. Would you dare assign her dangerous and strenuous work? Do you even want to keep your job as manager?

This meant that Jessica didn't truly gain experience and gradually grow until she joined Rhodes Island and became a Blacksteel agent.

The Xia Group's security department, which clearly stated that there were many field jobs and that they needed to be located from Ursus to Kazdel, attracted the attention of Miss Blacksteel. She happened to meet Miss Razer, who was also resigning, and the three of them submitted their resumes together.

Two days later, Jessica was the first to receive a reply to her resume, asking her to go to the group's training ground for review and interview.

Because her specialty is firearms, especially handguns, and the main weapons of the security department are firearms.

Similarly, Razer also received a response; she is skilled in shields and riot control combat, making her the kind of heavy-armored operator the group desperately needs, and she excels at urban and street fighting riot control.

On the contrary, Franka was only barely selected a few days later during the supplementary recruitment. Moreover, it wasn't the Security Department that was recruited, but the process department of the mechanical processing subsidiary that took a liking to her thermite cutting skills. The Security Department also felt that an operator who could use thermite cutting to break down doors would be perfect for forming a standard three-person breaching team, so they reluctantly recruited her.

The interview went smoothly, and the three of them were quickly hired and received the full set of uniforms and equipment shown in the advertisement. "I have to say, their aesthetic sense is really terrible."

Like the Yeti costume, it looks like the whole body is covered in clothing, and it is very simple, without the usual PMC's fancy clothes. It looks more like the attire of those wilderness travelers and scavengers.

"However, the protective performance is very good. On the battlefield, protection is more important. Wearing flashy clothes will only make you a target for snipers."

Franka interrupted Razer's complaint, "Check out the equipment that has been issued, familiarize yourself with it. I don't want to be dragged out by the training instructor as a role model on my first day of work."

"Click... The structure is completely different from that of a gun. It seems to use this device to activate Originium memory, generate instantaneous high temperature to melt the material, and form an expanding plasma to propel the ammunition."

Jessica is not only a young lady, but also a Blacksteel special agent and weapons expert. She has already disassembled the newly issued "Tiger Bee" pistol and then skillfully reassembled it.

Jessica's shooting talent isn't particularly outstanding, but you can't deny that she's a rich woman who can buy several boxes of bullets with a little money. Sharpshooters are made by feeding them bullets, and Jessica is such a hard-working rather than naturally gifted sharpshooter.

"Knock, knock, knock!" The instructor, his face dark, knocked on the locker room door. "I'm telling you, you three, don't mess with your gear. If you damage it, the logistics department will come and kill you. Change your gear and get to the training area immediately. I don't care which mercenary group, organization, or company you were in before, or what kind of intimidating nicknames you had. Here, you're all new recruits, understand?"

"understand!"

"Very good, be quick on your feet, don't act like a complete newbie you've never met before."

The instructor nodded and left. He was a typical Waili, hired from Victoria at a high salary. The security personnel recruited this time mainly consisted of Sarkaz and Waili, a small number of Felin, and two Sami deer.

They are all veterans and retired soldiers from various combat groups. The reason they came to apply for the job is the same as mentioned before - high pay, good benefits, and excellent equipment, so why not come?

The Xia Group single-handedly tripled the hiring costs in the PMC market, because without tripled salaries, their core workforce would have all left.

Although they are all low-level employees, the problem is that without new blood, this business cannot be done.

A threefold increase in labor costs means a fivefold increase in prices, which translates to a significant rise in logistics costs across the entire market. To avoid public outrage, Amiya Logistics has also increased its shipping prices.

The problem is that most of his escort costs are fictitious, leading VI to a new conclusion—

That is, by improving employee benefits and engaging in this kind of loss-making war, which can generate more than ten times the profit.

The chain reaction was that the manufacturing costs of Longmen, as well as Dayan and the surrounding manufacturing industries, began to increase uncontrollably. The increase in costs meant either higher prices for goods or lower wages. If wages were lowered, workers would not be able to afford the higher-priced goods and would not be able to survive. And the decline in purchasing power meant that the higher-priced goods would be even harder to sell.

An economic crisis and depression are gradually approaching, and in this storm, the Xia Group, a self-sufficient group that "distributes unsold goods as employee consumer goods", will also suffer considerable damage. However, the problem is that the impact it suffers is only superficial compared to the others.

As long as Swire doesn't return her family's expertise to her father, acquiring bankrupt companies at low prices and becoming the uncrowned king of Lungmen won't require much technical skill—and Old Wei will have to beg her to buy them at a low price, otherwise things will really collapse.

Moreover, if this economic crisis and recession in Longmen triggers a chain reaction, it could snowball to other cities.

Thus, a world war on Terra was about to begin, while Xia, unaware of this, was piling up gunpowder barrels and preparing to set fire to the wasteland with a torch in hand...

Chapter Sixty-Five: Rabbit Driving...

Chapter 65

While Lao Xia was organizing people to repair the water storage station and dig the karez wells, the nobles of Kazdel were not idle either. He did not hide the fact that he had occupied the barren northernmost land and an oasis to farm from the nobles, and of course, he could not hide it from them.

In northern Kazdel, apart from oasis agriculture, most of the productive activities were raiding and herding, or a combination of both.

The Sarkaz nobles' controlled territories in North Kazdel were not clearly demarcated like those of a normal sovereign state, but rather intertwined and even overlapping.

For nomadic lifestyles, as long as one doesn't enter another's oasis territory, it's all a mess; people come and go, and as long as they don't collide, nothing bad happens. However, agriculture is different; neatly arranged farmlands are clear dividing lines.

The surrounding tribes treated the new seedlings as pasture, and without any intention of trading or negotiating, they directly began to destroy the crops, graze cattle and sheep in the fields, and even dug up drip irrigation pipes to supplement water.

For these herders, this land was their usual grazing area. Conversely, they were not notified at all that the other party was clearing land for them.

After discovering that several acts of vandalism had yielded no repercussions or consequences, the tribal nobles began to stir with restlessness—

In the desert, weakness means vulnerability, and most of those who work are women, children, and the elderly, which clearly reveals an aura of "weakness."

In the desert, it is a sin for the weak to possess so much wealth, and then again, these farmlands are constantly expanding toward them.

If we don't fight back, wouldn't we appear too weak and become the next prey in the wilderness?

However, the group from Longmen still made the nearby tribes somewhat uneasy, unsure whether they would face retaliation, or whether they could escape unscathed after completing a raid.

Located on Kazdel Farm, 16 kilometers from Oasis No. 1, "Father, the tribal chiefs around here have all arrived. We can't delay any longer!" The young Sarkaz bandit lifted the curtain and entered the royal tent. "Those are just cowardly farmers, a bunch of slaves. They are no match for our mighty warriors."

However, the old chief gave his reckless son a cold look and said, "Lambs are no match for wolves. But have you ever seen a flock of sheep guarded by a shepherd so free in the wilderness? A wolf can tear a lamb's neck apart, but it may not be able to withstand a shepherd's bow and arrow. If you're not careful, even the wolf king can be killed by the shepherd's dogs guarding the flock."

Is the Kazdel Desert some kind of warm and welcoming place? Those farmers are certainly cowardly slaves, but since these slaves dared to leave the oasis so far to cultivate the wasteland and possess so much wealth, don't they have guard dogs watching over them?

"The fatter the lambs, the larger and whiter the flock, like clouds untouched by human affairs, the fiercer the shepherd dogs that guard them must be." This is Kazdel's ironclad rule.

There is no room for warmth and kindness on this land. A group of wealthy serfs, no one would believe they are free, with no master behind them.

Moreover, the fact that the owner let the sheep go so far away from him and be so carefree means that he has a large pack of powerful herding dogs around him.

“Hounds, when my sons plundered them, ate their green shoots, and destroyed those evil pipes, I didn’t see any shepherds. They were just a flock of sheep, like the gazelles around the oasis. They migrated from other places, thinking they had occupied a place with abundant water and grass, and then multiplied wantonly.”

The young Sarkaz prince waved his hands impatiently. After his previous successful attacks, he clearly didn't take the weak women, children, and elderly seriously.

"Well, it's not impossible."

After all, Sarkaz tribes migrate very frequently, appearing and disappearing just as often. It's not impossible that this tribe came from the south and, having lost a war, had to give up its pastures, migrating to the area around this oasis with its remaining wealth and women and children.

For the Kazdel tribe, which was still in a nomadic state, there was no modern Originium communication equipment. They had no idea about the Xia Group or Lungmen's enterprises. They had only been able to contact the previous Saty King through the Scourge Messenger thanks to Kal'tsit and the Doctor's connections in Kazdel.

Even so, the unfortunate guy who was killed by the raiders didn't know what the Xia Group and Rhodes Island were. In his eyes, Rhodes Island was the former Demon King's Royal Court, and this so-called Xia Group was probably just a large tribe that was loyal to the Royal Court.

Moreover, to some extent, the origins of the Sati tribe also align. As supporters of Theresia, they were exiled by Theresis after the war and fought against northern tribes, losing a considerable number of young and strong warriors, which is why they accepted Old Xia's proposal. Of course, this also meant that they were targeted by raiders as soon as they found an oasis and almost wiped out.

The differences between the north and south of Kazdel are very large. The areas near the mountains are more developed due to mining. Most of the tribes there rely on caves to escape natural disasters. Some have formed migratory towns with shops, simple industries and modern equipment, and have a relatively normal understanding of the world.

Further south on the grasslands lies the developed region of Sarkaz, which has reached the level of the generally backward city-states of Ursus. It has mobile modules, industrial modules, and relatively modern equipment, and its production is relatively stable.

However, in the northern desert, a world of bandits, raiders, herders, and slaves, the tribesmen and even their leaders lacked much understanding of the entire world of Terra.

Because just surviving here requires all their strength, they no longer have the energy to think about what's outside the birdcage.

If we consider all of humanity as a Terran race, then the differences in human development on Earth encompass the entirety of the Stone Age to the Information Age. People living in New York can know about any new thing in the world, while Stone Age tribes living in Africa wouldn't even know about a copper mining city 20 kilometers away.

Therefore, this also applies to the Sarkaz. They are one race, but in reality, they do not think that way internally. They actually have many tribes and are divided into many regions, each with its own characteristics and development progress.

To put it more visually, the W-shaped angle curves forward, which is typical of the Sarkaz in the Longnan Desert. Mercenaries, raiders, criminals, and smugglers are their synonyms.

The mudstone with its straight angles and upward-pointing ridges is of Sarkaz royal lineage, who lived in the central and south-central regions.

Even the horns of the W type are divided into those that are almost level with the forehead, resembling a cockroach, and those that have a certain degree of slant—basically, you can tell which tribe or ethnicity a Sarkaz is just by looking at their horns.

The horns of the Sarkaz, through their shape, curvature, and degree of curvature, are essentially like a person's ID card. The horns of the women and children working on Old Xia's farm are mostly right angles like mudstone, which indicates that they are indeed losers who migrated from the south or central regions.

"Father, we can't hesitate any longer!"

“Alright, let’s convene a tribal meeting and invite the chiefs.” After much deliberation, the chief finally agreed to the plan. This was an action by several tribes in the north, and his tribe was the largest and qualified to initiate the meeting.

Meanwhile, on the farm, a significant portion of the young and middle-aged men have gone to the snow-capped mountains to dig waterways. The defenses here are indeed quite weak, which has led to frequent raids by these nomads in recent days. Fields have been destroyed and trampled, irrigation pipes have been dug up, and a lot of seedlings and water have been wasted.

Of course, most of the enemy's actions were successful, which was the source of the young Sarkaz leader's confidence and also a form of survivorship bias.

Because those who failed were all too greedy, and ran into the hands of the farm guards who came to reinforce them—they all became farm manure—and the dead, of course, couldn't go back to report to the guards here.

Similarly, when calculating the losses, these largely illiterate Sarkaz people also committed a classic "Simpson's Paradox".

In terms of sheer numbers, the farm's fighting strength is negligible, because out of 100 people who went out to plunder, more than 80 returned.

However, if you look at the losses of each tribe separately, you will come to a conclusion that is completely opposite to the overall trend. That is, every small unit that encountered the enemy was completely wiped out, with not a single survivor. This shows that the enemy's combat power was overwhelming, and the losses were not considered a complete defeat, but rather a complete annihilation. It was just that the enemy's forces were not strong enough to be divided, resulting in relatively small overall losses.

In contrast, the cavalry that only encountered serfs suffered very minor losses. The occasional losses were caused by the strong women who ambushed them with steel farm tools. Sarkaz women are not delicate little girls; they can smash someone's head with metal farm tools just as easily.

"Are these gerbils even capable of being controlled? We suppress them in the east, but they just pop up in the west. Will we ever be able to kill them all?"

The Sarkaz guards crumpled their hats in their hands. He ordered his men to hang all the captured raiders, leaving no one alive. Yet, these guys still seemed to spring up from the ground and were everywhere.

The farm was so large that his small team was constantly running around trying to keep up.

"Good news, boss!"

"Good news? What good news? Don't tell me it's about how many raiders you killed. That's meaningless. They're not afraid at all."

"No, we've located the enemy's main force at a campsite two days' journey away from us..."

"Grab some men and stomp them to death!" The guard leader was furious and needed to vent his anger.

"No, there are too many of them. If we take the initiative to attack, we won't be able to win!"

"A coalition of seven or eight tribes, plus two large tribes. The previous raiders were all from small, independent tribes. They can muster at least three thousand horsemen." This is a force to be reckoned with in the desert.

The expenses of a real cavalry are huge. Even if it is a cavalry force that herds horses in peacetime and plunders in wartime, if it can gather a fighting force of three thousand cavalry, it means that the total population of this union exceeds 10.

Because a mounted warrior requires at least five slaves to support, and with his family and children, it would take a tribal union of at least 30,000 people to reach that scale.

Not to mention, this refers to the lowest-ranking warriors, not including the wealthier warriors, as well as sorcerers and shamans who are not warriors, messengers and royal scribes, and those high-ranking military leaders and chieftains, each of them had dozens or even hundreds of slaves.

Therefore, the total population, including women and children, is at least over 100,000—which is already a fairly large tribal confederation.

Therefore, in ancient times, annihilating more than 10,000 grassland cavalry in one battle meant that half of the grassland nomadic force was wiped out. Those with more than 100,000 included slaves and herders. The actual number of combat cavalry was at most 20,000 to 30,000. If they were completely wiped out in one battle, they would not dare to go south to graze their horses for thirty years, because, literally speaking, all the able-bodied young warriors had been killed.

"Are we just supposed to wait for them to launch an attack?"