Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

Some of the wild boars had already charged toward the valley. The crossbowmen replaced the explosive arrows they had prepared with alloy armor-piercing arrows and aimed at the wild boars that were charging past with their heads down from the low ground.

The crossbow bolts were not very effective against these big guys. Many of the arrows that missed vital organs simply clung to their skin and flesh. The pain made the wild boars even more ferocious. Lacking the coordination of their three-sided encirclement, these wild boars, enraged, charged up the hillside.

Many infected hunters were so frightened that they almost dropped their weapons and climbed trees. Wild boars are much scarier than wild bears this season, as bears frantically store fat during this time, becoming obese and bloated.

Moreover, they are less aggressive when they are well-fed, but wild boars are different, especially injured wild boars.

Even the ape-dragon species in some world would be chased around by wild boars, let alone the infected who can move with incredible speed and strength while wearing hundreds of kilograms of heavy equipment.

"Bang!" The electrothermal hunting round shattered the wild boar's composite plate armor and penetrated its thick, hard skull. Instantly, the behemoth, weighing at least 200 kilograms, fell to the ground. Yelena didn't even have time to be happy before she immediately began the next round of shooting.

However, due to the failure of the plan, only three wild boars were left behind, while the others escaped. One of them, enraged after being injured, chased after two hunters, and was killed by Yelena when she arrived and waited under the tree.

"That's good. Old One-Eye has become alert. We need to be prepared for retaliation."

Pigs are highly intelligent creatures with rich emotions, which means they can be just as troublesome as elephants, capable of vengeful behavior.

“Peter, what happened! The explosion behind you…” Yelena gathered the hunters again and asked. If it weren’t for that explosion, they could have taken care of the boars in one go, instead of letting most of them escape.

"I don't know. I was just about to light it when there was an explosion. It sounded like it came from the direction of Akiya..."

Neither mines nor other concentration camps bury or professionally treat infected individuals.

However, once an infected person dies, whether it's an Originium infection or another plague, it must be dealt with.

Therefore, the mine chose the simplest method: throwing the corpses into the deep valley. The Valley of Taboo is such a place, with corpses scattered all over the ground and crystal clusters growing on the corpses. Entering the Valley of Taboo is like entering another world.

The pervasive crystalline dust from infected individuals deterred any normal person from entering, fearing contact with the dust and becoming a new infected individual.

“Let’s go take a look, maybe it’s the disciplinary squad…” Yelena was a little worried. She didn’t really know what the disciplinary squad was, but the people in the mine were terrified of them. After hearing about the “great achievements” of the Ursus infected disciplinary squad from these infected people, she became even more worried.

To prevent the infected from forming a force capable of challenging the Empire's rule, and to prevent locals from colluding with the infected to cause trouble, the Ursus Infected Patrol gained the support of the "upper class" in the core urban area under the guise of "preventing the infected from causing destruction."

In reality, they are hunters of the infected, indiscriminately killing all infected who are not wearing slave collars. Anyone who sympathizes with the infected, provides them with supplies and support, or is even just related to them, is regarded as an "Ursus anti-establishment element" or an "infected terrorist."

At best, they would throw the entire family into the mines for "labor correction," like Yelena's whole family; at worst, they would massacre the entire village, killing all the men, women, and children, burning the village down, and looting all their possessions.

Even without any clues or evidence, they can extort money from normal villages and towns. It's too easy; all they need to do is dump the body of an infected person at the village entrance, and then they can legitimately demand that the villagers prove their innocence.

Next comes the time for intangible cultural heritage, entering the "one bowl of noodles or two bowls of noodles" phase. For those villages that are very stubborn and unwilling to pay bribes, the two methods mentioned above will be used.

The specific type depends on the time, place, and circumstances. For example, on auspicious days like the emperor's birthday, things would be done less excessively to avoid offending the local government and warlords.

In short, even according to Ursus law, these so-called "inspection teams" are the type where nine out of ten are executed, and there are bound to be some who slip through the net.

Because of their behavior, neither Yelena nor the infected wanted these people to get close to the farm.

This is a threat not only to themselves, but also to the well-meaning farmers they perceive as such.

"Should we...?"

"Let's take a look first," Yelena thought for a moment. "Everyone is familiar with the terrain around Taboo Valley, right? Same as before, the place we went to hunt deer..."

There is a good water source around the Valley of Taboos, with abundant water and grass. Most of the giant deer herds drink there and lick the rock salt blocks at the entrance of the Valley of Taboos to replenish their salt. It is a good place to hunt deer. The hunters from Springstown brought them here to hunt last time.

To get the old hunter to share information about this auspicious location, Yelena and her companions went to great lengths, offering two powerful hunting crossbows and a case of potato liquor.

The town of Meiquan returned here in the fall to prepare for the winter by the hot spring they had occupied.

If Xia Lin hadn't been driving an excavator with a tractor chassis digging up tree stumps, she probably would have gone to visit the local town and investigated what goods were being traded.

While self-sufficiency is entirely feasible, it's unnecessary. Why start from scratch when you can directly trade with a little surplus agricultural output? Human energy and time are limited.

When Yelena and the others arrived, the sounds of battle on the other side of the Valley of Oblivion had become very clear: the deafening roar of exploding crossbow bolts, the flames emitted by Originium Arts, and the sounds of screams and carnage.

Just as the hunters were once again hiding in the foliage, two dilapidated Ursus military trucks emerged from the mists of the Valley of Taboo.

The shield guard, clad in heavy black armor, clung to the outside of the carriage, looking as if he had just been through a fierce battle.

"Stop! We're in an ambush, those damn hyenas!" The truck slammed on the brakes, swerving into a V-shape, and the shield guards quickly jumped out of the vehicle, using their shields to form a defensive formation.

Yelena and her companions might be able to fool wild animals with their disguises, but they couldn't fool these veterans of the battlefield at all. For one thing, the flocks of birds circling in the forest and the excessive silence around them already indicated that they were surrounded.

"Wait, they look like the Shield Guard!" The infected recognized them; after all, they had been trekking across the plains together just a few months ago. "They seem to have spotted us."

“Okay, Peter, take a few men and guard the paths on both sides…” Yelena stood up, gun in hand, and the other hunters also stood up, revealing themselves.

"Damn it!" Ivan's head suddenly throbbed as he looked at the group of warriors who stood up around him, wrapped up as thickly as yetis, and their excellent equipment.

Heavy crossbows, light crossbows, and hunting bows are all long-range snipers, positioned on high ground in terrain ideal for snipers to utilize their ranged advantages. Our men have plunged headlong into an ambush, and the fire coming from all directions makes them dare not break up their shield formation to charge, otherwise the fire from the flanks and rear will cause them devastating casualties.

“Uncle Ivan, do you remember me?” A hunter waved to the shield guards, pulled down his dust mask to reveal a face that looked somewhat familiar to Ivan. “You are… Abram!”

It wasn't that Ivan was blind, but this guy had completely changed from his emaciated appearance a few months ago. His round bear face clearly showed that he had eaten a lot and had a rich protein intake.

"You... are all of you!?" Ivan looked at the hunters with some confusion, then recognized them one by one.

That short girl is Valevichna, a little glutton;

The silent man holding a heavy crossbow is Varianko, who has developed aphasia after his entire family was killed, and is usually cold and aloof.

And the little girl who wasn't even as tall as his shield was the same little guy who helped feed the chickens on the farm earlier.

"That's great!" Ivan breathed a sigh of relief. They were all familiar infected people. He raised his hand to signal the shield guards to lift their guard.

"By the way, where is Lord Patriot?" one of the hunters asked, wondering why he hadn't seen the burly figure.

"Well... it's a long story. We have to get to the farm right away! We have to hurry! It'll be too late if we're late..."

“I’ll lead them there. Peter, you guys keep watch on the path and see if any pursuers come.” “What if they do?” Peter asked with a grin.

Andrei, the most senior member of the group, laughed and scolded, "You're a hunter. Do I need to teach you what to do when prey walks past you?"

"Got it, but these prey can chase after the shield guards, I'm afraid we won't be able to hunt them down." "Then hurry back, the traps prepared for Old One-Eye haven't been opened yet!"

The military truck started up again, and Yelena, sitting in the passenger seat, asked, "What's going on here?"

"It's a long story," Ivan said, looking exhausted and dejected. "We attacked an Imperial excavation site, but we were ambushed. My father... used too much Originium Arts and was seriously injured. We can only try our luck at the farm. If the farm doesn't have any medicine either, we'll have to go to Springvale and kidnap the doctor."

"Hmm, who is your father?" Yelena was a little confused. She had never met Patriot before and thought he really was Ivan's father.

"This one……"

"Okay, why did you attack the excavation site?" Yelena could tell from his expression that this was a somewhat awkward question.

"Dad suspected that the Empire was not conducting its routine summer sweeps because it had discovered something. We searched all the way south and found an infected excavation site. The Empire had deployed tens of thousands of infected and ordinary laborers there, and the elite regular army was responsible for guarding it."

"And you still dared to attack?" Elite regular army? Yelena was a little curious. Were these people out of their minds? They dared to attack regular army troops stationed there, let alone elite ones.

“We do have something… special about us. If that were all, we could destroy the Empire’s excavation site and rescue those people, but…”

"But it was a trap, or rather, a trap that wasn't a trap, and there was something even more troublesome inside, right?"

The white rabbit's ears twitched. She was no longer the same person she used to be; she had received formal education [referring to the Star Alliance Kindergarten's early childhood education].

"Yes, the elite of the First Army Group. I don't know why they, who are guarding Saint-Germain Fortress, would be there. When they appeared, we were scattered around the excavation site and loading spoils. In the end, only Dad could meet them."

These are no secrets. In fact, it's safe to say that the Empire will absolutely not let this go after they pulled off such a heist and ran away.

If they don't notify the other infected and the farm, they're essentially throwing them to the furious Ursus military as human shields and expendable pawns—something the Shield Guards wouldn't do.

Chapter Thirty: The Land of Light

-------------Chapter Dividing Line---------------

The Originium truck came to a stop almost crashing into the farm wall. If Yelena hadn't been in the truck, those deadly machine gun turrets around it would have turned around. For the Covenant's electromagnetic light machine guns, most of Ursus's military armor plates wouldn't have been much better than a piece of scrap metal.

"Hurry up and get him off the stretcher." It took two Ursus men to carry the burly, enormous body onto the stretcher before they were carried into the farm.

Patriot's armor was completely destroyed, looking as if it had been melted and glued to his flesh, emitting a burnt and bloody smell, making it hard to believe he was still alive.

"This is..." Xia Lin looked at Ivan and Yelena, who were carrying a stretcher and a seriously wounded man, with confusion. "Did he fall into the molten steel furnace?"

“No, we were attacked by the Ursus people, with a… very strange weapon.” Ivan hesitated for a moment, but still didn’t hide the truth. “Dad was supposed to cover our retreat. Those bastards were no match for Dad. But they unearthed a very strange weapon that even Dad’s shield couldn’t stop.”

“Forget it, this isn’t the time to discuss this. Take him to the medical room…” Xia Lin sighed. “I’m just a veterinarian, why do you all have to come to me?”

“This…” Ivan didn’t actually know he was a veterinarian, but after thinking about it, he figured a veterinarian was better than nothing.

After hurriedly stuffing Patriot into the medical pod, Xia Lin began to have the automated surgical arm remove his molten armor. A long injection needle pierced through the gaps in the armor, injecting precious, high-concentration nanomedicine. These little guys would kill all infected microorganisms and suppress biological inflammatory responses.

"The injury is too severe, I can only do my best..." Xia Lin extracted a portion of Patriot's somatic cells and put them into an autologous culture tank. After injecting bovine placental extract and various hormones, these somatic cells will divide rapidly and then form a living piece of meat, just like tissue-cultured meat.

In fact, this is livestock equipment used to raise meat, and it's not even medical equipment at all, but food processing equipment.

However, he has only provided the nanomachines with raw materials. The local people's DNA has obvious artificial modifications and disorder, making it difficult for the nanomachines to synthesize new tissues using humans themselves, as they have in the Covenant.

"Alright, now tell me, what exactly did you do?!" Patriot's injuries and the scan results made Xia Lin a little uneasy. The severe burns looked like they were caused by a "plasma cutter." "What kind of weapon was that?"

“We took pictures.” Terra does have a camera, albeit an old-fashioned film camera, which doesn't require Originium Arts. Otherwise, the resume photos of those Rhodes Island operators wouldn't be explainable.

The photo is blurry because it was taken in a panic. Only part of the Ursus heavy soldier holding the weapon is in the photo, but the weapon itself is very clear.

"This is... an industrial ion cutter? Is it even human?" Xia Lin couldn't help but complain. The equipment used at the Star Alliance planetary pyrolysis site for fine cutting of super-large mineral blocks that have already been preliminarily cut and separated has a plasma cutting distance of more than one kilometer in a vacuum and about 300-400 meters in the atmosphere.

The usual method is to suspend them on the overhead cutter frame, with dozens to hundreds of units in a group, to quickly cut the fractured planetary rock crust into small pieces of minerals. After being disassembled and connected to an industrial power source, miners can also cut by hand for manual operation.

In manual mode, the main task is to process ores that are not considered "ores", so it is impossible to establish a standardized cutting and dismantling process.

As for what constitutes "ore" that doesn't qualify, we need to mention the main targets of planetary fragmentation, which are mostly ancient battlefields completely covered by unexploded ordnance from both sides, or places where the entire planet has been blown into a dead star.

Another issue is the disintegration of the administrative planets within the former territory of the Gaia Empire. The Covenant has no interest or population in colonizing these places; who knows if there are still lizard nests of all sizes hidden beneath those dead planets?

Therefore, when performing cleavage, it is easy to encounter "minerals" that are of high value but cannot be used to establish a standard production line, including buildings, factory ruins, crashed warships, and some shelters. Occasionally, you might even cut out a nest of lizard babies.

As an interstellar civilization of similar scale, its accumulated wealth remained extremely rich even after the war.

Therefore, workers usually prefer to cut by hand, as this allows them to retain more valuables as a slush fund and extra income for the entire construction team.

Okay, now that you have a general understanding of what this "industrial tool" is used to cut, you can understand Xia Lin's confusion. Theoretically, even if the armor you are wearing is made of Gaia's "Ishir Crystalline Alloy", you should instantly turn into a ball of high-temperature organic ions, instead of still having a breath left and being sent to be saved.

How did he survive?

"My father is no ordinary man..."

"No, that's not what I meant. I meant, if this...weapon is real, theoretically, even if your dad stuffed himself inside an armored shell bigger than a house, he and his bunker should turn to dust. That thing can kill..."

Xia Lin thought for a moment, then pointed to the workshop not far away and said, "That thing can be cut into two pieces, and the exact number of pieces it can be cut into depends on the user's mood."

"No, what are you talking about?" Ivan stared wide-eyed. "That thing doesn't have that kind of power at all. It took it almost half a minute to burn Dad's shield." The scene fell silent immediately, and it took Xia Lin a long time to think of something else.

"What do they use to charge it?"

“Originium, a huge Originium backpack.” Ivan didn’t hide anything, because the “farmer” in front of him seemed very familiar with the ancient weapon that Ursus had dug up.

“Uh…” Xia Lin silently calculated that, assuming the power generation efficiency of Ursus’s backpack was the same as his own motor, it would be less than 3 megawatts. For a cutting machine that needs to be connected to a superconducting cable and consumes 75-90 megawatts of power, it could only be called an ignition test to check for any malfunctions before cutting.