Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

Those infected were also scapegoated. First, the punitive tax was doubled, then they were assigned to many impossible and arduous tasks, and finally their right to reside was taken away, and they were thrown onto the battlefield.

"Look what I found! It's one of those white biscuits!" The boy stuffed the silver package into his clothes and ran to the infected's secluded camp. "It's intact, and still edible..."

Upon opening the packaging, a milky aroma, reminiscent of fine grains and oils, wafted out. "Wow, this is good stuff! Little Holram, go get the pot and some more snow!" The elderly infected man's eyes lit up immediately.

This is emergency war rations distributed by Kazdel to residents and militia. Although it is also a dry biscuit, the problem is that it contains oil, sugar, salt, and possibly even milk [Old Xia: No, it just contains milk flavoring]. Moreover, it is made from high-quality grains, which is completely different from the moldy black bean biscuits given by the Letanians.

In a sense, the infected penal camps in Letania were treated like frontline soldiers, at least their black bean cakes were expired, damp, and moldy due to poor quality control. However, they were still eating the same food as most soldiers.

In other countries, the situation was different among infected soldiers. Colombia fed them sawdust mixed with flour, but ordinary Colombian soldiers were given white bread with sausage.

Ursus only gave them a small amount of moss and a lot of moldy horse feed. They had to find their own food. A large portion of the food they scavenged from the battlefield was confiscated by the war supervisors. They would only be given something good when the battle was successful or when they were required to charge into battle.

According to Ursus officers, good hunting dogs should not be overfed, which ironically makes the Ursus infected troops extremely ferocious in battle.

Because as long as you take the enemy's head or ear back, you can exchange it for a large piece of Ursus bread without any additives.

A piece of something called a white biscuit can be exchanged for at least twenty ordinary black bean biscuits from the regular army. At least most of the frontline soldiers, whether infected or ordinary infantry, prefer to eat it directly.

White biscuits, vegetable leaves found in the trampled ground, a few mushrooms and radishes from the greenhouse that had been plundered several times, all mixed with snow water, filled the cooking pot and gave off a fragrant aroma. Then the veteran threw in two ordinary damp black bean cakes to avoid being detected by the hyenas with their keen noses.

After stirring it into a thick paste, a large bowl was given to everyone. After eating a large bowl of this hot, oily, and sugary paste, everyone felt as if their souls had returned to their bodies. "It's so comforting! Do those Sarkaz people eat this well every day?"

"How is that possible? Not every corpse has that. They probably couldn't bear to eat it, so it's a bargain for us, right?" The veteran scoffed. He didn't believe the propaganda department's claim that the other side was eating grass roots and tree bark.

And those rumors that they ate as well as the noble officers are also unbelievable. To compromise, it's likely that the Sarkaz people, relying on their family farms, did not lack food, but this kind of high-quality food...

Maybe, perhaps, possibly, or maybe once a week?

Even so, these infected people felt that if it weren't for the fact that the supervisory team's knives could kill them at any moment, they would have taken their weapons and gone to the other side if the other side needed mercenaries.

Meanwhile, in another small farming town about 30 kilometers away, the caller urged, "Hurry up and help move them down. Make sure everything is distributed before they arrive. Have the refugees, women, and children all taken refuge?"

"Everything is arranged. Uncle Loras will take them to Green Castle in a transport boat. There's a whole mountain tribe fighting force there."

Several Sarkaz militiamen tossed crates filled with emergency biscuits off the truck bed, asking, "Aren't we going over there?"

"What a joke! This is our land!" Although their superiors had ordered them to retreat if they couldn't resist, and not to waste their lives, none of the Sarkaz listened to their rational decision.

Children, women, the elderly, technicians, and those unable to fight were forcibly loaded onto vehicles and taken to the rear, but the remaining young and able-bodied men chose to stay and fight to the last.

For the Sarkaz, on average, one in ten people has been a mercenary, and on average, one in two people has at least one relative who has been a mercenary for three generations. War and plunder are not unfamiliar to the people living on this land; in fact, they are commonplace.

The tribes that had attacked the settlements before were no less fierce than the Latanians in their battles for pastures and water. Each of them was a qualified or near-qualified warrior and naturally did not want to give up what they had worked so hard to obtain.

This greatly amplified Kazdel's actual losses, but it also inflicted a devastating blow on the morale of the Letanians.

If all you get in every place you go is hostile stares that make you too nervous to wander around outside, then here, everyone will be armed and ready to fight you on a whim, making it impossible to sleep even in the military camp.

"Aren't you going to move these beehives? This is top-quality honey; those bastards are just getting it for free."

Huashu Town is an agricultural town that mainly grows nectar-producing plants. The town's most distinctive features are its tall, hexagonal beehives and the sweet fragrance that permeates the entire town as if even a strong wind couldn't blow it away.

“Remove all the honey, discard the rest, and then spray pesticides into the worker bee hives.”

"That will destroy the beehive!"

"That's still better than leaving it for those guys. The black bees without food will teach them a lesson!"

This isn't something that only exists in nature as worker bees. Even after multiple genetic modifications, when there's no food and worker bees suffer heavy losses, the eggs laid by the female bee will hatch into "soldier bees" with specialized combat abilities.

Just like the instinctive judgment of a bee colony, if there is an external attack, it needs to consume resources to fight and consolidate its territory first. However, when food is plentiful, the probability of hatching soldier bees is very low.

Moreover, the clever working people quickly designed a simple device: a thin piece of wood was added to the exit of the beehive to block the larger soldier bees from entering and exiting, so that they would starve to death inside the hive and would not cause trouble for honey collection.

This design was not present in Lao Xia's prototype beehive. After all, the Covenant uses drones to harvest honey, so the presence or absence of soldier bees is irrelevant. The slight loss in brewing efficiency is completely disproportionate to the area they cover and the speed of honey supply from artificial flower fields.

"Everyone, prepare bee venom and apply it to your bodies. Also, prepare the antidote," the militia captain instructed, outlining the security arrangements.

The soldier bee venom of the Black Bee is much stronger than that of the worker bee. It is a cell-destroying toxin that the Covenant could not remove from the original genetic sequence no matter what they tried, and in the end they could only leave it as a patented mark of the Zerg.

The sting site will quickly develop blisters, and the cells will continuously hydrolyze to form pustules.

Once the wound is scratched open, it will become infected over a large area. If left untreated, it will trigger a violent immune response, leading to symptoms such as high fever and scurvy—and given the level of the Letania field hospital, that would be a death sentence.

After all, the proper use of this thing is to remove the bee's skin and turn it into a "black ball stinger" the size of a human fist, serving as a basic production unit and militia combat unit for biological cluster civilization.

However, in that version, a sting wouldn't just cause pustules; it would involve at least three mixed biological toxins, including those that cause blood clotting, nerve paralysis, and cell damage. Without an effective antidote injection within 15 minutes, the person would die.

The corpse cells rapidly hydrolyze, turning into a bulging, pus-filled sac. Specialized collectors then use straws to suck out the water, leaving only the dried organic matter, which is taken back as raw material for production.

Its principle is no different from that of a spider's predation method, except that the spider-like forager does not digest these things; it is merely a transport unit.

"Have the emergency food supplies been distributed?"

"They've been distributed, weapons and crossbows have been given out, and so have the muskets. The packhorses from the ranch have all been released. But those probably aren't professional warhorses, are they?"

"Listen to me, kid!" The militia captain's eyes turned very strange. "That thing is a warhorse! I guarantee it as a vanguard cavalryman, it's definitely a warhorse!"

Moreover, these were tank-type warhorses with four legs. If we go back twenty years, a group of such warhorses would have allowed him to lead his men and ten times the number of enemies in a head-on confrontation.

The nature of warfare has changed; steel and fire are now the dominant themes.

However, cavalry is still relevant in the wilderness, such as the Rangers who are still operating behind enemy lines.

They rode their heavy warhorses across their own pastures, targeting transport convoys lacking armor and firepower. The Leitanians either suffered logistical losses or had to allocate more troops to escort them, both of which increased their war costs and frontline pressure.

"Everyone's gone, now it's just us left, but the good news is we still have enough canned goods, honey, biscuits, and bacon!"

Rather than leaving it for the Letanians, it's better to eat it ourselves to maintain our strength and wait for those scum to come to us for our deaths.

However, the militia's plans failed. Firstly, the Leitanians were simply unable to push forward, and secondly, the mountain militia had finally completed its reorganization and defensive deployment, and took the initiative to attack the Leitanian-occupied area.

These taciturn Sarkaz warriors quietly passed through the town, taking away the supplies originally intended to deal with the Letanians, and also using effective physical persuasion to send the militiamen to Green Castle for refuge.

What was once the castle and territory of the mountain people, consisting only of stones and barren mountains, is now covered by a layer of yellow-green vegetation. Clumps of berries and long-leaved grass can even be seen peeking out. Improved raspberries grow inside greenhouse domes, which have become the best places to settle refugees.

With ample food and a central temperature control system to keep it warm in the coming winter, it is truly a good place to take refuge.

Chapter Thirty: The Three of Us

Chapter Thirty: The Three of Us

At the Letania command post, a group of senior officers strode into the command room. "General, the Kazdel Mountain Division has been deployed. They are approaching the front-line anchorage from three directions. Admiral Rudolf has stated that the fleet is understrength and morale is low, and it may not be able to hold out for long."

On the map, the Kazdel's counterattack looked like a powerful hook that landed heavily on the abdomen of the Leitanians. Lacking heavy armor, they chose to attack the Leitanian flank through the mountains.

Two mountain divisions launched a fierce attack from two directions on the fleet's anchorage and maintenance base located on a key transportation route, while the frontline troops were bogged down by the enemy and unable to withdraw in time.

If it weren't for relying on land-based ships for defense, the enemy would probably have cut off the entire route of attack for Leitania by now. To put it bluntly, all their struggles in the quagmire over the past year would have been in vain, and they would have retreated to their starting point on the border.

However, having suffered so many casualties, and with the enemy clearly in a state of mobilization, and Ursus having successfully recovered from last year's Sami War, it remains to be seen whether Letania, fighting on two fronts, can withstand the increasingly harsh war environment ahead.

The only good news is that winters in Kazdel are not as terrible as in Ursus; they are relatively much warmer.

However, once heavy snow falls on the wasteland, the temperature becomes secondary; the main problem is the difficulty in determining direction and finding fuel.

"It's alright. As long as the Victorians launch an attack, everything will be fine. They will withdraw their troops from the front lines to prevent the Victorians from breaching their defenses..."

Judging from the situation, the Victorians are on the enemy's flank. As long as they launch an attack, they can directly threaten the enemy's rear production base. They will inevitably need to transfer their powerful mountain divisions back to defend.

Then the pressure on the Letanians will be reduced. All they need to do is replenish their troops and rest, and by the spring of the following year they can launch another offensive to strangle Kazdel from both ends in the north.

Of course, neither Letania nor Victoria had the appetite to devour the entire country, not to mention that the Canyon Fortress would be very difficult to conquer. Their ideal outcome of the war was to divide Kazdel in two.

The northern regions bordering Ursus and Great Yan were occupied by Letania and Victoria, while the south was left to the Kazdel people, separating them from Ursus. This was the best way to suffocate the behemoth that was Ursus.

The existence of the Dividing Mountains not only made it difficult for enemies to invade the south, but also made it difficult for the south to invade the north, not to mention that Iberia and the southern territories might not be able to support them.

They no longer border Rembiton, Ursus, Da Yan, or Victoria.

In other words, from an international geopolitical perspective, they have left the center of the political vortex and no longer pose a threat or interest.

Just like Iberia, it doesn't matter whether they close their borders or not, because nobody cares about them, and they rarely have any influence over others.

Iberia once hoped to reconnect with the mainland by sea across the Victoria Strait, but we all know what happened.

“Um, Victoria, he…”

"The Victoria Fleet did not launch an attack due to insufficient manpower. They simply kept the Kazdel people occupied on the border. Now they can calmly consolidate their defenses and free up their hands to deal with us."

"Uh..." The general stared at his subordinates in disbelief, then looked down at the map, then looked up and remained silent for a moment. "All officers above the rank of general, stay. All others, leave."

"This is a war, a war that will decide our fate. Is this how the Victorians treat their allies? I should learn from those Kazdel people and hang all these damned gentlemen, let them play with crows. They're just sitting in the council chambers all dressed up, imagining a war with brains no bigger than a walnut..."

"They think war is as simple as throwing a shoe in Parliament! A bunch of useless idiots!"

"General, this...you should be careful what you say!"

"I've been leading people through the snow and ice, eating food that even dogs wouldn't eat, fighting against a bunch of enemies that we can't seem to defeat, and what about those Victorians?"

They sat comfortably in their warships, casually passing by the border, exchanging glances with the people—the gallows of Kazdel were their true destination!

Seemingly having vented enough, the general waved his hand, "That's enough, let's leave it at that. Notify the front-line troops to withdraw, and spare the nearest manpower to help Rudolf hold his base. If those people have any objections, let them replace me!" He seemed exhausted and ready to destroy everything.

You're fighting tooth and nail in front of everyone, while your allies are just sitting back watching you get slaughtered while eating popcorn. What's the point of trying? Everyone can slack off, right? But sometimes, even if you want to slack off, you have to be willing to give others the opportunity to do so.

"Whoosh!" Mortar shells whistled as they landed on the deck of the mobile outpost, engulfing the container-like living quarters in flames. Gunners, positioned on the opposite slope of the mountain, unleashed a torrent of fire on the Leitanian positions. The defensive outposts and bases that had been built on the hilltops on either side had already been captured by the enemy. Now, they were firing down on the Leitanians with unrestrained fire from their elevated positions.

The fleet and mobile fortress were well-defended, enough to hold out against the weaponry carried by the mountain people. However, the continuous barrage of fire was causing their casualties to rise steadily. Without reinforcements, the base would soon surrender.

The morale of the soldiers in the southern combat zone was already extremely low by now. Even though the mobile fortress had not yet been destroyed, they had little will and courage left to continue.

In contrast, the morale of the troops fighting each other with the Ursus on the northern front was relatively high. The Ursus treated the infected and civilians in the occupied territories even worse than the infected. As a result, the Letanian troops that invaded Ursus territory could gain considerable support from the locals, or at least not resist, as long as they maintained basic military discipline and only looted without killing.

In stark contrast to the situation in Kazdel, where any moving creature was considered an enemy, the southern troops were naturally constrained by their homeland in terms of supplies, honor, and equipment, as they were seen as harboring enemies to enhance their own power.

With their supply lines already under attack and struggling to maintain their position, the situation at the front lines was further deteriorated by the upstream supply chain disruption. Not to mention, the nobles, each adept at judging others by their own merits, changed their tune and became extremely greedy upon seeing the situation, resulting in a record-breaking rate of evasion.

In contrast, Kazdel's supplies were plentiful, allowing them to fight the invaders for extended periods or, in other words, to mentally torment the invaders.

"These turtle shells are really hard; they haven't reacted at all after being bombed for so many days."

"It's alright, just treat it as shooting practice. We still have plenty of ammunition..." The mountain gunner sat on a stack of shell boxes. These shells had just been delivered by trucks and packhorses from the rear. Although large vehicles couldn't pass through the mountains, small trucks and mules could.

The packhorses bred on those ranches were perfect for this place. In this complex mountainous environment, horses were far more useful than carts; a heavy packhorse could carry two boxes of mortar shells up, and Kazdel had plenty of such packhorses.

"Starting tomorrow, control the frequency of shelling. Our goal is not to destroy this base."

Instead, they used this as bait to lure enemy reinforcements, eliminate exhausted troops, or even simply drag these troops whose morale was on the verge of collapse away.

Destroying the body of an army is easy. But destroying its spirit is difficult. And now, under internal and external pressure, the spirits of the Leitanian soldiers are on the verge of collapse. When the great rout occurs, all these excellent heavy equipment will be theirs.

Even if the enemy successfully rescues them and holds out, it won't make much difference. They won't be able to regroup for a long time. After losing a large number of key personnel, it's impossible to expect civilians and infected to fight to the end for the nobles.

Now, soldiers from the opposite side are coming to surrender every day, and there are also noble officers who have killed their own squads and run away. Of course, those who are caught are all executed for desertion and hung on wooden racks.