Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

"Pfft!" The hunter pulled out his skinning knife and forcefully cut the monster into several pieces. Then, he poured some liquid on it and used Originium Arts to ignite it. In the flames, the monster gradually turned into charcoal.

"Has anyone been bitten or stabbed?" Yelena rushed over with her rifle. "If so, administer the antidote injection immediately, then go back and rest. Don't wait until you show signs of nerve damage before speaking."

"No, these guys don't have many tricks up their sleeves, we can still handle them," the hunter replied. "However, these things are indeed getting more and more cunning. Just how many kinds are there?"

"I don't know, but Xia Lin's expression isn't good, it's probably going to be troublesome," Yelena said.

Previously, some villagers were bitten by an unidentified white creature when they went to fetch water from the old water source. At first, they didn't take it seriously, but after returning home, they collapsed. Xia Lin said it was caused by severe neurotoxins that caused nerve damage.

After that, more people were bitten or sprayed with venom, and all had the same symptoms.

However, the toxins are said to come in all sorts of strange forms. In any case, Xia Lin's expression was terrible after seeing them, and she immediately ordered Ivan to bring the farm security guards and hunters out to search for these things.

Yelena was originally supposed to stay on the farm. But she ended up leading her Yeti team and running away on her own. Well, the White Rabbit is really becoming more and more opinionated—or rather, more and more disobedient—well, that's normal for a child her age.

The water source is a surface section of an underground river that disappears back to the surface after traveling several kilometers. The flow rate is quite large. Because the underground temperature is easier to maintain than the surface temperature, the river does not freeze even in the harsh winter of Ursus.

Xia Lin made several simple electric water pumps and placed them here, powered by an Originium generator.

However, since the pipeline has not yet been laid, the infected people still have to come here to fetch water.

According to Xia Lin's plan, he intended to build a small water purification plant here. Of course, it would be a simple template-based plant, not the high-end water purification equipment he used. Its structure would include small and medium-sized water pumps for pumping water, several large water purification sedimentation tanks, and would use alum and chlorine for disinfection and sedimentation treatment. Finally, it would be pressurized and output through electric pressurization equipment.

The water pipes are made of bioplastics similar to PVC, produced by Xia Lin, which are easy to replace and connect.

Of course, later they will be replaced with proper polymer water pipes, and water towers and softening ponds will be built in various parts of the settlement and farmland to meet the irrigation needs.

As for sprinkler irrigation and automatic sprinkler irrigation systems, the former equipment can be ordered from commercial organizations, while the latter requires Xia Lin to study and modify the purchased equipment. This can significantly reduce the consumption of water resources and more accurately control the water-fertilizer ratio.

As for the fact that alum and chlorine still need to be purchased, it's not that Xia Lin can't produce and mine them himself, it's just that there's no need to do everything himself. If it can be bought on the shelf, there's no need to make it by hand in the workshop. He's not here to experience rural life with a 996 work schedule. His purpose in doing this is to reduce his workload and improve his living conditions.

If the water flow weren't too strong and the drop in elevation weren't too small, Xia Lin was even planning to build a small hydroelectric power station. In any case, it would be much safer than the attached Originium generator and the Originium power station that would power this tap water purification station in the future.

In order to control Originium dust pollution as much as possible, Xia Lin is already considering whether to produce some more electrical products.

For example, refrigerators. Then everyone puts the Originium power plant a little further away and supplies power through power lines.

Even if a natural disaster is triggered by Originium, it will only destroy the power plant, not the farm and surrounding villages.

Moreover, the efficiency of generating electricity with unified Originium is very high; at least in cities, that's what people do.

However, the local people's electrical appliances are also greatly influenced by Originium and Originium Arts. For example, the refrigerator is not the kind of structure where the compressor absorbs and releases heat, but rather it is similar to having four ice staffs hanging on it, and then using complex etching techniques to achieve a "spell-like" effect.

Only a few devices are purely power-consuming. Even so, the power mainly comes from Originium batteries and Originium power supply systems. Only large cities have a relatively large number of these devices because they have dedicated Originium power plants.

Continuing upstream along the underground river from the water source, you will reach the foot of a high mountain. The water source is an unfrozen lake formed by snowmelt on the mountainside. The underground river occasionally emerges to the surface, becoming the source of drinking water and irrigation water for many people on the snowfield.

Along the way, Xia Lin and Ivan saw many ordinary people driving Originium trucks and loading water on the side of the road. These people were very wary of this group of suddenly appearing, fully armed guys.

They all wore uniform clothing. Except for Ivan and the other Shield Guards, who were dressed as farmers because of their beliefs and beliefs, the farm laborers and security guards all wore winter coats with the Covenant Planetary Expansion Corporation's watermark.

With the same color and style, plus the sturdy and durable tactical vests over their coats and the dark, well-made crossbows on their backs, they looked no different from an army—and a rather elite and well-organized one at that.

In the snowy northern plains where soldiers were coming like sieves, the Ursus civilians who saw this group reacted in a very uniform way: they decisively abandoned their buckets, drove off, and even deliberately took detours through the snowy forest.

Regardless of what these soldiers are here for, the most important thing is to keep them from knowing that your village and town are nearby. Ursus's military discipline has never been particularly good. Those with better discipline will provide villages with supplies and places to rest—free of charge, of course—while those with poor discipline may turn into raiders and ransack the entire village or town at any time.

Even if these people have urgent and important tasks and don't have time to stay in the villages and towns, it is still normal to ask them to provide manpower, vehicles, and labor.

If anything goes wrong, these people will abandon them and use them as cannon fodder and human shields before running away themselves.

Having learned their lesson, none of the locals were fools; they naturally ran away as soon as they saw them from afar, making Xia Lin feel as if they were some kind of invaders or street thugs.

Fortunately, Xia Lin and her team were not actually the Ursus army, but an investigation team that came to investigate the traces of the white monsters that appeared at the farm's water source, although their equipment was a bit better.

But in this world where there are not only bears, but also monsters supposedly infected by Originium, it's perfectly reasonable to carry an axe, a crossbow, 20 arrows, two machetes, and a row of throwing knives with you when you go out, right?

It's quite reasonable that Ivan, who was leading the way in the group, was carrying a large shield and a military halberd with obvious mechanical and Originium structure, right? After all, he was carrying a melee weapon, while Xia Lin had a full range of weapons, including long spears and short cannons.

After finally encountering a slow-moving, ordinary Ursus farmer who had been cornered, the farmer learned that the group was security guards from a farm in the southeast, not a clearing force from Ursus.

After the farmer cunningly tested them and discovered that these people were indeed farming households, they became slightly more enthusiastic. Large farms still held some status here; they often had machinery, water sources, and seeds, and were able to contact merchants who offered higher prices.

Locals often band together around these farms, using their power to form a price alliance to secure better prices for agricultural products and collectively drive down prices to buy farm tools and seeds at lower costs.

There are simply no large farms on the Ursus snowfields. So, the locals don't have the opportunity; they do it in the warmer, wealthier areas of the south.

Although they are also exploited by farms through centralized buying and reselling to merchants, it is acceptable compared to the benefits they receive.

After a brief and tedious exchange, Xia Lin learned that there had been similar bite incidents in the vicinity. It seemed that the white monsters came from the mountains along the underground river, and the source should be near the lake.

Besides that, they were inexplicably asked about the price of food processing, or more accurately, the rent for a mill, since these ordinary farmers could not possibly own their own mill.

They could either eat wheat rice, which was like swallowing razor blades alive, or sell crops like barley, rye, and beans at very low prices and then buy flour back from merchants at high prices.

In a village, those who can afford bread are considered among the wealthiest people; as for eating bread every day, it is simply an unimaginable life for them.

Does Xia Lin have a mill?

The answer is that he has everything except a mill. His automated processing equipment doesn't have a mill; it only has grinders for cash crops. Although they can grind flour, the cost and efficiency are completely different.

It's understandable that Covenant agricultural machinery infrastructure doesn't include mills, because these things lack technical content. Let alone a professional agricultural technician like Xia Lin, even the more handy guys in the colonies could easily make one for you on the spot.

Since there is indeed this demand, Xia Lin decided to go back and set up a mill when he had some free time. He wouldn't even need to do the milling himself; as long as he could provide enough materials, the infected guys could mill one for him.

The main cost and challenge of milling is actually in the materials. Stone mills require selecting suitable abrasive stones, and then having stonemasons carve them out little by little. The price is not low. Just selecting materials is enough to give people a headache, not to mention having to carry the stones down from the mountain.

Industrial steel mills are even more troublesome, as wear-resistant steel is more expensive. However, this is not difficult for Xia Lin at all. He can cast a steel mill and steel rollers for you on the spot, and then drive it with electric transmission. He can also buy the auxiliary mechanical parts.

Should we continue upwards?

"No, let's go back first." Xia Lin looked at the mountain path in front of her and shook her head. "Once we find out where the source is, things will be easier. Our preparations are not yet sufficient. Let's go back and talk about it."

"What are those monsters? You looked really unwell the whole way..."

"It should be a subspecies of some old friend or something similar..." Just kidding, once he detected that unique protein that can regenerate on its own, he knew what it was or something similar to it. They were all old friends who had been dealing with each other for a long time.

Even though it had been a long time since they last met, this unexpected encounter felt somewhat familiar, especially since the other person was still only at the most basic stage, just like Xia Lin. Those individuals who collected biomass and underwent targeted evolution were the best proof of this.

"An old friend? You really have a wide circle of friends..."

"I'm talking about the kind of friends who use fists to open up each other's hearts and speak frankly..."

“I understand…” Ivan nodded, indicating that he understood. It was just a euphemism for his old rival.

"Is it difficult to deal with?"

"Difficult to deal with?" Xia Lin glanced at Ivan's expression. "That's a euphemism, a euphemism. It's not a question of whether it's difficult to deal with or not. It's that if we don't eliminate it now, it will have to eliminate us all..."

"That powerful? Even your firearms can't handle it?"

“Yes, but when did I say it didn’t?” Xia Lin looked at Ivan. “Let me give you an example. For some reason, it’s just making some harvesting drones with pitchforks and sickles, not hunters with shotguns, much less fully armed security guards, and certainly not flying their special tractors with welded armor to spray herbicide on my head with pesticide planes—but that doesn’t mean it didn’t, you understand?”

Chapter Fifty-Four: The Song Instructor in Front of the Farm on a Snowy Night

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

Yelena hadn't run far before Xia Lin turned back, forcing her to dejectedly follow him back. Her two rabbit ears, which had been standing straight up, drooped, and she seemed genuinely afraid of being punished.

The rest of the Yeti team lingered around, wanting to plead for them, but unsure how to say it.

After all, Boss Xia had asked them to stay on the farm and guard the house, but it turned out they became the whole family;

If the whole family is sent out in one go and nothing happens, it's a minor mistake. But if something does happen and all the fighting force is out there, it would be a major disaster if the hometown is wiped out in one fell swoop.

"Why do you always want to come along?" After returning to the farm, Xia Lin called White Rabbit over. He didn't simply want to beat her up or do anything, but rather wanted to know why this little girl was always disobedient about this matter.

Simply giving them a beating often doesn't work, and verbal reprimands are ineffective with rebellious kids. The best approach is to let them experience the consequences themselves, while controlling the risks.

Having experienced the pain firsthand, people naturally wouldn't dare to do it again. Therefore, when fire is fierce, people look at it with fear and are terrified, so few die from it.

"This..." Yelena stared dejectedly at her toes, as if she wanted to carve a three-bedroom apartment out of the carpet. "I..."

"Tell me why," Xia Lin said calmly. "There has to be a reason, right?"

"I was worried that Xia Lin might be in danger if you went out, so I wanted to come and help—" the white rabbit said somewhat shyly. She really meant it. Compared to the physique of an adult in Terra, Xia Lin was indeed physically weak, and given his usually good temper, she always felt that he might be in danger if he went out.

"Well... actually, you're not worried that I want to come and help, but rather that you feel you can't help at all here and want to show your value." This is the mentality of someone who is dependent on others.

Although Yelena would help patrol the fields, feed the chickens, and take care of the cattle and horses, these were not irreplaceable tasks.

The only thing that could be considered something only she could do was lead the Yeti team on hunts, but now that wild animals are becoming fewer, this job has become dispensable.

"How about this, I'll take you with me in a few days..." It's impossible to persuade White Rabbit to stop doing this kind of thing. The only way is to take her to see it in a few days. With her equipment and mediocre skills, she can only bully the Ursus disciplinary team with her technical advantage. She can't handle any slightly stronger opponents or situations.

However, talking about this with people who have never seen a battlefield or a large-scale event is pure nonsense. In their minds, there are only simple and easy-to-understand intuitive and outdated concepts such as whose main gun is bigger and whose armor is thicker. They don't even have the slightest understanding of the power of modern weapons.

If, like some people, she thinks that devastating power is equivalent to creating a crater at most the size of a 75mm cannon, then she will have no respect for unfamiliar firearms and modern weapons. Without respect, there is no caution, and one will suffer losses.

The simplest way to solve this problem is to take them to experience it in person, and that's exactly what Xia Lin is planning to do.

Although that old colleague is currently only making pitchforks, and at most it's like his pet dog, Wangcai, biting someone, it doesn't mean that when Xia Lin goes to block the door, he still only has Wangcai and pitchforks.

"Really?" White Rabbit was overjoyed that Xia Lin would actually take her along next time.

"Just don't be afraid when the time comes..." Xia Lin looked at her meaningfully. Everyone has been a chuunibyou (middle school syndrome) teenager before. Back when a group of naughty kids were in military training, they were pointing fingers and giving orders, but were dragged away by the responsible mental core and beaten until their legs trembled whenever they saw a drone command interface. That was how it was before.

The training mode was at its lowest level; no one was allowed to leave until they could beat the enemy. In the end, it was the homeroom teacher who came and led away the group of brats whose legs were numb from standing. From then on, the boys in Xia Lin's year never talked about military matters again.

Therefore, Xia Lin thought it would be good to prepare a few extra diapers for Yelena so that she wouldn't be left without a change of underwear when she went abroad. "Oh, right, remember to bring earplugs, or you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

"Yes, I will..." The sound of the rifle was already quite loud for Yelena. Now, every day, the rabbit has earphones plugged into its ears, and the thin black wire hangs down like a hair tie, disappearing between its beautiful neck.

"By the way, there might be snow tonight. Go and reinforce the chicken coop, drive the big animals into the livestock shed, and remember to give them plenty of hay and turn on the heating."

The density of Originium particles in the sky is increasing; it seems a natural disaster is imminent.

The remote thermal sensor showed that due to the increased density of Originium particles, a gigantic cold air mass was forming in the sky, and it looked like a storm was coming soon.

Natural disasters are inevitable in this world. Originium particles move with the atmosphere, and natural disasters can occur even if there are no dense Originium mines in the local area.

Unless you completely stop atmospheric flow, but that in itself is another, even more terrible natural disaster.

"Disaster alert: A blizzard may occur tonight. Everyone should prepare for warmth and heating. Keep the de-icing equipment running all night."

"Damn it, minus 170 degrees Celsius! Even if this thing sinks to the ground, it must be minus 70 or 80 to minus 120 or 130 degrees Celsius. This is a real natural disaster! I wonder how many people will freeze to death in the ground. Could I have been killed in this round?" The low-temperature spots displayed on Xia Lin's thermal scan were already shocking.

"Yelena, notify everyone to take refuge in the large greenhouse!" I originally thought the cold storm from the natural disaster was normal, but now it seems it's not normal at all. The infected people's houses can withstand ordinary blizzards without any problem, but they are still not enough for this kind of natural disaster.

According to Xia Lin's prediction, this cold air mass will sink completely, and the temperature in the core area will be below -120 degrees Celsius.

Even on the edge of the farm, the temperature swept by the ice storm was below -70 degrees Celsius. What does that mean?

"Tell them that if they don't want to see gray snow falling from the sky, they should go to the greenhouse right now! There are high-powered heaters there!"

This low temperature is the temperature at which even carbon dioxide freezes. In other words, the snowflakes falling from the sky at that time may not be simple ice crystals, but dry ice.