Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

"The day of ascension is not far off..." Duke Kosichä placed his pawn one square away from the end of the chessboard. "When you enter the northernmost part of Ursus, you will see the whole truth..."

[Promotion: A rule in chess that allows a pawn to be promoted to any piece except the king once it touches the bottom of the board...]

"Pfft!" Before Talulah was fully awake from her hallucinations and dreams, she heard the sound of a blade piercing flesh. The infected guard who had been blocking her way fell like a piece of wood, revealing a humanoid figure behind him, completely encased in a dark gray protective suit.

Through the metal mask, she couldn't tell what was inside. The other person stood silently in front of her, raising a sharp blade in their hand.

“Ah…is it over already? What a pity…” Talulah closed her eyes, awaiting death. It was nothing to fear; she had been prepared for it ever since she left the city of Koschie. “It might be better than the guillotine, perhaps.”

Not having to be shown as a loser to others and dampen their enthusiasm is already a wonderful outcome for revolutionaries.

"Bang!" "Hmm?" Talulah opened her eyes, sparks flowing like a waterfall before her. The inner guards' sharp blades clashed with the black halberds, like a clash between scorching magma and silent, dark steel.

"Inner Guard?" A deep, husky voice came from behind the silver mask. "How is the training of this generation of Inner Guards...? Let me see..."

"Bang!" The humanoid monster was kicked backward and flew away, and then a tall and burly figure completely blocked Talulah's view.

"Plug your ears, close your eyes, don't look, don't listen..." the tall figure gave this instruction.

"Awooo!" Amidst a howl unlike any human's, a "kingdom" not belonging to the human world descended. Black things spread and churned along the ground. The fragments of the monster broke free from the constraints of human form, revealing their hundred arms and a thousand eyes. These were fragments of "gods," the core of the "kingdom."

The warrior standing before them was a being that even the ancient "gods" trembled and retreated from. His armor roared in a low voice, and the halberd in his hand gradually glowed.

"Clang!" The claws were torn apart, the blade was shattered, the evil eye was pierced, and the roaring halberd crackled with electric arcs, turning everything into charcoal. The arm encased in a sturdy shell pierced through the thick flesh and grabbed the pulsating core, pulling it out as if picking an apple.

The battle, as unforgettable as a dream, came to an end. Patriot's halberd hung low at his side. The combined attack of the three guards had only added some insignificant scratches to his armor. One guard was slammed against the wall by a shield, like a crushed cockroach, his twisted flesh flowing down the broken wood.

Another guard was completely cut open, his deformed organs and inhuman body slowly dissolving into the dark substance.

Finally, in the Patriot's hands, he held a head that had lost its body, black fluid dripping from the torn spine onto the ground, instantly corroding the surrounding soil.

"It's getting worse and worse..." Patriot put away his halberd with a sense of dissatisfaction. Was it because he had become stronger after the surgery, or because this generation of the inner guards had become weaker?

Their mental attacks were ineffective, their ancient sorcery derived from demons had no effect, and even the swords and claws in their hands were powerless. Only these substances that were both biological and mentally polluting were somewhat useful.

“There are no other survivors…” The other shield guards arrived late. This was Patriot’s order; after discovering traces of the inner guards, he instructed his men not to allow anyone to enter the war zone until he had finished the battle.

“Take them all back, they’re all women and children…” Patriot walked toward the trembling people behind him, his gaze lingering on Talulah for a moment. She had stood in front of all the infected from beginning to end, without taking a single step back, even when facing the blades of the Inner Guard.

“You have great courage…” Patriot knew who she was, of course, but tacitly refrained from saying so. And when Talulah saw the iconic Wendigo mask and helmet, she also knew who this warrior was: the legend of Ursus, the traitor, the most powerful warrior—Bozokasti!

Meanwhile, on the other side, improvised Molotov cocktails, mixed with magic, struck the shields and cover of the military and police. In the world divided by crosshairs, another life was lost.

Froststar did not stop her actions. She pressed the trigger with a slight force, and the impact shook her shoulder. The surging flames were the burning heart beneath her calm and indifferent exterior.

Faster than threatening words were bullets piercing through bodies. The rioting mob leader fell to the ground without warning. The Yeti Squad fought with crossbow bolts, blades, and bullets in the streets and alleys of this small, mobile town.

They are infected, and their enemies are also infected, just like the Tower of Babel. They are not fighting for their own narrow identities, but for order and ideals.

The mob's offensive crumbled almost instantly. The Yetis were not good at urban warfare, but their equipment allowed them to ignore most of the damage in urban combat. Their armor, forged from metal, carbon materials, and polymers, made them look like Ursus's most elite inner guard, instilling great fear in the enemy.

"Bang!" A thug who had thrown a Molotov cocktail was slammed into the wall. The roaring engine transmitted enough power to crush steel to the fragile flesh in front of him, turning him into a lump of flesh stuck to the wall, and then shattering the entire wall.

The soldier, covered in wall dust, awkwardly scratched his helmet with his metal arm, still covered in blood and flesh, making a strange creaking sound. He gestured to the head of the household, who was holding a baseball bat and in a defensive stance, to make a hiding gesture, and then charged out again. Before leaving, he casually pulled over a metal plate to plug the breach.

Compared to the military and police lines that were teetering on the brink of collapse under the onslaught of rioters, the defensive line formed by the Yeti squad was far more solid.

They weren't even passively defending themselves; instead, they used the mobility of their vehicles and powered armor to launch counter-attacks, repeatedly scattering the rioters.

Crossbow bolts could barely penetrate their armor, and only a few types of magic could bring them down; only the thrown incendiary bombs posed a slight threat.

After all, the heat from the scorching hot armor plates would make the soldiers inside feel as if they were standing in a furnace.

"Put down your weapons and leave. We won't hurt you..." Frostnova stood on the destroyed Originium vehicle, holding a rifle in one hand, and said to the infected thugs huddled on the last deck.

"No, we will never give in. Even if we leave here, we will only freeze to death on the snowfield. We would rather die here, at least we can take these people with us."

"Relying on the Originium bombs on your back? So what? What do you think this will do? You're just throwing your weapons at the same weak people. You're all victims, so why kill each other? If you really want a glorious death, the Ursus blockade is a better place."

Froststar's cool voice echoed in the corridor, and the answer she received was as expected—"Silence."

"Victims? How can those people be called victims? You don't understand at all!"

“I understand…” Frostnova said calmly. Someone from the Yeti squad next to her took off their helmet, pulled open their combat suit, and revealed the crystals on their body.

“I understand the discrimination and persecution that ordinary people face against those infected, and the anger and hatred that those infected feel towards ordinary people. We all understand.”

Frostnova took half a step forward. “I also understand where their discrimination and fear come from. Our enemy is not them, but the nobles of Ursus, and the distorted order of this country. The infected suffer, and ordinary people suffer poverty. Under the distorted order of this country, they find solace in venting the pain of poverty on the infected.”

"The infected constantly threaten the lives of ordinary people. Instigated by the nobles, the infected's happiness must be built on the suffering of ordinary people, and vice versa, causing us to hate each other. But have you ever thought about this...?"

"We've found them! Catch them!" The military police, who had finally defeated the scattered infected mobs, arrived and were about to launch an attack when they were stopped by the Yeti squad.

"Time is running out, but my promise still stands. If you lay down your weapons, I guarantee you can leave here safely."

If you must vent your anger, then set all the flames on the palaces of those nobles, and burn their fortified castles and barracks to ashes.

Instead of venting your pain on ordinary people who are also oppressed, what's the difference between what you're doing now and what they're doing?

Or are you simply craving another form of oppression, to transform yourselves from victims into new perpetrators, until one day you are overthrown by people just like you?

"Don't let those useless cowards come over," Froststar ordered, turning her head. Those mobile town police and soldiers were no good at fighting, but they were first-rate at causing trouble. If it weren't for the fact that even the worst order is a little better than chaos, Froststar would have had the Yeti squad take care of both sides at once.

The moment she turned around, a roar erupted from the infected: "Die, you bitch!" A crossbow bolt shot straight at her.

"Thud!" The arrow pierced Frostnova's body. She looked expressionlessly at the infected who had become terrified. The Yeti Squad angrily raised their weapons, ready to chop up all these ungrateful bastards.

"What is your choice?" Frostnova raised her hand to stop the Yetis' impulsiveness. "I'm waiting for your answer. Time is running out, but there's still a little left."

“Uh…” The first infected person put down his weapon with a clang, followed by the second. They silently dropped their weapons.

“I didn’t tell you to drop your weapons and pick them up. You should be swinging them at the heads of those nobles and oppressors.”

Froststar smiled and gestured for the Yetis to make way so that the infected could leave safely.

"Who exactly are you people? Why did you let them go? Do you know how much damage they caused?"

"Didn't you ask for that?" Froststar reached out and pulled the crossbow bolt that had pierced her body. The bolt had pierced her coat and was stuck in the inner armor, having done almost nothing except for a small bruise caused by the impact.

“The thugs have been dealt with; now it’s time to deal with the executioners…” Froststar raised her hand, and the sheriff, as if sensing something, retreated repeatedly.

However, the spreading frost was faster than their movements, and the cold wind swept across the battlefield with extremely cold air, freezing almost all the soldiers and police in place.

"Disarm them, occupy the town, and hang all the nobles on the lampposts..."

Those wealthy businessmen who made their fortunes by exploiting ordinary people and infected individuals should also be hanged.

However, Xia Lin told her not to do that. Although it was difficult to become rich through legitimate production in the snowy plains of Ursus, these people all had the original sin of accumulating wealth to some extent.

However, it is undeniable that they are also highly proactive creators, at least in this era.

At the same time, these people who stop at nothing to escape poverty serve as a role model and a banner of resistance for ordinary people.

To reiterate, in the feudal aristocratic era, capitalism and capitalists were also an advanced productive force and production system.

Compared to warlords and nobles, they at least recognized the value of the infected's labor and were much less resistant to liberating the infected.

Chapter 71 Your infamy extends from Ursus to Qazimir...

Chapter 71

The people in the town had no idea that these soldiers, who looked like rescue team members, would suddenly attack them.

Moreover, they were much more organized than the infected mobs. The Yeti squad split into two teams to control the bridging modules of the mobile city, disconnecting the various areas.

With the bridge and docking deck gone, the only way to escape the town module and enter the wilderness is to jump off the lowest deck, a very dangerous operation for ordinary Terran civilians.

Moreover, during the previous attack by the infected mobs, the lower decks had already been sealed off by the town's ruler, a respectable baron, and now everyone, including himself, is trapped in the upper part of the town.

This mobile town has only three blocks, making it the smallest town. The largest module is the core module where the Baron is located. This is the heating and energy center of the entire town, as well as the commercial and residential areas.

The remaining two are miniature industrial modules for producing daily necessities and commodities. They are about the size of a cruiser and have a low level of automation, belonging to labor-intensive industries.

Besides the usual simple daily necessities, the main product was insect protein strips, made from crushed cockroach-like beetles that were raised. The product was unpalatable and bitter.

Due to the processing method, insect body fluids and debris remain, but it is a cheap alternative food for the mine.

Selling the grain allocated by the Ursus military and exchanging it for these cheaper protein bars was one of the important sources of income for everyone at the mine. You know, even the stale grain that slaves eat can be sold for money.

The Yeti and a small number of Shield Guards, along with their recruits, primarily targeted the core deck area. These warriors, clad in heavy, sluggish but indestructible armor, rampaged through the passageways and streets, and the hastily deployed military and police forces offered virtually no effective resistance before being utterly routed.

The rest of the process was uneventful. The guards, familiar with the work of protecting nobles, dragged the baron out of the cellar, along with other nobles and officials, including sheriffs and tax collectors, as well as a small group of wealthy merchants who were deeply resentful of the people. They were all dragged out and hung on the streetlights.

There was supposed to be a trial, but considering everyone was in a hurry, the process was greatly simplified to a list of charges hanging on their bodies, which opened the eyes of the short-sighted Yeti warriors, including Frostnova.

It should be noted that some behaviors that were not considered sinful by custom among feudal nobles were not written down by the Shield Guards.

After all, people's understanding and acceptance abilities are still limited, and those are all minor offenses.

Even so, the sheer number of crimes committed by a few individuals could fill a scroll that stretched from their chest to the ground, especially considering that they were hanging from a streetlamp, was truly astonishing.

Whether to restart the journey south from the towns that followed, or what to do next, was left to the two shield guards and their recruits who stayed behind to handle the aftermath. The Yeti squad needed to continue onward.

This wave of infected is smaller in number than the previous wave, but stronger in combat. Two migrating towns around the farm were attacked, and a large number of armed personnel appeared on the farm's borders.

If the previous wave was simply a mob driven by desperation, then this second wave consists of infected guerrillas and paramilitary personnel who were originally active in the south. This can be seen from the fact that they are almost entirely composed of young adults, with almost no elderly, weak, women, or children, and that they can make their own incendiary bombs, crossbows, and even possess controlled combat staffs.

After leaving the mobile town, the Yeti squad continued southeast, where an infected settlement was also at risk of being attacked by thugs. Their intelligence relied almost entirely on the statements of trespassers caught by security forces and Yeti patrols, making the accuracy and reliability of their intelligence quite low.

Some of the so-called "large-scale rioters" were actually just a dozen or so idle young people who were dissatisfied with their usual hard work and were causing trouble, which gave the Yeti team, who had specially sent two truckloads of bread people, a real headache.

However, along the way, the patrol also discovered a lot of troublesome things. For example, normal people began to appear among the rioters, and ordinary people's villages were also attacked by the infected rioters. This undoubtedly exacerbated the conflict between the two sides, and the young people who were already dissatisfied with the infected people's theft and robbery spontaneously organized to fight back.

As a large number of discontented and radical young people blamed the infected for all the hardships of life on the snowfields, the organization, like the guerrillas forced to lose their base by Ursus, quickly became violent and fell into a brutal phase of violence against violence.

This is exactly what the Black Serpent wants to see, just as he does on his own territory. Only when the infected and civilians kill and hate each other can he, the high and mighty duke, rest easy and think about great things like the future of Ursus.

This is also paving the way for Talulah. Soon, the hatred of the common people will make Talulah realize how naive and innocent her ideals are. After several setbacks, her own prestige will begin to decline and the persecution of the infected by ordinary people will intensify. Even if she can still maintain the glory of this idealist, she will eventually have to succumb to reality.

The best outcome would be what Talulah did, where she herself became a victim, blinded by anger and hatred, and completely exploited and controlled by the Black Serpent.

"Glug glug—" Froststar gulped down a whole bottle of water. The continuous activity had almost exhausted her strength, so she took a short rest while traveling.

"Froststar, are you alright?"

"Hmm, it's nothing serious." She pulled up her clothes to check, and there was only a small bruise near her ribs, which had almost faded away. "I was wearing a set of protective gear underneath, but I didn't expect the crossbow bolts imbued with Originium Arts to be so powerful."

Why didn't you kill that guy?

"There's no need for that," Froststar shook her head. Indeed, there was no need. Once those people entered the safe zone and came to their senses, they would immediately realize that something was wrong.

The patrol vehicle rolled across the winter snowfield and into the settlement, but there was no one around. The Yetis nimbly broke down the doors and searched the place one by one. "They've left. Everything is neatly packed; they must have taken an orderly evacuation..."

"This should be the last location, right?" Froststar glanced at the electronic map. Areas further away were outside the farm's radiation zone, and they didn't have the resources to deal with them.

Their area of ​​operation is limited to a three-day driving distance. They have now patrolled the area extensively, clearing out some of the rioters they encountered, forcing others to change course, and leaving others to temporarily lay down their weapons.