Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

"Are you... having a fight?" Skadi walked over, her black and white clothes making her look like a miniature killer whale. She was holding a broom and looked a bit like one of those puppeteers trying to attract customers, except she wasn't wearing a headgear.

"No, Talulah challenged me, and she lost..."

"You're cheating!" It's like agreeing to a duel where you stop when you've made a point, and then the other person chooses to punch you in the face. But instead, the other person pulls out a PPSh-45 and says, "This is gun-fu!" That's cheating.

“There’s no such thing as cheating on the battlefield. Tactics, skills, and weapons are all indispensable. Defeat means death, and the dead cannot blame the living,” Skadi said seriously. Hunters use all kinds of skills and tactics when dealing with Sea Kings.

If they could, they would use any weapon at will, without any sense of baseness or nobility.

"Honor only exists after the battlefield. There is no morality or honor on the battlefield..." Patriot said to Talulah while carrying his halberd, then looked at Skadi, "Ms. Skadi, Agor's technique is really good. I always felt that Boss Xia was a bit too light after the adjustment, and the center of gravity was not quite right."

"It's nothing. He... has never used this kind of weapon before, and he's not good at fighting, so it's normal that he doesn't know what a warrior's weapon should look like."

"Um, Aunt Skadi, what's with your outfit?"

"This?" Skadi looked at her clothes. "Is it strange?"

"It's strange, don't you find it a little inconvenient to move around?"

"Indeed, but this way I can better hone my control over the subtleties of strength..."

Skadi nodded, but no matter what, it was indeed a bit strange to walk around the street in orca pajamas.

"It would be bad if it caused a fire; it looks very flammable..."

“Hmm, that makes sense. I’ll go back and change it right away…” Skadi is someone who easily listens to advice, and she’s very easy to talk to as long as it doesn’t involve her professional field or her work as a hunter.

"Talulah, you lost again..." the infected girl teased. The dragon girl's face immediately turned red. "No, no, Yelena cheated!" Then she said something about martial spirit and warrior honor, which she didn't quite understand, which drew even louder laughter. The air was filled with a joyful atmosphere.

"Alright, alright, stop bullying Talulah, let's stick together..."

Alina pulled Talulah over to wipe her face and clothes clean, which were covered in traces of Frostnova's Originium Arts and Frozen Grenade.

"Aren't we just ganging up on Talulah?" The girls laughed so hard they almost fell over.

"Then I'll get angry." Alina pretended to be angry, putting her hands on her hips and looking at these little girls who had forgotten their place after a few days of easy living.

"Alright, alright, let's get back to work."

"Where's Lao Xia? I just saw his car in the yard, but where is he?"

"They went to the medical station; one of the infected people has developed symptoms."

"I see." Frostnova nodded, turning to look at the infected whose expressions had suddenly darkened. "Don't just stand there. Before dying from the disease, people still need to eat and work. Or do you think dying from the disease is too easy and want to find a more difficult way to die, like starving yourself to death?"

Except for Talulah, everyone else had experienced hunger and knew how unpleasant it felt, so they all obediently went back to work.

After a day's work, the result was several large baskets of wildflowers. After separating the herbs from the wildflowers, Yelena poured the latter into the drying machine.

Despite working all day, the extraction process only yields a small bottle of fragrance at most, and even with careful blending, it only produces about half a bottle of floral water.

Generally speaking, in industrial production, roses or other flowering plants are cultivated in large quantities as a source of natural fragrances. But in Ursus, where even the food supply is insufficient, who would grow flowers in the fields?

However, Alina still asked Yelena for some flower seeds, saying that even if they weren't used for anything, planting some flowers in front of and behind the house would make it look more like a home.

Everyone fell silent, and asked for some flower seeds. Of course, White Rabbit herself only planted a pot of wild forsythia and a pot of moss flowers, which she placed on the windowsill.

Xia Lin said that since she didn't have a symbiote implanted, she shouldn't stare at the screen too often. Looking at green plants occasionally would be good for her eyes.

As the children returned home and wisps of smoke rose from the village chimneys, Patriot stared blankly at the colorful sunset for a while, then shook his head, shouldered his halberd, and walked outside. He was a warrior, and a gentle life would erode a warrior's courage and will. The Shield Guards were waiting for him outside.

They're leaving tonight. The infected here have stabilized, but many more are being ravaged by the Ursus army, and many more thugs are harming innocent people.

It's time for those newly joined young people to experience a world of blood and fire.

Warriors are not good with words; their halberds and shields are the best answers to the arrogant questions of the Ursus nobles.

Chapter Seventy-Four: Questions of the Soul

Chapter 74

The infected person was an ordinary young man from Ursus, whose body was covered with mineral crystals.

This is more serious than what Yelena experienced before. During an Oripathy attack, these crystals grow at a faster rate than usual and cause extreme pain to the patient.

To alleviate this pain, infected individuals often try to obtain various pain-relieving and anesthetic drugs, regardless of their toxicity, and put them in their mouths. As Oripathy worsens, the pain intensifies.

“We can only offer placebo treatment.” Kal’tsit took a painkiller injection from the medicine cabinet. “Most medications are ineffective at this level of Oripathy progression. Perhaps you could try surgical treatment, using your…surgical instruments?”

"Well, I don't have that many artificial organs, and I don't have many nano-erosion bodies either..."

Ordinary spaceships don't usually carry these micro-mechanical drugs; they're for battlefield use and aren't really the right treatment.

Its function is to erode and break down large foreign objects in the patient's body and rebuild temporary fillers to prevent massive blood loss. To put it simply, it is an emergency treatment drug for situations where it is not appropriate to move the patient, such as when they are shot or have their abdominal cavity pierced by debris from a collapsed building.

If used for Oripathy, it can usually cure early-stage infection symptoms quickly, although only superficially; the crystals are eroded, broken down, and disappear.

However, Oripathy is still Oripathy. When the lifespan of the micromechanical design is exhausted, it will naturally recur, and it will come back even more violently.

"So, even with the medical technology of your Covenant, there's no way to save Oripathy patients?"

Kal'tsit frowned. She had been taking over the doctor's research, but it was beyond her knowledge and technical expertise, and she had made almost no progress. She had been thinking about whether she could apply the knowledge to other areas.

"Well, you can't say that. You know, I only have the equipment and skills of a livestock and veterinary station. If we consider the medical standards of the Star Alliance Hospital, theoretically speaking, this level of Oripathy can be cured."

Xia Lin pulled out an inhibitor and slowly injected it into the patient's body. This would prevent the patient from completely deteriorating and dying, and the body from turning into an Originium bomb.

"If it's surgical treatment, I can try to peel off the crystals on the skin surface and repair the body, but what about the organs?"

His lower body was almost completely covered in Originium. According to the dual scan imaging of Kal'tsit and Xia Lin's equipment, surgery was needed. Xia Lin had to find a way to give him two kidneys and a new heart.

"Self-replication?"

"No, there's not enough time. Besides, my cloning equipment is for veterinary use, which is inherently slow. I'd also have to modify the protocol. Regular hospitals, on the other hand, can do this; they have more complete equipment and are much more efficient..."

"Is there really no way? Even from...your perspective?"

“Hmm, I do have a way to extend lifespan, but would it make any sense?” Xia Lin looked at Kal'tsit, who nodded in agreement. “Indeed, let’s notify the family.”

"And the other one?" Kal'tsit was referring to another girl lying in the hospital bed with milder symptoms. She had been brought in a few days ago, and after undergoing suppression treatment using traditional Terra medical techniques, her symptoms had been relieved considerably, but it was still a long way from complete suppression or a full recovery.

"There is a way to do that, it's still within the scope of surgical treatment. But I think you, Dr. Kal'tsit, can also perform Originium removal surgery?"

Xia Lin asked curiously, "Kal'tsit's technical skills are quite good. After all, she is indeed a 'doctor' rather than a 'doctor,' and doctors do not have the ability to develop new drugs."

“I can’t guarantee that she could die at any moment during the surgery. The equipment here is too rudimentary, and the medication is too limited. If this were Rhodes Island, I would give it a try,” Kal’tsit said, indicating that she was not entirely confident.

“She can live for at least several more years, maybe even more than ten years, but if she has surgery, there is a 70% chance she will die on the operating table. I never recommend patients choose such a high-risk treatment…”

“I do have an operating room, which allows for high-success-rate dissection surgeries. However, I don’t have enough circulatory drugs and pumps in my hand. If I operate on her, the recurrence will be rapid, and the survival rate will decrease with each recurrence…”

"Regarding the recurrence issue, we can consider combination therapy. Combining Rhodes Island's inhibitor with your blocker might help you get through the postoperative recovery period."

"Do the other family members agree?"

"She has no family. Maybe she has one. She was brought back by someone else when they went to the wasteland to collect resources. I heard that she was abandoned as a burden because the mine closed down and was relocated."

"What is your name?"

"Misha, a very ordinary Ursus name."

"Then let's prepare for the surgery..."

"You do seem like a veterinarian..." because only veterinarians would not ask for the patient's opinion, at most they would ask for the owner's opinion.

“I was originally a veterinarian…” Xia Lin reached out and picked up the girl who was sleeping on the hospital bed, and walked towards the operating room.

Misha's condition was slightly better than Yelena's, but not by much. Both Xia Lin and Kal'tsit had to concentrate fully on the surgery. The only sounds in the room were the slight movement of the robotic arm and the eerie sound of the automatic scalpel cutting through flesh.

"An Originium crystal, 2cm in diameter, has been found in your hip bone. Keep an eye on it..."

"I saw it..." The Originium crystals on the bones are the most difficult to deal with. For example, the ones on Patriot's body are a typical example. In the end, more than half of his bones and organs were replaced.

"Sizzle—" The sound of rotating grinding, like that of some kind of industrial machining table, rang out in the operating room. The cutting head, no different from a milling cutter, spun and approached the Originium crystal, gradually shredding it into countless Originium powders, which were then caught by the tray below.

The cavities in the bones were filled with artificial fillers, making it look more like a repair than a treatment, emitting various mechanical noises indistinguishable from those in a factory.

Generally speaking, in dental clinics and orthopedic operating rooms, the tools used by doctors are very similar to those used by workers in workshops. Various drills, saws, hammers, chisels, and even other strange tools can be used for carpentry or metalwork without any problems.

After successfully removing the microparticle-shaped Originium particles from the bones, spine, and some organs, the atmosphere in the operating room became more relaxed, at least allowing Xia Lin and Kal'tsit to exchange a few words.

What was that joke about again? If you see doctors in the operating room chatting about what to eat for dinner and when they'll get off work, it means your surgery is going perfectly. But if the operating room is completely silent and everyone looks serious, then you're probably in grave danger.

"The Covenant you come from isn't an organization on Terra, is it?" Xia Lin didn't really hide this fact, but apart from Kal'tsit, almost no one cared about it. Let alone the Infected, ordinary people already had a hard enough time living on the snowy plains of Ursus, so who would care about these things?

"You're not an ordinary Terran person, are you? Otherwise, why would I ask you if your ears are real or fake?"

Xia Lin knew, of course, that Kal'tsit was no ordinary person; the scanner on her back was already sounding an alarm.

“Such keen insight. According to Terra, I should be… an immortal…”

"What kind of immortal being, the kind who lives for thousands of years?"

"It's not that long. If one were constantly on the move, one would probably only live for a few hundred years. But if one enters a state akin to slumber, time seems to pass through a thin veil, leaving no trace on the body..."

Several hundred years is enough to witness a dynasty from its founding to its demise. This is not a short period of time. Teenagers with delusions of grandeur completely fail to understand how long a "hundred years" is for a person. They only seem to be competing with each other as if pursuing game attributes, but they do not realize the weight behind this number.

"Hibernation?" "You certainly don't seem like a Terran." Terrans can understand what you're saying and quickly pinpoint the key points to describe them accurately. Of course, the former Doctor was one of those who could understand.

Then Kal'tsit developed the bad habit of only telling half of a riddle, because she assumed you would understand it. But then she would remember you had reset your settings halfway through, and the topic would end rather dull.

"What kind of power is your Star Alliance?" "With your limited knowledge, I'm afraid you wouldn't understand even if I explained it to you. Hmm, can you even understand the starry sky?"

"Terra's starry sky? I really can't understand that, after all, it's not a real starry sky..."

"I'm really talking about the stars..."

“Yes, you mean you come from one of them? This was a long time ago... really a long time ago, the Terrans, no, the ancients, had the idea that every star was a world like Terra.”

"Actually, there are several, depending on how many planets orbit the star..." Xia Lin complained. "Moreover, compared to the icy desert here, well, if Ursus is a paradise, then that place is a living hell."

"So, you really come from the stars? That's something I didn't expect..." Kal'tsit began to pull the flesh aside and, using the automatic suturing equipment provided by Xia Lin, began to suture the abdominal cavity layer by layer, entering the final stage of the surgery.

"How long will your anesthetic last?"

"30 minutes. Don't doubt my skills. I've performed more anesthesia surgeries than you've castrated pigs."

"Yes, anesthesiologists with hundreds of years of experience are indeed rare. If we disregard the shortcomings in technique and theory, your skills are more than enough to get a professional anesthesiologist certificate from us."

"Two bottles of immunosuppressive protein and one bottle of artificial immunoglobulin, in a 2.5% ratio," Xia Lin said quickly as she prepared the medication and attached an IV drip to Misha. "If there are no complications, it's considered a barely curable condition. However, she will need to continue taking the medication for the rest of her life. I don't know if your Rhodes Island-made drug will cause withdrawal symptoms once you stop taking it, but my drug does, at least for Oripathy."

"Are you really from the stars?"

"In a sense, it is..."

"Through what method? Hibernation flight? Or a 'fluid tunnel'?"