Chapter 734: The 'Slacking' Empire and the 'Good-for-Nothings' of Ideal City

Chapter 734: The Empire That “Checked Out” and the “Gluttons” of Ideal City

“The potatoes are all gone.”

“!!”

“How sad.”

“Damn corporations.”

“Ideal City, a bunch of gluttons.”

“The grilled rice is pretty good, I recommend it.”

“Give it a try.”

“…”

“It really is good.”

“Not bad!”

“Truly excellent.”

“Satisfied.”

“!!!”

…

At the entrance of the mess hall.

Watching the Alphas burying their heads in their food, a group of soldiers from the 100th Mountain Division stood dumbfounded.

“Good grief, one guy eating three bowls?!”

“Are these bastards pigs?!”

Seeing them wolfing down their meals, a young man couldn’t help but swallow his saliva.

“What’s that smell so good?”

Just as he hesitated, the young men beside him were already eagerly crowding forward.

“Let’s get a bowl to try…”

“I’ll have one too.”

“Wait for me!”

Soon, a long line formed in front of the serving counter.

When the folks from Free State and other settlements saw the Ideal City residents queuing up, they followed suit to join the fun.

As everyone knows, Ideal City has the best stuff—anything that makes its residents line up must be a delicacy of the world.

No matter how much food the mess hall prepared in advance, it couldn’t withstand tens of thousands of people all ordering the same few dishes.

And so, driven by a strange trend, the crowd soon polished off a large tray of grilled meat.

Those who got their food ate with relish, while the rest just drooled.

The group stood there waiting idly.

Some, too impatient, ordered other things to tide them over, only to find the taste unexpectedly good, which only made them more eager for the instantly sold-out signature dish.

Today’s victim was cumin-flavored grilled rice.

But surprisingly, what ran out wasn’t the grilled meat, but the rice’s barbecue sauce and cumin…

…

“Eat, eat, eat—you bunch of gluttons, all you know is eating! What else can you do besides eat?!”

On the open ground outside the military base stood a line of soldiers, dejected and dust-covered.

A few rat-folk wanted to speak but dared not, only hanging their heads in silence.

The commander was right.

They themselves knew they weren’t cut out for fighting—let him scold.

But the problem was, they hadn’t even eaten!

The Ideal City gluttons had meal cards worth 3,000 silver coins; theirs were only 100.

And they had 100 only because there was a minimum deposit to open a card—anything less couldn’t be issued.

Thank heavens for that threshold, or they had no doubt General Babita wouldn’t even give them 100 silver coins.

There was no red dirt to eat here, not even villages to rob; the horse-riding peddlers looked far more capable of fighting than they did…

Seeing these worthless wretches, General Babita fumed with rage, nearly tearing off the belt strapped around his paunch to whip them a couple of times.

These men were under Mordred the Centurion—the very ones who had fled the front lines yesterday.

But what truly enraged him wasn’t just their cowardice costing Mordred his life; it was something else that happened yesterday.

At the time, he was dining in the camp mess hall when he spotted the Legion’s airship commander, General Lium.

Thinking them allies, he immediately grabbed his tray and approached, intending to greet him with a smile. But before he could sit down, he got a mouthful of abuse.

“Useless bastards! Is this how Maclean taught you? Disgraceful trash! Might as well not have gone! One salvo from me kills more than you did in half an hour! Bah, couldn’t even hold out half an hour—my clones fight better than you!”

The man’s voice was thunderous, echoing through the entire mess hall.

Blamed for no reason, Babita’s face went pale, then red.

Though the cursing was aimed at Maclean, he still felt deeply wronged.

He hadn’t even blamed the guy for dropping shells right on Mordred’s head before he could retreat.

But the Vlandians were friends of His Majesty, so he dared not talk back. Under the gaze of everyone, he picked up his tray and slunk away.

No choice.

Having been humiliated outside, he could only vent his anger on his own men.

After roaring for a long while, General Babita caught his breath, unscrewed a bottle cap, took a drink of water, and muttered a few more curses.

“…A bunch of useless trash! Rats are rats—hoping you’d win a battle is a pipe dream. Might as well plant something here and save some grain!”

With that, he flicked his index finger, shook his head, and turned his back.

The officer standing nearby quickly stepped forward, taking his place before the line of rat-folk soldiers, and bellowed at the top of his lungs.

“From today onward! I am your centurion, Kumar! Since you can’t be good soldiers, return your guns to His Majesty and go farm! This barren land beneath your feet is your task—I need you to till it and plant cabbages and potatoes! This is your last chance to prove you’re still of some use!”

The several hundred soldiers exchanged bewildered glances, at a loss.

Farming?

Are you kidding?

They came to fight, not to be farmers.

But Babita clearly wasn’t joking. He walked over to a rented truck and waved his hand.

A dozen soldiers beside him immediately jumped onto the truck and dragged down burlap sacks filled with hoes and shovels, soon piling them into a small mountain on the ground.

This fellow was clearly prepared, even having bought the tools for turning the soil.

But judging by their worn-out look, they were probably second-hand goods discarded by some settlement.

The chiliarch named Markul pointed at the spades and shovels on the ground, bellowing with full authority.

"Three acres per man! Get at least half an acre done today!"

"Only when the work's finished—then you can go eat!"

...

Under the chiliarch's scolding, a group of malnourished soldiers had no choice but to grit their teeth and start swinging their hoes.

Most of them came from the western part of the Brahmin Province.

There, estates and farms of nobles were everywhere; those who lived there were either slaves or serfs. Even the few free men had labored on the nobles' plantations.

Thus, for them, farming wasn't a difficult task—it was just a matter of experience or lack thereof.

Several players from the Death Corps watched from afar, all wearing strange expressions.

"...Good grief, has the Empire's expeditionary force just given up?"

After losing just one battle, it's come to this?

No way...

Looking at the astonished faces of Construction Boy and Brick, Debt-Eyes stroked his chin in thought, then spoke after a moment.

"I think this might not be a bad thing."

Construction Boy and Brick stared at him blankly.

"Why?"

Debt-Eyes gave him a meaningful glance.

"Imagine you're on the front line, and these guys are behind you. Would you rather have them there or not?"

Construction Boy and Brick thought for a while, then suddenly exclaimed, "Holy crap!"

That actually made some sense!

Rather than having a bunch of unreliable guys at his back, he'd rather face the mutants alone.

Just as the two were talking, a familiar, weird laugh came from behind.

"Haha, I knew this would happen! So I've already solved that problem for you!"

Hearing the voice, they both turned around and saw it was Brother Mosquito.

"Mosquito?!"

"Aren't you on the Southern Front? How'd you get here?"

Mosquito hooked his arms around their shoulders, patted them, and looked up at the Imperial soldiers swinging their hoes, chuckling.

"I was just wandering around... heh, and thought I'd expand my business here, answer the Administrator's call, make some extra cash on the side."

The latter part was the real point.

Most players were lucky to profit from one line of income, but a high-level player like him wasn't satisfied with just that.

Construction Boy and Brick: "Good grief, hasn't that Thunder mini-plane made you enough yet?"

Mosquito waved his hand and sighed.

"That doesn't make much... Damn it, the big cut goes to those reverse-engineering design institutes; we only get scraps."

Seeing how smug he looked, Debt-Eyes couldn't help but tease.

"Be grateful—what did you contribute besides a wild idea?"

Mosquito rolled his eyes. "You think setting up a factory costs nothing? You think production lines fall from the sky? And there are failures too—the successful ones are called Thunder, the failures don't even have a proper serial number."

To build that vertical takeoff and landing plasma engine fighter, his brother Fallen Feather had died countless times in crashes.

It was truly tragic.

But complaining about earning too little was just talk; he wasn't really griping.

After all, if there were no profit, he wouldn't bother—at most, he'd burn money on a one-off venture.

And the scientific expedition team needed to make money to pay players doing relic recovery missions, unlocking more tech, forming a virtuous cycle of production and research.

Construction Boy and Brick: "Enough bullshitting. So, what business have you got your eye on? Spill it."

Debt-Eyes, snapping back to attention, also asked curiously, "Yeah, you almost made me forget—what problem did you say you solved for us? What was it?"

Mosquito squinted with a grin, pointing at a truck in the distance.

"I sold them that junk."

The two were stunned.

"Holy crap?!"

"You're corrupting military discipline!"

"Corrupting discipline? That rabble doesn't even deserve to be called an army! They can't even beat goblins!" Mosquito rolled his eyes. "I've tied them down here—you should be grateful."

Big Eyes and Construction Guy exchanged a strange look, thinking it kind of made sense.

Even if it was a bit of a twisted logic.

Construction Boy and Brick sighed with some emotion. "But that Babylon Tower really dared to buy it..."

Mosquito laughed.

"Why wouldn't they? I didn't sell them broken stuff—just old things."

And this was only the first truckload, just for those deserters to use first. The train behind carried thousands or even tens of thousands more!

These things were sold by the pound in Dawn City, obsolete like sewing machines.

Seeing the two's astonished faces, Mosquito continued.

"I did the math with that guy—this war will last at least a few months, and food expenses won't be small. On an acre of land, a season's output is at least seven or eight hundred silver coins, right? Each person reclaims three acres; twenty thousand people can open up at least sixty thousand acres—that's tens of millions in silver coins! Spending a few hundred thousand on shovels—is that a loss? It's a steal!"

Sixty thousand acres is forty square kilometers—a plot of land 5 by 8 kilometers.

The entire Weifu City area was a no-man's land, thousands of square kilometers deserted. Finding arable land along the upper Wei River was easy.

Only the reclamation work was tough, and he could then sell them a dozen or so dump trucks and tractors for plowing.

If they needed them.

But the two standing before him were concerned about something else.

"An acre yields that much in a season?? You're kidding!"

Construction Boy and Brick's eyes went wide, and Debt-Eyes looked equally incredulous.

"Ahem, ignoring fertilizer, pesticides, and seeds, it's actually that much—maybe even more! I recall the Alliance's agricultural subsidies mostly cover those three things, but that's not the point."

Mosquito grinned slyly.

"The point is, once they've reclaimed the land and are ready to plant, I can sell them those three things too—and make another profit!"

As an export sold abroad, there is naturally no subsidy involved.

But he wouldn't jack up the price too much either; in fact, he might even sell to them at a price slightly cheaper than the market rate.

After all, they're not fools—they don't have to buy from him; if it's too expensive, they'll just go elsewhere.

The construction site youth and Brick had clearly thought of this too, muttering while stroking their chins.

"Fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides for tens of thousands of acres... Holy shit, that must be a few million silver coins, right?"

"A few million? That's about the profit margin."

Mosquito chuckled slyly and continued in a slow, deliberate tone.

"And that's not all—once the crops grow, they'll need to find someone to sell them, won't they?"

Debt-Eyes blinked in surprise.

"Can't they sell them to the mess hall?"

Mosquito looked at him as if he were an idiot.

"Are you kidding? That's a military base mess hall, not a convenience store on your street corner! They have their own supply chain—contracts are probably signed before the seeds are even sown. Why would they buy this makeshift stuff?"

As he spoke, a smile crept across his face, the dagger finally revealed.

"I bet those idiots won't be able to sell it! Then I'll buy it from them at a rock-bottom price... Believe me, these artificially cultivated 'organic crops' might even be cheaper than the mass-produced imports from Luoxia Province."

In fact, even General Babita would make a bit of profit this way.

After all, his labor cost is practically zero—it's just the rat-men beasts of burden who suffer.

But it's not all bad; working in the rear is far better than being ground up at the front.

According to a post Sisi updated on the official site, in the Boro Province, aside from the directly subordinate central army and the few forces built with Valiant aid, the local troops controlled by nobles operate on a feudal supply system.

That is, the emperor sends money, and the general spends it.

Everything, from procuring supplies to paying wages, is handled entirely by the latter.

Although the Empire's expeditionary forces have received Legion training, they are too far from the Empire's logistics system, and the "infrastructure access level" of their production facilities is too low—they can't even ship to Silver Moon Bay—so they still rely on the old method of direct payments.

Mosquito had thoroughly researched this; otherwise, while everyone else was busy fleecing the three big players—the Corporation, the Legion, and the Academy—he wouldn't have set his sights on this seemingly lean but actually fat sheep.

Both of them stared at him wide-eyed.

Damn.

He's a real pro...

"This bastard is too evil!" Debt-Eyes couldn't help but sigh. "String him up on a lamppost!"

"What are you saying?" Mosquito shot him a glare. "If I don't spend their money for them, they'll just pocket it and take it back home. Is that right?"

The construction site youth and Brick didn't want to hear it; they just sighed like Debt-Eyes.

"He's rotten to the core!"

Mosquito: "...@#%#!"

At that moment, neither the rat-men soldiers busy swinging their hoes nor the players watching the commotion noticed that a few Free State soldiers in the distance were also curiously observing, whispering among themselves.

On the distant tarmac, four more Orca transport planes descended, trailing arcs of azure light.

A group of burly men, carrying large bags and bundles, strode out of the cabins.

They wore stone-gray exoskeletons, their design mimicking the standard People's Alliance gear—clearly products of Ideal City—though the darker hue lacked the luster of the 100th Mountain Division's "Vanguard I" exoskeletons.

General Modlin, smoking a cigarette by the airfield, glanced at them and curled his lips slightly.

"Looks like those soft-shell crabs from the East Coast have some fighters after all."

He was the commander of the 31st Myriad, having led the battle two days ago; he had seen firsthand how tough those green-skinned mutants and their goblins were.

The Torch Church had used technology from the Prosperity Era to drag those savages to heights they could never have reached on their own, and even though his men had fought mutants before, they still found it challenging.

That was why, despite the 100th Mechanized Mountain Division's impressive gear, he had no faith in those buffoons.

On a scale of ten, their individual combat skills rated at most a four.

Their amateurish performance in some details made him suspect they weren't regulars at all, but a bunch of greenhorns scraped together to fill the ranks—maybe even less capable than the wastelanders from the River Valley Province.

But these guys just off the plane actually looked like soldiers.

Perhaps they were the Corporation's true elite.

"Those are mercenaries from the Cloud Province," said his adjutant with a smile, tinged with a hint of disdain. "Just a bunch of men selling their lives for money."

"Whatever they're selling their lives for, those who dare to fight are tough," Modlin said, dropping his cigarette butt and grinding it under his boot. "Don't underestimate them."

As the soldiers headed toward the barracks, not far away on the shooting range, a group of young men from the 100th Mountain Division's 1st Battalion, 2nd Company were undergoing their final training before deployment.

They held G9 assault rifles, firing single shots at green targets.

Equipped with top-tier optical sights and noise-canceling helmets, they were all crack shots—only a few rounds missed, and nearly every bullet hit the bullseye.

But the instructor in a military-green vest walking behind them was clearly unsatisfied.

His face was as dark as iron as he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"Snap out of it!"

"Your enemies are man-eating mutants! The green-skinned kind!"

"They're stronger, more patient, and more ruthless than those scaly fish-men! If you fall into their hands, don't think about paying a ransom to get home—just pray they give you a quick death!"

The young men were used to his gruff shouts.

But a few troublemakers, eager to show off, emptied their magazines early and yelled,

"You're right, sir! But we won't fall into those idiots' hands—"

Before he could finish, he got a kick in the rear, stumbled over the table, and nearly tumbled into the shooting range.

The instructor grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him up like a chicken.

"Report before you speak!"

"Yes, sir!"

"I said report!"

"Re—report!"

Seeing the terrified look in his eyes, the instructor narrowed his gaze.

He was a soldier from the 26th Commando Unit, who had once followed the Cloud Team chasing the Pioneer's trail and signal from Cloud Province all the way to the Great Wasteland.

Unlike these guys who signed up for the front after a few rounds of "chicken dinner," he had seen what the wasteland was like, what the mutants were like, and what the poor souls killed by mutants looked like.

But he said nothing, only gave the trembling man a meaningful look before releasing his grip on his collar.

Turning to the greenhorns who had stopped to watch, he roared,

"What are you looking at me for? Keep your eyes on your weapons! Keep your eyes on your targets! Pray they don't move—don't piss yourselves when you get to the front!"

His foul-mouthed voice echoed across the training ground, drowning out even the crack of gunfire.

After training ended, the crowd shuffled out of the range and streamed toward the mess hall.

Although they had been thoroughly cursed out, this little unpleasantness did not hinder their appetites.

"Damn it... they've been chewing me out for three months, but tomorrow we're finally going to the front!"

"Haha, my great blade has been itching for action!"

"I'll show you the prowess of the P City sniper god when the time comes!"

"I wonder if they sell the LD-47 here—that gun packs a serious punch!"

"True, the G9 assault rifle is way too weak! It's totally unworthy of this exoskeleton of mine!"

"I'll go find a brother from the Alliance later and borrow one to use..."

At the entrance of the training ground.

Watching that noisy bunch, Edge Drifter looked blankly at Su Ming standing to the side, swallowed, and asked.

"These guys... are they really okay?"

Although they themselves were mostly just as noisy, that was because they wouldn't really die.

And considering those grueling three days, most people, when it came to actual fighting, still pulled out their skills and fought seriously.

Obviously.

These NPCs were not like that.

They were more like they had no idea where they were going tomorrow, or what they would see when they got there.

Su Ming's expression was a bit awkward; he cleared his throat and said.

"Don't judge them by how they look... they actually trained in the recruit camp for three months too, so they won't hold us back."

Edge Drifter probed further.

"...Virtual reality training ground?"

Su Ming tried to explain.

"That only accounts for fifty percent of the training time... we also did live-fire drills and physical training."

Edge Drifter was taken aback.

Good heavens.

It actually accounted for fifty percent!

But to be fair.

The Council was pretty good to these rookies—the amount of ammo they fired off today alone was almost more than what he had shot in the two years before he switched careers to become a firefighter.

Looking at the fine equipment, Edge Drifter couldn't help feeling a bit envious, just like the young men from the corporations looked at him with envious eyes.

Money really is nice...