Ch. 204
Chapter 204: Resource Exchange, Anti-gravity Technology
“Expel ten million people? Have you gone mad?”
Mitia’s eyes widened. One had to know that after decades of development, the Seris Alliance’s total population had only just surpassed one hundred million. Back when the Seris Federation had first been established, their total population had merely been five million.
As expected of an old empire—when it came to eliminating population, they started counting in the tens of millions. What could these people not do instead?
Ardashir hurriedly explained, “No, no, no! It’s not expelling ten million. Our original plan was to gather them into a designated region. Those cities are all concentrated in the western region—we’re not exterminating them!”
The empire’s western region was not sufficiently developed and required fresh population to accelerate its development, which conveniently aligned with the phased objectives of Greater-Humanism.
With such a massive number, there was no way they would truly raise the butcher’s blade. It was merely about making them move—an artificially induced structural migration.
In this way, the costs of travel, as well as the purchase of housing and land in the new settlements, would drain their wealth, generating considerable economic benefits for all territories along the route.
Naturally, a large number of people would go bankrupt in the process, falling down the social hierarchy and becoming slaves or livestock once more, replenishing the empire’s serf population base.
Moreover, this was done in small batches, so it had not caused major unrest.
Because truly bloody expulsion policies had existed in the empire’s history, these beastmen had developed a relatively high tolerance for such “gentler” methods of forced relocation—commonly referred to as a dull knife slicing flesh.
This policy had been ongoing for several years, gradually accumulating such a large population in the western region.
Aside from a large number of beastmen, the remaining population in the area consisted mostly of large estate owners. The vast lands under their control were conveniently cultivated by these relocated people.
However, public security was extremely poor. It was basically maintained by the private guards of those large estate owners. Previously, this had not been much of an issue, since heavily fortified border cities still served as the main defensive force—but in the current situation, it had become disastrous.
In the past, five hundred guards could easily control tens of thousands of beastman slaves through fear and authority. But infected beastman slaves did not respond to such tactics—five hundred men were not even enough to fill the gaps between their teeth.
This was the real reason why Ardashir and the emperor had become desperate. Fear-based suppression did not require many soldiers, so the total defensive forces across the western region did not even reach five hundred thousand, which was vastly insufficient compared to the base number of lowborn slaves. No matter how powerful a Saint was, they could not manage everything.
Mitia stroked her chin. “What’s the approximate combat strength of those infected?”
Ardashir thought for a moment. “Roughly between mid-level mages and high-level mages.”
“Sending troops definitely won’t work. However, we can provide you with a large quantity of weapons!”
Just as disappointment surfaced in Ardashir’s eyes, Mitia’s next sentence abruptly turned the situation around, leaving him stunned. Thinking of the Seris Alliance’s weapons, Ardashir slapped his thigh. “Right! How could I forget that!”
“Don’t get too excited—I have conditions.”
Mitia smiled as she picked up her teacup. “I need the complete technical documentation for small, medium, and large-scale floating magic arrays, as well as copies of the experience notes left behind by your nation’s Saint-level powerhouses.”
Ardashir rejected immediately, “Impossible!”
“Little Meow, see the guest out!”
“Wait, wait! We can still negotiate!”
“There’s nothing to negotiate. Let me be clear—if you agree and have your nation’s Half-God powerhouse open long-distance large-scale teleportation arrays and establish transportation lines along the route, the Alliance can guarantee delivering five hundred thousand bolt-action rifles and over ten million rounds of ammunition to you within one month.”
“After that, monthly supply will not drop below 150,000 rifles, and we can also provide around one thousand machine guns per month.”
After throwing out these tempting conditions, Mitia calmly sipped her tea. Without switching to a wartime system, the Alliance’s full-capacity monthly production of bolt-action rifles was about 150,000 to 200,000.
Including prior stock, delivering 500,000 in the first month was entirely feasible—she was not exaggerating.
Ardashir began to consider it. As long as these weapons were distributed with instructions and airdropped, those people could defend themselves, greatly reducing the empire’s pressure.
To be honest, having Saints handle such tasks was somewhat beneath their station. It would be far more beneficial for the empire if they could free their hands to deal with the mastermind behind the crisis. Ardashir was also quite covetous of the technology that had caused such trouble for the empire.
“I need to return and discuss this with my father, the emperor.”
After hesitating for a while, Ardashir spoke. Mitia nodded without saying much.
It was normal that the young prince had no authority to decide. The old emperor of the Britian Empire would absolutely agree—unless he wanted to lose vast territories during his reign.
No emperor could tolerate such consequences. So even though Mitia’s asking price was somewhat steep, the other party would definitely grit their teeth and accept it.
Compared to the Britian Empire’s unfortunate situation, Mitia was more curious about the mastermind’s objective.
She had little interest in these zombie-like creatures reminiscent of a biohazard outbreak. Their advantage in numbers meant nothing to the Alliance.
Not to mention that the Alliance had universal firearm ownership—so long as its complete industrial logistics system was not severely damaged, no matter how many of these things crawled out, they would just be cannon fodder. Still, she intended to have Britian send a few over for her to play with.
She felt that these creatures were not entirely useless. If a piece of raw meat were hung in front of them, could they be used as fully automated biological batteries running endlessly?
If that worked, wouldn’t they be the perfect tireless labor force? Just thinking about it felt strangely exciting.
“Little Fu!”
“I’m here!” Funika’s figure appeared before Mitia, immediately throwing herself into her arms.
“I remember you’re from the Demon Race—you can summon a skeleton army, right? I think you should make a trip to Britian and see if you can contain those things. If you can, you’ll strike it rich.”
Funika’s summoning magic required corpses above all else. If these infected counted as corpses, they would be far superior to ordinary mindless skeletons.
Sitting in Mitia’s arms, Funika’s eyes lit up. “That’s right! Why didn’t I think of that? Mimi, you’re too good to me!”
Mitia’s face immediately darkened as she grabbed her cheeks. “Don’t! Call! Me! Mi! Mi! Do you think I’m a cat?!”
“Waaah, don’t be like that…”
Without wasting much time, Funika departed for Britian to verify Mitia’s hypothesis, and also to gather intelligence. If possible, it would be better to keep such a disgusting power under their own control.
Three days later, Ardashir, as the empire’s representative, formally signed a cooperation agreement with the Seris Alliance. Once the floating magic array technical data arrived in Seris along with the Half-God powerhouse, the Alliance would begin mobilizing resources to provide aid.
Floating magic arrays were exactly what Mitia had long desired. She even suspected that this was not simple levitation, but rather a special solution akin to anti-gravity technology.
Whether it was levitation or anti-gravity, it would provide tremendous momentum for the Alliance’s future weapons development.