Rust - Chapter 967



Only Krnovel

Rust [RUST] – Episode 967

Kim Yang’s expression on the monitor looked determined.

[So the only possible way right now is to become a soldier.]

“So you’re saying we should make all citizens soldiers?”

Mr. Kim strongly advocated for a universal conscription system.

[Yeah. Otherwise there is no answer.]

“······.”

First of all, the idea of ​​a national conscription system was easy.

From the perspective that all citizens have a military service obligation, soldiers are conscripted, the conscripted soldiers are trained as soldiers, and then deployed to national defense.

The idea was to periodically replace the existing military with additional recruits and maintain the discharged soldiers as a reserve force, and to call up the reserve force whenever a war situation occurs to maintain full-time strength.

However, looking at modern and contemporary history, there have not been many normal cases of enforcing a national conscription system targeting the entire population.

An extreme example would be a country that conscripted its troops under a national conscription system and then diverted supplies, resulting in casualties in the tens of thousands.

For various reasons, the Holy Kingdom also used voluntary military service rather than conscription, and used a method of linking citizenship to military service to recruit.

To have the right to vote?

Go to the army.

Are you old?

There are things that don’t require much effort when you go into the military.

Do you want to live in a floating city?

Go to the army.

Because I have a family to support.

The Holy Kingdom’s army is given enough to eat and live.

In fact, if you look closely, the number of troops that the Holy Kingdom operates was not small compared to the population. In addition to the soldiers who transferred to the Holy Kingdom from the US Forces in Korea and Japan, the soldiers who immigrated from Korea, the soldiers who received Korean-style bio-surgery, and the soldiers additionally recruited by the Holy Kingdom, the number easily exceeded 400,000.

If you include the existing National Guard and reserve forces, the number exceeds 500,000. If you include military personnel and those involved in military production and supply, the military has grown to a size that easily approaches 600,000 to 700,000.

Considering that the population of the Holy Kingdom is only about 5 million, it is almost crazy. However, Kim Yang was insisting that a national conscription system was necessary.

Maru also knew the reason, but asked again.

“Is military the only option?”

Is that the best?

[There are many buildings in the city where people can move in and live, but the living infrastructure is not there. We need to rebuild the living infrastructure from scratch, and there is no way to do it other than providing free necessities and living expenses while the infrastructure is being rebuilt.]

Ms. Kim thought that although she didn’t know about necessities, she didn’t think that living expenses support was a good idea.

Aren’t humans supposed to be creatures who work?

Although she liked to play and eat in the corner of the room, Kim Yang worked in the Golden Triangle Jungle, getting covered in shit water, as the company told her to do, to get that short break.

Didn’t you end up here after working so hard?

But you’re saying that you can live without working and get paid for free just because you’re a refugee?

Not even necessities, but living expenses?

You’re just going to take the money?

How do you see that?

The problem was that even if you wanted to manipulate people, there was no way.

Even if they wanted to send him to the mines, the ants and rats would do better than the miners.

It’s the same if you try to make them do construction work. The ants and rats did a better job.

The simpler the task, the less technical it was, and the more efficient the ants and rats were.

Just looking at the bears moving the load, the ants were much better. When the ants, who can move 100 to 300 times their own body weight, line up and move the load, it’s over in an instant.

Even the cost-effectiveness was amazing. Ants were satisfied with just meat balls. So there was really no place to use a full human. I hated giving money to just play around and eat even more.

What happens then?

The military was the best.

Whether it’s moving a mountain from one side to the other, digging a ditch and then burying it and having someone dig a new one, all can be done with just one word: soldier.

He shook his head when he saw Ms. Kim Ki-sun.

[I understand your intention, but… this is North America. It’s a Western cultural sphere.]

The country was not on the verge of ruin, but if you just drafted soldiers and made them dig holes, you were just starting to mess with them.

Hood, who had been keeping his mouth shut, looked at Kim Yang with a half-smiling face.

[Does the national conscription system mean that all citizens will become soldiers?]

[Can’t you understand what I’m saying?]

Ms. Kim reacted sensitively, perhaps thinking that Hood was trying to tease her.

[You’re not saying that women, children, and the elderly will also be included, are you?]

[I know from experience. It was awesome when women, children, and old people were carrying guns and bombs.]

Aren’t women, children, and the elderly citizens in the first place?

And even if they are children too young to hold a gun, why not women and old people?

Half of Hood’s face on the monitor changed into an expression that said, ‘What kind of a bitch is this?’ It was the same for Kim Yang, who was looking at Hood.

[The problem is not the national conscription system itself. It’s the economy. Right? Because they thought of military service as a way to solve economic problems.]

Ki-sun, who saw the two women’s expressions, changed the subject.

[How about rebuilding Detroit and Windsor with people at the center, even if it’s inefficient?]

Detroit and Windsor are completely destroyed. If we rebuild the cities in their place and revive the businesses that the refugees used to live in, wouldn’t there be less conflict?

[Does that mean we shouldn’t intentionally use ants and rats in AI robots?]

[It can’t be helped if we want to turn the economy around. Isn’t it true that artificial intelligence robots, ants, and rats are taking away too many people’s jobs?]

This time, Hood and Ki-soon got together. And then, Kim Yang got in between.

[Whose economy is that? Whose jobs are those? Even now, there are many homes that bring in robots to heat up and package things brought from factories. Is eating them raw an economy, a job, a business?]

They say that it’s stupid not to automatically turn over stores? They say that it’s stupid not to be able to tank distribution?

As Kim Yang got involved, Ki-sun started to cry.

[It is true that the proportion of self-employed and distributors in the Holy Kingdom is quite high. Detroit and Windsor were even more so.]

Originally, Detroit was a bankrupt city. Once a bankrupt city, it began to revive when small shops began to open.

The commerce that had been going well was shaken when several incidents, including the mutant monster incident, occurred and the Holy Kingdom was established.

Trade with the Empire continued, but it was mainly about military supplies and food. In fact, most of the trade was government-led, so it was difficult for existing Detroit businesses to survive.

[As we all know, Detroit’s economy was in ruins again, and the way to revive it was to grab it by the scruff of the neck and force it back into existence.]

Construction continued to survive in a world heading toward the end of the world. Smart farms that can withstand extreme heat and cold, smart factories capable of producing a variety of small quantities.

The facility that was in the Vladikavkaz Tower was built in and around downtown Detroit, not only to make a living, but also to get the economy going.

Building a defensive wall around Detroit. Rebuilding the defense system and infrastructure by district. Manpower was put into the construction.

But once we built that automated system and created that defense system, we no longer needed manpower.

The positions that were once filled by humans were replaced by artificial intelligence robots, ants, and rats, and people’s lives were made up of emergency relief supplies and living allowances that the Holy Kingdom had started providing when it was first established.

[Even though there were many self-employed people and distributors, they were able to make a living because of the initial support policy.]

Kim Yang immediately responded to Gi-sun’s story that Detroit and Windsor would have remained the same if they had not been destroyed by the great earthquake, but that is not the case anymore.

[That’s why I said, we should send all the manpower to the military. Or should we give subsidies to all the distributors who are not even distributing right now and the self-employed who are just sucking their fingers at home to make a living? That’s not right.]

The military was a perfect consumer group, and it was the only organization that could be a consumer group. And no matter how much I looked at the reports of the assistant AI, in Kim Yang’s eyes, there was no other alternative than the military.

[Unless we reduce the number of people, the economic problems are inevitable.]

Miss Kim, who had been yelling, rolled her eyes at the sudden silence.

‘Why is the atmosphere so quiet all of a sudden?’

Breaking the silence, Maru made his decision.

“We can’t just turn everyone over to the military. The moment we enact a national conscription system, we have to give everyone the right to vote. That’s a problem, but giving everyone the right to live in a floating city is also a problem.”

Maru is not messing with politics and there are no major problems right now. However, if all citizens have the right to vote through a national conscription system, it would be a different story.

“From the declaration of non-intervention, to the refugee dispersion policy, to the issue of settling in floating cities, to even asking crows and wolves to elect representatives, there are more than enough to criticize from a political standpoint.”

It was clear that there would be forces that wanted to hold an election right away, aiming for that. There could be forces that wanted to move toward a full constitutional monarchy, or there could be forces that wanted to decide the future of the Holy Kingdom through direct democracy.

Hood nodded.

[How about direct democracy?]

What if we don’t elect people like members of the National Assembly? Technically, it is possible to have a direct democracy where all citizens vote on the relevant agenda, so the idea was to introduce a direct democracy system.

It was a sacred kingdom founded by the power of Maru, but now that they have moved their base to the floating city, their defense is almost certain.

Even if there was no king who was not human, there was no reason not to use the right to vote that was in one’s hand if safety was guaranteed. This was a natural consequence, since humans are political and social beings.

[If direct democracy is implemented, the king will not be touched immediately, but he will definitely try to transfer power.]

[Isn’t that necessarily a bad thing?]

Hood objected to Ki-sun’s opinion.

[Not bad. Just look at the Empire.]

[Because the empire is an indirect democracy. If it were a direct democracy, such problems would not arise.]

Ki-soon opens his eyes narrowly at Hood’s answer.

[If vampires were to give everyone free ampoules that would make them like them, would the citizens of the Holy Kingdom, which has started direct democracy, oppose it? Or would they support it?]

What if I gave you a free ampoule that would turn you into a vampire by just drinking a little bit of blood? Not only would it automatically diet, but it would also make you a vampire who would be as aesthetically pleasing as possible, making you look more attractive.

Even if you don’t age well and you hardly ever get sick, what if you decide to become a vampire who gets stronger by drinking a lot of blood?

Are you human? Are you a vampire? What if you decide by direct vote? And you can’t even guarantee that, so you vote directly?

Even in direct democracy, it was not easy to control human desires.

[···If you deny human reason and direct democracy in that way, where can you find the value of human existence?]

[Honestly, it’s too late for humans to find value in existence. Come to think of it, weren’t humans the ones who tried really hard to reduce humans?]

It’s a contradiction to think about the value of a human being when he’s a clone. But this is what Ki-sun himself was doing.

‘Ha- I just dug around.’

In that sense, even if there was a limit to viewing humans as a production device for faith, it was Ki-sun who tried to protect human values.

[What does that mean?]

[What are you talking about? You’re saying I was lacking. So what did you find out by hacking? Why did that happen? Didn’t you end up digging up things that the government and companies hid?]

Maru interrupted the story, noticing that Ki-sun’s reactions had changed somewhat since her psychic and emotional abilities had been mixed.

“Stop. Even if we could technically implement direct democracy right now, I have no intention of doing it. There is no need to buy it and create problems at a time when we should be focusing all our energy on preparing for the future.”

The decision was made by King Maru of the Holy Kingdom, so that was the end of the matter of direct democracy. All that remained was the economic part.

“Diana. What’s the situation with the Northern Ant Empire territory and the mutant monsters?”

[The Northern Ant Empire appears to have stopped expanding and turned to agriculture and herding.]

[It has been confirmed that only the monsters currently in the northern region that have survived are those that have either been clustered or have grown large.]

Most herbivores have grown larger and formed herds. Accordingly, carnivores have also become powerful enough to hunt in herds or, if they are not in a herd, to hunt alone.

In the first place, any mutant animal that can survive in a place where there is an ant empire is a physical bully in itself.

“The hunting license for mutant monsters is being released to the public.”

[yes?]

[That would certainly be a way.]

[Oh- good idea.]

Currently, the byproducts of mutant monsters are being used in various materials such as armor and bullets.

[The supply of materials may become smoother.]

There, the meat of large monsters was a ‘special food’ in many ways and was effective. The military was in charge of hunting monsters, but there was talk of opening it up to the public.

“Reviving the economy through monster hunting.”

As you continue to fight monsters, more and more people will awaken, and as the production of special bullets and armor from monster byproducts increases, they will become specialty products in trade, which will help the economy turn around.

It was the beginning of the hunter economy.