Even for modern capitalists, creating humans requires significant resources. Because creating humans costs money! Even with the world's most advanced bio-magic technology, the Smoke Mirror Corporation still incurs considerable costs. While such androids may not be comparable to the Protoss Coordinators, they would still possess some similarities to enhanced humans.
Everyone is an enhanced human (even if they are just mass-produced enhanced humans from an assembly line), and you can imagine how huge the cost is.
If it were the Mitra Corporation doing something like this, Hayden might find it somewhat convincing. However, Smoke Mirror Company… it's the weakest of the four giant corporations. Even if they could truly create the entire biosphere of the continent by hand, it would be no easy feat.
The manager of Kuralo actually said that all living things in South America are produced by the company. Is this...is this really not just bragging?
"It seems uneconomical to completely eliminate the possibility of natural reproduction, doesn't it?"
Therefore, Fudi Mo couldn't help but ask. This was both his question and a small test.
From the perspective of the smoke mirror company, it would be better to let people spend their own money to have children than to have everyone spend the company's money to manufacture them in the factory. This would increase consumption and allow the company to make more money.
However, after hearing Voldemort's question, Director Kuralo shook his head and explained to him, "This is not a matter of profit, Mr. Voldemort. Other creatures are one thing, but ordinary humans in South America really can't have children. Apart from outsiders, the vast majority of South America's population is manufactured by our biological factories. And this isn't a new thing; it's been like this for a long time."
……ah?
Can't give birth?
A long time ago?
These words suddenly sent a chill down Hayden's spine.
"Moreover, these products are not for humans to be slaves; they are also consumers. We will rapidly mature them in the factory and then send them to receive basic civic education and training. On average, they can be completed and released into society after two to three years. These people certainly have full human rights, so they must find their own way to survive, find their own way to work, and also spend money. Therefore, the company can still recover these costs."
Supervisor Kuralo decided to end the topic here. After all, she still needed to guide Voldemort into his work. Voldemort wasn't there to tour the factory; he was there to work. Soon, Voldemort was taken to other parts of the factory to learn what he would be doing—after all, he wasn't [Chizimiti], and creating people from clay wasn't his job. Kuralo still had a lot to teach him.
And so, Voodoo began his miserable life working in the factory.
Fortunately, Hayden has another clone, and this clone happens to be available right now.
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Two flowers bloom, one branch each.
Meanwhile, Hayden's beast clone, Fenrir, had just finished transporting the Minotaur for Gustav's mercenary team the night before. The others were still recovering from their injuries and adjusting their condition. Besides, no mercenary would do two different jobs two days in a row unless they were tired of living.
So Fenrir and the female ninja, Momiji, are currently busy tidying up the apartment suite they just rented yesterday. After all, they'll be staying here for at least a month. Hayden doesn't seem to care much about it; he's used to being a mercenary and can live anywhere.
Momiji, as a ninja, should ideally follow the same principle, but she's rather inflexible. Having her lord by her side always makes her somewhat apprehensive when doing things, for example:
"Sir, there is only one bed in this apartment room, so I will be sleeping on the ceiling from now on."
Hayden was speechless: "This isn't the Warring States period. Why do ninjas have to sleep on the ceiling? They could just buy a folding bed."
Hongye disagreed even more: "Master, your power is growing stronger. There must be a hierarchy between superiors and inferiors, otherwise a king cannot achieve anything."
What the hell is this fox warrior thinking? Hayden doesn't even know when he's supposed to be a king. If we're talking about kings, Karen is clearly the more "Earth Emperor" in his team, right? What does it have to do with Hayden?
"Subordinates should not talk back to their superiors."
So Hayden thought for a moment, and then simply said fiercely.
“We’re currently conducting an undercover investigation undercover. If you keep making excuses and causing trouble, we’ll end up sleeping in the same bed.”
He was just joking when he said that, mainly to provoke Hongye and make the silly fox behave himself at work.
Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, Hongye immediately shook her head frantically in fright: "Master! I am not responsible for serving you in bed!"
She was so frightened that she forgot to say "this humble one," which shows just how terrified Hongye was.
Hayden certainly had no intention of having a female ninja serve him in bed—he was already married to Kallen and about to become a father, not someone who wanted to build a harem. However, Momiji's current terrified state only made Hayden feel more awkward.
Damn it! Usually, in this kind of situation, the woman would at least flirt a little or blush, not turn pale with fright! This is turning into a case of a boss sexually harassing a subordinate! Don't overreact!
With that in mind, Hayden dared not dwell on these trivial matters of living together with Hongye any longer. If she wanted to sleep on the ceiling, then so be it.
After all, Hayden has things to do now.
Last night, after he (Fenrir) rescued Gustav and his group, Dolly, the little sorceress in Gustav's party, asked him a question: "Fenrir, Jade, you are both spirits, and you're from the same place, right? So what's your relationship? Are you really husband and wife?"
At that time, Hayden (Fenrir) answered that they were siblings. Dolly then exclaimed enviously, "Wow, that's what siblings are like! I want brothers and sisters too!"
Hayden didn't find it too strange yesterday, after all, many people in daily life want siblings. But now that he's seen the bio-factory with his Voodoo clone, and thinking about it more carefully, it's starting to make sense—these people have never even seen what siblings are?
Of course, they had never seen them. Because they were all standardized people mass-produced in the biological factory, truly atomized "individual people," "economic people" transformed to adapt to the productivity development of the Smoke Mirror Company.
But then again, it seems strange. We're all manufactured in factories, that's fine. But why don't these products just spontaneously reproduce?
The head of Kuralo said they "couldn't have children."
So when Hayden thought of this, he couldn't help but start to suspect that the Smoke Mirror Company might have deliberately designed all the people they produced to be "infertile".
Technically, this is absolutely easy to do. However, it's not cost-effective for companies. Giving birth to people is one thing, manufacturing people in factories is another. These two methods of population growth should ideally be able to coexist.
If it were about controlling the population, that would make sense, but Hayden couldn't think of any reason why Smoke Mirror Company would need to control the population; it was more like the other way around. The more labor force a company had, the more money it could make... and Hayden didn't have much knowledge of economics; his understanding of economics was roughly like that.
Hayden is now confused as to why Smoke Mirrors is acting this way, and he's not even sure if they're exaggerating.
So what should we do?
The answer is actually very simple.
Fenrir paused for a moment, then took out his phone.
Don't know what to do? Then go ask! He came to South America to conduct research, and there are relevant people around him he can ask. Why worry alone?
So Fenrir Hayden made a direct call to Gustav and Dolly, using conference call mode: "I'd like to ask about some things going forward. Are you two available now?"
Gustav's reply was straightforward: "Yes. The other two are still in the hospital. I plan to consider my next work assignment in a week. I need to replenish the biomass we used last time. What's up?"
Dolly, on the other hand, seemed a bit hesitant: "I'm so busy; I have to watch cat videos the day after work..."
What kind of mercenary is this, scrolling through short videos after get off work?
So Fenrir ignored her dawdling and continued, "Xiaoyu and I are considering living in South America long-term, so we'd like to learn more about life here."
He certainly wouldn't directly ask, "Can you have children?" That would be too stupid. Hayden isn't that stupid.
But he could ask: "I've been in South America for several days now, and today, when we talked about settling down, I suddenly realized something strange and thought I could ask you guys—why haven't I seen any children in South America these past few days?"
That's the truth. In the two days Hayden has been in South America, neither his two clones nor his original self have seen a real "child." Although he has seen some "teenagers and girls," their biological ages are all no less than fifteen years old.
Fifteen years old is still considered a child by normal societal standards. But for the Smoke Mirror Company, a half-grown child who has been accelerated to fifteen is clearly ready to be shipped out.
Hayden should be able to find out the truth about the population situation in South America by listening to Gustave and Dolly.
...That being said, Hayden did not anticipate Gustav's next reply.
【child?】
Gustav was stunned for a moment before he realized what was happening.
"Oh, you mean those kinds of things in North America? We don't have them here. Unless they're born to immigrants, there are almost no 'little children' in South America. And the proportion of immigrants is just too small."
As he said this, he shrugged.
I've heard that foreigners can use the genes of men and women to create offspring, which is indeed an impressive skill. However, here, creating life always involves a company.
Dolly chimed in, "Pregnancy and raising a child must be really troublesome, right? If Fenrir and Jade want to create new life, I can recommend a good factory model! You can just go to the factory and buy one!"
噫
This conversation was so outrageous that Hayden suddenly felt completely drained—it was clearly no longer just a question of "whether or not one can have children." In just a few words, Hayden realized that their thought processes were probably completely different.
A chill ran down his spine, and he quickly followed up, "But you two should also be married, right?"
Since Dolly used the word "husband and wife" last night, she obviously knows at least the concept.
Marriage?
Gustav scratched his chin and chuckled.
Yes, that's true. It's an adult matter... and many young people aspire to it too.
Dolly nodded in the video call, her eyes sparkling.
But Hayden couldn't ignore their choice of words: "Adults? Aren't you adults?"
Of course not.
Gustav smiled wryly.
【You saying we don't have children here isn't entirely accurate. Rather, it's more accurate to say that we South Americans, before undergoing the transformation of death and having the opportunity to become immortal beings, are essentially "minors."】
Therefore, they certainly do not reproduce as living beings.
Because in this country, people only truly become adults after they die.
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Author's Note:
The creation myths mentioned in this chapter are mostly based on fact. However, in the Mayan/Aztec creation myths, the third creation of humans after two failed attempts was not done with blood and mud, but with cornmeal and mud.
However, the myth of creating humans from the blood and clay of a god after killing him does exist; this is actually from ancient Babylonian mythology. For details, please refer to the Epic of Atlahasis.
As for why they're all mixed up here, that's another story, meow!
316: I have unique baby-making skills
After ending the call and putting down his phone, Fenrir rubbed his temples and sighed.
What Gustav and Dolly had just told him was still sending chills down Hayden's spine.
The statement by Kuralo, the head of the bio-factory, that ordinary people "can't have children" is not entirely accurate. A more precise statement would be that ordinary people "wouldn't want to have children"—and this is not at the level of "not being able to afford to have children," it's a completely different matter.
Hayden didn't even know how to describe the concept in words. Language simply couldn't capture the "holy crap" feeling he was experiencing. In particular, he couldn't describe just how absurd the situation was.
Voldemort was working in the bio-factory, where he could openly peek at the data of the product humans. After reviewing it, he quickly discovered an even more shocking fact: the product humans produced by Smoke Mirror Corporation actually possessed sexual desire and reproductive capabilities—in other words, they were not chemically castrated beings, inherently incapable of reproduction, and reliant on the company for human creation.
In fact, quite the opposite, the Smoke Mirror Company deliberately enhanced the reproductive capabilities of its standard product, the human.
Of course, this enhanced reproductive ability can't compare to Angela's blessing, nor can it reach the absurd level of ignoring even contraceptive magic. However, at the same time, these beings are designed to be highly fertile. Simply put, sexual intercourse between these beings without contraception will almost certainly result in pregnancy.
Clearly, SmokeGlass Company invested heavily in genetic design, hoping these artificial humans would reproduce. However, this effort was unsuccessful. The artificially conceived people in South America simply didn't want to have children. And this wasn't a normal issue like "I can't afford to have your mother," which leads to a declining birth rate; rather, they simply didn't have that concept at all.
Because the common people of South America no longer consider themselves adults while still alive. In their view, only the upper class, classified as advanced undead beings belonging to the divine race, can be considered "adults" in this society. The living are merely children in their adolescence, immature lives.
A group of children who are still seeking growth are unlikely to become parents on their own initiative.
Smoke Mirror Company probably doesn't want the social culture to become like this, otherwise they wouldn't have needed to specifically enhance the fertility of their product-producing beings. Unfortunately, even mega-corporations can't completely control people's minds. Over the centuries, the mentality of the people of South America has become firmly entrenched on this issue, unshakable even by the gods of capital—ultimately, even the company had to give up on allowing living people to have children.
In South America, only the undead exist, and only the upper classes who have undergone death and transformation feel the need to reproduce. However, everyone knows that the undead cannot give birth to living people. Their reproduction is essentially a form of "contagion" through the transformation of living people. Vampires cannot give birth to living people; they can only transform existing living people into their vampire offspring.
After a while, the final result was that the Smoke Mirror Company had no choice but to mass-produce living people to solve the population problem.
High costs? There's no way around it. Population is the foundation of society. All economic, production, strategic, and technological development is inseparable from population. You could say that talent is the most valuable asset. Without creating our own people, the entire South America and the Smoke Mirror Company would have been finished long ago.
So the Smoke Mirror Corporation mass-produces androids not because they are particularly powerful, but because they have no other choice. They can only use this crude method of throwing bricks with great force to solve the population problem.
Taking advantage of the lunch break, Hayden used the Voodoo Doll to try and get information from Supervisor Kuraro (the gods have better working conditions than mortals, and they also have some rest time during work hours). He asked her, "Supervisor, since mortals don't want to have children, why not just force them to?"
With the immense power of a super corporation, it's always possible to force mortals to have children.
However, upon hearing Voldemort's question, Director Kuralo raised an eyebrow: "Why are you so concerned about the reproductive issues of mortals?"
"It's basically out of curiosity," Voldemort lied without batting an eye. "I'm also an undead god, and the mortals in Europe aren't very keen on having children either. The declining birth rate among mortals is a common problem all over the world. I'm also thinking about how to solve it."
Fortunately, the skeleton manager had a good personality. Although Fudimo's words were a bit strange, she shook her head and took them as truth: "The company tried such a foolish thing as forced reproduction once two hundred years ago. The result wasn't very good."
Can the gods force mortals to have children?
Of course. More than two hundred years ago, a genius at the Smoke Mirror Company tried this kind of large-scale social experiment in his own territory.
"At that time, the birth rate of mortals was not zero, but it was terribly low. The company was already trying to solve the problem of insufficient population by using bio-factories. So at that time, there was a great god, Lord Shochipili, who stipulated that when bio-factories were making human products, they should first pair them up as a man and a woman to form a family."
"Let's just chat during a break," Manager Kuralo rambled on.
“Each paired family must have at least four children. Abortion, contraception, and divorce are prohibited. Those who have abortions and those who assist in them are severely punished by the company. Moreover, the company’s fertility monitoring team roams around that area (about the size of a small country) all day to monitor... As a result of all this, the birth rate in that area has indeed increased significantly.”
Upon hearing this, Voodoo scratched his bald head: "This sounds like it's effective for population growth?"
“It’s effective, but the cost and benefits are too poor.” Director Kuralo waved her hand. “First of all, such strict management costs money and manpower. There is already a shortage of labor, and then creating a large number of birth control teams wastes even more resources.”
"Secondly, the birth rate is too slow. It takes at least a dozen years for a person to grow from birth to working age. The competition for divine power within our company is very fierce. A great god may be a great god today, but tomorrow he may be defeated in internal competition and political struggles and become a lesser god or even die. They can't wait for a generation to be born and grow up slowly. In fact, the great god Shochipiri's ten years of forced reproduction has not brought any real benefits, but has instead affected the company's economic benefits."
"After all, such a birth control plan would naturally cause people a lot of pain. Forced births led to a huge neonatal mortality rate. Many people tried to escape the territory of the great god Shochipiri, but were killed by the inspection team. Although mortals could not rebel against the gods, they still had the ability to cause trouble. As a result, the economic situation in the territory became worse and worse, and in the end, that great god was impeached at the board meeting and later killed and eaten by the god of smoke mirror."
噫
However, Hayden did understand.
The internal competition within the Smoke Mirror Company is too fierce. As a pantheon, the Aztec gods have ruled this place for thousands of years. But within the pantheon, the gods are constantly fighting and dying, constantly being replaced—far more brutal than in other pantheons. They can't afford a population plan that requires decades or even centuries of farming to yield any returns.
So now Hayden understands that the Smoke Mirror Company didn't actually want to run this kind of factory to produce people; they were extremely unwilling, driven by desperation. In fact, they secretly hoped that people would keep having babies, ideally like rabbits giving birth to offspring.