Truly Rich Enough to Rival a Nation

After taking a moment to adjust.

Sui Bian returned to the bedroom and sat down at the computer desk. Facing the old-fashioned screen, he continued asking the Red and White Queens the questions on his mind.

First, how strong was Umbrella's military?

Second, just how rich was Umbrella?

On the subject of military strength, the Red Queen continued to answer in a completely emotionless voice. She also displayed relevant documents and images on the screen, allowing Sui Bian to get a more direct understanding of Umbrella's current situation.

Umbrella had a total of 2,744 armed personnel, with 77 reservists.

Its main armed forces were divided into three branches, ranked below from least to most elite based on their equipment and level of training:

Umbrella's armed security,

Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (UBCS),

Umbrella Security Service (USS).

The armed security force had 2,544 members. They were usually retired soldiers or former police officers, tasked with protecting Umbrella's assets around the world. They had contracts as full-time employees and were bound by confidentiality agreements.

UBCS had four combat platoons, with a total of 120 members. Most were mercenaries, war criminals, or retired soldiers.

Judging purely by their equipment, pay, and level of training, UBCS outclassed the armed security force in every regard.

In reality, however, UBCS was merely a "disposable product" to Umbrella, used to test Organic Bio-Weapon (B.O.W.) combat data. Nor could UBCS members be considered loyal.

Finally, there were the USS and the reservists.

The USS was the company's most elite private army. Its members were all retired elites from various countries. Even Umbrella's senior employees couldn't access any files related to the USS.

It currently had 80 members, divided into four squads.

The number of reservists varied, and there were currently 77 of them. They trained year-round on Rockfort Island, and whenever the USS suffered casualties, the reservists replaced its dead or wounded members.

Among the files, Sui Bian also found many familiar faces.

Such as Carlos Oliveira, Mikhail Victor, Nikolai Zinoviev, and—who had appeared in Resident Evil 3—

"Hunk."

Sui Bian had a deep impression of Carlos, Victor, and Nikolai. After all, Resident Evil 3 was the second Resident Evil game he'd ever played.

He'd also been delighted when the Resident Evil 3 remake was added to his library, but after he beat it in four hours...

Fuck you, Capcom.

Although the Red Queen had made it clear that UBCS was a disposable "product" to Umbrella, there were plenty of people like Carlos and Victor.

In the various versions of the games, Carlos did his best to rescue civilians and keep his teammates safe. He was also reliable and loyal.

Victor was an excellent platoon leader, even taking on the Pursuer head-on with a self-destruct attack.

In the original story, there was also an unnamed UBCS member who kept protecting the little girl in his arms right up until he died.

Still, there were more people like Nikolai, who only cared about money.

And then there was Hunk.

If the protagonists relied more on luck than skill, Hunk was an absolute badass who relied more on skill than luck.

Hunk first appeared in Resident Evil 2's Fourth Survivor mode. Players had to control Hunk, wearing an "Octopus" mask, as he escaped from the underground laboratory in Raccoon City.

Along the way, he had to face zombies, Zombie Dogs, crows, Lickers, Giant Spiders, plant zombies, G-Adults, and Tyrants.

Sui Bian admitted he wasn't very good at games. As a kid, he'd never managed to beat the original, and even the remake required cheats.

But a game let you retry a level. In real life, you only got one life.

The fact that Hunk could escape successfully even under such brutal conditions was proof of just how formidable the Grim Reaper was.

His teammates and subordinates, on the other hand, tended to have a rough time. When faced with missions they were unlikely to survive, Hunk was usually the only one who made it out alive.

Afterward.

As Sui Bian browsed the files and images, he also judged from the UBCS and USS uniforms that this world leaned not only toward the games, but specifically toward the remakes.

Looks like there's no Wolfpack, Sui Bian thought.

The four USS squads had the codenames Alpha, Omicron, Epsilon, and Zeta.

Each squad specialized in a different field.

Alpha: Recovering important company assets or secretly seizing important assets from rival companies.

Omicron: Assassinating senior members of rival companies or government officials who obstructed Umbrella's development.

Epsilon: Rescuing board members who had been taken hostage or kidnapped.

Zeta: Providing support to the other three squads.

Umbrella spent as much as 430 million dollars a year on its private army.

Four hundred million in 1998...

And the USS took up the lion's share of the budget. It had all the top-tier individual weapons and equipment imaginable, along with every kind of land, sea, and air vehicle.

When operating in regions such as Africa and the Middle East, the USS even had permission to call in gunships and airstrikes.

Well...

No wonder it was Umbrella.

Next came the question of "just how rich" it was.

A vulgar question, perhaps, but it was something Sui Bian had wanted to figure out even before he'd crossed over.

The White Queen, who was responsible for explaining this, likewise uploaded files and documents to the computer and gave a verbal explanation to answer Sui Bian's questions.

Her voice was as cold as the Red Queen's, almost entirely devoid of emotion, and her responses were just as stiff.

Thanks to the White Queen, he finally understood the scale Umbrella had reached.

Truly rich enough to rival a nation.

Umbrella's publicly known businesses included the production and sale of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, industrial machinery, digital products, health supplements, transportation, tourism, entertainment, and film.

In this world, Umbrella was the first company to reach a market capitalization of over 600 billion dollars. Its current market value stood at 650 billion.

The documents also mentioned that the United States' gross domestic product in 1997 was 8 trillion dollars, accounting for 27.26% of the world's total.

Although a company's market capitalization and a nation's gross domestic product were completely different things, this still showed that, in the eyes of the public, Umbrella was a "behemoth" with both strength and a good reputation.

In private, Umbrella also had mines and oil fields in Africa and the Middle East, where it extracted and sold resources.

The colonialism and plunder that had prevailed in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries had put vast amounts of wealth and resources into the hands of European nobles and families.

Of Umbrella's three founders, Spencer and Alexander Ashford were European nobles. Those two had supplied the funds to establish the company, while Marcus, who held a doctorate in biology, had contributed his expertise.

In truth, Umbrella was a microcosm of Western nations: it made obscene profits by seizing and monopolizing resources, all while dressing it up as a way to make the world more "free."

Free my ass.

Setting aside the industries mentioned above, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Umbrella bought up large quantities of weapons and equipment at rock-bottom prices, sold them to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and even recruited quite a few Soviet weapons experts along the way.

Energy.

Pharmaceuticals.

Arms.

Umbrella was an absolute giant in all three fields. No wonder it was being targeted.

"An overgrown tree invites the wind to shake it; a man famed for his name meets his ruin because of it."

As for its research institutes, facilities, and military bases...

There were way too damn many of them. Sui Bian had the White Queen create a new document listing the important assets that required major investments in manpower and resources.

-

① Paris Underground Laboratory.

Location: Beneath Umbrella's Paris Headquarters building in France.

② Sixth Research Institute.

Location: Beneath the company's branch office building in Ireland.

③ Africa Laboratory.

Location: Beside the ruins of the Ndipaya Tribe, north of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso in West Africa.

④ Rockfort Island.

Location: In the Indian Ocean, north of the St. Luke Islands.

Exact coordinates: 10°43'S, 165°55'E.

⑤ Antarctic Laboratory.

Exact coordinates: 74°41'S, 164°16'E.