Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

“Ken, bring the newest version of the blueprint. The Lord is coming to inspect.”

“Which version?”

“The new one!”

“I know it’s the new one—but is it New Version 1.0, New Version 1.1, Latest Version, Newest Version, or the ‘Absolutely Final No-More-Changes’ version?”

“Ah?”

Ken lifted his head from the filing cabinet, utterly helpless. “These were all drawn last night by Lord Tata while working overtime. They’re all the new version.”

The room plunged into chaos once more.

This was the design institute affiliated with the Castel Shipyard.

Ordinarily, design institutes were not located within manufacturing plants. However, the Castel Shipyard had no established shipbuilding system; nearly everything was in the exploratory stage. So Tata simply placed the design office directly inside the factory.

Once engineers produced a blueprint, they could open the door, walk three minutes to the left, and enter the workshop to test production. Problems could be analyzed on the spot.

It had to be said—this was extremely efficient. Ship designs were iterating at incredible speed.

As soon as Ken returned to Castel, Tata had claimed him.

Ken had received advanced training, had gone to sea several times aboard the Black Pearl, and possessed rich sailing experience. On top of that, Jeremiah had passed on all his knowledge without reserve, giving Ken a strong grasp of hydrology and other fields.

Back then, Hughes had sent out this group precisely to accumulate shipbuilding experience. Now was the time to reap the rewards.

Ken had not disappointed. His mechanical knowledge was solid, but more critically, he had abundant firsthand sailing experience—something Tata, a land-born designer, sorely lacked.

When the shipyard was first established, Hughes had no one else available and had to pull Tata from his original post. He had been a researcher of the Moths Chasing Fire, had designed a substantial portion of the main cathedral, and was also the lead designer of the Stellar Furnace.

Though Tata was well-versed in mechanical principles and architectural design, crossing into a new discipline was no small feat. He lacked any real shipbuilding experience. Moreover, the Castel Shipyard had been created from nothing, with barely any experience in designing sailing warships.

Gem Bay had plenty of shipyards, but their skilled workers had all gone down with the Pirate King beneath the sea. Only a few incomprehensible blueprints remained.

The shipbuilding field already had a high threshold. Starting from scratch resulted in—

A string of wrecked ships at the Northern Testing Grounds of Castel. The scrap steel alone could be piled into a Lighthouse.

Fortunately, steel was not too costly to recycle. As long as they gathered enough, it could be melted down and reused.

Therefore, Hughes hadn’t imposed many restrictions.

But with little in the way of results, both Tata and the shipyard were under tremendous pressure. Upon hearing the Lord would be inspecting the site, Tata had dragged Ken into a long night of overtime drawing.

So when Hughes stepped into the design institute and saw blueprint bags stacked nearly to the ceiling, he was momentarily stunned.

“My Lord, this is our latest battleship design. Please take a look. If there’s no issue, we’ll proceed to production.”

Ken, slightly nervous, handed over the blueprint.

A single ship’s designs included thousands of sheets, enough to bury two people alive. What he handed over was just an exterior rendering and a simple cross-section.

“Where’s Tata?”

“He’s over at the shipyard overseeing the process. This ship’s basic construction is already complete—could be ready for launch within a week.”

For the expedition to the Northlands, newly built ships would be too late. They had to use those constructed previously.

Due to how fast the designs were being iterated, even the freshly built ships were already outdated. But there was no other choice. Without building, there was no experience. The necessary pitfalls had to be faced.

Even though ships were sinking every day to the north of Castel, Hughes bore the pressure and refrained from assigning blame, encouraging them to forge ahead boldly.

Hughes studied the blueprint for a long time, realizing he understood nearly nothing.

If it were a drawing of an engine, he might have been able to make sense of it. But the hull? Watertight compartments? He had no background in this area at all.

The phrase “every field has its own mountain” wasn’t just talk—he was utterly clueless when it came to shipbuilding. All he could say was that the ship looked chunky and was clearly massive.

“Ahem, this ship is designed to serve as the main battleship. It has thick armor plating capable of withstanding concentrated explosive charges. There’s a ram installed at the bow, explosive-package launchers on both sides, and a takeoff-and-landing platform on the upper deck—”

“Hold on—hold on just a moment!”

Hughes rubbed his temples. What was all this nonsense?

“Let’s start with the ram—what is that supposed to be?”

Ken scratched his head. “That was Nini’s idea. We referenced some of her naval combat experience. Apparently, firearms aren’t very effective at sea, so we—”

“—So you went with a ram?!” Hughes felt a headache coming on. “What use is Nini’s experience? All her battles were fought underwater. When has she ever fought on a ship?”

“...Fair point.”

“With a ship this wide, can it even turn quickly? If not, how’s the ram supposed to be useful?”

Hughes stared at the ram drawn on the blueprint, utterly speechless.

That said, it did look kind of cool—paired with the ironclad’s massive and imposing form, the visual intimidation was intense.

Maybe... maybe they should keep it?

“Ahem, but I’m no naval warfare expert. You all can decide on that yourselves. What’s that catapult-looking thing?”

“That’s not a catapult—it’s an explosive-package launcher.”

Hughes looked down at the several energy-storing structures in the blueprint. The device resembled a cross between a ballista and a catapult—used purely for throwing explosive charges?

It had a sort of beauty—like crafting an arrowhead out of a microchip.

“How’s the cannon research coming along?”

“That’s being handled by Mr. Richard. I heard there’s been some breakthroughs, though miniaturization remains a challenge.”

“No need to miniaturize. You’re mounting them on ships—bigger is fine. A larger caliber isn’t a bad thing.” Hughes smacked his lips, and then a thought struck him:

“Besides, who says we have to miniaturize cannons?”

“Huh?”

“We could just scale up firearms—make the caliber and bullets larger together. Since there’s not much logistical burden aboard ships, we could upgrade the Gatling gun into a Gatling cannon. Fix it in place, and recoil wouldn’t be a problem either.”

Such cannons wouldn’t threaten ships much, but they could effectively kill personnel or provide suppressive fire.

In theory, they were more suited for anti-air use—but currently, aside from Castel, there wasn’t any other air force. So they had no real use—yet.

“Alright, we’ll talk about this later. I’ll get in touch with the military factory.”

Hughes pointed at the massive platform on the blueprint.

“This is... a flight deck?”

“Exactly!” Ken quickly nodded.

“And what’s flying? Have you built airplanes now?”

“What’s an airplane? This is for docking airships.”

“...”

“You’re telling me this is an aircraft carrier equipped with a ram, explosive-package launchers, and Gatling cannons?”