Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

“You thought I intended to recruit them into the Expeditionary Army under the identity of the Holy Guard? Not at all, I planned to recruit them as workers.”

This somewhat caught Alexei by surprise. “But weren’t they preparing to go for revenge?”

“Revenge is revenge, war is war. Laying down rail tracks is also revenge for Nora.” Hughes’ tone shifted. “Besides, I believe that when training a new soldier, the very first step should be to let him become a worker.”

Alexei thought for a moment, then asked thoughtfully, “Holy Text?”

“Yes. The compilation of the Holy Guard’s Holy Text was also based on this idea. The Holy Texts carried by the Holy Guard were not written aimlessly. Those fundamental pieces of industrial knowledge are the cornerstone of stable cognition.”

Do mortals need stable cognition?

Hughes had not been overly concerned before. After all, since the soap incident, Castel had not experienced another descent of pollution.

On the one hand, it was due to careful precautions everywhere. On the other hand, it was because Castel’s level of education had indeed risen quite high.

But what Castel managed to achieve did not mean others could as well.

Just two days ago, news came from Blood Harbor that the new army organized by the Prince had encountered cognitive interference.

Hughes had exported a batch of stockpiled rifled muskets to Blood Harbor. These weapons were only slightly more advanced than the Empire’s muskets—essentially, just with the addition of the Minié ball. In both operation and appearance, they were not much different from muskets.

And then pollution descended.

The cause was a soldier, who, on a whim, stuffed a Minié ball directly into the barrel without sealing it properly—saving a step. After all, it was still shoved into the barrel; as long as it was rammed down with the rod, it would most likely still fire.

It only weakened the seal, wasting some powder, and reduced range and power.

That soldier then shared his discovery with others.

If things had stopped there, it would have just been a case of improper usage, not enough to trigger cognitive interference.

The problem was that several craftsmen who had once dismantled the rifled muskets secretly reached out to the soldiers of the Harbor Guard.

The Prince had gathered craftsmen to study the weapons gifted by Castel, dismantling them on the spot to observe their principles.

But the craftsmen informed the Prince that mass production was impossible, so the Prince dropped the idea of imitation.

But being unable to mass produce did not mean it couldn’t be hand-made.

Muskets were not only used by the military; craftsmen often secretly forged and sold them to others.

Such behavior violated Imperial law, but…

  The Empress was gone, so who cared?

Those who had dismantled the rifled muskets thought they had found a new way to make money. They secretly contacted the new army under the Prince’s training, wanting to obtain shooting procedures in order to reverse-engineer the functions of each component.

Not only did he secretly note down the dimensions of each part, but he also studied their functions—and here lay the problem.

To be fair, this craftsman did have a craftsman’s spirit. After his research, he actually managed to piece together a seemingly reasonable process:

Minié balls served as substitutes for lead balls, pre-manufactured for immediate use.

But since he did not know the Minié ball required cork sealing at the rear, he could not comprehend the true purpose of rifling.

So he went to inquire about the Holy Guard.

The Holy Guard, naturally, were tied to the Church. It was no secret that Castel had a Church of Imperial Truth. After some thought, the craftsman suddenly understood: this was divine blessing!

  The rifling spiraling down the barrel meant that during the bullet’s flight, it was being blessed.

The spiral imparted rotation, meaning the blessing encircled the bullet from all directions without leaving a gap.

This craftsman was cautious. He even asked the Mystics—rumored to have an obscure connection with Castel, cleansed of heresy, and whose doctrine Castel had officially repudiated.

But as everyone knew, the more authorities denied something, the more it meant the denial was hiding a truth.

Therefore, the Mystics’ teachings had in fact been validated by Castel.

—If it wasn’t true, why would Castel bother to deny it?

A perfect logical loop. Everything aligned.

So when the craftsman asked the Mystics whether rifled muskets had received “blessings,” the answer was clear.

  “Of course! Every bullet is blessed by our Lord Hughes. Who can say whether the Empire has truth, but Earl Hughes certainly does.”

“Rifled muskets? That’s just regular blessings. But look at the Gatling—six barrels, six times the blessings, just like the Banshees with their six hands. Six is definitely the Earl’s holy number.”

The craftsman was nearly converted on the spot.

Thus, after confirming from all sides, the craftsman’s cognition solidified: the rifled musket was powerful because its rifling blessed the bullets.

He even made a prototype, only to be disappointed that its range and power fell far short of what the Prince had described. But that was normal—his rifling could never be as devout as Castel’s.

Imperfect rifling, weaker bullets. That was perfectly reasonable to him.

His cognition aligned so well with his reasoning that he never suspected a missing step.

With insufficient fundamental knowledge, he did not realize that the absence of the cork seal caused powder to leak into gaps and waste away.

Such firm cognition, such blasphemous thoughts, naturally led to cognitive interference.

Fortunately, all this was done in secret. To avoid discovery, he carried out test-firing in a remote wilderness.

As a result, the land was partially corrupted and eroded, and many wild animals were affected by the pollution, becoming ferocious—such as an entire pack of coyotes. They were later collected by the Banshees and turned into fashionable pets.

Even Castel’s fries stands suffered losses because of this Blood Harbor craftsman’s wild delusions. The investigation report still lay on Hughes’ desk.

The butterfly effect was no more than this.

“So, in the end, the most important thing in war is still learning.” Hughes collapsed into his chair with a weary expression.

“I see.” Alexei nodded. “No wonder you asked the Mystics to first become workers. So it was for this deeper reason.”

“And also, all that messy personal worship among the Mystics—I finally understood. It is better to give them physics and chemistry directly than to try to change their faith. Once they learn enough, they will realize that even their Earl Hughes is insignificant before these truths.”

Hughes spread his hands. “If one doesn’t know mathematics, one simply doesn’t. Praying to me is useless, because I don’t know it either.”

Alexei’s mouth twitched.

“See? This way the problem is solved. We recruited the Mystics, and at the same time resolved the issue of the Expeditionary Army’s excessive enrollment.”

“Uh, my lord, it seems the problem is not yet solved… Our commonfolk on the island reported an enrollment rate of 135%.”

“Hold a lottery then. One out of every eleven. Write it into the Expeditionary Army’s recruitment law, and call it the Law of the Eleventh Draw.”