Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

The two of them gazed at the distant lighthouse. It was Alvare who spoke first.

He tapped the road beneath their feet with his cane: “You see, that lighthouse looks very similar to the road we’re standing on—at least in color. There aren’t many stones of this color. You said earlier that this material is called…”

“‘Concrete.’”

“How much do you know about this material?”

“It could be kneaded at will like mud, but once it solidified, it had astonishing strength. When we arrived earlier, you saw the Fortress at the Northlands Station, right? It had endured attacks from Monsters, and it even had been bombed by the airship’s Aerial Bomb, yet it still remained remarkably intact. The power of that bomb—you haven’t forgotten it, have you.”

Of course Alvare knew. After he surrendered, not all his vassals surrendered with him. A few Lords, relying on the solid walls and castles of their own territories, intended to resist to the end, so the Expeditionary Army brought him along to persuade them.

As a result, he witnessed the Expeditionary Army’s entire siege.

Those Soldiers had no intention of charging forward. They simply set up their machine guns slowly on a nearby high ground, then called in the airship for bombardment.

The Soldiers beside him lay down on the ground early and even advised him to lie down as well. Alvare glanced at the distant Wall, not understanding what the point of that was.

He was unwilling to lie on soil-covered ground, so he asked whether standing would be dangerous.

The Expeditionary Army hesitated for a moment and told him it wouldn’t be too much of a problem, so he remained standing.

He watched, eyes wide open, as the airship slowly approached from above, found its position, and dropped a single bomb.

Just one. That bomb fell onto the stone-built Wall, and then—

A flash of red. A massive burst of fire instantly forced apart both the wall and the air around it.

Then a huge fireball, orange-red mixed with black, rolled upward and exploded outward in all directions.

A moment later, the air itself seemed to blur. Centered on the impact point, everything nearby was swallowed in firelight, and thick smoke cascaded downward, covering everything.

Then the explosion began to spread. The Soldiers lying next to him lowered their heads, steel helmets facing the blast.

Alvare vaguely sensed something was wrong. Everything seemed to slow down. He wanted to drop to the ground, but his body reacted sluggishly—like a frog crawling.

He saw the explosion first. The violent sound arrived a moment later, and after that, a tsunami-like shockwave slammed into him.

The Northlands had no wind disasters; Alvare had never imagined that air itself could condense into something like a physical blow.

He felt himself struck hard. Fortunately the distance was far enough—most of the shockwave’s force had dissipated. He simply fell to the ground.

Ignoring the pain on his body, he lifted his head immediately to look toward the distant Wall.

The Wall?

There was no Wall left.

The spot where the bomb had landed had become a deep crater. Everything around it had collapsed into a violently distorted shape. Alvare couldn’t even estimate the casualties—there were no corpses in sight. Within the blast radius, aside from the ground having been scraped off by a layer, nothing remained.

The Expeditionary Army Soldier beside him patted his shoulder: “Mr. Alvare, it’s your turn.”

“Ah?”

“Please go persuade them again. Tell them that if they refuse to surrender…”

He pointed at the airship.

Following his finger, Alvare saw that the airship’s bombing bay was already open, revealing rows of neatly arranged Aerial Bombs.

  “Don’t worry, no need to rush—just shout however you like. The brothers on the airship would love to drop a few more anyway. Later—damn it!”

The Expeditionary Army Soldier instantly lost his earlier calm. Seeing the white flag raised on the distant Wall, he jumped up in frustration: “Why are they surrendering already!?”

Alvare let out a bitter smile. Forget? How could he possibly forget? That moment when the firelight bloomed, even the blazing sun dimmed by a few shades—as if that was the real sun.

He would never forget.

“Can a Concrete fortress withstand the explosion of an Aerial Bomb?”

“The bomb wasn’t dropped directly on the Fortress, but it wasn’t far off. The airship practically skimmed along the outer wall when it dropped the bomb, and this Concrete withstood all of it.”

“My heavens…”

Alvare stared at the distant lighthouse in shock. Why would they build such an indestructible lighthouse? Did someone expect enemies to attack from the sea?

“This is far too wasteful. Such sturdy material—why use it to build a lighthouse? Wouldn’t it be better used to build more Fortresses?”

“Wasteful…” Hunter gave a bitter laugh. He casually glanced around, then pointed at the pipelines above the street: “Take a look at that.”

Alvare looked closely and found the pipelines suspended above both sides of the street, clinging to building walls as they extended in all directions. At intervals, finer pipes branched off and entered the houses. “Those are…?”

“Gas pipes. Throughout the entire Blood Harbor, the steam pipes run underground, and the gas pipes run overhead. The two systems are separated and supplied independently to prevent any problems from affecting each other.”

“Gas pipes… gas pipes…” Alvare muttered repeatedly, his brows tightening. “Such a thing… wouldn’t it be dangerous? Since it can ignite for lighting, it must catch fire easily, right?”

“Not just catch fire. Gas mixed in the air—if it meets an open flame, it can explode!”

“Then—then how can we allow them to be so close to us?!”

Hunter pulled Alvare forward a few steps. “Uncle, look at that.”

Alvare looked up and saw that the section of pipeline seemed to end there. The pipe on the other side connected to it through a protruding circular joint, fixed with a ring of bolts.

“This is a flange—the connection point between two pipes. Look at that thickness.”

Alvare raised his hand to compare and was shocked to find that it was several times thicker than the heaviest plate armor.

Hunter casually picked up a pebble and tossed it at the pipe. It made a crisp metallic sound, and Alvare’s eyes widened abruptly.

“Th-this… this is steel?” he stammered.

“Of course. All exposed pipelines are reinforced. You’ve used muskets before, right? I dare say even if you fired a musket at it a few times, you might not even leave a mark.”

A musket’s greatest advantage was armor-piercing. Although its range was short, it could penetrate a knight’s plate armor head-on—changing the nature of warfare entirely.

But those pipes overhead—

Alvare looked up at the pipeline above his head, then across the street. He followed the street forward with his eyes.

The streets of Blood Harbor were spread out densely like a web, and the pipelines above were even denser.

“How much steel would this take…”