Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

Beatrice was somewhat startled. She lowered her head and looked at the prosperous city below, unable to connect it with the idea of fleeing from disaster that Gaia had mentioned.

“I almost watched Blood Harbor being built with my own eyes. I came here many times, and each time I saw a new Blood Harbor. Sometimes I couldn’t even recognize it anymore.”

After speaking, she turned her head to look at Zoe beside her.

“You can ask Zoe. She followed the entire reconstruction of Blood Harbor from beginning to end. When we first arrived, Blood Harbor was nothing but ruins. And now, just looking at it from afar, you can already feel its greatness.”

Beatrice fell silent, unsure of what to say.

She was a noble young lady. She had never experienced famine, nor had she ever built a city with her own hands.

She lived in Rhine, known as the City of Miracles. She could not feel miracles there. She had been trapped within it.

But today, she felt a miracle.

Blood Harbor was clearly just an unnamed small city, yet listening to Gaia’s words, the stirring in her heart could not be suppressed.

She wanted to see this city with her own eyes.

Not from afar on an airship—she wanted to set foot in it, to stroll through its streets, to speak with its people, to feed the cats in the alleyways, to chat with the seagulls about life and ideals.

She could not imagine anything more. Like a canary locked in a cage, the only sky she could envision was the fragment she had seen in books.

“Can I come here and take a look?”

Gaia and Zoe exchanged a glance and let out a helpless sigh.

“Well… at least not for now. You need to go to Castel for treatment.”

Beatrice’s body was on the verge of collapse. It was not as though there were no spare rooms in the passenger cabin, yet she could only live inside the steam engine compartment.

Though, in truth, she quite liked that little steel house.

“Can Castel cure me?”

“That’s hard to say. Castel’s medical standards are rather unstable, but…”

Before Zoe’s eyes flashed images of Chloe, the two Noras, Gwen and her more than one hundred patients…

“But you probably won’t die.”

Beatrice frowned. Something felt strange, but she could not quite put her finger on it.

Shouldn’t she have said “you won’t die”? Why was it “won’t die successfully”?

Taken literally, it sounded as if someone wanted to die but failed. Would anyone actually want to die?

Not dying should be a good thing… right?

Beatrice was still young. She did not want to die.

However, she had heard that Castel was very close to the Silent Sanctum, and that the Silent Sanctum was famous for its Undying. Perhaps Zoe was referring to that method?

Beatrice’s thoughts wandered. In just that short moment, the city below slid past the porthole. Only then did she realize she had almost missed it, and she hurriedly pressed herself against the window, gazing at it from afar with reluctance.

The airship passed over Blood Harbor and headed toward Castel.

“You don’t have to be disappointed. Castel is also wonderful. It may not have a city cluster as vast as Blood Harbor’s, but it’s still very beautiful.”

Beatrice nodded, though inwardly she was somewhat unconvinced.

Castel? It wasn’t as if she had never been there.

When she first saw Castel, she had actually been quite disappointed. The desolation of that sea island had left a deep impression on her. Although Earl Hughes had built quite a few workshops, compared to Rhine, it was far inferior.

And now she was going there again.

Zoe said Castel was no worse than Blood Harbor. She did not believe it.

Even if Castel expanded those factories tenfold, it would not compare to Rhine in the slightest—let alone to the Blood Harbor she had just seen.

She merely assumed Zoe was trying to comfort her. Though she felt deeply disappointed, she did not voice it.

Perhaps she would be cured in Castel, and then she could see Blood Harbor again.

It truly was a beautiful city…

Beatrice gazed at the azure sea below and sighed inwardly. Just as she was about to withdraw her gaze, she suddenly froze.

“Ca–Castel?”

“???” Gaia and Zoe beside her were taken aback, then shook their heads in unison. “Impossible. How could we have arrived so quickly? Castel is still a long way off.”

“B–But… an island! How could there be an island down there?!” Beatrice’s voice trembled, her eyes filled with disbelief as she looked below.

“That’s a mountain—no, it’s an island. A steel island. A steel mountain…”

Seeing her speak so incoherently, Gaia leaned forward to take a look, then revealed an expression of sudden understanding.

“Oh, that? That’s the Steel Ark.”

Zoe also leaned over, looking utterly unsurprised.

“How did it come back? Wasn’t it undergoing refitting at Gem Bay? I heard Tata considered installing a deck on it and nearly got scolded to death by the Ship’s Soul onboard.”

“Maybe the refit’s finished? Honestly, I’m not sure either. Those design institutes at Gem Bay are a bit too radical…”

“True.”

Beatrice looked at the two of them speaking back and forth, growing increasingly bewildered. “W–What are you talking about? A Ship’s Soul? This isn’t an island—it’s a ship?”

“Of course it’s a ship. Look carefully—there are traces of a vessel. It may look a bit strange, but it’s definitely a ship. And you should have noticed—it’s made of steel.”

“Steel…”

Beatrice felt dizzy. That thing, as large as an island, was made of steel!

She had always thought the churches of Upper Rhine were already awe-inspiring—exquisite and elegant, yet majestic beyond measure.

But today, she witnessed another kind of shock.

There were no carvings, no ornamentation, no careful design.

There was only a vastness that stretched beyond sight.

Without exaggeration, the Steel Ark could place a lid over Rhine—literally. Melted into molten iron, it could forge a steel cover large enough to cap the entire city.

Or to put it another way, if it were set above Upper Rhine, its sheer weight alone could crush the entire city flat.

This overwhelming sense of impact left a profound impression on Beatrice. She vaguely felt that some of her long-held notions had shifted ever so slightly.

For now, they were only vague thoughts, not yet formed into complete ideas. But when she fully understood them, she would likely grasp the concept popular in Castel:

Bigger is better. More is beautiful.

Beatrice’s eyes flickered. Suddenly, she lifted her head and looked into the distance. There was nothing special there—just ordinary seawater.

Calm. Plain. Without the slightest ripple.

Elsewhere, that would be unremarkable.

But this was the Storm Ocean.

Everyone knew that near Castel, there were no storms.

Beatrice gazed into the distance and, for the first time, felt a hint of anticipation for Castel.

Could it be that Castel was no longer that ordinary desolate island?