Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 208 Armored Train
Ken followed Josh all the way to the tavern. He was not worried about the refugees. Although Jeremiah had a bad temper, he was still a very reliable captain.

He just threw the registration task to Ken, not ignoring everything else. He must have gone ashore early to find a way.

Ken followed Josh to a pub called Herring Tail. It was getting late and some people were sitting down in the pub.

Ken was somewhat surprised to find that several people greeted Josh. He had only been here for a short time, but he already knew so many people?

"There's no other way. If you want to do business, you have to deal with all kinds of people." Qiao Xi said in a low voice, greeted the bartender, and said nothing. The bartender turned around and started pouring drinks.

Josh looked around, then took Ken to the corner of the room, pulled out a chair in a secluded spot, and said, "Tell me what happened."

There was a candle burning on the candlestick next to it. The slightly old tables and chairs were a bit shaky and made a creaking sound when sitting on them.

Ken didn't care about these. A trace of worry appeared in his eyes. He subconsciously picked up the beer brought by the bartender and started telling the story from the beginning.

Josh's expression gradually changed from a smile to a serious one, and finally to shock, and his fingers holding the wine glass began to tremble.

"Are you telling the truth?"

"It's absolutely true. My knowledge of navigation is all new, but I can tell the truth from the falsehood in Jeremiah's words. He used a sextant to calculate it right in front of me, and I repeated the calculations with him. It's true. Castel and Jewel Bay have truly disappeared."

At this point, Ken couldn't help but feel sad. He whispered Gaia and Old Ivan's names, holding the wine glass and lowered his head.

When they boarded the ship before, the two of them waved to him desperately on the shore. Gaia even climbed up a tree just to stand higher and see him more. At that time, Ken felt embarrassed and quickly ran into the cabin.

When he poked his head out from the deck again, there was only sea water in front of him.

Josh opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

They are all from Castell. Castell is not only their hometown where they have lived for many years, but also their backing.

Josh is an orphan and has no relatives on the island, so he doesn't have too many concerns.

He didn't feel anything special when he was on the island. The factory and the lord's various systems were all very good, but he got used to it and didn't feel much. He just wanted to go out and explore the world.

But after arriving in Tis, at the Blood Harbor, and gaining much more experience, he really began to miss Castel.

All kinds of details that he never cared about before now haunt him.

Now Castel has disappeared? Has everything in his past really just been a dream?

Josh's eyes hardened.

"Ken, we need to find the prince. Tis is so close to Castel, he might know what happened."

"prince?"

Ken looked up in surprise.

"Yes, I know you Tis people hate him, but he is the lord here after all. We can't delay any longer. I will go back to the ship with you first. I want to talk to Jeremiah."

"The murlocs are coming again?"

"Yes, this is the third attack today." Ash's tone didn't sound tired, but Hughes knew she had been on the front line for almost two days straight. "How is it going?"

"The Skitarii held the line. We didn't attack. They became increasingly proficient in using their rifles. After the rotation system, even though they lost half their manpower, their firepower actually increased."

"How is the battlefield at night?"

"Nighttime combat still relies primarily on Banshees. Humans lack night vision, and their shooting accuracy is extremely low. However, Mr. Alexi has developed a set of tactics that have somewhat solved this problem."

Ever since the murlocs began their landing operations, they seemed to have gone crazy. Although they had never achieved any results, they still launched attacks day and night.

Night battles have always been the most troublesome part. The darkness has little impact on the fishmen, but it is a big trouble for the Crusaders.

The enemy a few hundred meters away was just a small black dot, and they couldn't even see the people at night.

Alexei's method was to preset some targets on the battlefield, roughly calculate the distance to the fishmen, and pre-aim and fire at the angles tested in advance.

This method is generally not very effective. The Crusaders are not machines. Their accuracy in aiming according to their feelings is very low, so they usually rely on the Banshees to fight.

"How do you use the newly issued steam rifles?"

"It's very effective, powerful, and has negligible side effects, but I haven't encountered any enemies who need to use it yet."

After testing, Zeus assigned steam rifles to the Banshees. The disadvantages of these heavy weapons, such as being difficult to carry and bulky, were not worth mentioning to the Banshees. On the contrary, their huge power made up for the Banshees' lack of frontal lethality.

As for the toxicity caused by mercury vapor, the banshees can use the symbiotic contract to recover quickly. Zeus also customized a batch of gas masks to further improve safety.

However, at present, neither the fishmen nor the arm monsters have any use for these weapons, and the banshees can easily solve them with long swords.

But if one day Hughes prepares to counterattack the sea, perhaps this will be the time when these weapons will come into play.

There are more than one hundred sets of steam rifles in total, and the number of banshees is about the same. The ammunition reserves are still sufficient. Zeus directly handed these weapons to Ash.

In addition, he also plans to customize a batch of armor specifically for the Banshee.

The main reason why we didn't make armor for the banshees before was insufficient steel production capacity. The steel consumed by a few sets of armor is equivalent to that of a steam engine.

But now, with the rapid expansion of steel mills, Castell's steel production capacity is rapidly increasing. Hughes has even begun laying rails, and soon Castell's first railway will be built between the mine and the steel mill.

Since the mine covers a large area, although the church's protective inscription can cover it, it is not practical to build a wall to surround it. So Hughes built a large number of gun towers and reserved densely packed shooting holes.

At the same time, there are a considerable number of Crusaders stationed there. Once the mine is attacked, the miners can immediately retreat into the watchtowers and bunkers and wait for support.

Unlike the previously planned underground railway, this section of the railway for transporting ore is laid on the ground. The demand for ore is too large and the efficiency of underground transportation is too low.

Therefore, Hughes redesigned a steam locomotive. In addition to the classic steam engine design, this locomotive powered by the Noisier was equipped with a large number of rams, cutters and protective armor, and there were two layers of shooting holes reserved on the roof.

This armored train will be tested today!

(End of this chapter)