Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 180 Where are the pirates?
It was a very strange feeling. People stopped talking and just looked up at the sea urchin monster.

It is two stories high, much taller than the Banshee, and the hideous spikes on its body make everyone who approaches it feel terrified.

No one would think that it is something that humans can handle. These monsters should be dealt with by the banshees, and mortals are just their foils, like the silent audience in a theater.

As a result, such a monster was actually killed by the creations of these mortals?

An inexplicable feeling surged in people's chests: surprise, fear, pride, and everything else, all mixed together and impossible to tell apart.

In the end, people dispersed. After knowing that they could make a bomb and kill the sea urchin, people's mentality seemed to change.

The tall Banshees didn't seem so far away anymore. Before, they seemed like a myth, a story, something outside of life, but now they felt much more familiar.

The Banshees are also using explosives produced by mortals. These explosives are like a bridge that allows people to truly realize that the Banshees are real and that they can help.

Some people noticed that there was a sentence on the base of the statue: "Invent the fish-herding spell". After asking Miss Zoe, they got a shocking answer.

It turns out that Nini has been using the fish herding spell to provide food for Castel.

Castres is an island with rich forest and fishery resources. People don't often go hungry, but there are times when they do go hungry, such as during typhoons, when everyone has no choice but to endure the hardship.

In addition, most of the people here migrated from the mainland. As refugees, they have experienced many difficult times.

Therefore, people actually cherish food very much.

When they learned that a large part of the food on the island came from Nini's fish-herding magic, people's eyes changed when they looked at the sculpture.

The islanders of Castel, who hadn't tasted delicious and inexpensive fried fish? Today, they learned that these fried fish were the result of Nini's improved magic.

Zoe was somewhat surprised to find that people were becoming more and more respectful of Nini's statue, and some even secretly prayed to her, hoping for good weather.

When she reported this to Hughes, she found that her lord was not that surprised.

"You knew about this a long time ago?"

"I just guessed it." Hughes held a scroll of atlas in his left hand and a pen in his right, occasionally sketching. "Eating is the most basic desire. She ensures that people have enough to eat, so she deserves praise. This is one of the reasons why I chose her for the statue."

Zoe opened her mouth but said nothing. She didn't think the fish-herding spell was that important. There was no fundamental change in using the spell to catch fish. Monica's improvement of the machine soul had a more far-reaching impact no matter how you looked at it.

But she has been in more contact with people at the bottom of society recently, and she has learned one thing, which is not to make rash judgments about suffering that she has not experienced.

Suffering is something that cannot be imagined. She has never been hungry, so naturally she does not understand this kind of worship.

Zoe silently took note of this incident and decided to go to the bottom floor to see it with her own eyes in the future.

Shortly after Zoe left, Alexei came to Xius's study. Seeing his solemn expression, Xius couldn't help but frown: "Still no news?"

"Yes, we can't contact either group, and there are no other ships passing by here."

Xius put the drawing in his hand aside, tapped the table slowly, and fell into deep thought.

The two groups of people Alexei mentioned were the ones he sent to find the pirates.

Gem Bay suddenly lost contact with them for no apparent reason. Zeus was actually quite shocked. Before Jeremiah came to stay permanently, Castel and Gem Bay had established a long-term relationship. The nitroglycerin in his hand was also urgently needed by the other party, so there was no reason to abandon it.

Although Jeremiah himself left with his ship, he left behind many people, such as his first mate, who stayed in Castel. The next group of pirates who came to deliver the goods were late, so Hughes asked the first mate to take some people and sail to Gem Bay to ask.

Although they were only driving a small fishing boat, Gem Bay was not far away. It was only a few days' voyage, so they should not be unable to contact each other.

But things were so strange. The first mate and his men never returned. Hughes had no choice but to send several other sailors to check again, but there was no news until now.

"Did something happen at sea? Like a storm?"

"The weather has been very sunny these days, and now is the calmest time in the Ocean of Storms. I haven't heard of any storms." Alexei shook his head.

This is strange. Could they have been attacked by sea urchins? But aren't those things in the deep sea?
Whether it is sea urchins or pollution snakes, they are all moving slowly on the seabed. The distance between the sea surface and the seabed is very far, so theoretically they will not be alarmed. The banshees that Zeus had sent out to patrol before also proved this statement.

In the past, Zeus could have sent the Banshees to search along the route, but now the expansion of the sea monsters is accelerating, and this action is a bit too risky.

"Speaking of which, there's something strange about the pirates. We provided such important resources, but they still only sent Jeremiah to contact us. I didn't think there was a problem at the time, but now, thinking about it carefully, something is wrong."

Alexi nodded silently. The ability to manufacture nitroglycerin was unique to Castel. If he were the pirate king, even if he did not station troops in Castel, he would definitely send more people to keep a close eye on this precious source of goods.

Hughes had prepared a lot of plans, but none of them were used in the end.

"Something drastic must have happened in Gem Bay, leaving the pirates completely unable to deal with us. They even detained two groups of our personnel to prevent the secret from being leaked."

Zeus said slowly, this is the most likely reason, but how could someone threaten the pirates in the Storm Ocean?

Although the Pirate King's Court has shown signs of decline, its overall strength is still there. The Black Sail Fleet that crisscrosses the Storm Ocean is very famous. What can threaten them?
Xiu Si suddenly thought of the long snakes of pollution underground, whose source seemed to be in the south.

South of Castel, besides the Eye of the Storm, lies the Pirate King's Court. Could it be that those polluted snakes and sea urchins have quietly eliminated the pirates?!
How, how is this possible? There is more than just one fleet in Gem Bay. Although it is the pirates' lair, the permanent population there is nearly 100,000, which is completely not on the same level as Castel.

Even if the pirates couldn't defeat the sea urchin, couldn't they escape? They didn't have as few ships as Castel.

Just disappeared quietly like that?

(End of this chapter)