Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 211 Chloe's Humanity

"It took me a lot of effort to explain the situation to him. These Protestant people have some problems with their brains and will gradually become dull and stupid. But in the end, he understood what I meant and just lay down on the bed."

"Then, he seemed to have seen something terrible. His eyes widened, his expression became more and more terrified, and his body began to struggle constantly." Jeremiah paused, his pupils slowly dilated, and his voice became a little hoarse.

"I felt something was wrong, so I went over and grabbed his shoulders, trying to wake him up, but he wouldn't wake up. Damn it! I've been drifting on the sea for decades, there's no way I could be wrong. He looked like he was drowning!"

"Before my eyes, in his own bed, that man fucking drowned!"

Jeremiah gripped the handle of the scimitar tightly, confusion and fear mixed in his eyes, making his eyeballs particularly cloudy.

Josh and Ken shuddered unconsciously.

"He kept retching and trying to breathe, but his face gradually turned blue. I realized that no matter what I did, I couldn't wake him up, so I prepared to leave. At this time..."

Jeremiah's eyebrows knitted together, and his curly beard trembled slightly.

"That man... No, he was already a corpse, like someone who had drowned in the sea. I've seen many. His pale body gradually swelled."

"Finally, it gradually transformed into a monster, a monster I had never seen before. It had a huge head and sharp teeth, but its hands and feet were disproportionately small, and its claws were webbed. I drew my scimitar and struck it, but it lay motionless, like a corpse."

"That monster was so strange and terrifying. I don't remember what happened next. I escaped from that house and hid in an empty house for the night. I finally mustered up the courage to go back and check the next day."

"When I went into the room again, I found that there was no one in the room. There was no corpse, no tattooed man, and no monster. Everything seemed like an illusion."

Qiao Xi hesitated for a moment, then cautiously asked, "Captain, could it be you?"

"You think I'm hallucinating, don't you?"

"No, no," Josh smiled awkwardly and shook his head. Before he could come up with a reasonable explanation, he was interrupted by Jeremiah's next words.

"I'm starting to dream about the deep sea now, too."

The room suddenly became quiet.

After a long time, Jeremiah's breathing became smoother. He let out a long sigh, "Tomorrow, I will go with you to see the Prince."

"How's the research on the murlocs going?"

Hughes looked through the report in his hand with a tired look on his face.

Recently, there have been more and more invasions of fishmen. Those monsters seem to be endless. Even though they have never achieved any results until now, they still come to the island one after another to die.

Thanks to the newly discovered saltpeter mine, Gaia's gunpowder production line has seen its production capacity increase dramatically, and there is no need to worry about smokeless gunpowder anymore.

But this is not a solution after all, we must speed up the research and development progress.

"Mercemen. A little strange." Chloe hesitated and spoke in a low voice.

Xius raised his head, a hint of doubt flashed in his eyes, and then he gradually became serious.

He had known for a long time that the fishman was peculiar, and he might have asked Chloe to point it out specifically.
"What did you find?" "Haven't there been more and more murlocs being killed on the battlefield lately?" Chloe bit her finger subconsciously, a hint of uneasiness in her tone as she paced quickly around the office. "Richard discovered it. Murloc bodies are usually sent to him for disposal, and he noticed that murlocs occasionally have some accessories on them."

"accessories?"

"Yes, like necklaces, rings, and so on. They are all human accessories."

"Human jewelry?" Xiu Si's eyes were even more confused. "Why do I remember that merfolk are a lot bigger than humans? How can it wear human jewelry?"

"I can't put them on. Or rather, it doesn't feel like I'm putting them on. That's what's most strange to me." Chloe's face flashed with anxiety. "Those rings seem to be embedded in my flesh. It feels more like my fingers have swelled up rather than being put on."

Xius took a deep breath and said, "You mean, murlocs could be transformed from humans?!"

This news was so outrageous that Zeus's mind was in a tizzy. If the murlocs were truly transformed from humans, then... then the people he was killing were all humans? How could there be so many people transformed into murlocs for him to kill?

"No, that's very unlikely."

Chloe bit her finger and spoke quickly and quietly, "They have no resemblance to humans in either behavior or appearance. Okay, their instinctive reactions do seem a bit similar sometimes, but we'll skip that. The most important thing is, they're not wearing jewelry like humans."

"What do you mean?"

"For example, if I want to wear a ring, it must be on my finger. It doesn't matter which finger, but it will definitely not be on my wrist or ribs. The same goes for necklaces. I won't wear them on my legs or waist."

"You mean"

"They seem to have some human elements mixed in, but the technique is extremely clumsy. They don't look human at all, more like they're forcibly imitating humans."

It is clearly a non-human monster, but for some reason it is imitating humans, and the imitation is obvious at a glance.
This monster must have some extremely secret connection with humans.

Hughes sat back heavily in his chair and let out a long sigh.

"Okay, at least it's not human. If you tell me now that this monster is a human, that would be a terrible thing."

After a while, he sat up straight, as if suddenly realizing something. "Chloe, you'd better not research how to use murloc skins on airships. We don't need such technology. Even if you succeed, what if one day we discover that murlocs are indeed transformed humans? What if we can't find the murlocs? Are we going to transform all the islanders into murlocs?"

"I found new material."

"Tell me, whose skin is it again?"

"mine."

Hughes looked up and met Chloe's gaze. Her orange-red eyes were as bright as fire, filled with a thirst for knowledge that left no room for anything else.

Xius slowly stood up, walked around the table, walked in front of Chloe, grabbed her collar with both hands, lifted her up, and looked her in the eye.

The girl was unusually light, and Zeus had noticed this a long time ago. He knew that the person before him was no longer human, but it was not until this moment that he felt that he was truly facing this cold reality.

"Chloe, is there really no humanity left in this body of yours?"

(End of this chapter)