Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

“Gwen, have your people discovered anything recently?”

Josh, wearing a hood, approached Gwen with solemn eyes.

At first, when he took in these orphans, he didn’t really care much about them.

Although surviving in Blood Harbor was quite an impressive feat, that was probably their limit. After all, they were just a group of children.

Rely on them to gather intelligence?

Don’t be ridiculous. If adults couldn’t manage it, what use could children possibly be?

At the time, agreeing to let them join was merely out of pity. The so-called missions were just words, a way to justify his own kindness.

In Blood Harbor, kindness was a luxury. Josh had to carefully hide it beneath his hood. This was also one of the reasons he had established the cult.

If he appeared kind, people would expect him to remain kind.

So even though Josh had been interested in Gwen, he hadn’t held much expectation.

But now, everything had changed.

During the previous rebellion of the Life Mother Church, it was this white-haired little girl who first issued the warning—even earlier than when Granny came knocking.

Speaking of which, Josh was somewhat surprised. He had thought that his friends would choose to leave. On one side was the chaotic and dangerous Blood Harbor; on the other, Castel, which they had long since departed. There was no comparison.

Yet in the end, they all stayed.

Actually, at the beginning, they hadn’t thought that far ahead. It was mostly just a youthful impulse. But when they saw the firm gaze in the believers’ eyes, words of regret couldn’t be spoken anymore.

Besides, this feeling wasn’t bad at all.

Ever since the Life Mother Church’s followers took over the Upper District, the environment in Blood Harbor had mysteriously improved a great deal.

Previously, the Port District had been filled with complex and intertwined gangs, backed by various nobles. But now, they had all scattered like birds and beasts.

Of course, some remnants remained, but they were easily dealt with by the followers of Steam and Deep Sea Mystics.

The level of organization between the two sides wasn’t even close.

As for the Life Mother Church, they had completely taken control of the lower stratum of the port. Although the people of Blood Harbor weren’t exactly living well now, at least they no longer had to starve to death.

Meanwhile, in other inconspicuous corners, many changes were quietly taking place.

For example, some professions once monopolized by the nobles were gradually being opened up to the commoners.

Take the officers of the Harbor Guard for instance—ever since Rad was killed by the Prince in the barracks, the Prince no longer selected officers from among the nobility. Instead, he introduced an entire promotion system.

If one were to carefully study it, they would find this system bore an uncanny resemblance to the recruitment system of the Royal Army—but no one doubted it. After all, the Prince was the Empire’s most dangerous internal threat, the leader of the rebellion.

After the nobles in the Upper District were slaughtered, nearly all of Blood Harbor’s senior officials were wiped out. Most nobles were lords of specific regions, which also meant they held the highest offices and controlled most of the local authority.

In other words, the Prince had almost become a commander with no troops.

But contrary to everyone’s expectations, order in Blood Harbor—and even in the Principality of Tis—did not collapse. The Prince’s policies were successfully issued and implemented.

Only then did people notice something.

The Prince’s territory was operating under the Empress’s thirteen-tier civil servant system. This system, long criticized as redundant and inefficient, was now displaying astonishing resilience.

Among the thirteen ranks, the eighth to thirteenth were lower-tier positions that only required time and experience to climb, mostly selected from commoners, and held little actual power.

The seventh to fourth ranks, on the other hand, came with noble titles—though without fiefdoms. Alexei, for instance, was a seventh-rank official. This level was nominally open to commoners, but only the truly exceptional had any chance of rising to it.

They were the actual administrators within the territory, responsible for managing specific affairs.

The top three ranks were held concurrently by powerful nobles—these were truly high-ranking elites. Most of the nobles killed by the cultists had belonged to this tier.

Clearly, there was an insurmountable gap between the eighth and seventh ranks, and there was essentially no path for promotion from the fourth to the third.

But now, these gaps and barriers were quietly being broken.

The Prince, under the pretext of an “emergency,” allowed a large number of civil servants of commoner origin to temporarily take charge with real authority. Although they were still nominally low-ranking officials, they had begun to infiltrate the upper class of the Principality of Tis.

The vacancies they left behind were quickly filled by newly recruited public officials—the Empire had constantly built orphanages during its expansion period, providing educational opportunities to the orphans.

Alexei himself was from an orphanage in the Northlands, and now, the young people who had left the orphanage with him were gradually entering the civil service system.

Though the Prince flew the banner of opposing the Empire and had expelled the Church of Candlelight, these administrative systems were preserved intact.

All of these factors led to the strange current state of Blood Harbor: despite having just gone through rebellion and the fires of war, the city was gradually brimming with vitality.

But this was only the surface.

Very few could sense the undercurrents beneath the peaceful façade. For example—

Gwen.

When the cultists of the Life Mother Church launched their rebellion, she had not remained within the tightly guarded territory of the Mystics, but had secretly slipped out.

Of course, it was under the protection of her [friends].

And under the guidance of those friends, she discovered many more interesting things.

Like Miss Zoe, for example—she was a bit older than Gwen, with beautiful brown hair that Gwen liked very much.

There were lovely silk threads on her body that floated up into the sky, destination unknown.

Or the Prince—his body seemed to be hosting two souls. How strange.

But even stranger than that was Tommy. That boy had four souls crammed into him. Gwen had been startled the first time she saw it.

But he died soon after. Well, it should count as dying, right?

After all, he was torn apart and devoured bite by bite by the monster on Mira’s body.

“Gwen?”

Gwen suddenly came back to her senses and realized that Josh was still watching her—this high priest of the Steam and Deep Sea Mystics, the infamous cult leader in Blood Harbor—

Hmm, he seemed to be one of the few normal people left.

He had a frail body, a weak soul, and no trace of Extraordinary Power.

But his heart was kind. He made warm porridge for everyone.

“High Priest, what did you just say? I zoned out.”

“I asked if there was anything unusual in Blood Harbor recently. Any discoveries?”

Gwen blinked.

“No, everything is normal. Just some small troubles. I’ll take care of them for you.”