Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

“Damn it, what is that!?”

“Oh my god.”

“By the Pope’s scepter, what a blasphemous creation that is!”

Exclamations rose one after another, and the prince had to shout at his subordinates before he could see what had appeared in the alley behind them.

Followers of the Mother Goddess—one could recognize them at a glance.

They were so emaciated that they looked like moving skeletons, their skin sunken and abrupt beneath.

The clothes they wore hung on them like rags on a hanger, and when the wind struck them, it made a crisp sound as if hitting wood.

They moved slowly along the street like the dead crawling out of their graves.

These followers looked even more sickly and frail than during the last rebellion.

“How could this be? Didn’t the Church of the Mother Goddess receive plenty of food?” Galahad murmured in disbelief.

The prince’s expression instantly darkened.

He suddenly turned to look at the Mystics, and only when he saw the surprise on their faces as well did he turn his head back.

“Perhaps it’s not a matter of food,” the prince said as he squinted at several noticeably larger figures among the crowd.

Those were likely the so-called monsters.

At a glance, they seemed to be followers of the Mother Goddess, but those emaciated bodies were clearly abnormal.

Some had extra arms, others several heads, and some even crawled on the ground using multiple limbs.

Their bodies remained sickly thin, like starving wretches on the brink of death, but their bellies were grotesquely swollen as if pregnant, dark red veins bulging beneath the skin.

As if a starving person had desperately overeaten, bursting their stomach and intestines from within.

Grotesquely twisted limbs and numb, soulless eyes made it nearly impossible to distinguish which ones were regular followers and which had become monsters.

They wailed as they walked, yet their faces bore no expression beyond numbness, making one’s spine tingle with unease.

The prince felt a sudden jolt in his heart.

“Something’s wrong! Something’s not right! Your Highness!” Galahad rushed over and said anxiously, “Your Highness, they’re not the same as during the last rebellion!”

The prince said nothing, but he had noticed it too.

The followers of the Mother Goddess they had seen last time, though frail like withered branches, had terrifyingly bright eyes—an expression one would never forget once seen, filled with vitality and hope.

They were poor, thin, and seemed like they could collapse at any moment, but when they stood together, they formed a flesh-and-blood fortress.

Back then, they were warriors.

But now, in that dense, dark crowd, no such willpower could be felt.

The followers merely moved stiffly forward, like sluggish flesh chasing after a soul that had lost control.

“Galahad!” the prince called to his knight.

“Never seen anything like this before,” Galahad shook his head. “Previous rebellions by the Church of the Mother Goddess were usually handled by the Church itself—there’s no record of monsters like these.”

“No matter. Let’s fire and test it.” The prince drew his command saber. “Soldiers, raise your guns!”

The cavalrymen all drew their muskets.

They had preloaded the gunpowder before departure, and now upon receiving the order, they raised their weapons.

The prince paused for a moment, his eyes sharply fixed on the followers of the Mother Goddess across from them.

These cultists, even when faced with dark gun muzzles, didn’t slow their steps at all, continuing slowly but steadily forward.

The prince slashed his saber through the air: “Fire!”

Bang!

Gunshots rang out.

The trained horses weren’t startled, but the gunpowder smoke somewhat obscured the view.

The prince urged his horse forward a few steps before focusing his gaze on the followers of the Mother Goddess ahead.

Muskets were notoriously inaccurate, and firing from horseback was even worse, but a volley from dozens of soldiers still produced results.

A row of Mother Goddess followers fell to the ground.

The cavalry instinctively began reloading.

This was different from line infantry, who often had to wait for unified commands—since muzzle-loading was cumbersome and easy to mess up under battlefield stress, it was more efficient to reload in unison, even if overall speed was reduced, as it lowered the chance of error.

Cavalrymen faced more complex firing conditions, so commands were not always rigid.

Often, they fired freely, sometimes even shooting while riding—this required a higher standard from soldiers, which was why cavalry equipped with muskets were always elite.

But this time, these elite soldiers froze mid-reloading.

“My god, those people...”

“Monsters! Monsters!!”

“How is that possible!?”

“Weren’t they hit!?”

Indeed, several followers of the Mother Goddess had fallen, but they quickly got back up.

The bullet holes on their bodies were still bleeding, yet they continued walking, slowly making their way forward.

One follower was hit in the joints by several bullets at once—his entire leg broke off and he could no longer stand.

He simply crawled forward with his remaining limbs, leaving behind a shocking trail of blood on the ground.

But crawling was too slow.

A tall stitched-together monster passed by his side and casually picked him up, lifting him before its face.

The monster opened its mouth and bit down viciously on its own comrade.

A sound of tearing mixed with chewing rang out.

Blood dripped from the monster’s mouth, running down its throat and splashing onto its belly, swollen like a balloon.

Inside the slightly translucent skin of its stretched stomach, various jumbled limbs squirmed slowly.

The cavalrymen’s mouths fell open, pupils trembling, as if it wasn’t the cultists being devoured, but themselves.

Clatter.

Someone’s musket slipped from their hand and fell to the ground, but the rider seemed unaware.

He simply trembled, staring ahead at the monster, unable to look away.

His gaze seemed to turn into a rope, being pulled ever closer by the monster.

Just one encounter, and these mortal soldiers had their spirits seized, frozen in place with fear.

The prince was also paralyzed for a moment.

But a look of struggle quickly surfaced on his face, and his steadfast will shattered all restraints in an instant—

“Galahad!!” the prince shouted loudly.

The dazed knight instantly snapped back to awareness.

He took a deep breath, bloodshot eyes widening, veins bulging from the muscles on his arms.

With a sharp shing, his longsword was unsheathed.

Galahad exhaled violently from his chest, and a beast-like roar instantly snapped everyone awake.

The knights looked around at each other in confusion.

Then expressions of horror surfaced on their faces.

But before the fear could fully take hold, they heard the prince’s command:

“Soldiers! Follow me! Advance!!”

His stirring voice dispelled some of the fear.

The cavalrymen instinctively obeyed.

The prince, saber in hand, charged forward alongside Galahad, leading the soldiers like fearless warriors.

But the direction of their charge was not toward the monsters.