Industrial Cthulhu: Starting as an Island Lord

Unfortunately, Hunter himself did not seem particularly appreciative.

When Uncle Alvare asked him about it, Hunter looked utterly uninterested. But just as he lifted his head to say something, his eyes suddenly lit up, and he pointed toward the platform. “Look, who’s that!”

Yami and Alvare raised their heads together. Over there, a group of Banshees stood in neat formation on the platform, clad in full-body heavy armor.

Hunter and the others were accustomed to seeing Banshees, but the other passengers immediately stirred in commotion.

“Heavens… those are…”

“So tall and majestic…”

“Earl, bless us, Earl, bless us…”

The merchants from out of town all wore expressions of shock.

Because Banshees mainly operated on Castel Island, they were not often seen in Blood Harbor. Most merchants passed through Blood Harbor’s customs, so they rarely caught sight of them.

In fact, many people had never even heard of the Banshees. They had only learned that Blood Harbor offered low-priced, high-quality goods and had come for trade.

Now, suddenly seeing these towering figures—nearly giants—appearing here, the crowd erupted into unrest.

Bang!

The leading Banshee slammed her Scepter heavily onto the ground. People instinctively looked over and saw only a pair of icy eyes.

Those eyes resembled an abyss, drawing in every emotion and slowly crushing it. By the time people came to their senses, what remained in their hearts was a strange, eerie calm.

—The Banshees were a race of the mind. By releasing just a trace of the aura of the Sea of Unawareness, they could already intimidate these mortals.

“Why are they here? And dressed so formally…”

Hunter muttered to himself, his brows gradually furrowing.

The tasks Banshees undertook were usually dangerous, important—or both. Simply put, unless the train had exploded, they should not have been seeing Banshees here.

And there were so many of them, fully armored and standing in perfect order…

Had the Church of Candlelight attacked? Or had they targeted the station first?

Hunter shook his head, amused by his own thought.

Beside him, Yami pondered for a moment, then suddenly his eyes brightened.

“Are they… here to see someone off?”

“To see someone off? Who would warrant such a grand display from the Banshees? Even the Lord doesn’t get this kind of treatment, does he?” Hunter replied casually.

“No, no. Haven’t you noticed the Banshees have been much more proper lately? Just recently… to be precise—”

Hunter reacted as well. “You mean the Silent Sanctum?”

They quickly looked again. Sure enough, behind the Banshees stood a group of figures dressed in priestly robes.

“Oh, that’s Patriarch Ignati. You guessed right—it’s people from the Silent Sanctum,” Alvare sighed. Back when he had been one of the Three Grand Dukes of the North, he had met that Patriarch.

He had not expected to meet him again—not in White Raven, not in the Northlands, but in Blood Harbor. It was, in a way, ironic.

Yami and Hunter exchanged knowing smiles.

Alvare had not been on Castel Island long and did not know the Banshees well. But Yami and Hunter had arrived early.

They knew very well what these Banshees were usually like. Whenever they were this serious, they were probably up to something.

That day’s church prayer, combined with the might of the Stellar Furnace, had successfully frightened quite a few priests of the Silent Sanctum back into their hospital rooms. The Banshees had been so delighted they had nearly held a banquet to celebrate.

The problem was—they had succeeded too well.

From that day onward, the Banshees became awkward.

They suddenly realized… they seemed to have developed an idol burden.

The scene of them praying quietly in the church that day had left a deep impression on every priest of the Silent Sanctum. Their powerful physiques had been exactly to those White Raven People’s tastes.

After that, the Banshees fully experienced the enthusiasm of the White Raven People. Even Monica had people asking for her autograph—and she was not even two meters tall, a short one among them.

From then on, the Banshees began keeping straight faces. Whenever they entered or left the island, they wore full sets of heavy armor. Their behavior was forced into something far more “proper.”

At least, whenever the priests of the Silent Sanctum were present, this was how they acted.

Hunter and Yami watched the Banshees at the station. At the moment, they appeared powerful, silent, and utterly reliable. But who knew whether the faces beneath that heavy armor were already twisting.

“Wait, are they boarding the same train as us?” Yami suddenly realized.

“Looks like it. Judging by their numbers…” Alvare leaned out and counted the group across from them.

“About a dozen. The Silent Sanctum surely has more than that. They’re probably heading to the Northlands to examine the White Calamity, right?”

When the term “White Calamity” was mentioned, the few of them fell silent.

It was said that Castel had tamed the White Calamity—at least enough to prevent it from moving southward.

That truly exceeded their imagination and finally gave their journey a sense of reality.

Especially for Yami.

He turned to look at Grand Duke Alvare beside him, then toward Patriarch Ignati in the distance.

These were great figures of the mortal world, once at the pinnacle of worldly power.

And just a few years ago, he had been nothing more than a man from a slum dwelling. His greatest goal in life had been a house that did not leak when it rained—perhaps a cat. That would have been enough.

Yet today, they were boarding the same train, heading north to build that fertile land.

What Yami did not know was that the great figures he would meet were far more numerous than these—

An airship returning from the Empire, forced to detour due to a thunderstorm, had made an emergency landing in the Northlands.

The train bound for the Northlands belched thick smoke. The Steam Engine drove the wheels forward with clanking rhythm as it gradually departed.

Hughes and the Prince had just finalized the details of a munitions handover. Out of habit, Hughes casually opened the Mind Link for a glance—only to nearly be overwhelmed by the flood of messages.

‘Hahahahaha finally they’re gone wuuuuuuuu—’

‘Hurry and leave, don’t ever come back! I don’t want to wear armor every day anymore. We have to march in formation when walking and can’t even talk!’

‘Una, you don’t usually talk much anyway?’

‘Is not talking the same as not being allowed to talk?!’

‘Stop arguing! Check if Ignati has left yet!’

‘Gone, gone! The train has already left the Port District. Two more turns and we won’t see it at all!’

‘Wuhu~’

Hughes closed the Mind Link and turned to look out the window.

The Banshees stood in two lines at the station, holding their Scepters, silent like statues of steel.

Hughes opened the Mind Link again.

‘Freedom! Freedom!’

‘I don’t even want to go to church to pray this year!’

The corner of Hughes’s eye twitched.

He had thought the Banshees would at least keep up appearances until all the priests of the Silent Sanctum had left. He had not expected them to reveal their true colors the moment Ignati departed.

Most of the 【Burial Ones】 were still on the island!

That said… in certain aspects, the priests of the Silent Sanctum were not inferior to the Banshees either.