Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 385 Isn't your research a bit too outrageous?
Hughes was shocked when he heard this. He went to the cathedral's atrium and was astonished to find Monica actually hanging there, right next to Chloe, the two chatting and seemingly having a good time.
Hughes covered his face.

"Monica, what are you doing?! Get down here! The prince will be here in a couple of days. If he sees you like this, no matter how I explain that Castell didn't have a human sacrifice, he won't believe me."

At the top of the cathedral is a monument, where Chloe usually hangs, occupying the central position. Now, she's moved it aside to make room for Monica, and the two hang side by side, like two suns in the sky.
To be honest, this monument, combined with Monica's bound pose, does have a somewhat religious feel. If only the ropes were replaced with nails...
Oh, then we'll need to nail six.

“Monica, if you just come down now, whatever you’ve done will be forgiven.”

"Really?"

"Of course it's true, come down."

Hughes walked back to his office amidst Monica's screams.

The succubi are actually quite nice, except they're too good at creating mischief.

In contrast, the moths that chase fire blow up the test site every few days.

This is not an exaggeration; they really did blow up the entire testing ground.

The [Nymph] supernatural pathway is inherently good at stealth and can use abilities such as creating clones to deceive enemies, which is not a problem in itself.

But recently they have developed a new use for this capability.

Since it is called a clone, it is naturally different from the original body, and no matter what kind of damage it suffers, it will not endanger itself.

So the Fire-Chasing Moths began using their clones to conduct dangerous experiments. Experimenting with explosives was child's play; for example, Gaia's recent research proposal—

Feasibility Study on Suicide Attack Following Massive Ingestion of Nitroglycerin

The clone will disappear after being damaged, but nitroglycerin is indeed edible and can even treat heart disease.
Theoretically, this approach is indeed feasible, but it's somewhat absurd.

Take Tata, for example, the Moth-like engineer who designed the Stellar Furnace.

He's been researching airship attack methods lately, which isn't inherently problematic, but the direction he's taking is highly questionable. He's thinking about making the airships crash down and smash into the enemy's heads, causing massive damage.
In his words, this was "giving the airship a final means of attack."

Theoretically speaking, this proposal isn't entirely unreasonable.

What remains is simply untenable.

Alexei proposed a plan to build warships for the Papacy, but it was immediately rejected by Hughes.

What's the army thinking about building warships? That's shipyard work.

Alexei also argued vehemently that those lumps of iron in the shipyard were simply too unreliable, and this reason seemed plausible.
Hughes quickly shook his head, as if trying to shake these random thoughts out of his head.

No, absolutely not!
Nini's proposal to build an internal combustion engine was also rejected.

Hughes had long wanted to work on the internal combustion engine, and the Banshee was a very suitable candidate. They had a great advantage in scientific research, and theoretically, even if it was just a passing fancy, Hughes would approve it and let her give it a try.

So what if we fail?

When Nini submitted her proposal, Hughes was overjoyed; this unreliable banshee was finally starting to do something serious.

But after reviewing the details, he still did not approve it.

Nini is preparing to apply for project approval for an internal combustion engine that uses explosives as fuel. Good grief, nitroglycerin is also an oil, right?
Considering that no oil has been discovered yet, Hughes immediately suspended the project.

While there are many unreliable projects, there are also successful ones.
For example, Ash's previous research successfully solved Castells' food problem.

Castel is an island with abundant fishery resources. The island has many fruits and produces a lot of sweet fruit wine, so there was originally no problem with food.

However, after Hughes began developing industry, he naturally looked down on this primitive level of agriculture and moved all the people to factories. He planned to rely on imports and Nini's fish-herding magic to solve the problem of food. Once the industrial base was established, he would start building farms with a higher level of automation.

The idea itself was fine, but who would have thought that a deep-sea war would break out and food would almost choke Castells?

Now Hughes also began to pay attention to the issue of food security, and initiated a number of related projects at the time, with Ash's being just a rather insignificant one.

This was Ash's first research project. Although she was the leader of the banshees in battle, she was very quiet and reserved, had little interest in research, and didn't have any hobbies. Sometimes the banshees thought she was a very boring person.

However, she also has her own life, such as having a pet—a coyote.

That was when the first cognitive interference caused the pollution to descend. The pollution that suddenly fell from the sky caused Castel some minor trouble. Una was completely buried by the pollution, and in addition, some animals were hit by the pollution.

This coyote is one of them.

After it was captured, it was sent to Monica's place to be imprisoned. Out of curiosity, Monica almost killed the poor coyote. Fortunately, Ash took it back on a whim.

Ash has never kept any pets before. She tried to keep some small fish, but they all died.

Fortunately, she was diligent and kept changing the fish, so she was quite happy raising them.

Later, Hughes noticed that she was busy changing fish all day, which he found quite strange, so he followed her to her residence to see how she kept them.

Hughes knows a little about fishkeeping, though he wouldn't say much, he's unlikely to make any simple mistakes.

After spending a long time there, Ash couldn't find anything wrong. From the fish tank to the water changes, Ash did everything perfectly, but the fish just kept dying on their appointed days.

This is almost a supernatural phenomenon. Hughes has been investigating it for weeks without any results.

Finally, after he couldn't find anything, he casually asked, "What do you feed the fish?"

Ash looked slightly confused: "Do the fish need to be fed?"

Hughes: "."

Ash is quite reliable most of the time, but that doesn't stop her from being quite unreliable when she is.

Hughes was quite busy during that time, and by the time he remembered to remind Ash to feed the wolves, almost a month had passed.

Upon asking, it turned out that Ash hadn't been fed either.

After Hughes explained to Ash that "all pets need to be fed," he didn't take it seriously. Although Ash sometimes lacked common sense, she wasn't stupid and would remember after being reminded.

Hughes never expected the wolf to survive; after all, it hadn't been fed for over a month and should have starved to death long ago.

But the wolf not only survived, but also indirectly changed Castells' food supply in the future.

(End of this chapter)