Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 511 More and more people are on the stage
“I also find this strange,” Hodge said slowly. Before the attack, Hunter had informed them of this intelligence, and the allied forces had spent a long time preparing to deal with Count Bazel.

The Allied forces had captured almost all the strongholds near Wolfsburg, and Wolfsburg was effectively besieged. In theory, neither the Allied forces' defeat nor Castell's attack would give Bazel any intelligence.

But they did indeed leave Wolfsburg, leaving the stronghold where they had rested for half a year.

“I’ll report this to Lord Alexei first. He should know more than we do. You come with me.” Hodge thought for a moment, then pulled Hunter into Alexei’s tent.

Alexei was originally in charge of affairs on Castel Island, but this time he was pulled over by Hughes to command the front-line battle.

Firstly, he was already in charge of military affairs in Castells and had commanded the Papal Army in deep-sea warfare, so he was very familiar with the task.

Secondly, Alexei graduated from the Royal Military Academy, and no one understood better than him how the Imperial armies would fight.

Well, the prince may know more than him, but this expedition was ultimately led by Castel.

As for Alexei's original job, Hughes had to take over it himself.

There is currently no one who can replace the manager who can coordinate the entire production capacity of the Castel plant.

After Hunter and Hodge reported the situation to Alexei, Alexei indeed had some different ideas:

"Could it be a superhuman? There are unexpectedly many investigators in the North. The Holy See is trying to intervene in the local situation with superhuman power. Count Bazel should be a good breakthrough point."

Alexei thought for a moment, then picked up another report.

"This is a record Isaac left behind when he first returned to Castel. It mentions that there was an extremely powerful superhuman by Bazel's side, named..."

He glanced up at Hodge, the slightly thin man who stared blankly at his feet, seemingly unconcerned.

“Her name is Lina. If she is still with Count Bazel, she might be able to help him gather intelligence.”

Hodge has a sister named Lena, whom he lost contact with after being captured by the Candlelight Order. According to his description, Lena looks exactly like Lena from the North.

If this is all the information available, Alexei would basically conclude that this Lina is Hodge's sister, who may have come into contact with the supernatural after Hodge was captured for various reasons, and then drifted here.

But there is still a shell of Lina on Castel Island.

The Fire Moths once recruited a member in the Rhine, named Lina, who looked exactly like Hodge's sister. Later, she was caught red-handed by Chloe for stealing secrets and was turned into a shell.

That Lina was just a mortal. Whether before or after she was captured, her body had undergone many tests, but she was still just a mortal.

This has made things complicated, and whether which Lena is Hodge's sister or neither remains to be investigated.

Hodge was originally just an exiled prisoner, but he joined the Guardians of the Church and fought bravely during the Deep Sea War, even becoming a captain and gaining access to some of the truth about Castells.

He had already seen Lina's body, reviewed the detailed files of the incident, and had also communicated with Chloe's diary. He had a complete understanding of the whole affair from beginning to end.

"Don't worry, Castells will investigate thoroughly," Alexei patted him on the shoulder and reassured him in a low voice.

Hodge simply nodded without saying much. He was now a member of the expeditionary force, no longer the worker at the Rhine factory. He had new beliefs and pursuits. His sister was important, but if she chose to be an enemy of Castells...
Well, Hodge didn't know what to choose at that point either.

But Castells did not strip him of his military status, nor did he prevent him from coming to the North to investigate the truth; he did not want to betray that trust.

Hunter glanced at the two who had fallen silent and couldn't help but feel anxious: "Sir, if there really are superhumans investigating, no matter whose forces they are, can't we do something to stop them?"

"This is a bit troublesome."

Castel's biggest weakness is that he has too few superhumans.

As a nascent power, having several extraordinary individuals loyal to them is already quite good. Even Isabella, as the Empress, doesn't have many knights at her disposal.

But if it comes to going up against the Vatican, it's not up to par.

There is no doubt that the Papacy has many extraordinary individuals. Extraordinary individuals have always been very valuable, and most lords cannot afford the resources required to train one.

These things are basically all monopolized by the Papacy.

Castel does have quite a few banshees, but firstly, they continuously lose vitality after leaving Hughes and cannot stay for long, and secondly, they don't actually have much scouting ability on land.

They were suited for direct combat, but Castells' expeditionary force had no shortage of that.

"I will apply to the lord, but at the moment, the only one who can come is Richard. He alone is a drop in the ocean when it comes to the situation in the North. We already have more than ten armies sent out, and we can't take care of everyone."

Most of these people went to find the resistance, but there is still no news. Now, Count Bazel has left Wolfsburg for some unknown reason and disappeared without a trace.

The waters in the North are getting increasingly murky.

“Although it looks troublesome, it’s not a big problem.” Alexei sneered. “What we need to do is very simple: just push forward. No matter how murky the water is in the North, as long as we pump it out, what’s underwater will be exposed.”

Hughes sat in his office, staring at the mountain of documents piled on his desk with a look of utter despair.

These days he returned to Castel and took over the affairs on the island, and only then did he discover just how much of a workaholic Alexei really was.

"The great leader of the Moths of Fire, Castel's fearless warrior, and tireless seeker of truth."

'Okay, okay, stop now! My diary pages are too small; I can't fit all these names on them.'

"Dear Ms. Chloe, would you mind handling these documents?"

I consider my diary a form of documentation; are you letting documentation itself handle documentation?

"Well, Nini's newspaper can actually be considered a kind of document."

How should this be handled?

"Just check if there's any important information. These are all sorts of miscellaneous items, summaries of messages from various places. They're not high priority, but occasionally there might be some important intelligence."

It's just odd jobs.

"That's not entirely true. Chloe, you're incredibly observant; you might just find something."

Hughes chuckled and pushed a few documents over there, then fled into the sea of ​​files.

This document took a whole day to process.

"So, have you found any important information?" Hughes asked, stretching.

No, it was all just trivial stuff—a coyote killed by a train, the fish and chips shop closing down, and things like that.

"Oh, that's a real shame. I quite liked that fish and chips shop," Hughes said casually. After a moment, he suddenly turned his head.

"Wait, is it that Yami Fish & Fried Food that closed down? Did they say why?"

Yes, it's said that Gwen claimed she had some family matters to attend to and needed to go back to take care of them, leaving only Bettis. She's too busy and needs to rest for a few days.

(End of this chapter)