Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 755 Underground World
The sender was Jules, and the recipient was Beatrice.

No further explanation is needed; these two names alone elevate its importance to the highest level.

Therefore, this letter, which was clearly problematic, attracted a great deal of attention as soon as it appeared.

Where did this letter come from?

Hughes frowned as he looked at the letter. On his desk sat an exquisite wooden box, carved from ebony and inlaid with gold and mithril patterns, which together created a magnificent picture.

Putting everything else aside, the box alone is worth hundreds of Leos, enough to feed Betty's fried fish for half a year.

"That's a long story," Hodge said, scratching his head as he began to recount the tale.
The story begins a week ago.

Everything in Upper Rhine has nothing to do with the lower-level believers. They are mostly just the foundation supporting the empire's prosperous stage, the unknown bricks and stones under the veil.

But the riots in Upper Rhine still affected them in the end.

On that day, the untouchables from the depths of the earth, riding massive steel machines, burst forth from the surface. These people, considered the lowest and most filthy, were seen as committing an unforgivable crime for appearing on the surface. The believers of Lower Rhine believed that seeing them would pollute their eyes.

But on that day, they not only appeared on the ground, but also ripped a hole in the sky.

The Upper Rhine, which even the Lower Rhine people had never seen, was visited by these Untouchables.

Although the priests have consistently stated that these untouchables were banished to the underworld, the very fact that the Vatican clashed with the untouchables has shaken the beliefs of many.

God cannot shed blood, because it symbolizes not power, but divinity.

Many people in the Lower Rhine also began to look up at the sky because of this.

It seemed as if they only then realized that the Upper Rhine was high above them not because they could fly, but because they stood on the head of the Lower Rhine.

Everything seemed unchanged; the people of Lower Rhine continued with their lives, but the way they occasionally looked at the priests had subtly changed.

Around this time, the number of passages between the Lower Rhine and the underground gradually increased.

In this delicate situation, an exquisite wooden box fell to the ground.

It didn't attract people's attention immediately. The underground world was too vast, with many interconnected voids. Things that fell from above would be sent to the landfill and then enter the incinerator.

In the junkyard, the wooden box stood out.

The garbage sorting machine immediately located it and quickly delivered it to a purely mechanical device.

Unlike the crooked and dilapidated creations of the Untouchables, this humanoid machine is extremely exquisite, with graceful curves revealing a sense of design.

That was once a sacred object of the Mechanical Society—the Gear Sage.

It still gives lectures today, but in a different location—underground.

At this moment, it is giving a lecture on an open space next to the garbage dump. The place here is much simpler, with the dirt ground just simply swept, far from the exquisite and magnificent church.

But there were many more people listening to the lecture in front of it.

Little Bu was listening to the lesson with his two pointed ears perked up, and his big eyes were still bright even in the darkness of the underground.

Beside her was Frey, who was dozing off.

This young man from Whitestone Castle now holds a significant position among the Untouchables underground. Firstly, he led the people of the subterraneans to conquer the Rhine, and secondly, he possesses that sacred text.

Before their departure, Gaia and Zoe gave them the sacred text of imperial truth.

This is actually quite good; the only problem is that nobody here can read.

Leaving aside the Untouchables like Little Bu, who have little contact with surface dwellers and are therefore illiterate, it's normal that they can't read. But Frey, although sent by Castel, is also illiterate.

Back in Whitestone Castle, he was just a petty thief on the streets. Later, although he joined Castel and studied on the airship for a while, the time was too short, and he didn't even have time to learn all the characters.

Not to mention that while Imperial Truth has some popular science aspects, it also contains quite a few technical terms.

In other words, no one in the entire underground can use this book.

In the end, Frey gritted his teeth and went to the surface, trying his best to secretly understand the meaning of the words in the book so that these underground people could understand this holy book from Castel.

—The appearance of the underground people is quite different from that of the surface people, and they can be recognized at a glance, so only Frey can do this job.

Now, underground, almost everyone has a copy of the holy book; this is Frey's achievement.

Thanks to this achievement, Frey held a very high position in the underworld, and as a result, the beautifully decorated wooden box was delivered to him immediately.

"Was this thrown down from above?" Frey asked the mechanical boy next to him with some doubt.

—Those were underground people obsessed with mechanical research. Unlike the bio-modification technology of the Mechanical Sanctuary, these mechanical kids weren't very interested in modifying their own bodies. They preferred to assemble all sorts of messy machines from various discarded parts.

Whether it's useful or not is another matter, but the visual effect is quite stunning. For example, the one in front of Frey is a pile of various parts that are almost like a Christmas tree, assembled into a mechanical armor in an exaggerated way.

It looks like he went out wearing a pile of garbage.

That's why the beautifully decorated wooden box in his hand seemed so out of place.

"These things thrown down from above aren't of much use, but they're very pretty, so I'm bringing them to you."

The mechanical boy's voice came through the loudspeaker. The thing looked like it had been taken from something, and the electrical hum made his words sound a bit off.

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with shouting directly from this distance, but these mechanical kids insisted on adding a megaphone, thinking it would make things much cooler.

Frey really couldn't appreciate it.

So he focused his attention on the wooden box in his hand, and as soon as his gaze shifted to it, he frowned.

This box is so exquisite.

Frey was a street hustler by trade, and he was an expert at appraising and selling stolen goods. It's no exaggeration to say that this box, if converted into grain, would be enough to feed a person for a year.

The subterranean people have no concept of currency; to them, this exquisite box is nothing more than a pretty but useless piece of junk, but to the surface people, it is a precious thing.

Can this be thrown away so easily?
Frey immediately perked up and, taking the matter very seriously, called in some people to help with the task.

After carefully opening the box, Frey stared in disbelief at the letter inside.

"A letter from Pope Jules of the Candlelight Vigil to former Pope Beatrice?!"

(End of this chapter)