The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

Like most of the private fishing boats in St. Paulia Port, the Beloved is refitted from a country's retired warships.

With the improvement and popularization of steam engine technology, coastal countries have to replace their navies with equipment, because if you don’t follow up with better steam ships and other countries replace them, then you can only be passively beaten, and even the sea Power will also be completely snatched away by other countries.

Therefore, when the first ship equipped with a steam engine appeared on the sea, all countries replaced their navies with the same equipment, and the improvement of steam ships was also very fast. There was an earth-shaking change in almost a few years. This made those maritime countries have to follow suit and change their ships. From the beginning, they only pretended to be a steam engine roller on a sailing ship, then invented the propeller, and then made a steel hull, and now completely abandon the sail. In just 50 years, there have been as many as five iterations of ships at sea.

The technical iteration of some ships can be transformed on existing ships, but more ship iterations can only decommission the previous ships and rebuild new ships, so that there are a large number of retired ships Appear.

In the beginning, the navies of various countries were worried that if they sold their own ships, their weapons secrets would be leaked, so they were willing to let those decommissioned ships rot in the shipyard, or even dismantled them completely, and sold them as scraps, and they were unwilling to sell any of them as a whole. ships.

But later, because the speed of ship iteration was too fast, there were problems with the funds of various countries, so that various maritime countries had to change their previous decisions and began to sell the entire decommissioned ship to private chambers of commerce or fleets. Officials need to conduct credit and identity verification. As long as enough money can be paid, any type of decommissioned ship can be sold to a private person. This is how the Beloved fell into the hands of Hailesa and became his car.

The Beloved is a steam-sail dual-power battleship. The sails are the most popular long-horned sails of the year. This kind of sail and the long shuttle-shaped hull of the Beloved make the Beloved even in the case of headwinds. sailing speed.

In addition, the Beloved is also equipped with two giant steam engines, which are connected to four conical propellers, so that the speed of the Beloved will not slow down when there is no wind.

In terms of speed alone, Beloved is definitely the fastest of the steam-sail dual-powered battleships, but this is its only advantage. Other than that, this ship has only shortcomings.

For example, it uses a half-timber and half-metal hull. Although this increases the toughness of the hull, it is also because of the unreasonable connection between the wood and metal parts. After encountering disasters such as big storms, It is often necessary to reinforce the hull, or risk falling apart.

In addition, in order to achieve the fastest speed of the ship, various weapons and equipment were reduced on the ship, making it even inferior to the oldest sailing warship in terms of offense.

As a warship, the Beloved is completely unqualified, but this extremely fast ship fell into the hands of Hailesa, a fisherman, pirate and smuggler, but made the new owner extremely satisfied. The disadvantages still exist, but the advantage of its speed is enough to make up for all the disadvantages.

In addition, after Hailesa bought the ship, he made great modifications to it. First, the hull was reinforced, and then all weapons were removed, because with the attack power of this ship, it would be impossible to use something similar to a machine crossbow or artillery. Such long-range weapons may not even be able to beat an ordinary caravan escort ship, so they simply don't use them all, add some fishing equipment, and modify a few fish cabins, so as to disguise themselves as harmless fishing boats.

When they make a living as a pirate, they use the disguise of a fishing boat to get close to the target, and then jump to the target ship to start a docking station with the other party, so each of the sailors on the Beloved has good personal combat power

In addition, he also remodeled the upper cabin, opened up several upper cabins, and built several luxurious cabins, and also modified several special mezzanines and secret rooms in the cabin.

Afterwards, he asked the Beloved to receive passengers in the form of an ocean-going passenger ship, and most of the passengers he chose were people with special identities, or wealthy and powerful people, because only such people could make those anti-smuggling navies who specialize in smuggling dare not Random searches, so that the smuggled goods stored in the mezzanines and secret rooms of those guest cabins can safely pass various inspections.

With this method, countless contraband, valuables and even some special people and things were smuggled out of his hands. He has become a well-known smuggler in the black market of the old and new continents.

This time, Hailesa also accepted a smuggling business, and the other party only asked him to send him a metal password box, which seemed very simple.

But the seasoned Hailesa knew very well that the simpler the goods being transported, the greater the risk of unknown dangers. What's more, this box is only superficially simple, but in fact the value of the box itself can already be compared with that of more than a dozen Beloved ships. The value is comparable now.

When he was a pirate on another ship when he was young, he had seen a similar box, and that box had only one function, which was to hold the relics of the gods. Now that he saw this box again, he hardly needed to put the box Open it, and you will know that the things contained in the box are most likely the relics of the gods.

At the beginning, he was going to decline the commission, but the price offered by the other party was too high, so high that if he gave up, he would regret this decision for the rest of his life.

But after he took this mission, he also felt regretful, because he felt that this mission was too dangerous, and he might be involved in this mission.

It's just that he can't give up, and he can't hide with things, because the entrusting party's strength is beyond his ability to resist. He may be able to escape the entrusting party's pursuit for a period of time, but it will be a matter of time before he gets caught. Sometimes it is very difficult for him to die, and what awaits him is more likely to be worse than death, and this torture will last for a long time, because he has seen how those people torture the betrayers, and he does not want to be the target of those people's torture .

So he could only find a way to safely send the things to the other side of the ocean and to the hands of the entrusting party. For this reason, he spent a lot of money to inquire about the high-level churches in St. Paulia Port. They will go to the Old Continent soon to participate in the The Holy Sacrifice Ceremony of the main churches of their respective churches, so he specially sailed to the port of St. Paulia to wait. Later, relying on various relationships, he let a senior clergyman from the Temple of Springs take his boat.

With this senior clergyman of the Spring Temple as a cover, he believes that this commission will be completed smoothly without any major problems.

What I never expected was that after everything was ready, when we were about to set off, a series of tragedies happened to the ships docked at the pier, and the ships that happened to the tragedies were all ships that the clergy of various churches had already booked to board. .

Although there were only a few ships involved in the tragedies, which accounted for only a small part of the scheduled ships, and there was no clear indication that these tragedies were directed at the church, the church did not ambiguously pass it, and temporarily changed the itinerary of all traveling clergy. The pre-booked cabins were also withdrawn, and the entire ship was completely chartered, and the crew was replaced by people from their own church to avoid any possible dangers.

In this way, all the plans made by Hailesa before are all over. The only remedy is to find a cover that can help him block those smuggling dogs. Soon he found an old continent with his family to visit the New World Noble, but this noble status is not enough to completely protect him from the inspection of the anti-smuggling ship, he still needs to find another passenger who can complement the noble status.

At this time, he saw a suitable candidate, a knight of the Church of False Heart who was looking for an ocean liner at the pier.

Just like the vast majority of people in this world, Hailesa would never have anything to do with anyone in the Church of False Heart if possible, because people in the Church of False Heart, whether they are church knights or senior priests, Even ordinary believers, no matter how normal they look on the surface, they are still a lunatic inside, a lunatic who can explode at any time and do all kinds of incredible things.

He once saw a senior clergyman of the Church of False Heart, one moment he was chatting and laughing with others, and the next moment he suddenly killed the person who was joking with him, and the reason was that he heard Someone whispered in his ear to tell him to kill the man, otherwise the man would kill more people.

If ordinary people say and do this, they will definitely not escape the death penalty, but the problem is that the Church of False Heart is different. They call this apocalypse, and this kind of apocalypse is recognized by most of the true God churches and countries. In the end, the cleric who inexplicably murdered will be acquitted.

It is precisely because the members of the False Heart Church are all such murderers who may erupt at any time, and they are still murderers who will not be questioned, so people from all over the world will actively avoid the people of the False Heart Church and will not fight with them. Even the clergy of some churches will avoid too much contact with the Church of False Heart.

If it was before, Hailesa would also avoid people from the Church of False Heart, but now the situation is different, he now needs a shelter that can protect him from the wind and rain, and the falsehood that everyone hates and fears The clergy of the Heart Church naturally became the best choice.

And through conversation, Hailesa also found out that this church knight was actually ordered to buy a boat ticket, and the person who can command the knight of the Church of False Heart, even if he is not a senior cleric of the Church of False Heart, is definitely an identity A very unusual church figure, which is more in line with his requirements.

"Have all the guests been arranged?" Because it was the Church of False Heart, the cautious Hailesa did not go to greet her in person, but handed everything over to the first officer.

"It's all been arranged. The rooms of the two groups of guests are arranged separately, and they walk through different aisles. There should be no contact." The first officer reported the situation, and then added: "However, the Knights of the Church of False Heart It seems that the people are not from the Church of False Heart, judging from their temperament, they should be two great nobles."

"Great nobleman?" Hairessa was stunned, and asked, "How old is it?"

The first mate recalled carefully and said: "At least the duke level, especially the lady, gave me the feeling as if I saw the queen, just one look made me dare not look up."

Hailesa couldn't help but fell into deep thought when he heard what the first mate said. He didn't question what his first mate said, because he knew very well that his first mate had a much higher vision than him. Judging from his clothing and temperament A person's identity is his specialty, and he has basically never missed it in the past so many years, so he said that two of the guests he greeted are comparable to the duke and queen, so the identity of the other party must be the duke and queen, or the status other corresponding identities.

Although it is true that a guest with a higher status can prevent some troubles more effectively, the same status that exceeds expectations may also cause some unnecessary troubles.

The two identities may be the mysterious passengers of the top dignitaries who can command the Knights of the False Heart Church at will. This kind of thing has never been encountered by Hailesa in the past, and I have never even heard of it. You must know the False Heart The clergy and knights of the church are known for being uncontrollable. Unless it is the gods they believe in, even the king should never command them arbitrarily.

Obviously, this common sense that has been passed down for many years has now been broken, and for Hailesa, he does not want this kind of common sense to happen to him, especially when he has accepted such a difficult commission.

"Should we let them..." As a partner for many years, the first officer easily saw through Hai Leisa's mind, and then asked tentatively.

Before the first officer could finish speaking, Hailesa shook her head and said, "No, since they've already come up, they are our passengers, and it's fine to instruct the people below to treat them normally, and try to keep as little contact with them as possible. They also have big troubles, too much contact may cause trouble for us."

After finishing speaking, he ordered the chief mate to check the overall condition of the ship and the supplies, then walked to the copper pipe next to the steering wheel, opened the plug, and shouted a few words into it, and the steam engine room at the other end of the pipe received Command, start to ignite and burn, and start the steam engine slowly.

With the sound of a whistle, the steam-sail dual-powered boat slowly started under the captain's skilled driving skills, avoiding the ships of all sizes docked in the sheltered bay of the pier, and sailed into the sea, heading towards the old continent. drive away.

Just as the ship left the Old Continent, a black shadow emerged from the Daru Temple on the cliff, fell into the sea, and disappeared.

At the same time, a non-existent nine-storey building in the center of Baicheng District ejected a ray of light invisible to ordinary people and penetrated into the sky. Although this ray of light is invisible to ordinary people, some extraordinary people can see it clearly. They were very curious and surprised by the place where the light appeared, and when they were about to check it out, the idea of ​​checking it suddenly disappeared inexplicably, and they continued what they were doing before as if they forgot about it .