Time Travel 12 years 11 months 7 days
Elizabeth's affair made my mind confused for a while, but compared to that muddled relationship, I must concentrate on doing business, after all, this voyage is not for fun.
The fleet is about to arrive at the British Isles. I was here once five years ago.
The doctor told me that there have been a lot of changes on the island recently. I’m curious about what the changes are. I hope they’re good changes.
I don’t know where Anna is now. I’m a little worried about her. Next time we meet, I want her to tell me her whereabouts so that I can help her if anything unexpected happens.
Of course, I would try to persuade her to stay on the island, but given her personality, that might not be that easy.
As Charles continued to write, a flash of light outside the window caught his attention.
He quickly finished today's diary, walked to the window and looked outside.
A beam of white light appeared on the dark sea. It was the light of the lighthouse on the British Isles.
"Mr. Charles, are we there yet?" Lily climbed up his trouser legs.
Under the gaze of the two, a bright island slowly appeared in front of him.
As the most famous island in the North Sea, the area of the British Isles is incomparable to other islands. Charles almost thought that a new continent appeared before him.
The chimney emitting black smoke was Charles' first impression of this place. He suspected that the cave ceiling above the British Isles had been completely smoked black.
As the ship slowly approached, Charles could clearly smell the pungent smell of smoke in the air, which was filled with the smell of the sea.
"I remember there weren't so many chimneys before..." Charles muttered to himself as he looked at the islands in the distance.
The biggest difference from other islands is that electricity seems to be free on this island. Even the messy and noisy port area is full of various yellow light bulbs.
The yellow of the light bulbs below and the black of the thick smoke above, these two colors are the main tones of the British Isles.
Just as Charles was still observing the island, a sound similar to an air raid alarm suddenly came from the British Isles.
As the sound was made, several warships equipped with anti-aircraft guns headed towards this side, and soon, the Hope Island battleship also sent a speedboat over to dock.
Charles thought the fleet would be stuck in front of the port, but to his surprise, the other party actually let it pass.
"Did the other side give you any trouble?" Charles, who was standing on the dock, asked the returning captain.
"Governor, the other party said that friends from Hope Island can enter the port, but they must pay the mooring tax."
"Haha, friends?" Charles smiled. He and he had never been friends.
"Let's go, stop the boat over there, and go meet this 'friend'."
The huge fleet attracted the attention of the islanders of the British Isles. They were all discussing who the newcomers were.
"Now that we're here, I'll be leaving first. If you want to see the content, go to the Steam University yourself." The doctor came down from the ladder and limped towards the dock.
"be safe."
"Humph, I have more acquaintances here than you do. You should worry about yourself and don't let Swan trick you."
Watching his back disappear in the crowd, Charles turned around and got into the car that had been waiting nearby.
When a governor comes to someone else's island, he still has to meet each other. This is the unspoken rule of Earthsea.
Charles didn't bring many people with him, except Lily and the guards led by Feuerbach.
"Where is the best shipyard here?" Charles asked the bearded burly driver while stroking Lily's red hair with his hand.
Hearing this, Charles stopped talking, rolled down the car window and looked at the scenery outside.
As the car wheels rolled, Charles and his party drove into the island. The Mechanical City was as its name suggested. Various mechanical instruments that were not found on other islands could be seen everywhere here.
The level of technology here was obviously much higher. Charles could even see some people fiddling with huge and bulky disk drives.
"Mr. Charles, look over there, there's the TV you mentioned!" Lily leaned over the window and shouted in surprise.
The screen was more than one person tall and looked very rough and bulky. It was indeed a TV.
"Technology is developing very fast. There was no such thing five years ago. The things in the New Territories have a great impact on the British Isles."
At this rate, it won’t be long before the technology of the Earthsea world reaches the level of modern society.
As time passed, the car arrived near a factory. Looking at the black smoke coming out of the chimney outside the window, which was emitted day and night, Charles became interested.
He could see a lot of factories and was curious about what they were making.
Charles motioned to stop the car first. "Is that place open to traffic?"
The driver nodded. "Of course, this is Mr. Jim's factory. His business has had many transactions with Hope Island. I believe if he knew that Governor Charles was visiting his factory, he would definitely not stop it."
Charles walked towards the factory gate. Everything inside felt strangely familiar to him. Everything here was very similar to the factories on the surface.
"Very noisy" was Charles' first impression when he walked into the workshop. The huge machine assembled with various gears and air pumps was like a monster crawling in the middle of the workshop.
It seemed like some kind of power machine, driving the punching machine to hammer tirelessly.
Not to mention that Charles, who came from the surface, had never seen this kind of equipment, and the other people around him had never seen this scene either.
The faces of everyone who followed were filled with surprise.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!" The workers quickly put some gear parts into the groove of the machine and stamped them out quickly.
Charles could tell that they seemed to be making parts for some kind of machine.
Looking at the workers' haggard faces and dark circles under their eyes, Charles judged that these people were obviously sleep deprived.
“The bloody primitive accumulation of the Industrial Revolution?”
Seeing the tired workers, Charles was sure that this punch press must have broken many fingers.
"Wow!" Lily, who was standing next to Charles, wagged her tail and looked at everything around her in amazement.
Just as she was looking around curiously, something was approaching her from underneath the machine.
Suddenly, a shriveled little black hand stretched out from under the machine and grabbed Lily.
"ah!!"
The moment Charles heard Lily's scream, his whole body tensed up. When he turned around, a sharp black blade appeared in his hand.
"Swish!" A cold light flashed, and the black hand was cut off at the wrist, and scarlet blood spurted out.
When Charles rescued the frightened Lily from her black hand, the little mouse was already terrified and cried while holding Charles' fingers.
(End of this chapter)