No, How Are You Supposed to Take a Train on a Ship?

"No! How am I supposed to take a train across the ocean?"

In the year 3278 of Daehan.

"Maknae, take the reading."

"Uh... the sun is over there, and today's date is... the current time is... um..."

Somewhere in the middle of the open sea, a sailor squinted at his chronometer, glanced up at the sky, and stumbled his way through scribbling something down.

At first he'd been thrilled at the prospect of sailing the world, but once he was actually aboard, it turned out to be nothing but hardship, hardship, and more hardship.

Who could have imagined he'd end up endlessly staring at nothing but sky and sea under the blazing sun of the endless deep blue?

"It's sunrise already~"

"Ah... now how did I do that calculation again..."

Nothing came to him, and he had a feeling the man in front of him wouldn't take kindly to going below deck to fetch his notes.

Like a ship rocking on the waves, the memory swayed just out of reach.

"...Latitude 36.2 north, longitude 11.3 east, sir!"

"Oh! Well done. So, what's there?"

"According to the chart... nothing, sir!"

"Great! Then that's a newly discovered island, isn't it?"

"...What?"

Only then did he lift his head and gaze into the distance, where something like a green triangle rose faintly above the horizon — a mountaintop, perhaps.

"Oh... not again..."

He hated islands. Every time one was found, they had to go ashore and wander for days on end surveying and drawing charts.

Last time, a beast had charged him and nearly launched him all the way home through the air.

Without the Holy Water, he might well have gone to heaven. He'd fully healed, but his side still had an odd, throbbing ache.

"Sniff..."

"Oh my! Our Maknae! Crying with joy, are you?"

The Deck Boss believed he was weeping out of pure delight. That was somehow even more terrifying.

Once, when they reached land, the boy had run away — but the man somehow knew and came after him anyway, and there was no escaping. The only way out was death.

When that beast had sent him flying, he'd actually felt relieved — maybe it was finally over.

But then the man had come sprinting in like the wind, force-fed him the Holy Water, and poured it over him, and he'd healed in no time at all.

Daehan, having produced marine chronometers, was training navigators with help from the scholars of Mudo.

Countless ships crisscrossed the oceans, charting maps of the entire world.

Wow. You built a crane too? Impressive. I never even imagined you could lift something as heavy as a locomotive.

But then.

CRREEEAK... KABOOM, KWAAANG-RUMBLE

"Whoa..."

"Hul..."

These idiots. I told them it wouldn't work, and they went ahead insisting it would — and now a whole ship was sinking before my eyes, with a steam locomotive vanishing into the depths after it.

The crane it had been dangling from was just a bonus casualty.

"I thought you said it would work?"

"What? No, the boys said it would..."

"I said it wouldn't."

"...I apologize."

It had all started because the folks in the East complained that the land was so vast they couldn't manage it, and begged for locomotives to be sent over.

"What do we do now?"

"Why do you want that land so badly anyway?"

"It has no owner, and we've already brought all the natives ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into the fold — it'd be a waste to give it up, wouldn't it?"

If the natives were hostile, fine — but with them this friendly, throwing the land away did seem like a shame.

"Then you'll have to go build it yourselves."

"Won't the technology leak out?"

"If they're determined enough, this much is an acceptable price, isn't it? Besides, the kids are capable. As long as they guard it well, it's fine."

What a worrywart of a face. Which is exactly why you scope things out before charging ahead.

"I'll go make preparations."

"First, send over plenty of gunpowder."

"Huh? Why?"

"You have to blast around everywhere before you can find iron ore, right? Gotta have the ore before anything else can happen."

"Oh!"

Canada was supposedly riddled with open-pit deposits, so it was worth going all in.

Thin population, barely any environmental damage yet — better to crack through the permafrost and everything else while the getting was good.

"Things will be fine over here without me, right?"

"You're going yourself?"

"I should see it at least once, shouldn't I?"

"...You will come back, won't you?"

"Depends on how well you behave."

Both here and there — it's not even a foreign country, so why is everyone acting like this?

"Look into the settlers too. The land there is so vast that people will always be in short supply."

"Is it as big as this continent?"

"About the same size — but instead, it has an enormous stretch of land far more livable than this."

"Sounds like a fine place, then."

A land with everything, more or less.

"Things here, just keep them as they are. Find the iron mines, lay the rails, and the trains can shuttle back and forth — shouldn't take too long."

Me, I'll just be flying around anyway.

"Those four in the south are a bit suspicious — if they get aggressive, just grind them into dust. Especially the islands; we don't need them at all."

"Yes, ma'am!"

They'll do fine, right?

"For now, get a few locomotives ready, along with the rails and all the fittings to install them. And the gunpowder too."

"But we can't move them all by ship, can we?"

"I can move them."

"...Oh! Right."

"Better to pack up what you'll actually use and take it with you."

"Thank you!"

Babysitting these kids is aging me. Aging me, I tell you.

Taking care of the small matters one by one, preparations to head to the Eastern Continent began in earnest.

First, the most important things: locomotives, freight cars, passenger cars — and the gunpowder to blow apart mountains in the search for iron ore.

And lastly, everything the Moda kids had packed for me, insisting they'd need it later when building a steelworks and that starting from bare ground over there would be far too hard.

Then came intelligence that Han, Tang, Joseon, and Japan — four of them! — were planning a joint attack. Delivered by a Japanese agent, no less.

But before they could even begin, the Tang Dynasty spiraled into yet another civil war, fractured apart, and the whole scheme fizzled out.

"Are they doing stand-up comedy over there or something?"

Their population had grown so large that wiping them out wholesale felt excessive, and conquering and annexing them ran straight into the religion problem and that eternal beast, ethnic nationalism.

Honestly, them fighting among themselves was the best possible outcome.

"More importantly — why did Han and Joseon get involved?"

"Han is likely seeking a way out of its isolated position, and Joseon... independence, apparently."

Using "the independence movement" as an excuse here, of all places.

"That land can't do anything but farm. What do they even plan to do there? We support them and make it livable — how do they not see that?"

"Shall we drive them all out?"

"No, leave them. That's our land they've squatted on without permission, isn't it? As long as we have justification to come reclaim it when we need it, that's enough."

"Understood."

As for that island nation — occupying it would just mean earthquakes and floods, and cleaning up after them would be more exhausting than it was worth. Better to simply collect their taxes later.

The supplies they wanted took a full five years to prepare — we produced the consumables first and built the rest from whatever materials remained, so it dragged on longer than anyone expected.

The rails especially piled up like actual mountains. It honestly frightened me, wondering where all that iron was even coming from.

I'd asked for plenty of gunpowder too, and they gleefully tapped into the batches that had been maturing all this while.

Then I stuffed everything deep into my subspace, rode a train, boarded a ship, and stepped off at a port at the very edge of the Eastern Continent.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Welcome!"

"Miss! Welcome back!"

Wherever they'd learned it from, they were firing off a welcome salute — and the smoke was making me choke. I was about to suffocate to death.

"Miss! The cargo!!?"

Are you all happy to see me, or happy to see the locomotives?

"Brought them all. But first we need to lay track and build a station, right? You did study how to lay rails properly, didn't you?"

You can't just plop rails down and call it a day — the trains have to turn around and run on them, after all.

"We spent the last five years digging and shoveling on the Original Continent, learning everything!"

"And the groundwork was already prepared in advance!"

Diligently overzealous, aren't they?

"Where should I unload the rails? I'll bring them out in batches."

"Over there, please!"

Oh. They'd cleared a yard and even laid down timber beds. Someone had put real effort into it.

THUD. KU-GUUNG. KRRRRK.

As the rails came out, wood splintered somewhere and the ground sank in places.

Nothing to be done about it. How good could a rail yard made by amateurs really be?

CLANG-CLANG. TINK-TINK.

And out came the fastening hardware, spilling over onto one side.

"Now, work hard building those, and I'll bring out the trains."

"WAAAAH! The train is here! Hurry, everyone!"

"YEEHAHA!"

Wait — are these really natives? Their faces are a little different, but why does everything they do look exactly the same as back home?

"This way, Miss."

"Mm."

Apparently the leader of some sort, he guided me toward his home. Off in the distance, something had them all worked up — hauling timber ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and carrying rails.

Huh? They're just... carrying that off by hand? About forty of them swarmed a rail section and sprinted away with it.

"What's got them so excited?"

"Some of them came up from further south, you see. A trip home used to take months — so when word came that something had arrived that would cut it down to days, everyone went wild."

Ah. So their leaves get easier too. Now they'll really lay track like their lives depend ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on it.

"How far south have you gotten?"

"Not very far. The distance is just too great."

"Have you sketched out a rough map?"

"Yes. We practiced with the chronometers."

No telling how accurate that method holds up on land, though.

"Well then, I'd better head out right away. Looks like you'd be hauling rails on your own backs otherwise?"

"...Ugh."

With only two rails per section, the track was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠laid out in no time, and watching the boys jog off into the distance with more rails on their shoulders, I decided this couldn't go on.

"Have you trained anyone to drive a locomotive?"

"Yes — several of our people ran the Seonnam line for two years."

They were serious about this. Diligently prepared, indeed.

"All right, let's go~"

Heading out, I found people sprinting down the line with long rails over their shoulders. Their faces were so bright. Could it really be that wonderful?

KU-GUUNG. GRRRKK.

Whoa, that startled me. Thought something had collapsed.

"By the way, it's freezing here — how do you get water?"

"They're boiling it steadily over on that side."

"Everyone's having such a hard time."

"They won't think of it as hardship, Miss."

Well, that's a relief — though me, I still hate the cold.

"This is frozen ground, so you'll need to keep a careful eye on track inspections."

"Yes, ma'am!"

The workers bustling about, building the station and the roundhouse — their faces looked genuinely, radiantly happy.

The station where the line ended — this terminus especially — had the most tangled trackwork and the most buildings.

This place had taken a whole week for a single station building. We stowed the rest of the trains in the empty roundhouse, and hauled out the passenger and freight cars in full.

Once I unloaded the remaining rail, they'd carry the construction on their own from there.

"But the iron ore deposits are awfully far away, aren't they?"

"We can see plenty of other ores around, but the iron mine we've found so far is terribly distant."

"We'll just keep hauling more over from the Original Continent, then."

They'd extended the line all the way down to Samro to the south, but the rails I'd brought would probably fall short.

We'd just have to cross back over the continent and bring more. What else was there to do?

Civil engineering on this scale truly wasn't something you got to see often. We were already thirty years in.

Whole generations had passed working on tracklaying — that said everything. There simply weren't enough people here, so labor was always in short supply.

Thank goodness we'd brought the trains in early and put them to work on construction.

KREEEEEEEE... DDLKUNG... SQUEEEEEAL

"Ah, that one's completely given out?"

Locomotives were breaking down one after another — pandemonium. Naturally, they had to be hauled back to the mainland for replacement. What choice was there?

Still, it was fortunate that the locomotives kept improving. The first ten we brought over weren't frequent offenders, but whenever one broke down every few months, it couldn't be repaired here and had to make the trip back to the mainland.

"So in thirty years we've gone through about fifty?"

"And yet there's still no end in sight, is there?"

Mm, true — the end is visible. We're even building the steelworks, and since we knew it would take a long time, construction started ages ago.

I hoped the rails would be finished soon, so we could haul the iron from the mines and process it right here.

Only then could we bring in more skilled workers.

"It was absolutely miserable, I tell you."

"We'll have to lay far more from here on. Fuhuhu."

This one's fallen head over heels for trains too. Good grief.

With the chronometer in hand, the sea-faring friends now roamed the world without a shred of fear — and short of artificial satellites, there was surely no world map more accurate than ours.

And we found it, too. The Chilean saltpeter mines. Hold that one place in an iron grip, and there was nothing left to fear.

We didn't need it ourselves, but keeping other nations from getting their hands on it — wouldn't that be delicious?

SCREEEEEECH

"What's that? Why is it wheezing like that?"

"Hmm? Its front end is caved in, ma'am?"

The animals kept blocking the tracks, so we'd fitted iron bars as protection — and this is what happened?

"Looks like they didn't slow down, did they?"

"I'll see to it, ma'am."

"Train them properly. If that thing breaks, it's a nightmare to fix."

So many of the animals out here were enormous — if a train barreled into one at full speed, even a locomotive built of steel would crumple without fail.

That was the whole reason for the shield-like plating up front, but apparently, emboldened by having it, the driver had rammed straight in without slowing down at all.

Someone was due for a serious scolding.