Maiden Voyage
Gush-gush-gush.
An enormous volume of water was pouring into a vast pit carved in the shape of a fat alphabet letter, wider at the bottom than the top.
“Ah….”
Down below, people were scrambling away in utter chaos, and no wonder — she had already wiped out six rivers.
“The ecosystem around here is going to change a lot later on….”
“Well, you *did* drag a landmass all the way across it. Is it really possible that not a single animal died in the process?”
“Ah….”
And if you counted the insects and the like, how many living things had this actually killed? If the truth ever came out, a place in the history books as humanity's greatest mass murderer would be all but guaranteed.
“Still, with the water flowing in like this, at least now we can see just how deep the channel was dug, right?”
“Cheer up, will you?”
No… I was just saying, that's all.
Whatever had happened to the reverent eyes she'd gotten on day one? The brat had grown into quite the insolent little rascal….
“Haah….”
“What's the matter?”
“This mountain's way too tall, though.”
When she'd looked down from the sky, she'd assumed it was just a matter of crossing one mountain — but the elevation was much higher than she'd expected, and the channel was turning into sheer cliff walls on both sides.
Even now, with the flanks deliberately sloped, the phrase "carved-straight cliffs" fit the sight perfectly.
“Looking up at it is terrifying.”
“It does feel like it's about to come crashing down on us, just a little….”
“I should order more trees planted, too….”
If heavy rain came and the slopes gave way, wouldn't it be a bona fide disaster? Hm? Wait — no, actually. With a channel this wide, half of it would stay open even if the entire mountain collapsed into it.
Am I… doing something incredibly reckless here?
Eh, fine. We'll just charge slightly less in tolls later, that's all.
“Make sure word gets around to the nearby tribes. Send gifts along with the message, as much as it takes….”
“Understood. You do realize more tribute has been flowing in lately than we can send back out, right?”
With the waterway doing most of the work, the finishing work on the canal had become largely unnecessary, so the laborers were being diverted to soothing local sentiment instead.
And at the entrance, an enormous gate was taking shape. It was a lock gate — and staggering quantities of steel and all the copper they had stockpiled over the years were being poured into it.
After all, bronze was the only corrosion-resistant alloy they had. Whatever ran short had to be bought in, and money was hemorrhaging out of the treasury by the day.
With a canal this vast, the locks had grown correspondingly enormous. It was going to be quite a spectacle when the gates opened and closed, she thought.
Carving a path across a continent was truly no easy undertaking — it had taken three years just to cut the canal through once.
And now, already two full years had gone into repairing and polishing it.
“Haneul-nim, there's a section a bit too shallow back there. You'll have to go take care of it yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
And filling the thing with water took an age all its own. As it filled, the depth came up short of the original target, so she had to fly over and fix it again. Ahh, we need to hurry….
Apparently the Spanish had already crossed over into Panama down south, and fights kept breaking out among the islands along the eastern coast.
“The ship's on its way?”
“Yes.”
To verify the route, apparently, they'd loaded the vessel to the brim with coal and were sailing it down the coast from Dongbaek.
The news had come by rail, so it must have been a good two weeks since departure by now.
“Let's put the finishing touches on before it gets here.”
“I can hardly wait!”
That's right — a colossal ship made of iron. She wanted to see it, and soon!
August 13th, 3968 — the naval shipyard off the coast of Sinsi.
Resting in a colossal dry dock dug below the waterline sat a truly gigantic ship.
“Empty the dock and let the water in.”
“Yes, sir!”
In the past, Daehan had built several experimental steamships riveted together.
But their range was far too short and their problems too many, and just as scrapping them was being discussed, welding technology and turbine technology arrived. The navy threw itself at the project for dear life, and seventy years after the technologies were developed, the first ship was finally built.
That man was Lee Muyeol, appointed captain at the young age of forty-eight in recognition of his family's generations of service.
On to Zara, quickly.
His heart was pounding. He was about to take the helm of the ship every sailor in the navy had dreamed of — as its very first captain.
His classmates envied him enormously. Some had sneered that he'd only gotten the post through his family's name, but what did that matter now? He'd wanted to be a captain so badly he'd have endured every insult in the world for it.
Rumble-gurgle-groooan.
Water rushed in along the channels built into one side of the dry dock, and after hours of filling, the ship began to stir and stretch itself awake.
Forty-nine ja long and ten ja across, the vessel had a fairly broad, squat build — designed, after all, as a transport.
With a draft of barely two ja, it was bobbing on the water in no time, and thanks to its wide, flat silhouette and coal-black hide, it had been christened the Whale Shark.
“That's it! Beautiful!”
“It amazes me every single time I see it.”
The crowds watching from the shore were every bit as transfixed. The ship had made plenty of short trial runs nearby, and had been dunked and hauled out again and again for paint tests besides.
“Ha ha, truly astonishing…. A ship made of iron, and it floats like that.”
Muyeol watched the ship rise in the water, murmured those words, and threw himself into voyage preparations.
Before the official voyage, they had to load provisions, shells, and countless spare parts — matching the schedule was going to keep everyone busy indeed.
True to its nature as a transport, the Whale Shark took on an enormous stockpile of supplies. Thousands of people bustled about, and it still took a full two days.
“Is departure readiness complete?”
Seated where he could see all twenty crewmen gathered on the bridge, Muyeol posed the question to his vice-captain.
“Yes, sir. We can sail whenever you order.”
The vice-captain looked ready to jump out of his skin himself, itching to be underway.
And unseen to him, the six boilers, diligently pre-heated, were already hissing steam, ready to answer the order at a moment's notice.
“Cast off slowly. Our first stop is Dongdo.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Engine room: half speed ahead.”
Watching the vice-officer pick up the telephone and relay the order down to the engine room felt almost like something from a future age.
“Nice and slow, now.”
“Right….”
The helmsman's hands trembled ever so slightly on the wheel.
One scratch on this hull, one flake of that precious paint gone, and he'd be catching hell from every direction imaginable.
The engineers had trumpeted loudly that anti-corrosion treatment was built in even if the paint chipped away — but still, the helmsman was terrified of that paint peeling.
Groooan-hiss-hiss.
Belching steam from its engine room as it glided past wooden sailing ships, the steel Whale Shark cut an utterly alien figure against the harbor.
“Whoa….”
“A ship like *that* actually exists?”
“So that's the one they built out of iron, eh?”
Slipping carefully past the gawking crowds of the harbor, the ship eased out to sea and gradually worked up speed, setting its bow toward Dongdo.
“Keep a careful log of coal consumption.”
They'd done one or two trial voyages over short distances, but this was their first true long-range passage.
The 430 sailors aboard the Whale Shark felt the joy of sailing the first ironclad — but they were also embarking on a dangerous crossing, knowing full well the ship might sink in the middle of the open ocean.
“Ha ha! Looks like they envy us, sir.”
“Hm?”
“Look astern, Captain.”
Muyeol rose from his chair and turned — and sure enough, a whole procession of ships with sails spread was trailing dutifully behind them.
“Ha! They can follow all they like; they'll never keep up.”
“They'll trail us for a while, then turn back to their own routes.”
Built with sturdiness as the overriding priority, Daehan's sailing ships were heavier and slower than their European counterparts.
Why, even the newest Horned Whales had been in service for over two hundred years now.
“Give them a whistle, at least.”
“Ha ha ha! Aye, sir.”
It wasn't as if they could fire a cannon salute, so a signal was the best send-off they could offer.
Skreeeeeeee.
With a bizarre honk like a duck in distress, the ship began to accelerate in earnest.
The sailing ships shrank slowly into the distance, their crews green with envy to the point of tears.
And so, after eight days, the Whale Shark reached Dongdo.
“Huh…. She really is fast.”
“The difference is bigger than any of us expected!”
A crossing that took fifteen days in fair winds and over a month in bad ones under sail had been slashed to a fraction of the time.
“To think that being free of the wind's whims could matter *this* much….”
Hastily completing resupply, the ship set out once more. The next destination was Dongbaek — waters where calving ice from a frozen sea made for extreme danger.
And right on schedule, mid-voyage, the hazard arrived.
“Ice off the port bow!”
“Ice, sir!”
Drift ice was truly lethal. Even a small berg sitting on the surface could conceal monstrous masses lurking beneath the water — a moving reef you avoided without exception.
“Helmsman — no rush. Steady and calm.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
The number-one cause of sinking for even the sturdiest Horned Whale was exactly that: ice drifting down from the frozen sea.
“Coming hard to starboard — wide turn!”
And so the helmsman threw the wheel over and chose the long way around.
“Huh?”
“Hm?”
But would you look at that. In the days of sail, you'd have been furling and unfurling canvas and fighting the ship around by inches — yet the Whale Shark changed course with almost insulting ease.
And there went the ice, drifting harmlessly astern.
“That was *way* too easy.”
“Spot it early, and there's not a thing about it that's hard.”
“So we really only need to worry at night, then.”
“We've got searchlights for the nights, don't we?”
“Ah… right.”
The deck boss and the helmsman stood side by side, muttering back and forth — and honestly, it had gotten so easy it was almost frightening.
“Then I suppose the scariest moment will be pulling into harbor….”
“Ah….”
Returning safely to the home port had become the most frightening thing of all. How wonderful — and how sad.
And so, as the crew took on coal at Dongbaek, tension finally began creeping onto their faces.
From here, the run from Dongbaek to Baepyeong would consume more than half the coal loaded aboard — a voyage of truly extreme distance.
“Whew…. Nerve-wracking, isn't it.”
Cool and unbothered in front of his men, but the moment Muyeol stepped into his cabin, his forehead was damp with sweat.
Part of it was the strain of the long passage ahead — but every mile sailed so far, he had been tormented by a single fear: what if the engines failed?
This ship carried no sails at all. If the machinery died, it became a tomb on the open sea.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, he went to his bunk to rest for the great crossing that lay ahead tomorrow.
The next day, Muyeol assembled the crew on deck. He wanted to say a few final words before departure.
“Did everyone sleep well?”
“YES, SIR!”
The answer rang out loud and clear, but both Muyeol and his men had plainly spent a sleepless night. And who could blame them? This was their first voyage of such distance.
“I know exactly what's weighing on you. But do not worry. This ship will never sink.”
Back when they'd sailed wooden ships under canvas, they'd faced danger from running out of water or provisions — never from the ship simply *stopping*.
The fear gnawing at them was one thing and one thing only: the possibility that the engines might fail.
“Now that it's come to this, I'll tell you something. Across that ocean, Haneul-nim is waiting for us.”
“What?!”
“Haneul-nim is coming aboard?!”
“OHHH!”
There were many ways to raise a crew's morale, but was there any surer one than this?
The idol of the entire world — Haneul-nim herself — waiting for them across the sea!
“What are you saying! If the engines die, we'll row the rest of the way if we have to!”
“Die?! Not while I'm chief engineer and still breathing, it won't!”
The mood flipped in an instant. The zombie-eyed sailors standing around the deck had all vanished.
“This is no time to stand around! Shouldn't we be scrubbing every corner of this ship?!”
“Laundry! We have to do laundry! I've been in the same underwear for three days, damn it!”
“Ugh, you disgusting wretch!”
With Her waiting, with Her sailing with them, there was no way this ship could stop.
And above all, she carried six boilers. Even if three of them failed outright — which would take a lunatic act of fate — they could still limp to the next port somehow.
Hadn't they also loaded plenty of spare parts for swapping out anything that broke down?
“So fear nothing, and let's cross this ocean. If not us, then who ever will?!”
“LET'S GO!”
“Let's go see Haneul-nim!”
“Move it! We haven't a moment to waste!”
The dawdling sailors melted away, and everyone started rushing through departure preparations all at once.
They'd had to stop mid-route before, which was exactly why the worry lingered — but add the distance from Sinsi to Dongbaek to Dongdo, and they could make the next port at Baepyeong on the Eastern Continent without stopping at all.
A perfectly sound ship failing out of nowhere? It simply didn't bear thinking about.