European Union (8)
KA-BOOM!
"Whoa! What is that thing? It's actually holding up?"
"Then keep shooting until it cracks open! What else are we supposed to do?"
"Got it!"
This was the first time an armored ship had ever weathered a bombardment from a Blue Shark.
Armor-piercing shells would have worked far better than explosive ones, but the gunners weren't yet used to such distinctions, so they kept hammering away with high explosives alone.
KRA-KOOM. KOOM. KOOM.
"There we go! It's going down! We just keep shooting until it sinks!"
With dogged stubbornness, they pounded a single spot until the ship broke clean in two.
"Gah! What is THAT?"
"Those cannons are enormous!"
What had caught their eyes was a battery of cannons with a bore unlike anything ordinary.
"Fire! Fire it right now!"
"LOAD!"
Clunk-CLACK.
The loaders' hands flew faster than ever. A ship that had shrugged off their shells was now rolling out cannons of terrifying size, and nerves were fraying on their end too.
KU-WHA-WHAM.
"AAARGH! We got it off!"
"COVER YOUR EARS!"
From the coalition's armored ship, the dreaded cannon roared.
KU-HWAAAAA. ZING! ZEEEING! THOOM!
"GWAAAH!"
"I can feel it in my SOUL!"
A monstrous shockwave shuddered through the hull of the Blue Shark.
Some of the shells shattered outright, their lead cores squashed into sharp little mountains that smeared themselves across the Blue Shark's armor like so much melted wax.
Vuuuuuuuum—
"Ugh…."
"My hands are still shaking…."
"My stomach's still churning…."
The impact had been so tremendous that the whole ship rang like a struck bell. Trembling hands and mild concussions were simply a bonus.
"Our turn! Fire!"
"Don't give them time to reload!"
"LOOSE!"
KA-BOOM!
Never before had the crew of a turret been so united in body and soul.
KRRRRRRR.
Perhaps from their sheer weight, the coalition's armored ships began sinking one by one, each letting out a hideous groan as it went.
"Hah…."
CLANG.
The nobles aboard the flagship, who had been howling with overconfident triumph as the armored ships closed in under fire, now stood with their jaws hanging open.
"How are we supposed to fight THAT?"
"This is insane!"
Even against cannons big enough for a full-grown man to crawl inside, the monstrous Blue Shark still stood defiant, though the poor ship had gotten thoroughly filthy in the process.
"We retreat! Fall back, now!"
"We need to find another way!"
"Raise the retreat signal! Hoist it, NOW!"
As if there were any other way to be found.
The flagship decided that living to see tomorrow beat everything else, and bolted first.
"Huh? Is that a retreat flag?"
"Perfect! Let's get out of here, quick!"
The countless ships that had been waiting for nothing but a chance to flee began abandoning the waters in droves.
"And us? What are WE supposed to do?"
"We're too slow!"
The armored ships, which had edged in even closer to bring their guns to bear, were sinking one after another into the depths before they could even finish reloading.
"Abandon ship! We can make it to land if we do!"
SPLASH!
Sailors went leaping into the sea clutching barrels one by one. With so many ships already in full flight, all they had to do now was swim well and dry land would be waiting.
KU-BOOM! BOOM! KWA-BOOM!
"Damn it all…."
Behind those fleeing men, the empty ships were being pounded into the sea by the bombardment.
Hobbled by their slow speed, the armored ships — the coalition's vaunted ultimate weapons — sank beneath the waves without a single survivor among their number, and the tales carried home by the escapees spread across Europe in the blink of an eye.
Armored ships, suicide ships, galleys, and over a thousand warships of every class had failed to best even one enemy vessel.
Counting sailors and fighting men together, it was a force that could have toppled one or two entire nations, and the shock that rippled through Europe was beyond measure.
"Ohhh, I'm dying…."
"Wow…. Body aches all over. Even the Holy Water isn't helping."
"No, no. They say you just have to drink more of it."
"I'm so full I can't even eat a proper meal."
Of course, the Blue Shark's crew had taken their own staggering beating. Men who could supposedly chew through raw iron were groaning and moaning all over the deck.
The Blue Shark herself, sailing back into port after the battle, was quite the sight to behold.
"Was that horn there before?"
"Beats me. What even IS that?"
The lead from the coalition's shells, unable to punch through the Blue Shark's armor, had been mashed flat like mud and plastered itself across her hull.
"Wow…. How are we supposed to clean all that up…."
"Haah…. I'm losing my mind here…."
The sailors sighed at the sight of their bedraggled ship. Cleaning up afterward was their job, after all.
"Come on, let's at least go get something to eat."
The battle had raged from morning straight through the day, and everyone was starving, having not touched a bite of food.
As they trudged toward the mess hall, the Blue Shark standing proud and magnificent behind them — dented, smeared, and utterly disheveled though she was — felt strangely reassuring.
"R-Retreat! RETREAT!"
"We're pulling back!"
"Move, MOVE!"
The Spanish army, which had been dithering over whether or not to attack the fortress in light of the naval battle's outcome, turned tail and ran without so much as a glance backward.
It was a coastal fortress, after all. If a ship like THAT could rain bombardment down from the sea, there was nothing on land they could do about it.
"Haah…. What do I do?"
"Just tell them you went to observe, sir…."
"And who's going to believe that…"
They hadn't attacked, but hadn't they already seen with their own eyes the fortress garrison readying itself for a fight?
Still, he wanted to live. The aftermath was the homeland's problem to sort out.
"I don't know. I want to live, so I'm going back."
"Yes, sir…."
When the commander said he was turning around, what could an aide possibly say in reply? He himself had long since lost any stomach for fighting.
And so the returning army trudge home with shoulders slumped to the ground. The soldiers had watched the naval battle unfold too, after all.
"Phew…. Thank God we didn't fight."
"What's going to happen to us now?"
They were alive, at least, but hadn't they practically started a war?
Would the enemy really sit idle after being struck first? Even with the shallow, unlearned thinking of a common soldier, that seemed like pure fantasy.
"Have you heard the news?"
"What news?"
Wherever two or more Europeans gathered, the conversation invariably turned to the Battle of Pyeong-an Naru.
"They say there's an undead ship at Pyeong-an Naru that sank the ENTIRE coalition fleet all by itself."
"I did hear something like that, but is it actually true?"
To anyone hearing it for the first time, the tale was beyond belief.
"My younger brother just came back from there. He saw it with his own eyes…."
"Good heavens…."
"He says it's a demon's ship. There's a horn growing out of the hull, he says."
And then there were the Papacy and the nobles, twisting the rumor to spread slander against Daehan.
"Good Lord! Is Daehan a nation of devil-worshippers?"
"We're told we must be careful."
"Truly…. But what about the wine and the tobacco…"
Across Europe, desperate efforts were underway to whip up resentment against Daehan by any means necessary.
"What are we to do…"
"We're finished. Completely finished."
"Haah…."
The mood in the coalition command hall in Rome was one of utter despair.
"And what of Russia?"
SLAM!
Someone had merely asked about the Russian situation out of genuine curiosity, but a red-faced man glaring from one side of the room suddenly brought his fist crashing down on the desk.
"Are you MOCKING me? Everything east of Kazan is gone! We're barely holding the line along the river! Didn't we already beg for reinforcements? Repeatedly?"
The Russian representative bellowed like an ox on fire, looking ready to draw a blade on the spot.
Russia had watched Qajar's advance swallow its territory in the space of a breath. Only after coming to their senses had they managed to dig trenches along the riverbank and scrape together a defensive line.
But by the time they came to their senses, nearly half the country was already lost.
"Half our land! GONE, I say!"
"And we have no soldiers either…"
"You damned wretches! Our nation is about to be destroyed!"
"Heh heh. We're all doing our very best, aren't we? Do watch your tongue…."
To everyone but Russia, this was somebody else's war. They had offered up only their surplus troops — everything beyond what was needed to guard their own homelands — and to Russia, it was maddening beyond words.
Just as the War Ministry had planned, the European Union was splintering apart all on its own.
"What if we send the army to seize one of their ports?"
"Have you not heard? Cannons that fire continuously without so much as a wisp of smoke, they say."
Continuous fire was only possible on shipboard where gun barrels could be cooled — but there was no way these men knew the finer details.
Taken at face value, it was a truly horrifying story. Shells falling like rain, without pause.
"How large an army would it take to take even that one little fortress? And if their ships provide covering fire on top of that?"
"Haah…."
No one could even bring themselves to imagine it.
"If your plan is to keep throwing men at them until their gunpowder runs dry, then by all means, proceed. Gather, what, two or three million men and we might manage it?"
"Good heavens…."
There was simply no way. No way at all.
"So all of Europe united still cannot take a single fortress of theirs…"
"Then what are we supposed to DO!"
"Well…."
While they hesitated and wrung their hands, seven Whale Shark-class ships put in at Pyeong-an Naru.
Their objective was one and one only: to set every coastline in Europe aflame.
And they had sent heralds ahead of time, spreading word through the population: All the coasts of Europe shall become a sea of fire.
"Are we truly going to sit back and let them destroy every port we have?"
"How much damage could they possibly do, really?"
There were an enormous number of ports, after all. Surely they couldn't smash them all.
"How would they demolish that many harbors? It's just a scare tactic to inflate the reparations they'll squeeze out of us. Tsk tsk."
"Quite right. Calm yourselves, gentlemen."
Even counting only the major ports, there were dozens of them. Think of the gunpowder it would take, the sheer length of time. Surely no one would bother with such a pointless exercise.
And here were the people gathering in force to do exactly that pointless thing.
"Alright! Split into two groups and roam the coast smashing everything! These are people who'll only come to their senses once something of theirs is GONE, so show no mercy!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"The young lady says we wreck it ALL!"
"Let's go!"
And so the Whale Sharks divided into two groups of three and set off along the coastline, hugging the shore on either side of the strait.
Granted, a shot from one of those armored ships they'd faced recently might well have punched a hole clean through a Whale Shark, but they were committed boldly all the same, setting about tidying up the coastline.
For work like this, the Whale Shark was simply more useful than the Blue Shark.
The Blue Shark was the bigger ship, but the Whale Shark's cargo capacity dwarfed hers.
To sail long distances while firing cannons nonstop, the ship loaded down with extra shells and coal held the advantage.
And there was the shallow draft.
"Huh? Why are there so many ships coming up that river?"
"Shall we go up and see?"
"Let's! Nice and slow."
This way they could sail upstream and smash the inland ports too.
"Whoa! This place is big!"
"Everybody, bring up the shells!"
"CHARGE!"
KU-BOOM. KU-BOOM.
The Whale Sharks still used black powder, with all its billowing smoke — but their bores were even larger.
KWA-BOOM. KWA-KWA-BOOM.
"Beautiful detonations!"
"Smash it ALL!"
Dust bloomed across the city as buildings collapsed, and panic-stricken residents ran screaming in every direction.
This was Seville, Spain — one of their principal ports.
WHIIIINE. CLANG!
"Ugh! So loud! What now?"
"Over there! There's something at the foot of that hill!"
They did mount a counterattack of their own, but lacking cannons with anything like the armored ships' bore, they were blown to pieces one and all by the retaliatory fire.
And so it went: Seville, Gibraltar, Barcelona, Marseille, Genoa, Naples —
port after European port along the Mediterranean coast burned and crumbled into ruin.
"We must devise a countermeasure at once!"
"With what? We don't even have a fleet left!"
"We'll strike back with coastal artillery, obviously!"
"And where exactly are we supposed to conjure cannons from!"
They wanted the same heavy guns that had armed the armored ships, but forging those thick-barreled monsters again was no simple matter.
Hadn't a single one taken months to build?
"No, no! This is somebody ELSE'S problem, thank you very much!"
"That's — that's not what I meant, please calm down."
With the damage concentrated on the Mediterranean, England and the Netherlands lounged back at the table as if it were all still someone else's affair.
Then again, there was precious little they could do.
Even if they tried to rebuild a fleet, no one wanted to serve on the ships — and what guarantee was there of winning a battle anyway?
"Perhaps we should simply sue for peace?"
"Peace? And what exactly have we gained to show for it?"
"Well, we still have a great deal left to lose, don't we?"
"Grrrr…."
Just as the assembly was grinding their teeth at the English representative's unshakable composure —
SLAM!
"It's a catastrophe!"
Someone burst through the door hard enough to tear it off its hinges.
"Good grief…. Which port burned this time?"
"London! They say London has been utterly DEMOLISHED!"
"Heh heh…. Huh?"
The English representative, who had been half-listening to news of yet another port going up in flames, froze solid.
Every other nation weakened meant a stronger hand for England once the war finally ended — that had been the whole calculation.
He'd been comfortably watching other people's houses burn, only to turn around and find his own home in ashes.