Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 534 Is it terrible?
"To be precise, the history of Lotdana as the best tourist city in the Land-Sea region is already ten years ago." The girl said to Alice and the other two while standing on the breakwater. She seemed to have nothing else to do, so she was happy to stay here and chat with a few strangers. The whistling wind blew over from the sea, flapping her wide sleeves and robes, and making the girl's cheeks look even more pale and sickly.

"Why has it become like this now?"

Alice looked around at the messy and dirty scene, then glanced at the gray sky above her head and asked in confusion.

The girl pointed to the huge steel behemoths and the forest of chimneys on their backs farther away from the port, and asked, "Do you see those factories?"

The three of them looked in the direction of her finger. Alice nodded: "I see. What factories are those?"

"The smelting and processing of ore, the casting of related tools and modules, and some secret factories that are inconvenient for outsiders to disclose and the citizens still don't know what they are used for." The girl said softly, "Ten years ago, they were spewing thick smoke and acid mist from the chimneys like now, corroding the sky of Lotdana and creating the hell clouds you see; ten years later, they are still like this, and no one knows when they will stop, but perhaps, when these steel beasts are awakened, no one can stop them."

There was a hint of pessimism in the girl's words. Alice nodded thoughtfully: So, the pollution problem in Lotterdanna City is essentially the negative impact of industrial development? In this steam age, it seems to be nothing surprising.

Linger caught a key word she mentioned: "Ore? Could it be that a large mineral vein has been discovered in this area?"

"Yes."

The girl glanced at Lingge, as if she was surprised by his keen observation, but she quickly looked away and said, "About thirteen years ago, the Scourge Detection Bureau under the Scourge Mission formed an exploration team. The original intention was to investigate the geographical and hydrological environment near the city of Lothdana and make preventive preparations for possible extreme disasters in the future. However, the exploration team failed to complete its mission and was disrupted by an unexpected discovery: As this gentleman said, they found traces of large mineral veins in the Belladiya Mountains not far from the suburbs of Heligoland, and there were not just one but three."

The Belladilla Mountains are the largest mountain range in the area. It passes directly through the edge of the suburban Helgoland and is located right in the path of the winter monsoon backflow, protecting the residents of Rotdana from countless storm attacks. Its significance to this city may be no less than that of the Thorsen Mountains to Rostin.

The girl's story might not be vivid, but combined with the current environment, it was enough to arouse the audience's curiosity. Therefore, the three people including Alice listened carefully and did not interrupt. "After the discovery of these three large mineral veins, they immediately attracted the attention of many mining companies or steel factories. They spent huge sums of money to buy the mining rights of the Belladiya Mountains. However, in the end, it was not any of these companies that won the rights, but the Night Roost, one of the seven major orthodox sects."

Night habitat!

Unexpectedly, this matter actually involves the alliance of religious orders. Ling'er's pupils shrank briefly for a moment, but returned to normal the next moment, and the girl did not notice it, so she continued: "After the Night Roost obtained the mining rights of the mineral vein, it contracted it to the Scourge Mission, which is also a member of the alliance of religious orders, for mining operations, and invested a huge amount of money to build twelve large mines, mines and supporting facilities here - that is, the factories you have seen." "After the mines and factories were built, ore operations were almost from morning to night, and the blast furnaces that smelted the ore burned flames all day long, spewing black smoke, making the sky of Lotdana City stained with lingering dust and haze; and these facilities required a large number of people to support In order to meet the daily needs of miners, coolies, workers and technicians, several vegetable markets and slaughterhouses were built in the Heligoland area, which originally had only one large market. In order to transport the smelted and processed metals, considering the convenience of sea shipping and the geographical advantages of Lothdanna City, it was decided to build two medium-sized docks and a large deep-water dock in the suburbs of Heligoland. What you see is just one of them. Since there is a dock, several warehouses were built to store goods and transport them. In order to make the sailors and coolies settle down and not cause trouble everywhere, several taverns and even... brothels were opened near the port. "

"Continuous mining and excavation, continuous construction and building, continuous discharge of sewage and thick smoke, continuous influx of new population and oppression of the living space of local residents... Mining and excavation have caused groundwater loss, and the vegetation coverage area of ​​Heligoland suburbs has sharply decreased; construction and building have brought a lot of dust and building waste, and improper sewage disposal measures have caused serious environmental pollution; and the continuous influx of foreign populations will not respect and cherish their homes like local residents. Most of the garbage you see now is left by them, and the rest is the result of vegetable markets and slaughterhouses not wanting to pay high sanitation fees and adopting the principle of local treatment."

At this point, the girl chuckled. It was hard to tell whether the laughter was ironic or helpless. "Just like although the avalanche was caused by the last falling snowflake, it cannot be said that the previous snowflakes were all innocent; the pollution in the city of Rothdana seems to have been caused in an instant in the eyes of you foreign tourists. It seems that in the blink of an eye, the beautiful coastal city of the past has become a sacrifice of the industrial age, a ship on a sewage pool, and a waste city in a garbage dump. But from the perspective of us local residents, we have witnessed her gradual degeneration: there are more and more factories in the city, the mining sounds from the mines are getting louder and louder, the sky above our heads is getting darker and darker, the water in the sea is getting dirtier, the garbage on the beach is getting more and more messy, and there are more and more people who do evil and cause trouble... We watch all this with our own eyes, but we can't do anything. We can either accept this result and try to coexist peacefully with the changed hometown, deceiving ourselves that this is the progress of the times; or we can leave our hometown and flee from this land that is far from our memory and will only bring us sadness."

She sighed quietly: "Obviously, I belong to the former, because I can't leave here, leave the hometown where I live."

The three did not notice that she said "hometown" with a special meaning. They were silent after hearing this description. The glory of modern industrial civilization is making people in this era feel honored, and they have some ambitions and expectations for the future that cannot be described in words. But these people seem to have forgotten how many corpses and tears are buried under countless steel machines. People who are qualified to enjoy the glorious achievements of the industrial age will not notice these corrupt things in the soil. They raise their heads high and look at the farther place.

When Lingge was still a pastor, he had already found the answer in the eyes of homeless people, beggars and people at the bottom of society. But now, the earth-shaking changes that have taken place in the city of Lotdana in the past ten years have only cast a layer of grayish-white haze on this answer, making it more solid and even more unbearable.

Under the gloomy sky in the distance, a seagull with pure white feathers flew over the sea with turbid waves, flapped its wings and landed on the beach, and began to look for food among the garbage on the ground.

Everything in this city is grey, including the buildings in front of us, the port, the cargo ships in the port, the distant factories, and the thick smoke spewing out of the chimneys...For some reason, only the feathers of this seagull still retain their pure whiteness, even a little dazzling, as if to set off something.

Alice opened her mouth and murmured something. Although it seemed to be a subconscious thought in her mind, she didn't say it loudly, but because the atmosphere was too quiet, everyone could hear the content of the sentence clearly: "Really-"

“It’s terrible,” she said.

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)