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Azur Lane: Episode of Belfast Volume 1 Prologue

Translator: Kurehashi Aiko

PROLOGUE

If you really think about it long and hard enough, the history of mankind was always connected to the big and vast ocean.

It was always humanity’s insatiable greed and ambition that drove them to the seas and oceans, to seek new and undiscovered lands that might lay beyond them. Over the course of their long history, humanity developed many different nautical tools and techniques, which eventually allowed them to venture and land on the other side of the distant horizons. But even then, humanity continued to improve through both science and technology, academic knowledge and repeated process of trial and error.

But at the same time the endless greed and ambition of humanity would eventually put various nations into conflict with one another, for the sole purpose of increasing the prosperity of individual nations.

The world is never going to be a calm surface of the water without any waves on it. There is always going to be a dark stream of conflict and war distorting that calm surface.

And it was during those turbulent times that the position of humankind changed drastically and completely due to the appearance of the previously unknown enemy.

The atypical kind of enemy who emerged from the depths of the oceans all of a sudden, and then would use their full power to sink human ships only to drag the helpless humans underwater, into the far reaches of the dark watery abyss down below.

—— The “Sirens”.

Faced with the overwhelming power of foreign invaders, humankind was forced back quickly and lost control of about ninety percent of all the seas and oceans. As a result of that both scientific and technological fields suffered a huge blow and regressed greatly, and the damages both logistical and economic systems resulted in worsening of the living conditions around the globe.

Just like that, time was passing for decades.

In order to regain the glory that humankind once had and to regain this very planet, each of the factions decided to put their differences and grievances aside, creating the largest military coalition the world has ever known called the “Azur Lane”.

In the beginning, it seemed that Azur Lane was succeeding in repelling the Siren threat. However, full eradication of the previously unknown threat was not possible. And then there was the issue of the philosophical differences between the various camps of the Azur Lane. Those differences slowly led to the battle with the Sirens coming to a standstill. And before long, this has once again developed into the battle between different factions.

What resulted from the cracks forming across Azur Lane was the creation of four different factions.

A federation that values scientific research and freedom more than anything else —- the Eagle Union.

The faction originating from the British Isles, with the longest history of sea voyage, navigation and shipbuilding in the entire world —- Royal Navy.

And then there is the “Crimson Axis”, the new faction that was created after a split formed in the Azur Lane. One of the members of this new faction was a nation focused on military dictatorship and research of the Siren technology —- the “Iron Blood”.

Then there is another member of “Crimson Axis” following the Iron Blood’s lead, the mysterious faction shrouded in mist and cherry blossom petals located in the Far East —- The “Sakura Empire”.

And while there were tensions and conflicts running between the various factions, there was a certain other military port far away from the violent frontlines.

This military port gathers the “Shipgirls” under the command of a “Commander”. As for “Shipgirls”, they are a countermeasure against the Siren threat and the product of human science and the Wisdom Cubes, from all factions —— This here is a story of a certain silver-haired girl, a member of Royal Navy and someone who is working as the member of the Royal Maids formation.

And the name of that particular shipgirl —— is Belfast.