Emperor of Steel

“Lord, this is the report from the Lamer city.”

Luke, who defeated the Milton vanguards and took the refugees, was handed a paper from Philip.

Luke who read the report of war which was sent on a magic paper.

“Those pirates!”

The battle was a victory.

The enemy forces were defeated by Hwang Bo-sung and the Unicorn Knights who were moved with the help of the teleport gate, and the Grenada Navy was unable to enter because the ships belonging to the estate had made an appearance at the port entrance.

The problem was that the lives of people and the property damage was high because of the fierce shelling.

The total number of deaths were 305, 626 injured men, and 7,509 victims in three days. Hundreds of houses got burned down because of the fire from the shelling.

“Some places, such as the stone offices and commercial branches weren’t easily destroyed by the shelling, so they aimed for the residential area.”

Philip who saw the report before Luke was also angry at the pirates.

Grenada was a naval powerhouse, so their artillery was good.

Despite being able to aim at the turret, the attack on the residential area clearly indicated the intention to damage the Rakan estates.

‘We need to deal with the Milton Kingdom, but the Grenada men needs to be wiped out. I knew that our naval forces were vulnerable and came pushed by them.’

Among the proverbs of the Southern continent, there was a saying that clothes needed to get wet in the rain.

In order not to suffer during the later times, it was necessary to let the forces see Grenada Navy.

Luke, who decided that, asked a plan which could combat the Grenada Navy in the meeting with Rogers and the other commanders

“Why not fire on their fleet with hot air balloons like the time that the Emperor did with the Western Army? They won’t be able to stand against the unexpected fire.”

Following the method of Philip, Erwin who was a wizard shook her head.

“Then, won’t we need a lot of hot air balloons? In our estates, there are a few numbers of hot air balloons which are only used for observations, but it will take a lot of time for us to get them in large quantities.”

“And we will have to get a lot of heat appliances. There is a higher risk of falling over because of the ever-changing sea breeze.”

It wasn’t like Luke hadn’t thought of air-based attacks.

However, in many ways, it proved to be difficult so he had gave up on it.

“How about asking Castia and Holy Empire for help? I don’t know about the Castia Kingdom but the Holy Empire will surely help us out.”

Everyone nodded their heads at Rogers’s suggestion.

Reina, the current Pope of the Holy Arthenia Empire would surely respond to Luke.

In addition, the Holy Empire’s Navy had a superior size, although their quality was lower to Grenada.

“I am sure that they can help as the commander said. It might help in the long term. But this is the time we need to put off the fire on our feet.”

“I think that there is no choice but to endure it at this point. The sea troops aren’t easy to send when compared to land, and a typhoon is going to hit soon, and it is natural for Grenada to retreat by then.”

The man who said that was Baron Pasca, who got saved by Luke.

And Luke knew that his words weren’t wrong.

“This is rather frustrating. It could be able to if we could build a trap.”

“A trap in the sea? What do you mean?”

Philip shook his head thinking it was ridiculous.

Except for one person.

“You can create traps in the sea.”

The one who responded was Zegal Soha.

She followed the wizards to see Luke and was delighted when she had a chance to stand out.

“That true?”

“Yes, Grace. With a little time and materials, we can place traps in the sea.”

Soha, who said that, explained to everyone on how to build a trap.

The reactions were half and half.

Some were greedy, like Luke and the others were skeptical like Erwin.

“In the end would that be possible? It has never been tried.”

“It is used in the Song Empire. It was to defeat the pirates. And it did work.”

Luke wasn’t hesitant to see it work.

He immediately sent Zegal Soha to the city of Lamer by teleportation magic and instructed her to create a trap to defeat the pirates.

After Luke was done thinking about what had to be done with the Grenada navy, the Milton camp was busy planning an operation to defeat the Rakan estate.

Unlike during the border crossing, they seemed very nervous.

It was because Reynard, the vanguard who they thought would be victorious, was defeated.

It was a situation of defeat due to numbers, but they couldn’t understand why he had to abandon his Anubis, a Hero class Gigant, and come back.

“The Gigant’s power seemed to be better than what we thought. It is more necessary to see the actual power they have.”

“I don’t know about that, Commander Reynold. But aren’t we superior in terms of numbers?”

Unlike Reynold, Mayers was still very confident.

Currently, the number of Gigants in Milton were doubled, which made it 200, and the Rakan estate had 95.

Originally, the Gigants of Rakan estate had to be more.

However, they were unable to mobilize the Gigants as they had to stop the Grenada Navy in the south.

“It is painful to lose a hero class Giant, but with the other 8 hero class Gigants we have, there isn’t much of a problem, and the exclusive fighter ‘Rubira’ and the other Anubis of the commander.”

Behind the scenes of Emperor Rudolf, Mayers had always been increasing his Gigant force.

He had manipulated the ledger and concealed the sales without letting any other nobles know.

In addition, there were quite a few Gigants he had purchased from overseas foreign magic towers.

After the Battle of Magic Towers, many of the towers had suffered from financial difficulties, and Fiore and the Altica Magic Tower, which were in the top ten magic towers were no exception to it.

Mayers traded secretly with them to buy the hero class Gigants like Anubis and Rubira.

Since the civil war broke out, he immediately bought the Gigants, and the Milton Kingdom ended up having more Gigantic power than what was known to the others.

“It wasn’t just that, but recently we have 50 new Knight classes. And they were sent straight to us.”

A commemorative of the alliance with the Volga Republic.

However, Mayers didn’t say anything about the source.

The nobles of the Milton Kingdom hated republicanism, and if the rumors went out about the secret treaty with the Volga Republic, their loyalty to Mayers would diminish.

Reynold too didn’t ask for the source.

It was because the problem for him was something else.

“Your Majesty, even if we do have the numbers with the Gigants, if the riders are unskilled, then it won’t be useful for us.”

“What? Then do you mean that the Iron Fist knights can’t go against the Rakan knights?”

“That is what I think. If that wasn’t the case, does it make sense that our forces get wiped out the moment their reinforcements reach the place?”

At the words of Reynold, Mayers’ face swelled.

He could never admit that his own trained knights were unskilled and worse than the Rakan knights.

“Isn’t it just because of the vanguard? Sir Reynard did say that they fell into the trap of the enemy and fought with the reinforcements after already taking in a lot of damage?” Said Mayers.

“That is true, but my younger brother is an Intermediate Sword Master, and he had been single-handedly pushed by Marquis Luke. And with what, we know about the Marquis that shouldn’t be possible.”

The Rune Knight Luke’s skill which was informed by the Milton Kingdom’s intelligence agency was changed from Sword Master to Intermediate to Advanced.

But an Intermediate Sword Master Reynard, with the most skilled Gigant was unilaterally pushed, and it was needed for everyone to realize that there was more to Luke than what they knew.

If Marquis Luke did have some kind of concealed skills, there was a high probability that his retainers too had skills which the general public wasn’t aware of.

If that was the case, the future battles for the Milton kingdom would be much different than what they expect.

Skills like Sword Master and Sword Sage could completely change the entire flow.

“So what do you want me to do?” Asked Mayers.

“As I said before, we need to grasp the real power of the enemy. And I heard that Your Majesty has some people who can work in the shadows called Aegis. It would be nice to use them when it comes to the enemy.”

“You are talking about assassination?”

“Yes, when we are at war, there are things we can and can’t do. And we can at least assassinate their plans and actions. That way, we can reduce the loss of allies.”

After hearing the story, Mayers seemed displeased.

He too had done a lot of tricks for coming till there.

Therefore, it wasn’t like he didn’t think of assassination as a good tool for his situation.

Nevertheless, his reason for grunting and displeasure was because of the Gram brothers, whom he had brought back after paying a huge amount.

His younger brother loses a valuable Hero class Gigant and the older one makes up excuses to avoid going to battle.

And he wanted to occupy the Rakan estates as fast he could.

‘Dammit, I would throw them out if I could…’

At present, the Milton Kingdom had no better talent than the Gram brothers.

After the war, he was forced to keep them until the fight with the Baroque army had happened.

“Understood. About what you said, let me give out the directions.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Reynold bowed to Mayers.

The nobles who watched the debate between the two sighed with relief as they achieved what they wanted.