Emperor of Steel

After a few days later, Luke returned to Torlot Fortress and seemed rather puzzled.

Obviously, the commander had suddenly deserted his position was the thought, but for Philip, who knew that it wasn’t desertion of the post.

He knew that Luke had gone to patrol the place nearby.

“What happened?” Luke asked.

“You will know once you get to the office.”

At the words of Philip, Luke headed straight to his office.

When he entered the office, he looked at a man who was seated at the desk looking exactly like Luke.

Then the seated Luke seemed to be pale by seeing the real one.

“You have come, master!”

“Sebastian?”

Luke’s demon slave, Sebastian.

The guy who could transform, changed into the appearance of Luke when Luke left the fortress, to prevent any confusion that might arise.

“With my heart full of loyalty for my master…”

“Stop, you did well. I will ask you for your help in the nearer future.”

Luckily, Luke smiled at the thought that Sebastian had been quite useful and went back to the seat.

“Anything special happened when I was gone?” Asked Luke.

“The emperor sent an inspector by surprise, but he did it with moderation. And this is the report from the patrol…”

Luke had been entirely briefed by Philip and Sebastian including the reports.

When he was done reporting everything, Philip asked Luke.

“But, where did you go to all of a sudden? I wasn’t so surprised when the Lord had disappeared without a word.”

“That… Princess Reina is missing.” Luke answered.

“Sorry? Princess Reina is missing?”

At the answer of Luke, Philip was flustered.

“No, I don’t get it, what do you mean?”

Luke told him about Reina and her promise to the fairies.

Listening to that, Philip’s mouth went wide.

“Oh my god! All that happened?! I feel like my heart’s going to burst!”

“My heart hurts too, but I can only place my beliefs in the fairies for now.”

If the fairies failed to find Luke, then Luke had no thoughts of staying still.

Even if it meant to go to war against them, anyone who played a part in making Reina disappear was going to be killed.

‘They should make sure to find her so that I don’t use my hands.’

When Luke was gritting his teeth, his bloody anger made Sebastian drop to his knees.

“Mast, Master, please let me live. I will die without my breath.”

When Luke saw the pale face of his, he just looked blunt and let go.

Sebastian, who thought that he would make some excuse for being there for eavesdropping, pleaded that he would go tell Belfair about Luke’s return, so he turned into a cat and sneaked away.

And Philip went out saying that he had to watch over the knights.

Being alone disturbed Luke, who sat down to meditate.

Right then, the crystal ball in his hand began to ring.

Luke, confirmed that it was from Meister Johas of the Dark Moon and answered his call.

“Why have you called?”

-There is something wrong with the magic tower, we need your help zeitgeist.

“Was it because of the disruption of the magic world?”

Luke listened to the magic world’s news when he returned back from Lamer.

After several magic towers had accused Veritas Magic tower of learning dark magic to the Magic federation, incidents of unknown causes took place.

Later, blamed by the Magic Federation, the magic towers left the federation and created a new organization called Reformers.

That caused the world of magic to shook, the Dark Moon was in trouble.

Every time an accident involving a warlock exploded, there was a craze for the warlocks.

-No, this is different. No, the problem is what we caused.

In the meantime, Johas talked a bit about the attack from Arsene, spreading the secrets of Veritas magic tower, and finally about leaving his home, the very magic tower they worked hard for in fear of Arsene attacking them once again.

Luke nodded his head, trying to seem like it was okay to do it.

“So, you contacted me to request a place to move your magic tower?”

-Yes, zeitgeist isn’t the descendant of warrior Rakan. Rather than being stumped, I thought that it would be better to enter the shadow of my master.

“Sure, it is dark under the lamp.”

Luke was convinced at Johas’s words, but he said that moving them to Rakan would be difficult.

The retainers of the manor still worshipped Rakan like a god. Knowing that warlocks had entered, and realizing the relationship they share with warlocks, it was obvious how the Rakan estate would react.

-Is that so? Tch, I can’t help it then. We have no choice but to look for another…

“Hold on! There is one suitable place.”

When Luke seemed to have something, Johas turned attentive.

“I have an estate which the Emperor handed over to me. It’s referred to as Jason Manor, and it might be a great place for you.”

Jason Manor was one of the Empire provinces.

Although not small in size, there were few inhabitants living in and out of the highlands which was surrounded by rugged mountains.

Occasionally, there was a joke saying that if a census was done, 7 monsters, 2 hunters, and 1 slave hunter and nomad would be the report.

In addition, there were no resources to help it, and the soil wasn’t good enough to farm it.

The emperor gave the land over to Luke, just as a sign of fake gratitude. It was for calculation, the degree to which Rakan can manage if the territory is distributed.

Luke received the estate the very next day right after he received the hero-class Gigant, Kratos.

Realizing the state of the land, he admired by just saying, ‘The descendant of Karon de Baroque’.

But then, he saw it as a great place to hide his forces.

“There is a castle of the nobles who went bankrupt after trying to develop mines for a long time. If it can be repaired, it can be used as the magic tower.”

-Oh oh, really?

More than anything else, Johas was fond of being protected by Luke.

Who could imagine it?

The warlocks will be taking a new piece of land which was owned by the descendant of the warrior who defeated the Devil King.

Surely, it was necessary to renovate the magic tower, but it wasn’t a difficult problem because it wasn’t just once or twice that they had to move their home.

“By the way, did you look at the blueprint of the Hero-class Gigant that I handed over?”

-Yes, the elders checked the blueprints and seemed a little surprised. Where did you get them?

When Luke first gave the blueprint of the Hero-class Gigant, Johas thought that he was just lucky to get his hands on them from a black market.

However, the blueprints that arrived at their tower were on a whole different scale, and they contained the 3500 fight, with the best magic technology.

Even more remarkable was that the Gigant of the blueprint, was Atlas, the same as the Gigant that Dimitry had captured during the last empire invasion.

The Dark Moon was developing a new hero-class Gigant at the request of their President Vladimir but was extremely lagging behind because of limited magic and technology they had.

In addition, with the attack from Arsene, the Dark Moon lost a lot of talented men, so the blueprint from Luke was like a blessing for them.

The elders who have tasted the essence of the groundbreaking magic engineering which they could never even dream of were astounded.

Even in their current situation of loss of magic tower, they were arguing that they would be in charge of the development of the Gigant.

“Kukk, that one, I snuck it out of a Veritas Magic tower branch.”

At Luke’s explanation, Johas seemed very cheerful.

-haha haaat! I’m really curious about how their expression would be if they knew of it.

For a while, the two men talked about biting the Veritas magic tower.

“When would it be completed?”

Luke wanted to ride the new Gigant as soon as possible.

Although he had Kratos at the same level, it couldn’t be compared in terms of performance or completeness.

-We will send it to you as early as a month or in at least three months. With the finished design, it doesn’t take that long.

However, moving the magic tower took time, trial and errors were bound to occur in the production of a new hero-class.

“Good. And I want you to turn over the knight class that is in making.”

The Gigant troops had stated in their manual that they would exert the greatest power when they had Knight and Warrior classes with them.

Luke too had agreed to it, but the problem was unlike the Warrior class, there was no way to get the Knight class.

In the past, Rakan estates had no money, and now there was money but Imperial nobles were rejecting their request saying that the contract making has been delayed.

So, Luke was trying to develop the knight class at the Katarina magic tower.

-It is a knight class. We have something developed. Except for the volume which has to be delivered to the Republic, at max two Gigants a month. Would that be alright?

Asked Johas with cautiousness.

If he could, he would have passed all the knight class Gigants produced by the Dark Moon to Luke, but he couldn’t ignore the reality.

Luckily, Luke understood the situation.

“You can’t give up your state and influence in the Volga. So, you shouldn’t even do it if you think that they can overthrow the Imperial. So do as much as you can.”

-I understand. Then we will contact you once again.

Luke closed the magic communication and tried to meditate once again.

As he was about to enter his deepest mind, he heard a knock on the office door. Anna must have sensed the energy from the door.

“Come in.”

As soon as Luke said that, Anna walked into the office bowed and informed that a call had come from the Northern Command.

“Haven’t they told you what it is about?”

“I asked but, they said that they would let you know directly.” Said Anna.

‘What the hell is this? Are they trying to get me to a new place?’

Emperor’s nobles, Earl Omar, had been appointed to the vacant position of the Northern Command office since the war with Volga Republic.

Kaper and his men said that the achievements had to be given to them and their commander, but Luke knew that it wasn’t possible.

The Northern Commander was one of the key positions of the Imperial Military, a potential enemy?

Unless the emperor had decided to place a knife on Luke’s throat, different things could happen.

At any rate, there were many eyes watching Luke who was in a small fort, which was lower than the Northern Commander title.

Luke thought that he would soon be going to another place.

“I will listen to what they have to say.”

Luke thought that he would ride with Philip to the city of Krom to the North Command office.