Emperor of Steel

After the complete subjugation of the Thanatos Island, Luke returned to his home nation after a few days.

As the expedition to the Southern Continent was a secret, there was no fancy welcome for them.

The ship itself reached the port on a dark night.

Instead, Luke instructed all of the expeditionary troops to take sufficient rest and rewards be granted to them, and they headed for the capital, Brandon.

The retainers who had been contacted in advance gathered near the palace to greet them.

“I am very delighted to see Your Majesty.”

“I am also happy to see you. By the way… it doesn’t seem like you are feeling much joy.”

Luke looked at the pile of documents handed over by his retainers, and made a shaky expression.

While he was away, Sebastian and Hans, became the regent of the King, took over the state of affairs, but there were a number of issues they couldn’t handle at their current level.

They were all the diplomatic documents.

Among them were a few summits proposed by the Holy Arthenia Empire.

“It was an urgent request from the Pope of the Empire to come over to Bless immediately.”

“Urgent?”

No matter how he looked at it, it seemed very much likely to become a meeting and a talk between a couple.

In the first place, Reina didn’t like his Southern Continent expedition to be favorable. It was because she thought that Luke was working out too much.

He knew that if he went to Bless, he would have to hear a lot of Reina’s nagging.

“Fine. It is her order. Give me the urgent news right away.”

“Yes, what about Hwang Bo-sung? Did he stay back in his hometown…?”

When Hans asked, Luke shook his head with his eyes still on the papers.

“There is a new knights troop recruited from the Southern Continent, so he will just come here a little late.”

The trading ship couldn’t follow the speed of Auster, so even if they moved at high speed, it would take another week to reach the Symphonia Kingdom.

“Ah, now that I see, it must be the Blood Band which came along with us?”

It was something that Hans had heard during his regular talks with Luke.

“Yeah, right after the battle, they were troops made up of the warriors of the Southern Continent, and there were quite a few who wanted to come over to our state as the civil war was done. Hwang Bo-sung’s clan too, almost all of the clan seems to have come over.”

“If they are skilled men, it would help a lot in the national defense. But the problem would be…”

“The money.”

Organizing a new troop would cause a lot of money.

It was because to create the troops would cost a lot, and the homes for them, and including their monthly salaries.

In particular, to organize a whole new troops, they would have been taught Gigant riding, and it would cost a lot of budget.

“But don’t worry about that. We have received a lot of treasure from the Song Empire and Yemaek, and there are places where we can get money.”

The place where Luke mentioned about was Grain.

Luke, who peered into Zehart’s memory, decided to take down the wealth in the Grain Chamber.

In addition, in relation to Libiya Kingdom, where Arsene was currently located, he planned to use the Grain merchants to form a plan properly.

Of course, he had no intention of proceeding right away, but wanted to form a plan to proceed step by step and finish it properly.

“By any chance, was there any movement in the Libiya Kingdom?”

“Libiya Kingdom? There was a bit of violation of the alliance treaties between the two nations just recently.”

“Violation of alliance?”

Luke’s eyes shone at the news which Hans delivered. Because he knew that it meant Arsene, who took over Shaikan’s body did something.

‘I am sure that he is going to take control of the Libiya Kingdom and hit my back.’

As Luke was thinking, Hans responded.

“Well, calling it a violation of alliance would be an exaggeration. It is just that they are reluctant when it comes to sharing the trade information.”

It was either asking the agents who had gone for information to return back, or restricting the number of cities or port towns that the merchants could visit.

“Hmm…”

“The foreign minister said that the domestic situation was devastated there because of the war with the Baroque Empire and that there was no time for them to fully implement the signed treaty.”

‘Huh! he is hiding the information with a plausible excuse.’

And if Symphonia agreed to it and turned their heads, the Libiya Kingdom would hit them in the back.

Snorting, Luke stared at Baron Hudson, the head of the Intelligence.

“Send more agents to the Libiya Kingdom.”

“The Libiya Kingdom?”

Till then, the intelligence department had devoted most of its members into finding the remnants of the Baroque Empire and Veritas Magic Tower.

Suddenly, however, they were asked to send their agents to an ally nation, the Libiya Kingdom.

“Yes, during our expedition, we got information that they would hit our backs. So we need to keep our eyes on them.”

Information that Arsene had taken over Shaikan couldn’t be disclosed to his retainers so early.

So Luke tried to give them a rough cover-up.

And that was all they needed.

Until then, Luke had never been wrong about anything.

In addition to dispatching more agents, the officials decided to secretly maintain and border the fortress towards the Libiya Kingdom and increase the troops.

After discussing the work with his retainers for another hour, Luke moved to his room.

There was also something he had to think about the future, and he had to relieve the fatigue he had accumulated during the expedition.