Emperor of Steel

Chapter 660: Pirate Kingdom’s Taunt 1

-Your Majesty, the warlocks have begun to work. They directly came up to me and suggested new projects, well, multiple projects.

At the words of Mute which were coming through the magic communication, Luke smiled.

‘Looks like my plan worked out well.’

There could still be some displeasure between then, but soon the results of working together would show.

And when that happens, the development of a new Gigant, and the performance improvement of the existing Gigants would happen.

Luke, who had mastered both white and dark magic, believed in the synergies which would happen when both the wizards and the warlocks would join forces.

-Then, I will go ahead and work with Meister Johas to improve the performance of Orion.

The strongest Gigant in existence was Avenger, which was self-produced by Luke.

A 4,000 fight core engine with magic stones and tuning helm which would allow one to control the movements of the rider in a convenient way, the Avenger’s movement couldn’t be compared to any existing Gigant.

However, it would be impossible to create another Avenger by the tower as it would require someone like Luke with the highest level of white and dark magic.

As a result, Mute and Johas worked hard to improve Orion as the next best Gigant.

However, it wouldn’t be easy to make such a great Orion with 7th and 8th magic circles.

So accordingly, the two of them were trying to improve the performance by applying the Chimera’s crafting technology or the Bio-golem.

“Fine. Work hard.”

Luke, ended the magic communication with Mute and looked over at Hans who was in the room.

“What happened to the Baroque refugees’ problem?”

“Your Majesty’s visit to the parliament had a great effect, and I think that a specific refugee aid bill will be passed sooner or later.”

At Luke’s stern yell, left the nobles and royalists to actively think about taking care of the refugees’ issue.

There were currently 200,000 refugees in Symphonia.

After asking them to move to any of the 12 estates in the north, they decided to provide jobs and support their livelihoods by participating in national major projects such as land reclamation, roads constructions, canal maintenance, and mine development.

“Before the national project is fully implemented, we plan to provide food through the ration system. And to the end, we decided to release a stock, and to constantly replenish the stock by sending troops to the Holy Empire or Castia Kingdom for purchase.”

“Well, what about the housing problem?”

“To cut down on construction time, we have decided to use the temporary house construction method by using wood and plywood used by dwarf engineers. It was originally thought for the barrack constructions or temporary forts for the soldiers.”

“Even then, isn’t it impossible to build those for 200,000 people in one day? And winter is also approaching.”

“We plan to use the village’s temple’s or sanctuaries or community centers that are temporary shelters for the refugees. And the castles and manors of the Lords and nobles too have been given for temporary shelter.”

In addition, it was said that additional troops from the south would be sent for maintenance, and volunteers from the refugees would be taken.

“You want to send in the southern troops? Then, wouldn’t our troops have turned weak if Grenada changed its words?”

At Luke’s concern, Hans shook his head.

“The 5th squad is very different from before. So there is no need to worry about that.”

Currently, the 5th squad consisted of Navy training only.

After the last war with the Grenada Kingdom and the undead raids which devastated the southern cities and coastal area, the power was doubled under the request of Marquis Volant.

And as such, was the deployment of marine Gigant Triton, improved ships, troops, and Crabs.

In addition to that, he inculcated a tremendous amount of training which was on par with an actual battle, it was like a reborn elite Holy Empire Navy.

“The new ironclad ships are also expected to come in soon. They were all done with keeping Auster in mind, so Your Majesty might know about it.”

“The new ironclad ship… yes, I forgot about that.”

The new ships were smaller than Auster, and the regular battleships too.

However, because of the magic engineering skills which were applied to it, the defense and firepower were much stronger than the current ships.

“If our fortress of the sea is turned into full power, even the Grenada pirates won’t be able to reach our coast.”

“Huh, then I guess there is nothing to worry about. Rather, the name of the new knights’ troops to be created by all the Southern warriors brought in by Count Hwang Bo-sung…”

It was when Luke and Prime Minister Hans were discussing the name and organization, and distribution of the knights which were known as Blood Band warriors.

Open!

An officer entered the room, and Sebastian came running in.

“We-we have a huge problem, Your Majesty!”

Luke took a glance at his face when he saw the seriousness, he asked.

“Problem? Is there anything wrong with the Blood Band, did they have any problem in the sea?”

There was no way how a human could understand when the sea flow would change.

No matter how often people use the sea, there was a guarantee that they would always face the sea in the same way, if they were unlucky, they could end up turning into food for the monsters.

Not just that, but the compass could break or cause the ship to get lost.

For that reason, a number of trade ships also go missing in the sea all throughout the year.

“Not that…”

“Have the pirates of the Grenada Kingdom attack us?”

“Not that either.”

“Then what the hell is the problem?”

When Sebastian kept on saying no, Luke got annoyed.

However, the expression of Sebastian changed.

“The queen… Veronica III, Her Holiness is here!”

“What? Reina is?”

For everyone, she is the Emperor of the Holy Arthenia Empire, the Pope of El Kassel church, and in secret, she was a companion for Luke.

And she decided to come?

“But I want to give you some news about that!”

If Reina had planned to come to the Symphonia Kingdom, she would have informed them in advance.

The movement of the head of a nation was never to be seen that lightly.

“Huh, I am sorry for not informing you in advance.”

As Luke wasn’t sure, he saw Reina enter.

Karen and Arch Duke Gregory were right behind her, both smiling sheepishly.

Reina approached Luke and pointed her finger at his face and began.

“Why the hell am I ever supposed to get permission to come to visit you?”

“Well, that is because there are a lot of problems in the kingdoms which need to be solved…”

“You can leave that to your retainers. Why do you have to do everything on your own? You created a parliament, so can’t you leave it to them?”

“… sorry. This won’t happen again.”

Luke apologized as if he had done something wrong.

Because of Luke’s dream to overthrow Arsene and the Baroque Empire, create a world where people could live happily, Reina was unable to feel happiness on a personal level, and she had to live with her husband only in her heart.

And if Luke would have come up with excuses, it would only hurt her heart.

Fortunately, with the apology, the atmosphere calmed down. Maybe she felt bad for barging into Luke’s office uninformed.

“Huh, I’ll let this go only this once. You get it?”

“Fine.”

“The problem I wanted to talk about…”

Trying to speak something, Reina glanced over at Arch Duke Gregory.

Taking the hint, he quickly left the room with Hans and Sebastian.

Karen was also about to go out when Reina caught her hand.

“You stay here.”

“Okay.”

Reina turned her head from Karen to Luke and opened her mouth.

“What I mean to say is, you decide to ignore my words even after what I said the last time.”

“Ignore what?”

Unlike Luke who was confused, Karen sighed, taking a guess.

Not long back, at their tea time, she shared her knowledge on Aether and Holy Soleil.

At that time, she decided to throw the blame onto her father to divert attention, and it looked like her mother was talking about that issue.

“You teach your child difficult magic knowledge, even after knowing that I am opposed to early education? I heard the stories of nobles and rich merchants using magic communication to let their children listen in to lectures, but I didn’t know that you would do that behind my back.”

“I ordered for education behind your back?”

“Yes, do you have any idea how Karen is doing in my Empire? A child who needs to dream and be creative by playing with children her age, and developing companionship is always stuck in the library…”

Reina raised her voice when she was talking about Karen’s daily life.

And she listed all the ill things which would come up with early education.

Luke, who couldn’t even understand what was happening, glanced over at his daughter.

Karen, who was standing behind Reina, put her hands together and seemed apologetic.

‘Huh, I don’t know what it was, but it doesn’t seem like she came here for me.’

Only then did Luke understand why Reina had come all the way to the Holy Empire without informing him.

She might have wanted to meet with him, but the issue of early education for her daughter had a higher importance.

“I was so worried because she was reluctant to play with the other kids, people say that she has the dignity for being the next pope, but, unlike the other kids, she is way too quiet and keeps to herself…”

Luke sighed at her complaints and apologized once again.

“I am sorry. I will never teach anything which is difficult for Karen again.”