Emperor of Steel

A few hours later, Grenada’s main unit successfully managed to complete the bypass and tail the Symphonia fleet.

All of a sudden, seeing the enemies appear in the rear made the Symphonia fleet confused.

“Hahaha! Those men are probably very shocked!”

However, it was already late to move the plans.

They were still at the end of the reef, and soon, the fleet would reach a point where firing would be easy for the Grenada fleet.

The thought of erasing Symphonia made Fernando smile.

“Your Majesty, even if we attack, we need to be very careful till the very end of the battle. Luke de Rakan is a man who is very good at magic, and we have no idea what he might do.”

In naval battles, the most troublesome ones were the wizards.

They could burn sails or an entire ship with simple flame magic.

“Huh, no matter how good he is at magic, how can he block tens of thousands of shells all by himself? We can handle their fleet.”

“As you put it, Luke de Rakan is a human. But…”

“The Duke is way too cautious, which is bad. If you are a person of the sea, shouldn’t you be trusting the power of your own fleet more than assessing the enemy?”

At the sarcastic words of Fernando, Nathan went quiet.

Instead, he decided to devote his time in carefully eyeing the enemy fleet with the telephoto artifact.

‘It seems like the movement on the deck is heavy. It is natural if they are trying to respond to our surprise attack, but… what is with that long rope which is flying in the sky? Are they flying a kite?’

He heard stories about the naval battles of the Southern Continent about kites carrying people or scouts to the sky.

He even heard about it from the survivors of the recent Song army and Yemaek ambush, so seeing that string in the sky made him a little worried.

‘But it isn’t just one or two. How many did they even launch?’

The enemy ship, which was assumed to have flown kites into the skies, were more than dozens.

When Nathan moved the telephoto to the sky, he was interrupted by the sailor on the mast who was yelling.

“There is something in the sea! And it is floating toward us!”

“What was it?”

Duke Nathan hurriedly moved the telephoto item to the sea.

He could see a floating item that was being drifted by the ocean current and moved toward their fleet.

A large wooden barrel painted in blue.

Nathan, who couldn’t get the bad feeling out of his mind, looked over at the enemy fleet.

The Symphonia sailors, who were too busy on the ships, were dropping barrels into the water.

Nathan, grasping the situation, hurriedly yelled to the helm of the ship.

“This is a torpedo! Go ahead and turn!”

The expressions of the officers and the seniors on the deck changed when they heard the word torpedo since they experienced what a torpedo could do in the last war first hand.

“Board title! Turn the ship!”

“Hurry up! The enemy’s torpedoes are floating toward us!”

When the flagship, which was moving ahead with good momentum, suddenly turned, the ships, which were following it, were confused about what was happening ahead.

But soon after, the situation was communicated to the others, and the Grenada ships all clamored for an evasive maneuver.

However, the speed of the torpedo floating through the current was faster than they expected. And the number of the torpedoes was over a hundred.

Bang! Bang!

Pop! Pop!

The battleships that couldn’t be avoided in time were struck by the force. There also accidents where the ships collided with each other because of the sudden change in direction.

“Th-this..!”

“We are being taken down by them again!”

When flames and smoke rose to the sky, Fernando and Nathan, who were on the deck, were feeling crushed.

They really didn’t expect it.

Not on the coast, but the enemy was using torpedoes in the middle of the sea.

‘Were they using the ocean currents? Damn it! They expected us to tail them…!’

The torpedoes used by the Symphonia fleet inflicted considerable damage on the Grenada fleet.

It was because there were many ships that couldn’t turn back and evade the attack as they were too overwhelmed, and some ships that couldn’t change the direction as the steam engine was already at full speed and turning it would tilt the entire ship.

However, the more serious problem was the entire fleet had been scattered.

On contrary, the Symphonia fleet lined up all its battleships in a straight line to fire.

“Shoot!”

“Take those pirates down!”

Bang! Bang! Pop!

Every time the shells fell from the sky, heatwaves and black smoke soared from the Grenada fleet.

Dozens of ships sunk or were destroyed.

Still, there were far more Grenada ships than Symphonia.

There were more than six hundred ships in good shape.

“Damn, fight back!”

“We have more ships on our side!”

The firing from the Grenada fleet began.

However, it didn’t hit the Symphonia fleet in huge numbers.

It was because the Symphonia fleet was equipped with a front-row firing while Grenada didn’t have that.

Duke Nathan was very well aware of that, and he didn’t expect any immediate results from the firing of the fleets.

“Don’t panic! The enemy’s torpedoes are limited!”

In addition, the torpedoes that were drifted away by the current couldn’t be brought back on the track.

And without a torpedo in the game, Nathan believed that he had a winning chance against the sly Symphonia, and he did his best to send in signals to recover the line of his fleet.

When the line was formed, the Symphonia Navy, which had finished the first attack with the torpedoes, began their second attack.

“What is that?”

“A strange-looking ship is approaching from their fleet!”

Five ships were closing in.

They were smaller than battleships and were more like an upside-down boat.

In addition, there was no mast, and no sailors were visible on that ship’s upper deck.

It looked very odd, but Nathan noticed the identity of the enemy ship by just looking at the darkly shining surface of the ship.

“The Ironclad ship!”

“Ironclad ship?”

Not knowing what it was, Fernando asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty. There is nothing to worry about. It is not invincible because of its armor.”

“Isn’t it supposed to fully withstand the shelling?”

“The iron plate on it might be thick, but if we continue to bombard it with our shells, it will break.”

Having said that, Nathan immediately ordered his fleet.

“Concentrate the firepower of the entire fleet on the enemy Ironclad ships!”

Pop! Bang! Pop! Bang!

Hundreds of shells fell toward the Ironclad ships once the orders fell.

The Symphonia fleet fired as a cover, but the Grenada fleet ignored the incoming attacks and kept on attacking the Ironclad ship.

A single Ironclad ship had power similar to 10 wooden battleships.

Bang! Thud!

“Ugh!”

Sebastian, who was leading the 1st Ironclad ship along with Luke, fell to the floor when the enemy attacked them.

The sound of shelling could be heard, and each time a shell struck, the hull shook with a ring.

He was anxious and thought that he might have just entered a large metal coffin.

“Your Majesty, is this boat really any good for us?”

It wasn’t just Sebastian who question it. Almost all the sailors of the Ironclad were confused.

Luke looked through the magic glass installed on the hull and reassured them.

“It is alright. During the test run, it endured a lot more shelling than this.”

Unlike the other Ironclad ships, the new one had its interior made of wood.

As the outer hull was made entirely of metal.

Because of that, Hans and a few other retainers, who weren’t aware of magical engineering, opposed to it.

However, Luke ended their concerns by reminding that vessels made of metals would float in water.

“The hull of the ship is made of Adamant and Gigantium alloys, which are used on Gigants. The sheets are thick enough, so even if we are hit by a large-caliber artillery, we’ll be fine!”

In addition, the hull was designed to be inclined to bounce off the shells, and there are shield magic circles engraved on the surface.

And hitting it was tough. Everything apart from the upper structure was below water.

The Ironclad ship was a ship no different from a Gigant floating in the sea.

Luke spoke to the soldiers that were controlling the Ironclad’s engine with magic.

“How about we hit back instead of getting hit stupidly?”

“Yes, yes, Your Majesty!”

The captain of the Ironclad ship’s words made the sailors move with gunpowder.

“Open the hull! Show the pirates the taste of hot powder!”

Kiiing!

As the sailors turned and the gun doors opened with large cannons protruding outside.

For a normal battleship, the distance was measured, and the gunpowder and gun angle could be adjusted, but this Ironclad ship didn’t have that.

They were close enough to the enemy ship that they didn’t have to measure the distance or change the angle.

Bang! Bang!

Tearing off the ears of the sailors, the Ironclad ship began to fire.

The Grenada battleship, which was being bombarded by the large caliber artillery at close range, was crushed with shots and sunk.

The shelling was so strong that the shells smashed through the ships.

“Monster, that one is a monster!”

The Grenada sailors trembled at the sight of Symphonia’s Ironclad—the ship that didn’t care about getting hit by its enemies and kept on sinking its enemies.

Contrary to them, the sailors of Symphonia Kingdom cheered.

“Well done! Beat them all!”

“Make sure to scare them enough that they never enter our waters again!”

Including Luke’s ship, there were 5 Ironclad ships moving around the Grenada fleet.

Thanks to that, Nathan’s intention of making a fleet line failed completely.