Emperor of Steel

At Arsene’s rage, all the executives and merchants in the royal city ran over to the palace.

It was said that they were the best traders on the continent, but they were on the side of the Veritas Magic Tower.

It was hard to say that people of such side would disobey Arsene’s command, who was the head of it.

And even if he didn’t know the real identity of Arsene, there was no one who would dare to ignore the summons of the king, where the nation’s trade quarters were located.

The executives summoned like that were caught in the rageful eyes of Arsene in the throne room.

“I believe you know why such busy people are called pigs here.”

“…”

At Arsene’s cold words, the senior executives went stiff.

Some of them were clenching their eyes shut as if they had already expected the situation.

“Speak honestly. Did you make fun of the commerce because of your insatiable greed?”

Corruption here and corruption there.

Arsene, who had lived as a Lich for hundreds of years, had seen the same events happen countless times.

He himself had committed corruption.

So he didn’t think that the Grain Chamber’s merchants, who were always under his wing and given an absolute position in the Libiya Kingdom, wouldn’t resort to corruption.

“If you decide to confess right here about what has been done, you might be saved from hell.”

At his words, the executives looked to see if anyone would react.

“I-I’ll tell you everything!”

At that time, a huge middle-aged man in the front row spoke out.

“This is all because of the Chamber’s head, Zehart.”

“Th-That is the truth. It’s because the company funds are being pulled in by him…”

“If we didn’t end up doing that, the business would have gone bankrupt… We couldn’t help but try to fill in the empty funds with those means.”

When the fat middle-aged man spoke out, the other executives too began to open up and speak like a swarm of bees and spoke against Zehart.

Arsene’s anger rose as they kept on talking.

Although Zehart was a lazy guy who didn’t seem to have much interest in magic, the man was his own blood, a descendant.

But the men in front of him were trying to blame the entire thing onto the man because he wasn’t present in the meet!

“You men! How dare you lie in front of me?!”

Bang!

When Arsene yelled from the throne, the marble flooring under his foot cracked, and the room shook.

“Ughh!”

The anger and Dragonic Fear used by Arsene made the men fall to the ground, covering their heads.

There were many who peed their pants and those who died as their hearts had stopped.

“I tried to settle this as quietly as possible, so the nation too won’t know about you… Just die you all!”

“Kiik! Please, please, Your Majesty!”

“We are really speaking the truth!”

The executives, who were still alive, rubbed their hands and pleaded, but Arsene didn’t pay attention to them at all.

Kiiiik!

Dark Hole emerged from his fingertips.

Dark Hole was a skill he had trained in the dungeon a while ago.

The executives went stiff at the sight of the terrifying dark magic unfolding in front of them and were quickly sucked into the Dark Hole.

The only one that remained was Arsene, who stumbled into his seat.

“You ugly bastards! How dare you lie in front of me?”

Arsene wiped out all the executives, yet his anger didn’t seem to subside right away.

The next day, Arsene, whose anger subsided to some extent, mobilized Weitz and others to rob Grain.

Not only did they bring back the book of commerce, but they also investigated the assets that belonged to the men he killed the day before.

Such intense actions were taking place, but the conclusion of it was truly vain.

“Is it true that Zehart has been taking away a huge portion of the company funds?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. He is currently traveling in foreign nations and continuing to withdraw more funds in different places.”

According to the investigation done by Weitz, although the funds were being taken in, Zehart was writing several drafts to merchants and was borrowing huge sum of money.

In doing so, the amount Zehart had embezzled reached 200 million pesos.

It was equal to a 10 year budget plan of the Libiya Kingdom.

‘What the hell is that crazy bastard even thinking?!’

Was he thinking of buying the entire nation and become its king?

Arsene knew that the man was negligent and lazy. He knew that the man was greedy, but this was too severe to turn a blind eye to.

It wasn’t the end of just the Grain Chambers.

Since Arsene had taken over Shaikan’s body, the economy of Libiya Kingdom was heavily dependent on Grain.

In addition to investing all of the royal funds in it, he even urged the other nobles to invest money in Grain Chambers.

Naturally, the domestic and wealthy merchants invested and cooperated with Grain Chambers.

In such a situation, Grain could be facing bankruptcy…

‘If I let things go out of hand, the economy of the kingdom will get destroyed… No, it is already destroyed.’

Honestly, Arsene didn’t really care about the state of Libiya Kingdom. He didn’t care if the kingdom lived or get destroyed.

If he could, he would grab the money and the assets and run away from the place.

However, he had taken control of Shaikan’s body, and a few of his projects were initiated in the Libiya Kingdom.

In addition to poisoning 30 million people with the new zombie poison, the new undeads were being made.

‘I can’t leave them behind.’

A loss was a loss, but the problem would be Luke turning stronger in the meantime.

Over the past 500 years, Luke ended up being the only man who threatened Arsene’s existence.

Moreover, as the actions of the elders who did bad to Luke, Luke was turning persistent in pursuing their whereabouts and trying to destroy them.

‘We need to fix this problem somehow!’

Arsene, who thought of it, summoned Zemerton and a few more key elders of Veritas Magic Tower.

“Zehart created a huge problem. First, go and get that guy… Does anyone know where he is?”

At Arsene’s question, the warlocks looked at each other.

They weren’t really interested in Zehart.

Even if he was the son of the Meister and a direct descendant of Arsene, there was no reason for the elders to know his whereabouts, especially as he wasn’t the next successor of the tower.

So they knew nothing about him, except for the fact that he was running Grain Chamber and would go abroad and enjoy the luxury he was given.

‘Damn it, these men aren’t useful in anything.’

However, Arsene couldn’t say that out loud.

He himself hasn’t paid much attention to his own descendant.

“The last place he borrowed money from was Castia Kingdom, so tell our spies and warlocks there to find him.”

“Yes, Master. But how are we going to deal with the issues with the funds in Grain…?”

Zemerton asked.

There are a lot of projects that were currently underway for the warlocks, and they all needed funds from the Grain Chamber. They couldn’t help but worry.

“Funds… For now, we have no choice but to go to the ‘Temple’.”

“Temple?”

At Arsene’s response, the warlocks looked shocked.

Since ancient times, the enemy of a warlock was a priest.

When warlocks were found, the priests would relentlessly pursue them and beat them.

But now, he was planning on borrowing money from the servants of God who wanted to kill them?

Of course, it was a well-known fact that the temples and sanctuaries were rich.

In fact, Emperor Rudolf of the Baroque Empire aimed to rob the temples and sanctuaries.

Moreover, when the Holy Arthenia Empire was going strong, the pope took money from the temples to provide food and needs for people in all its regions.

The warlocks thought that Arsene was trying to imitate Emperor Rudolf.

“It isn’t what you are thinking. There is a place that might provide enough wealth to put out our urgent situation.”

“…?”

Arsene laughed as the warlocks still seemed confused.

‘Did they think I spent 500 years doing nothing?’

In preparation for such a situation, he had quite a lot of hidden wealth.

Whether wealth or life vessels, Arsene had always prepared to hold his immortality.

For that reason, Arsene didn’t even inform his own descendants of the hideouts that he called ‘temple’.

‘The only person who knows about it is the person who is in charge of protecting the temple.’

The person in charge of it.

Of course, it wasn’t because the man wanted to, but Arsene created him that way.

Anyway, as the situation ended up turning like that, he had to take out the wealth from that temple.

‘Zehart, this damned kid! I need to find him. I am not going to let this go.’

He wasn’t going to kill the man because he was his descendant.

However, since he created the problem, he had to be punished severely to avoid getting involved in such a mess once again.