Emperor of Steel

“Your Majesty is awake!”

“Oh, oh!”

From that very morning, the camp of Milton Kingdom was noisy with cheers and talks. Mayers had woken exactly after 3 days just as the medic said.

Sleeping as if he was dead, yet better than before. He didn’t have any nightmares in the past three day’s sleep.

‘Bazzo, are you finally giving up now and leaving me for good?’

Indeed, the ghost was appearing in the dreams of the other people like the guards and knights, but Mayers didn’t know about it because they were all strictly forbidden from using the word ‘ghost’.

At any rate, Mayers was delighted that the nightmare ended for him.

And that day, he decided to treat all his servants generously.

“Your Majesty, there were torpedo…”

When Reynold spoke about the meeting room, Mayers shook his hand.

“Enough of that. You still haven’t attacked Batern? I felt like I pushed you too hard and felt sorry for that.”

“…”

“Let’s think slowly and steadily now. Soon we will get 50 Knight class Gigants. Wouldn’t it be possible to break off their defenses with that?”

At the question of Mayers, all the nobles who were attending the meeting, including Reynold, remained silent.

It was as if a group of students had made a huge mistake and just got noticed.

Seeing the air around him, Mayers could feel an ominous feeling.

“Why is no one answering me? Did something else happen?”

Everyone was hesitant at the question from Mayers, and it only increased the vague atmosphere further.

That was when Reynold decided to speak on behalf of everyone, “Those 50 Gigants aren’t coming, Your Majesty. It is our assumption that the Gigants were stolen during transportation.”

“W-what?!”

Reynold began to give more details to Mayers who was shocked.

“As the scheduled time arrived, no transport arrived and a nearby defensive troops led the soldiers to search for them. All they found were the traces of fire and the pieces of used scrolls.”

“T-that was a special transport! What the hell happened?!”

“We found traces of our soldiers buried, and the rest of them are on their way. We don’t know if the remaining ones are dead, have run away, or were taken in by the enemy.”

The reason why the Milton army wasn’t able to get the full information of the situation was mainly because of Baron Lovett, the captain of the transportation.

After Luke left, he woke up, and with the fear that he would be executed for failing the mission, he ran away. Soon, his knights and men were scattered too.

And thus there was no one who could inform the Milton army what the exact situation was.

“T-this… cough!”

“Your Majesty!”

Mayers, who jumped up from his seat in anger, quickly grabbed the table and sat back down.

Fortunately, he didn’t fall and become unconscious like the last time.

However, the shock of having his Gigants taken away wasn’t easily shaken off.

“Kuek! Release our troops right now and order them to find the Gigants! I need to know what happened over there!”

At the orders of Mayers, Reynold sighed and answered,

“Unfortunately, we cannot pull out the troops from here, and we can’t ask for the troops from the kingdom either. They already have very little troops to defend themselves from the monsters.”

“I ordered them to draft the young men. Why don’t they have any troops yet!?” Shouted Mayers.

“Well, just suppressing the riots in the Brandon city itself is turning into trouble.”

At the answer from Reynold, Mayers face went pale.

“R-riots? There are riots happening in the royal city?”

“Yes, while Your Majesty was asleep, those who were dissatisfied with the drafting had called for a riot.”

Though they were all referring to it as riots, it was actually a revolt.

The nobles, who were dissatisfied with the war, instigated their people to riot and who was behind them.

“At first, it was at a level where people didn’t respond to conscription and training, but in the process of suppressing the men, the soldiers caused casualties, and later, it turned impossible to ask them to stop.”

With the uprisings of the royal city, the residencies of the nobles, their main halls and other buildings belonging to the nobles were plundered and burned.

Viscount Mager tried to suppress them. However, he lacked the troops.

And the defensive troops that were left behind had no artillery to use either apart from the soldiers.

And what was more, instead of fighting properly, the troops either fled or sided with the rebels.

“The news spread and the number of deserters in our army have increased significantly. General soldiers, as well as junior officers and even knights, have begun to run away.”

‘This makes no sense, none at all. How could all this happen in just…’

Less than a month after starting the fight with Marquis Rakan.

Hordes of monsters were suddenly showing up. The absence of policing broke out bandits and mobs, but never did Mayers think that his nation would be shook so easily.

But all this happened because Mayers only thought about himself and not the others.

He had been preparing for independence for a year by then.

In order to confront the Baroque Empire, he stockpiled the military forces, he attracted talented men and negotiated with domestic and foreign forces.

It was needless to say that such process needed tremendous resources.

The problem was that he raised the amount of taxes, and the classes who had to pay the taxes weren’t the nobles or the rich families but the people with low income and had no power.

From the time of being a Marquis, the Milton Kingdom has been a wealthy area for agriculture and commerce.

However, it was just the nobles and their subjects who enjoyed the wealth it brought, and there were very few residents who could get bread from them.

Despite the hard work, the majority of the people in Milton were poor.

And with the intent to prepare for war, Mayers became more ambitious and raised the taxes. Obviously, that made it more difficult for the poor.

In fact, they still held some hope until the nation was declared because they believed that their King would refrain from going into war and run the nation in a stable manner.

However, following the independence from the war, Mayers waged war on the Marquis of Rakan using the death of Count Bazzo.

If there weren’t any problems, maybe everyone would have endured it.

However, the monsters that Luke sent had shaken the entire Milton Kingdom and caused them to become terrified.

“What should be done? What should I do!”

Mayers, who stood up from his seat, asked in anguish, and a blunt voice from the room answered, “Huh, what do you mean by what has to be done? We need to reunite right away.”

The voice belonged to Reynard.

At his rude words, the main nobles including Count Lao, who was mad at him, didn’t bother talking. It was because all their main residencies were in the Royal city.

Loyalty to the head was important to the nobles, but an even more important aspect for them was their foundation.

It was their thoughts to reunite with their domestic troops and overcome those riots and revolts.

“Reunite? Is that the only way? Do I need to go back like this? How can I show my face?”

“How would you like it if the kingdom crumbled more? Is your pride the one feeding you?”

“How dare you?!”

Klang!

At the words of Reynard, Mayers threw a glass that was close to him.

Reynard’s face that got hit by the crystal goblet began to bleed immediately.

“Oh, sh*t! See this! See!”

“Huak!”

When Reynard stood up from his chair, Mayers’ face turned pale.

As a lycan mixed race, Reynard was over 2 meters tall, as tall as a giant tree. He could feel the pressure coming off him.

Knowing what was happening, the knights pulled out their swords toward Reynard’s directions.

Reynold hurriedly went toward his brother.

“Don’t! Hold yourself back.”

“Hyung!”

Reynard hadn’t pulled out his sword yet.

However, the energy his body was releasing was enough to threaten the knights and Mayers.

“Your comments were disrespectful. Go ahead and apologize to Your Majesty.”

“Hyung! Hyung, do you also think that I was wrong?”

“See…”

Mayers words and actions that placed importance to his pride and face rather than the lives of his soldiers weren’t right.

Honestly, it wasn’t like Reynold didn’t want to pull out his sword and kill the man either.

“Even then, he is the King of a nation and our master.”

“tch!”

Work for what was received.

The Gram Brothers were wandering mercenaries, but they never broke their word.

To deceive someone or betray others was something they referred to as the acts of humans.

Reynard mumbled to himself and bowed his head to Mayers as he wasn’t able to work for what he had received, “My Majesty, I was very rude. Please forgive me.”

“Kuek! You’re a sour candy to my eyes! I don’t want to see you, go away!”

As Mayers frowned and yelled, Reynard went back to the army.

When the issue of Reynard was done, Count Lao opened his mouth.

“Your Majesty, what are you going to do now…? Would you like the army to work?”

“Hugh! Isn’t that a problem we need to think about? If we act recklessly and send in our army, we will face Marquis Luke’s counterattack.”

“That is true.”

It wasn’t the mainland of Rakan estates that they were watching over. Therefore, even if they retreated, they would have to leave behind some soldiers to contain their enemy from making a move.

The question was, who would lead the remaining soldiers?

‘Should I leave it to Reynard for his atonement? No, to send someone who is dissatisfied with me is…’

Reynold was a fine man as well, but Mayers couldn’t get the other Sword Master to be loyal to him.

And yet, he couldn’t leave it over to the other commanders.

‘Damn it, this is messed up!’

Honestly, even after deciding on the army, Mayers thought of taking a day to think it through.

The nobles were frustrated with it, but it hadn’t been long since Mayers woke up, so they decided to hold themselves back for once.

But Mayers never expected how much anger they held in for such an act to have happened at that time.