Emperor of Steel

The camping place prepared by Henry was the residence of former Marquis Cavanell.

Marquis Cavanell was a nobleman of the Baroque Empire.

However, he ended up getting purged by Rudolf’s massacre of the opposing nobles, which ended up getting called as the ‘blood approval ceremony’, and the young nobles, their relatives, even their dogs, and servants were killed.

The mansion, which had been neglected for the entire time was because it belonged to a traitor, and just recently the Imperial Army had been ordered to use it as an accommodation for military supplies.

Henry worked in secret so that only he and Luke’s party could use it.

Thanks to that, they were able to stay there with relief on their minds.

The next morning, as the day dawned upon, Luke gathered all of the troops.

“So, I decided to act on what we discussed yesterday. Don’t ever do anything reckless.”

“Yes, sir!”

Divided into several groups, they scattered downtown into Nemesis, and a group worked in secret to secure a retreat.

Luke and Erwin went in to sabotage the Nemesis’s security magic circles which were placed all over, while Karen and Jo Mimi built zen jammers all throughout the city to avoid getting noticed by the Imperial army.

‘It looks like kids are doing graffiti on the ground.’

Shirley, who followed the two women as their escort along with a few more troops, thought when she watched the two of them work.

Unlike magic, which was full of geometric figures and magic characters and magic stones, the zen looked more free and irregular in writing.

Moreover, unlike the magic circles which are drawn on the flat ground or surfaces, the zen was being used more on the natural objects like branches and stones.

‘If it is like that, no one will even guess that something like these were installed in the middle of Nemesis.’

No, they might yell out loud saying that the sacred square of Nemesis was being used for graffiti.

Well, while Shirley was lost in that thought, the creation of the circles were done.

And the circle that was finished, and as if it didn’t even exist, the entire drawing patterns disappeared.

“How do you trigger something like that? Are you supposed to memorize the spell like magic circles?”

Karen answered at Shirley’s question

“No, you just need to tear off this talisman. Then it can be activated from anywhere and anytime.”

In some ways, it seemed a lot better than magic.

Thinking something like that, Shirley followed Karen and Jo Mimi who were moving to the house.

But on their way back, she stopped her steps near the market.

Her eyes directed at the Lycan slope boy, and a knight who seemed to belong to the Central Army, the boy seemed to be shivering.

“I-I was in the wrong. Please, please let this go just once, sir!”

“Shut up, you furry child! How dare you spoil my uniform even after knowing that you are a slave! And you want to be excused?”

The knight beat the boy with his baton and no mercy was shown.

Puck! Puck! Puck!

Blood splattered everywhere and the kid groaned.

However, the people around them were moving away or pretending like they didn’t see them, no one came ahead to stop them.

It was unimaginable for any common person to go against the knight, and in the Baroque Empire, the fairies and the mixed-race were all considered to be slaves except for the small number of skilled people like Shirley.

‘This is why I had no choice but like His Majesty Luke.’

Ever since the Symphonia Kingdom has made any significant progress in the short duration, the ethnicity harmony has spread all over.

However, the Baroque Empire didn’t show any signs of harmony among races.

Rather, Emperor Rudolf denied to speak anything about racial reconciliation in his policies, and it was his idea to encourage slavery.

“Uuuu, please just…”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up? How dare a beast dare to talk to me?”

The knight raised his baton as if he was going to give one last bloody blow to take down the fallen mixed-race child.

Break!

Shirley’s patience ran out.

The moment the knight was about to strike the boy, she ran ahead and pushed her spear close to his neck.

“There you go, knight!”

“Wh-what are you?”

Karen and Jo Mimi, who saw what Shirley did, held their heads.

They witnessed what happened, and were thinking about how they could save the body as quietly as possible.

However, as Shirley ran ahead, all their thoughts and plans turned into waste.

“Where do you belong from? How dare you point your spear at a knight!”

The knight who checked Shirley’s clothes, yelled feeling outraged.

Shirley replied without losing her cool.

“Huh? are you so great skilled to not even realize the little pawns who are walking around the street?”

“Sh-shut up! Wh-what are you doing? Arrest this one right here!”

The Central Army knights came ahead.

However, the subordinates couldn’t move any further to act. Shirley widened her eyes and threatened to pierce the neck of the knight by taking one step ahead.

Karen, who had cast several offensive spells, hesitated.

‘What should I do? Even if we get rid of them in here, it will still make a lot of noise as there are too many eyes on us.’

Even if they got rid of the knights as quickly as possible, there were too many eyewitnesses that would quickly relay information.

And the operation of the ruins could be completely destroyed.

“What is this fuss?”

It was when Karen wasn’t able to do anything.

On the other side of the road, a group of knights appeared with a stiff voice.

They were old knights wearing antique designer armor.

Shirley almost dropped her spear when she felt the unusual energy come from the man.

‘He… how is he…?!’

He was at least two levels stronger than her.

Sword Master Advanced, maybe even more than that.

Shirley, feeling nervous, suddenly realized that the energy felt familiar to her.

‘What? Where did I ever feel it?’

It was when she was beating her mind.

An old knight who approached them, touched Shirley’s spear with the sword tip of the knight and asked the knight.

“What the hell happened here?”

“Th-that…”

As much as Shirley, even the Central Knight army were flustered.

The crest on the armor belongs to the Elder Knight.

The Elder Knights were a group of retired knights of the Knights of Guard.

Although old and retired, they exercised and they still had influence over the frontline Knights and commanders.

In addition, it was a state of emergency, and the elderly were also returning to an active line of duty.

Pack!

“Ugh-!”

The elderly, kicked the Central Army knight, and fired coldly at him.

“Why isn’t there a word from your mouth? Are your lips stuck together? Maybe I should use my sword and open them.”

When the old knight pulled his sword out, and the knight who looked at him, began to report in haste.

“While going on the road, this dirty one bumped into me, so I was disciplining him for a while. But this soldier appears and acts rudely.”

“That so?”

As if convinced, the elderly nodded.

The Central Army knights sighed in relief, and the elder kicked the knight once again.

“Ahhh!”

It was so painful to see that even the other Central Army knights screamed.

“You stupid bastard! Slaves are the property of the nation, and you act as if you have the right to hurt them at your own will? If you are a knight, you need to at least act as an example for the others…”

The knight who was groaning, didn’t seem very pleased at the criticism he had to hear.

However, he decided to back off.

“Which unit of the Central Army are you? I need to call all your captain and give them some discipline too!”

“Ah, number 1. Please just do this once!”

He was once ruling over and now he was under.

And to avoid such a terrible situation, the knight begged by clasping his hands.

Maybe the appearance of the knight like that seemed desperate enough for the elder.

“If you do something as disgusting as this one more time, I will not forgive you.”

“Ye-yes! Thank you!”

The knight immediately got up and led away his men.

The old man, who left the fallen boy to his subordinates approached Shirley, whose eyes were stiff and spoke very lowly.

“I never thought that I would run into you in this place, Viscount Shirley.”

“Hu! Who-who…”

Shirley went stiff, and battered herself as her identity was revealed.

The elder knight quickly took off his helmet and showed his identity.

“Huh! You-greg…”

“Shh! Have you forgotten that we are in the middle of the enemy place?”

The man was none other than Arch Duke Gregory of the Holy Empire.

He, who often followed the Pope and visited the Symphonia Kingdom to fight against Luke, and the other Sword Masters of Symphonia.

Shirley too had taken in a lot of advice from the man, so she should have known him from the energy itself.

However, she never imagined that she would cross paths with him in such a place.

“Why are you here? Are you here to help us?”

“Well, our tomboy ran away and we came over to catch the princess.”

Gregory spoke.

Karen was watching the entire situation from across the street.

As soon as she figured out that the man was Arch Duke Gregory, she tried to play it cool.

“Hehehe, hello?”

“Don’t do that, Princess. This is no time I can say hello!”

Gregory roared in a low voice.

It wasn’t too hard for him to get angry.

Karen didn’t just run away from home, she even stole the Gigant he loved.

“Where is His Majesty Luke? I think that we need to have a serious conversation about child education right away.”

‘Oops! He must be really pissed.’

Karen began to sweat profusely.

However, no matter how much she tried to think of a way to get away from the situation, the genius child couldn’t come up with a solution to escape from the tough situation.