Emperor of Steel

“The rider… can I be the one?”

Reina suddenly looked at the other person.

The boy looked to be around 17 years old or so.

The impression that he gave out from his clothes were quite familiar.

“Ah, you helped those kids downtown yesterday.”

“I’m Luke de Rakan.”

Luke respectfully introduced himself to them.

The feeling of excitement was very similar to the first time that he met Katarina.

‘I can’t feel the energy that I felt yesterday.’

He looked closely at her again and again, but he wasn’t able to feel that huge surge of energy that resembled the great nature.

Was that an illusion?

“Luke de Rakan? Are you the young lord of Rakan Viscount?”

“Yes, that is right.”

At the answer from Luke, a strange light shone in the eyes of Reina.

Victor and Pavel were looking at Luke with suspicion.

“I’m very sorry for interrupting, are you really Luke, the young lord?”

“I heard that the young Lord, the lord of Rakan was in a big accident and went unconscious a while ago.”

“I have recovered recently. That story hasn’t come out yet.”

Luke spoke while rubbing on the ring that was on his right hand.

In the ring, a small spark came in, and the crest of the Rakan family appeared.

The ring was made of nonferrous iron and was a token from the lords of the Imperial house, it was a ring that couldn’t be tampered with.

And that way, Reina and her party knew that Luke was real.

“Excuse me. Please forgive me for the rudeness.”

“No. it is fine.”

The two old men bowed to Luke.

The reason why they had doubted the identity of Luke was because of the rumors that they heard about the viscount.

In that situation, they were wary of whether the boy was a part of the conspiracy of Count Monarch.

It was a trick to pretend to be of help for those who were in a desperate situation but turn out to be a terrible rider.

‘I can’t believe that we’ll be getting help from a Rakan lord!’

The two old men had reason for their actions.

Lamer originally belonged to the Rakan family and the Libiya family.

However, a large number of lands and cities were lost in the revolt caused by Karno de Baroque, who later became the first emperor of the Baroque Empire.

At that time, the ancestors of the Monarch were handed down the land by the Imperial Court, and from then on, the original families were displaced.

Thinking of those past evils, it was unlikely for Rakan to help the Count Monarch.

In addition, they heard that the family of Rakan was a small scale family and yet has continued to grow in spite of the small scale.

“But you want to be as a rider for us?”

Luke nodded at the question from Reina.

“Yes, when I heard it, it seemed like the situation was quite desperate.”

Princess Reina, who resembled Katarina, was in a very similar position as her.

Katarina refused to be a plaything for the filthy noble and chose death.

‘But it will be different now!’

He wanted to help Reina.

Whether it was a coincidence or a bond of some sick destiny, he just didn’t want the results to be the same.

Luke pointed to Philip who was behind him.

“Philip is an expert knight from the Royal Military Academy even though that seems very unsatisfactory.”

Reina and the two old men’s faces changed at once.

The Royal Military Academy was an elite training camp.

And they also practice with Gigants.

Moreover, if he was an expert at such a young age, it was likely for him to be a genius.

In other words, it can be said that the skills would be comparable to the ace rider of the arena.

‘Dammit, for such a thing…’

Philip was standing afar and frowned when his name was announced.

He couldn’t help but sigh as he saw the sparkles in the eyes of the men with expectation.

“So, young lord. I’m sorry, but I can’t beat the rider of the count no matter how old he is.”

“What?”

“As far as I know the famous Lippie clan, run by the Monarch has a number of expert class players. I heard that they are not just the aces that they fought not only in the South but also in the royal arenas. In addition, the Gigant is called as ‘Achilles’.”

Achilles was a warrior class Gigant that was launched 20 years back by the ‘Altica Magic Tower’, the fifth largest Magic workshop in the continent.

Achilles was still recognized for having an appropriate armor and a stable output and was praised to be a great example of the warrior class guilds.

“Is it different from this?”

“Mir is over 50 years old. The airframe too, not too much core engine power, so it isn’t the warrior level.”

Gigants were divided into three groups according to the output and the performance.

1000 fight was for the warrior class, 2000 was for fight knight class, and 3000 fight was for hero class.

Fight was a unit that represented the output of a Gigant, it normally meant ‘The combat power of one elite soldier’.

In other words, the warrior class Gigant power was equivalent to 1000 elite soldiers.

Whatsoever, for the Gigant which was already 100 years, after 30 years the efficiency starts to fall.

A whole new Gigant would begin to be developed, which was because of the power output and the core engine work decreases with every passing day.

“There are a number of reasons for the decline in the power, but nine out of ten are due to the end of the life span of the Core engine that is embedded in it. Maybe that could be the case with this guy.”

Indeed, and the wizards who were maintaining Mir nodded their heads to Philip.

Luke looked over at Mir.

He observed the energy of mana and with the knowledge of golem magic that he had, and work of the wizards that he saw a little, tried to grasp the condition of the Gigant.

Even if he was under maintenance, he still kept absorbing a small amount of mana from the surroundings, like a person taking in oxygen while sleeping.

The core engine was beating like a heart, and the mana gathered in the core of Mir was much weaker than the ones of the other Gigant.

‘It’s like an old man’s level when compared to the others.’

The cause was in the pivotal magic stone that was in the middle of the core engine, as Philip had mentioned.

‘Would it take a long time to replace the ore?’

Each stone had its own wave of mana.

So the magic circle engraved on the artifact that was placed in the core had to match with the mana wave.

So that the magic was fully exercised as the life of the artifact itself was long.

Many of the magic stones and the magic circles engraved on the Gigant could be called as the artifact too.

The magic stones would be able to perform their tasks only with the artifacts.

They had to get something that was exactly matching with the mana wave or had to fix the magic circle to match with the new one.

And it wasn’t something that could be finished in a day or two.

‘Then… there is only one way left!’

There was only one way for it to work.

The thing only he could do.

And Luke who remembered that thing, smiled.