Emperor of Steel

Chapter 11: Skills Show up 2
Shortly after walking through the moonlit streets at dawn, they came across another ‘guide’.

And again this time with a gold coin, the guide faithfully took them to another location.

However, the place where he guided them to wasn’t a gambling house.

“Brothers, shouldn’t you be paying taxes?”

Men with a grim expression on their faces began to appear in front of Luke and Philip and spoke with a sulky voice.

And at the back, three to four men stood at the end of the alley, blocking the street from being used.

And the weapons they had were not the small ones that petty thieves used.

“Are you by any chance sent by those kids we met earlier?”

Asked Luke to the middle-aged man, who had a scar on his face, while grinning.

“Huhu, you completely played our kids. You need to take responsibility if you want to play and cheat.”

The middle-aged man, Hector, was the ‘Blue Diamond’ of Lamer’s Thieves Guild.

He was shocked to hear about some cheeky guy who dared to let out the truth about the gambling house.

And after confirming their identities, he decided to confront them.

“Cheating, you say? Rather, it was them who tried to cheat.”

“That isn’t so important, my dear. If you give us all the money that you have, we’ll let you live.”

Though it was obvious, Luke had no intention of giving away the money to save his body.

The guild’s gambling house had been badly beaten, and they understand that.

And if the opponent was a noble, then they should be afraid of the repercussions.

That too, especially for the Thieves Guild?

Since they were the ones who lived their lives off of doing crimes, to go against a noble was like spilling their own blood.

‘It would be nice to bury him in the place we found a while back.’

As if realizing that what the other person was thinking was about cruelly burying them, Philip took a step ahead.

“Young Lord, I’ll take care of them, so please stay back.”

“Can you take care of them all by yourself?”

“Huh, if I can’t handle such things, then I should just leave my post as your designated knight.”

While smiling, Philip pulled out the bastard sword that was on his back.

“Oh ho! You are a knight, huh? I guess that sword wouldn’t even pierce the stomach… ahh!”

A sudden scream burst from the mouth of Hector, which made Philip laugh.

The sword of Philip began to radiate a vivid red aura.

“This, Expert!”

Knights practice the use of mana in a different way from the wizards.

They accumulate mana as a means of strengthening their body, and some were even been able to manifest the accumulated mana into a physical form.

And that was the Aura, and the knights, who could release an aura, were called Experts.

Experts were far more powerful than the ordinary knights, and their movements too were numerous times faster.

In particular, the aura of a sword was powerful enough to cut through a thick brick of iron.

And thus, the Experts were considered as high-level resources, whom no one wanted to deal with

And such an Expert had made an appearance in the back of an alley!

‘Dammit, you still are a designated knight…’

The thieves thought that they were a lesser noble, who had recently fallen, and a lesser ranked knight.

As the thieves moved back with a nervous look, Philip raised his voice a little.

“Why? Don’t you want to mess with me? This is a blade that can go through an Expert’s stomach too, so come on.”

“Shhh! This is an Expert everyone! All of you, attack!”

Hector rushed over to Philip, while the other thieves hesitated.

If they went back to the guild with their tails between their legs, they would be crushed.

And if one took a look at the size of Philip’s aura, it was like the lowest level of the Experts.

In addition, he seemed like a young kid who had just stepped into the Expert stages.

The thieves, who seemed to have realized that, began to wield their swords and axes while also swearing a lot.

“Uah!”

“You bastard!”

“Ahh, fuck off!”

Philip was moving around, trying to avoid the incoming attacks.

In addition, he was able to stab or slash the rogues one after the other.

‘Shit, he isn’t just some kid!’

There were no wasted movements in Philip’s technique, and he could maintain his aura continuously, which meant that they couldn’t consider him as some low-level Expert.

Hector, who was determined to not be his opponent, changed the direction of his attack.

He tried to attack Luke, who had taken a step back into the corner of the alley.

He was going to take Luke as a hostage and threaten Philip.

‘This guy is pure…’

As Hector began to move, he couldn’t help but stumble back at the flying gold coins.

Retreating back, he was looking at the scene unfold.

Things didn’t end there though.

Luke didn’t miss his chance and swung the heavy bag of money like a mace.

Puck!?

“Kuek!”

Hector, who got hit on the head, went bouncing like a frog.

“Did I look that easy to you?”

Although his body belonged to a boy, it had the soul of the Warlock Saymon, who was over 40 years old.

As he had already witnessed the bitter-sweetness of the heartless world, he knew about the actions and things that unfold in the back alleys. That was why he could take down these measly thugs even without using his dark magic.

“Keuk, do you know who I… ah!”

Luke stepped on Hector’s fingers and began to put his weight onto it.

Instead of stopping there, he began to step on places of the human body which would put anyone through excruciating pain.

In fact, the study of the human body was much more complicated than being a warlock or knighthood.

And Luke was no exception.

Puck! Pupupuck!

“Ahh! Euk! Please, save me… please… ahh!”

Hector, who had been going through excruciating pain all this time, began to scream and beg to be left alone.

‘Oh shit, he is a torture tactician.’

Seeing Luke trampling Hector, Philip felt goosebumps.

He knew that Luke was learning to fence from Rogers, but he didn’t know that Luke could take down an enemy with such cruelty and skill.

‘Phew, he seems very cool.’

Luke looked at Hector’s groaning expression.

After constantly sweating for a while, it seemed like all the stress, which had been accumulating for a while, had been released.

“What do you plan on doing now?”

Long before he tried to overpower Hector, Philip began to pick up the gold coins, which were dropped in the process.

Luke, who knew what he was concerned about, didn’t think much of what Philip was doing.

“The gambling house was not the way to go.”

He didn’t know where else they could earn money, but every time they earned such a huge amount of money, the same annoying thing would happen again.

And even if they don’t win a huge sum of money, word will go around that people carrying big bags of money were on the streets, and they would turn into targets.

‘So, instead of the gambling house, I need to look for a more legal way to make money.’

Luke moved out of the alley and asked Philip.

“Are there any racetracks or arenas in this city?”

“Well, I don’t know about racetracks, but arena… ah! Gigant arena!”

“Gigant arena?”

Maybe a place where the things called Gigants were placed?

But the most important thing was whether or not they could put money in the games.

And after asking, Philip nodded his head.

“That can surely be done. But the betting is big, and it is easy to lose.”

“Then it would be quick to earn too. Okay, let’s go to the Gigant Arena.”

“But it is already pretty late today. The Gigant arena will open at 10 am. Let’s catch some sleep for a while.”

“Kay then.”

Luke was also really tired as well because of the gambling and the hard work that he had to put in for the day.

On the way to the Inn, Luke looked at his designated knight who was moving ahead of him.

‘I guess Philip was a light person in words and deeds, but he is an Expert… an intermediate one at least…’

Perhaps Philip wasn’t putting his all. Seeing numerous knights in his previous life and working with them, Luke was able to recognize that Philip was in the intermediate stage.

‘It is amazing. To be in an intermediate stage at such an age.’

Since Rakan was a genius of fencing and a physically born monster, it wasn’t easy for a normal knight to reach Expert and became an intermediate in it so quick.

500 years ago, less than 100 Experts of intermediate knights were in the Libiya Kingdom.

‘A dragon will be a dragon even if it rots?’

Although Rakan’s lineage had declined, Luke was sure that all the glory and the ability of the past were indeed lost just by looking at Philip.

‘Huhuhu, he might be helpful to me later on.’

No clear plans have been made yet, but he thought that if he went against the Baroque family, the family of his enemy, then the knights of Rakan would come in handy.

And thinking about the family history, the not so good house came into his mind.

‘Even then, the debt has to be paid first, right?’

After taking a fairly good inn downtown, the two rested until dawn.

Looking forward to the jackpot that they could get the next day.