Emperor of Steel

He couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to be left at the bottom of the dungeon all his life.

“Sire, we have brought Count Ferrierd.”

“Good work. I can interrogate him myself. Everyone, out.”

Marquis Rogers, the commander of the 1st squad, who led the army from Brandon.

He looked up from the reports he was verifying about the forts.

He looked over at Asland, who seemed to be nervous.

“Why you were caught here, I am sure you know the reason for it, right?”

“Of course. Because my father rebelled against the Holy Empire. And from the position of Symphonia Kingdom, his son is also a sinner who shouldn’t be missed.”

Rogers laughed at Aslan’s cool answer.

“It wasn’t the reason for getting caught. It is because you left your work without taking permission. You deserted your job.”

Rogers laughed and spoke back to Aslan.

“You are no normal soldiers, you know how bad it is for a commander of the fort to desert his position?”

Aslan’s desertion of his post. He finally realized after some thought.

The subordinates in the fort were afraid that they would get punished as they let a superior desert his post and hid the truth but were caught by the abrupt inspection.

According to Symphonia’s military law, desertion whether wartime or not called for the death penalty.

“But if I didn’t desert it, I would have been dragged to the Holy Empire and executed after heavy torture.”

“Huh, It seems like you think that we would punish you for the rebellion that you did in the Holy Empire. Did you really think that we didn’t know your identity from the start?”

At the time of taking over Milton Kingom, the Rakan retainers brought in the details of all the nobles.

And they knew about Aslan.

They knew who he was and how he received the title of Milton Kingdom’s count.

“And it wasn’t just us. Even the Holy Empire knows about your presence. Even then, they didn’t ask for you to be handed over. What do you think was the reason?”

“...”

At Rogers question, Aslan was silent. It was because he really didn’t know the answer to it.

Rogers went close to the man and said, “It was because Her Holiness has no intention of starting a rebellion which has already ended. She thought that it was needed to help sick people than reopen old grudges.”

The same was true for Luke.

It wasn’t like Aslan had done anything wrong in the nation, and there was no reason to catch the man and cause useless noise when it was time to embrace the nobles of the Milton Kingdom.

“But then, you ran away because you’re terrified of us.”

“From my point of view, I had no other choice...”

Rogers immediately cut his answer.

“Was there a wanted note for you? Was there a bounty on your head? As I said, if we wanted to catch you, we would have done that.”

At Rogers words, Aslan sighed.

‘Huh, I guess I was being stupid.’

No matter how much of a small village he tried to hide in, it wasn’t like the information flow would be halted.

He knew what kind of ruling Luke and Veronica III did from the merchants and tourists who would pass by the village.

He was intimidated and scared that he closed off any other options.

Only then, realizing his foolishness, he knelt down and said, “I will pay the price for deserting my post. And I do not blame the reason for desertion onto His Majesty, who showed mercy upon me.”

Marquis Rogers looked at Aslan, who admitted his wrongdoings and drew his sword.

Srrrng.

The clear sound of a sword being drawn out from its sheath was heard.

Aslan was prepared to die and closed his eyes.

Slash!

Aslan’s body flinched because of the sound.

However, what was cut wasn’t his neck but the ropes around his body.

“W-why would you...?”

Rogers pulled back his sword and spoke to Aslan, who was confused.

“We are in a troublesome situation. I don’t have the time to waste on something that happened in the past.”

“Th-then...”

“It isn’t like it wasn’t your responsibility to inform us before you do something like that in advance, we end up taking down your position to demoting you. We will put you with artillery, so try to make some merit while working there.”

Aslan, who was dazed for a while, got up from his knee and bowed to Rogers.

“Thank you, Chief Commander Rogers.”

“You should be thanking His Majesty not me.”

Rogers wrote a letter of appointment as an artillery engineer and sent out Aslan.

Aslan de Ferrierd, whose whereabouts were hidden, was revealed to the continent once again.