emperor of steel
Neither the sky nor the land could be seen.
There was a man who was wandering in the darkness that surrounded him.
He was the warlock Saymon.
‘Am I in purgatory?’
Purgatory, a place that a human would arrive at for a while before going into the underworld.
That was the first thought that entered Saymon’s head.
Darkness was a very familiar entity for him, who had learned dark magic. He was used to it but never seemed to like it.
Above all that, he never thought that he would go to the afterlife without being able to take revenge.
‘Dammit! This is all because of that Rakan bastard!’
As he couldn’t even take proper revenge, how could he look his beloved woman in the eyes?
‘If I could only meet her after getting revenge, I would feel a little less burdened…’
He sighed heavily without realizing it.
His thought was of a good deed.
In his struggle to get revenge, there were no unnecessary killings.
He never laid hands on the powerless people.
Surely he did learn dark magic, but it was just a means for him to get his revenge.
Even when he was learning dark magic, he knew there was a line that he shouldn’t cross.
Warlocks had technically sold their souls to the devil. They offered sacrifices to summon the devil.
However, Saymon was different.
After summoning the devil with his blood, he fought the devil and gained power by depriving the devil of its power.
And thus, unlike any other warlock out there, his soul and spirit weren’t corrupted; no devil had encroached his soul.
He was also able to unearth new truths about darkness and chaos like finding new constellations in the dark night sky.
But a sin is a sin.
He tried to keep his sins to a minimum, but the sin he did for harming a man with the sole reason for attaining revenge couldn’t be erased.
He thought it was worth the price, but…
‘Let’s say that I couldn’t get my revenge because of the weight of my sins. Then why are all those hypocrites still alive!?’
The elder and the master who surrendered themselves, and the high royal who drove her to death.
They weren’t just alive; they also didn’t pay for what they had done.
He could only try to deceive himself by making lies about the dead and the injured ones.
The greedy pigs and the sneaky wild dogs would be pleased as hell once they heard the news that Rakan had successfully killed him.
‘Curse those beasts! Dammit, that Rakan!’
Resentment and anger that wouldn’t cooldown so easily filled Saymon.
Those burning feelings were only strengthening Saymon’s desire to live once again.
‘If I get to live again, I will never forgive you!’
His intense emotion and the desire for rebirth rose from deep within him.
Finally, Saymon saw a small light in the darkness where he could only feel his emotions.
‘That…!’
Like a star shining in the night sky, Saymon moved in the direction of the faint light.
The stronger his desire was, the quicker his feet moved along with the light at the end getting stronger.
Shortly afterward, it turned out to be a door that was wrapped in bright light.
Saymon opened the door.
And he, with no speck of hesitation, was ready to go beyond.
And…
* * *
‘Kuk!’
A bright ray of light stung his eyes.
Saymon reflexively lifted his hand to cover the light and looked at the landscape that was surrounding him.
He looked through a window which was letting in the warm sunshine.
Little birds were twittering outside the window.
A chandelier could be seen on the ceiling of the room that was filled with elegant furniture.
It wasn’t just the things that his eyes could perceive.
He could also feel the soft and warm blanket at his fingertips; the cool air that came out whenever he exhaled.
‘Am I not dead?’
No, he definitely died in the hands of Rakan.
He could still vividly feel the sword that went through his heart.
It was after death that he wandered around the darkness and found the door that was engulfed with bright light; he opened the door and then exited the dark place.
‘Wasn’t there supposed to be an afterlife after that the door?’
The sense of sight, hearing, and smell had returned to him.
And those senses were telling him that he was alive.
He couldn’t sense the Black Circle of the 9 circle magic in his heart anymore, but the fact that he was stabbed in the heart was probably the reason why.
And if there was something that filled his curiosity, it was…
‘Who saved me? Did anyone from the Darkness Magic Tower saved me?’
Click!
Wondering, he pulled on the blanket, and a sharp sound was heard.
As he turned his head, he saw a girl with freckles opening the door.
She looked like she was in her mid-teens, and that sharp sound came from the vase which broke since she dropped it.
From her dress, it looked like she was a maid.
And as Saymon was about to make a clarification, the girl suddenly went stiff and screamed.
“Ahhh! The Young Lord has woken up!”
‘Keu!’
Saymon frowned while blocking his ears.
The scream of the freckled girl was pretty intense.
The sound waves she was producing could even be mistaken for magic.
Also, her scream wasn’t the important thing.
‘… Young Lord? Me?’
The girl was definitely looking at him.
And on top of that, she was definitely screaming while looking at him.
Saymon arranged his thoughts to understand the situation.
But before that could happen.
Kwang-!
The doors of the bedroom were opened again and two people jumped in.
An old man and a middle-aged man.
When they saw that he was awake, they burst out of joy.
“Young Lord!”
“You are really awake!”
As they were about to rush toward him, Saymon raised his hand and stopped them.
“Hold on! Are you the survivors of the Darkness Magic Tower?”
Saymon wanted to confirm things immediately.
If the Darkness Magic Tower was still there, then various possibilities would be open for him.
But the answer which he heard was unexpected, and it made no sense.
“Sorry? Darkness Magic Tower? Young Lord, don’t you know who I am?”
“I don’t know. You saved me without knowing what a Darkness Magic Tower is? Who are you?”
While the old man was flustered, the middle-aged priest shook his head from ear to ear.
“I think the impact from the accident is causing problems with the Young Lord’s memory.”
“Oh, my…!”
The old man looked rather sad.
In the rarest cases, a severe shock to the head often resulted in the loss of one’s memory, or their thoughts could be altered.
The old man, who understood what the priestess was trying to say, looked at Saymon and began to explain calmly.
“I am Hans, the deacon of Viscount Rakan, and this here is Maron, the head priest of the estate. And Young Lord will be the Lord of this place, which is why we are calling you Young Lord.”
“Hold, hold on! What do you mean by noble?”
Saymon doubted what he heard.
The deacon’s name or the name of the priest were words he had never heard of.
There were just two things that had caught the attention of Saymon.
The very name of the person which he heard before dying was the very name he had to hear after waking up!
“Rakan of Baroque Empire?”
“… Rakan?”
“Yes, Young Lord! Remember something? The little lord, Luke de Rakan, the successor and lord of the estate of Rakan! You lost consciousness due to an accident, but I always believed that you would wake up Young Lord! And today finally…”
The words of Hans continued, but only a few of them had entered Saymon’s head.
Baroque… Rakan… Viscount.
‘Don’t tell me… it isn’t that, right?’
That Holy Knight called Rakan, and the man who had pushed the knight to attack him was the Duke of Baroque, one of the supporters of the Iron Emperor.
In the ‘Baroque’, that ‘Rakan’?
Saymon knew that Rhodesia Continent had a ‘Holy Artenia’. And in no place of the kingdoms was a Viscount called Rakan.
Saymon shook his head inside.
‘Maybe they are trying to trick me. Calling me a Young Lord, a man over the age of 40…!’
Saymon turned his head as he was lost in his thoughts.
His eyes fluttered.
There was a table mirror in place.
And the image in the mirror was clearly a boy in his late teens and not a profound middle-aged warlock.
‘This makes no sense…?’
Saymon touched his face.
And the boy in the mirror did the same.
Confused, he pulled his cheek to see if it was a dream.
And the boy in the mirror did the same.
‘Huhu, for this…’
It was almost like he was trying to escape from the reality that he was in.
Somehow, Saymon was able to clarify something that he wasn’t aware of.
Wavy platinum hair, blue yet stubborn looking eyes. Dark eyebrows with a wide forehead, a stiff nose, tight thin lips, and so on.
He looked rather sickly, but even then he seemed like a rather astonishing good-looker.
After a while, from his mouth, a name had popped out.
“… Ra… Rakan!”
“Remember! Young Lord is the sole successor to the Rakan family.”
“You are the blood of the great warrior Rakan.”
Hans and Maron quickly added an explanation thinking that their Young Lord had regained a little of his memory.
But it was all like throwing in gun power to a burning house.
“Kyaaah!!”
Fury and hatred burst out like a volcano in the whole room.
“Young Lord! Are you alright?”
“Where are you hurting?”
As Saymon was trembling with fury, the two men were startled.
Whether they were startled or not, Saymon just spoke.
“What is the date in the Holy Calender? 9849166899”
Something was going on in his head.
Soul Change.
It was a dark magic that forcibly took away the body of a person by replacing the soul in it.
If the warlocks had followed him, then they might have used the Soul Change on the descendent of Rakan to revive him.
And with that hypothesis, Saymon had just one wish.
‘This means that I could still take revenge…’
And for that to happen, both Baroque and Rakan had to be alive.
And for that, Saymon was hoping for the matter to not drag long.
But…
“Today is March 23 of 1532?”
“We are… in the fifteen hundreds?”
“Yes. It has been five hundred years since your father Rakan had passed away.”
Saymon was turning restless in those moments.
He died in the year 1021. Which meant that 511 years had passed since his death.
His enemies had long died and turned into dust.
Only the bloodlines of their families would remain.
But what would it mean if all the accusers had died? Should he take down their descendants?
“Ho, ho, Hu!”
Saymon laughed for a second and then stopped.
“Go away.”
“Huh? What did you just say, Young Lord?”
“I said get out of my sight right away!”
Crack!
Saymon, who decided to give them a strong impression, threw the mirror to the floor.
Hans and Maron, who were startled by their Young Lord’s act, moved away from the sloppy bedroom.
Nevertheless, Saymon, who wasn’t free from his anger, threw the things which were in his hands.
“Keuu! Why… why is this happening!?”
The 9 Circle Warlock of Dark Magic called Saymon.
Got resurrected in the body of Luke de Rakan’s descendant. The Sword Emperor, who had done a bad deed to Saymon five hundred years ago.