Southern Admiral Kyle Leopold
"In the Imperial South, they say a steel castle floats on the sea?"
"They say when that castle breathes fire, the heavens and earth shake."
"There's even talk going around that no sea monster has ever beaten the steel castle."
When a nation faces ruin, all sorts of outlandish rumors start swirling. It was the desperate hope of the people—that their beloved homeland, passed down through generations, wouldn't fall; that some miracle would save it.
Five years had passed since that woman burst into high society like a comet, bewitching the Crown Prince, the Saint, and the archdukes of the east, west, and north.
The empire right now was dancing to the tune of a single woman who knew nothing.
The national treasury had been empty for ages. Foreign invasions grew fiercer by the day, corruption festered everywhere.
The people scraped by under the relentless exploitation of rotten officials.
It was a mess so dire that even the founding emperor who laid the empire's foundations couldn't fix it if he came back.
No wonder the rumor of a "steel castle wandering the seas" was dismissed as some fairy tale spun by desperate commoners.
My darling lady desires pearls that capture the light of the southern seas. She wishes to reclaim the pearl crown bestowed upon the Southern Admiral by the founding emperor...
The young lady wishes to enjoy a boating excursion. Southern Admiral Kyle Leopold is to dispatch 20 ships to the east at once...
She mentioned the Southern Admiral might be plotting treason. Our western inspection team will pay a visit...
"Oh..."
The Southern Admiral Kyle Leopold, ten years into his possession of this body, crumpled the letter in his fist.
He'd wanted to live easy in the warm south, so he'd humored their requests just enough. Now they were treating him like a total chump?
"They're finally all losing it."
Kyle Leopold had zero plans to go down with this insane empire.
If you're gonna die, do it among yourselves—why drag the south into it? The south he'd kept alive these past ten years by busting his ass?
He couldn't see those fools anymore—the ones bewitched by that woman, neglecting the empire's affairs—as human.
And nonhuman things playacting at being human, dragging the country to ruin? Yeah, they were straight-up yokai.
So, what do you do when yokai infest your house?
Luckily, this reincarnator Kyle Leopold had the wisdom of his ancestors from the firepower nation, Republic of Korea.
"I beseech you—drive them out with cannons."
The next dawn.
Before the strategic chokepoint of Sarsen in the western continent, the rumored steel castle appeared.