Arc 1The Bernia Steel Consortium
Boer seized control of Bernia’s underworld and built an alliance of nobles, artisans, and the royal family around a new arms industry. The consortium then ran into political obstruction and a miners’ rebellion, so Boer set out to resolve the mineral shortage himself.
- Aaron Ball, calling himself Boer, recovered his memories on the island, ate the Magnet-Magnet Fruit, and killed the surviving pirates who had attacked his village.
- After a year of training, Boer stopped Greatsword Thatch’s attack on a merchant ship, defeated the pirates, and recruited Thatch and Roland to help him establish a base in Bernia.
- Thatch and Roland drew ambitious nobles into a scheme against the Hunter Family, while Camille lured Daniel Kent into arranging a meeting with Boer.
- Boer defeated Marquis Kent’s forces at the family manor, then fought and subdued Locke Hohen before bringing him to a banquet with Bernia’s nobles.
- Boer formed the Bernia Steel Heavy Industry Consortium, assigned Thatch to organize the Kingdom Security Company, and secured the royal family’s support in exchange for an annual payment.
- Boer recruited smiths and engineers, and Copperhammer Augustine and Hunter Winster began planning machine tools and mother machines to support industrial production.
- Thatch and Roland reported criminal resistance, unreliable weapons sales, and noble interference, so Boer ordered Roland to map the kingdom’s mineral deposits.
- Chloe explained that the Mine Protection Squad controlled the northern mines after miners rebelled against the Mountain Viscount, and Boer sent her to help Roland before leaving to address the shortage himself.