I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 167: Worse Than They Could Imagine

Chapter 167: Worse Than They Could Imagine

"What?" Gunnar and Irene snapped in unison.

There wasn’t much more to be said than that for the knight and his apprentice sprinted forward, tossing the swords to the ground without much more of a thought. There were more important matters to attend to.

It was a whirlwind of chaos in the tower the moment they entered. It seemed that word traveled fast because there were already plenty in the hallways, seeking an answer for what they were supposed to do next.

When Sir Gunnar arrived, all eyes went to him as they searched his face for an answer.

"Make way," Gunnar requested, his voice loud and authoritative.

For someone who didn’t want the responsibility of being the highest-ranked knight, he sure had a way to make people listen to him. While she wasn’t entirely sure anyone’s age other than the apprentices, she imagined he was a little bit older than her father.

The authority in his tone spoke of his experience.

As they moved forward, Irene wasn’t going to let herself be separated from her knight, and, despite all the people blocking her way, she made sure to stick close to him without having to hold onto him.

This was the worst case scenario she had been imagining.

The King seemed insistent on keeping the north in the dark about all of his plans. Without his willingness to work quickly for them, they were now forced to wait and hope they could hold things together on their own while no one was in power.

Would this force her father’s hand to come back to the Duke’s Tower?

Irene ran through all of these scenarios as she followed Gunnar to the highest level of the Duke’s Tower. Since the ducal family’s personal quarters were on this level as well as all of their guest rooms—or what was likely supposed to be the rooms of their heirs—that was where Irene and Gunnar decided to go.

By that point, those who had been crowding the hallways and winding staircase had been left behind. After all, they didn’t have permission to enter the Arlin’s personal area. Well, neither did Gunnar or Irene, but it didn’t seem like the regular rules were going to apply at that moment.

Since Gunnar hadn’t told her to stay back, she decided she would be his support and not care what anyone said about it.

As they approached the end of the hallway that dead-ended at the Duke’s room, there were maids outside looking particularly panicked. Irene took note of the youngest one who had been willingly speaking to Agnes about what she was witnessing in the room.

Her eyes met the other girl’s, and she nodded as if to silently convey that she had done the right thing. It didn’t take the worried expression off of Rosalind’s face. Her hands were wrung together to convey how stressed out she was.

Irene wondered if she was the one who had discovered the Duke. The thought horrified her, but as she followed Sir Gunnar into the room, she realized she was also going to have to see the Duke’s body.

"You are not permitted entry!"

As expected, the Duchess wasn’t going to let them go in so easily.

However, the knight had already pushed through the door, so the woman scurried off and tried to cover her husband with her arms. Even in death, she was hiding something. There was no other way to interpret the way she roughly pulled the blankets over her husband and tried to shield him with her body.

Gunnar was halfway across the room when he turned towards the door.

"I need one of the maids to get Her Grace under control!" he shouted, his frustration finally reaching a head. "Then I need someone else to get me the mages!"

"I’ll go, Sir Gunnar!" Irene volunteered immediately.

"Go," the knight responded.

She hadn’t yet gotten a view of the Duke, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready for that. Instead, she would make herself useful and see if Stanley was around. He would be the most valuable in this situation.

She had a strangely hopeful thought that perhaps the Duke wasn’t dead and the mages could bring him back from wherever he was from. The Duke hadn’t died this early that she could remember from the future she saw.

What had changed that caused this to happen so quickly?

There was no time to dwell as the girl ran forward and across the tower, where she went to the other wing of the Duke’s Tower where less familiar guests were kept while they visited. The guest rooms were slightly less nice than the ones where the Royal Family stayed during their visit weeks ago, but being the fact that it still was a Duke’s home, there weren’t really places in the entire small castle that were run down.

When she found the door she knew to be the mage’s room, she started pounding.

As always, there was shuffling from within and, when the door finally opened, she was met with suspicion.

"I need Stanley!" she shouted. "Right this moment!"

Seeing as the mage recognized the voice shouting at the door, he decided to get off the comfortable chair he was sitting in and slowly walked over. However, hearing the last part of her request, he decided to move faster.

Whenever the Litharions were in his presence, interesting things always seemed to happen.

"What is it, child?" he wondered.

"They said that the Duke is dead," she explained, continuing in a rushed tone. "I need your help now. Something is amiss."

The mage was dumbfounded for a few moments, but he quickly got himself together.

"Healers, come along!" the mage ordered.

The Duchess had been suspicious of the mages and was opposed to their being there in the first place. To have their meal ticket taken away would be very bad for them. After being on the run for so long, it felt like they had only just gotten themselves established and around people who didn’t deem them less than human but equals.

As long as they could prove themselves useful...

Irene was ahead of the mages as they rushed down the wing and around the corner until they got to the Duke’s hallway.

Without much thought, Irene rushed into the room expecting the mages to follow her with the same speed.

However, she heard cries of resistance, and she turned to look at the five mages. They all stopped at the door as if there was an invisible barrier there.

Stanley placed his long, billowing sleeve over his face.

"What in God’s name—?!" he shouted.

Despite the momentary setback that Irene didn’t fully understand, the mages continued on with their mouths and noses hidden behind sleeves or their hands. A couple of others simply pulled their shirt collars over their faces.

They were met with the sight of the Duchess being held back by a few maids and Sir Gunnar standing over the Duke’s bed.

Revealed to them was the miserable face of a dead man. His skin was ghostly pale, and his closed eyes were sunken into his head. Around his lips certainly did look as if a purple bruise had formed there.

What had happened to the man while he was still alive?