I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 188: The Same Each Year

Chapter 188: The Same Each Year

All they could be were knights who were surviving. There was a lack of order and a constant weight of attack.

Even with that weighing heavily over them, they still found moments of lightheartedness.

Life flew by quickly. It was already time to move on.

"We will do the same thing next year," Gunnar assured the former knight as their arms embraced in a show of trust. "It seems that all we can do is fight the monsters as they come and hope for the best."

"I see nothing wrong with that," Arthur assured the other man. "And you won’t participate in the monster culling this year?"

Gunnar hesitated at that.

"We have been fighting monsters the entire summer," he explained. "These kids..."

He glanced at Leif and Irene mostly. Even though Felix was young, he was still a man.

"I understand," Arthur responded, letting go of the knight’s arm. "They deserve a break as well. Handling what’s in the valley is much easier."

"Thank you for your understanding," Gunnar responded. "Two days of discussion and I feel a bit more at ease."

However, the ease was truthfully only because they were headed towards a cold winter, and the monsters would hide out and multiply until things thawed out.

What they covered the most in their discussions was letting the Duchess go. A funeral for the Duke would be a smaller affair than what he was worth, but it was better than nothing. Blessing the Duke’s Tower should be enough.

"Farewell, old friend," Arthur said to the other knight. "I am always here for the knights."

"I know that well," the knight assured him. "Stay healthy."

Gunnar then went to the others who were putting their packs on the horses, but Irene was already finished, and she was walking back to her father.

"Thank you for allowing us to stay," she expressed.

"I always let the knights stay," Arthur assured her. "Especially when one of the travelers is my daughter."

At the horrified expression she wore and the glancing over her shoulder, Arthur chuckled and shook his head.

"You know better!" Irene whisper-yelled.

"At times I have to remind you," Arthur persisted. "You are prettier than all the others."

Irene glared at her father. He was doting only in the worst times.

"Goodbye, father," she cut him off more coldly so he would cease in his teasing.

However, her avoidance couldn’t get her away from him ruffling her hair, and the pretend cold facade she wore changed as she glared over her shoulder, but her lips were upturned in a smile.

She didn’t know just how much she needed her father’s warmth because the winter would arrive earlier than normal—even before the rest of the knights and apprentices could scale the mountain and return to the Duke’s Tower. The knights who would leave the tower for the winter were cutting it close by the end of it.

However, even through a winter that was meant for the sole purpose of allowing the apprentices who spent an entire summer on horseback and sleeping outdoors, the moment the snows melted, the mages left. Not a week after that, the monsters returned.

The plan was already set that the knights and apprentices would go out into the duchy once more and search for monsters that were coming together to threaten the common people. Finding the Duchess was no longer at the forefront of anyone’s minds.

As long as they could just kill a little bit more monsters, then everything would settle down, and the monsters wouldn’t be able to gain traction. That’s what they kept telling themselves.

Yet each time they crossed the path of another group attacking humans in broad daylight—a stark difference from the normally nocturnal beings—there was a bit more hopelessness and hearts hardening from the apprentices. The knights were already entirely swept away.

Hope didn’t exist, but survival.

They all felt older, yet age didn’t exist as their birthdays came and went without a second thought. The seasons weren’t celebrated as every day became a monster culling. It was never an ’if’ but a ’when’ they would see the monsters.

Despite all that, there wasn’t a time to get numb.

The sight of monsters never stopped making their hearts race. The reality of people dying if they weren’t fast enough never got easier.

There was a silver lining that Irene looked forward to. Even after the hellish two years they were facing, she would at least be able to see her father, mother, brother, and grandmother.

However, as a messenger hawk descended over the well-traveled group, Irene knew instantly that her hopes of seeing her family were going to be dashed. A messenger hawk seeking them out in the middle of their journey was never a good thing.

If it wasn’t urgent, it didn’t need to be delivered right away.

Who was it from?

All the horses stopped when Sir Gunnar raised his arm and shouted, "Whoa!"

The hawk took a nosedive, moving much faster before it suddenly opened its wings and extended its talons. Its feet met the knight’s greave, and he took the letter before tossing the bird back into the air.

He turned the letter, but it was nondescript. Nothing about it was noble, nor was it concerning. It was rather plain.

Unrolling the scroll, he glanced at the signature first and saw that it was Sir Phillip.

His eyes then went chronologically, and his body started moving without hardly realizing what it was doing.

Before he even got to the final paragraph, his knees were already squeezing. He then closed his visor by the time he got back to the signature.

"The Duke’s Tower is under attack!" he shouted. "Lives lost! We must go!"

There wasn’t a moment of hesitation. Even though the journey was three days away, they rested one time before pressing on.

By the time they made it to the tower, it looked as if nothing had changed, but there was something eerily quiet about it.

It wasn’t until they rounded the tower and went to the back that they saw bodies littering the ground. Monsters and humans alike.

It was hard not to blame themselves, even though they had spent another entire summer rushing through the duchy in hopes of relieving the people just a little bit from their fear of monsters.

There truly was no rest in a knighthood.