I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 211: Magical Trap

Chapter 211: Magical Trap

To challenge apprentices that were already on edge wasn’t the wisest decision the mages had ever made. The second Leif and Felix could tell that something was amiss with Irene, they both reacted in a way they deemed suitable for the situation.

As Felix ran, he pulled out his sword with his left hand, but with his more accurate right, he unsheathed a small axe from his belt and threw it into the open door as hard and as fast as he could. To his horror, the small axe clattered to the wooden floor of the porch as if there was an invisible barrier in front of the open door.

Leif, on the other hand, unsheathed his sword the moment he started running. He then skipped a few stairs leading up to the house and stood between Irene and the front door. His sword was in front of him.

"Iro, what’s the matter?" he asked, not looking back at the girl so he wouldn’t miss a second of whatever might come out of the door.

Even though Leif trusted her abilities, he had been worrying more for her the closer they got to one another. Story after story about her life and how much becoming a knight meant to her, he couldn’t bear the thought of that chance being taken from her. What if she faced a similar fate as her father, but much, much earlier on in her career? They were in an unprecedented time.

Leif saw someone walking towards the door, and he tried to step forward, but then he also got caught in the magic Irene was caught up in. He froze in his place and suddenly knew what was going on with Irene.

However, unlike the girl, he didn’t know the meaning. He hadn’t been there to experience what she or Sir Gunnar had. Rather than remaining calm, he was panicking, but couldn’t do anything about it. His mind raced, but his body stood still.

An unlikely hero strode forward but stopped at the threshold of the house’s front door. He crossed his arms over his chest, catching his long beard that had been braided since the last time the apprentices saw him.

"I know these ones," he announced over his shoulder, but his lack of urgency was alarming for the two he was suffocating.

The magic that bound Irene and Leif suddenly dropped, and they both fell onto their knees as their bodies greedily inhaled the air that they had been deprived of. Their gasps were all that was heard for a few moments.

Even Felix, who had been running forward, stopped short and had to place his hands on his knees at the variety of things he was experiencing. The horror that there was nothing he could do for the other apprentices appeared first. Shortly after, relief appeared when he saw Stanley because it meant they had succeeded in their goal. However, he was also irritated that the mage was so nonchalant about suffocating the other teenagers.

"What the hell is the meaning of this?" Felix finally snapped as he stood up straight and faced the mage.

"How am I supposed to know that people running at our dwelling are here with good intentions?" The mage scoffed as if it were ridiculous to even be brought up.

By that point, Irene had gotten herself together enough to respond, though her voice was a bit weak considering she had only just caught her breath after panicking that it seemed to last forever without air.

"It’s fine," she insisted, waving her hand to try and move past the situation. "You heard what the priest said."

"You’ve been to the town, then?" the mage wondered.

"We heard you were chased out," Irene explained. "That you’re offering your services for a place to stay."

"Yes, well, what business do the three of you have out here?" Stanley asked.

Irene looked at Leif, then Felix, and then her eyes went back to the mage.

"I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about the Duke’s Tower recently," Irene began. "It is under siege by monsters, and the entire place is overrun with that poison."

"Well, I’m sorry to hear that," Stanley responded.

Rather than staying there, he began to turn away and shut the door as if he weren’t the reason for the apprentices being there in the first place. Or, rather, was it that he didn’t want to know the true reason for them being there?

Mages were supposed to be selfish creatures, yet he found himself feeling sorry for the order that took them in for a few short years. They let them stay for free and provided them with food as long as they could provide magic. It was a perfect situation until the force of black magic could be felt, and the mages were weakened.

"Sir, wait!" Irene shouted.

To everyone’s surprise, Irene rushed forward and fell onto her hands and knees in front of the door. The mage looked down at her in surprise.

"On behalf of the Knights of Chemois, who have declared themselves separate from the King and his hatred of mages while we fall to ruin because of his lack of action, we humbly beg you and the others to return to the west," Irene pleaded with her eyes squeezed shut. "We will all die if we don’t have healers. You also have the best understanding of that black poison. All of us promise that the spoils of these battles will go to you and your mages. Money isn’t what matters to us. We only want the survival of the knighthood; otherwise, the duchy will fall and people will die."

This speech that Irene presented wasn’t planned. It all seemed to come forward effortlessly when Stanley turned away and acted as if he was going to shut them out. The mages were their last hope if the Knights of Hydrogia didn’t arrive soon.

There was silence for a few moments as the other two apprentices got onto their knees as well. They placed their blades in front of them as if offering their swords to protect the mages that undoubtedly needed it if they wanted to survive the biases of the people of the north.

Eventually, there was another scoff from the old mage. The apprentices looked up to see more mages standing there, looking on in surprise at the scene unfolding before them.

"Oh, get up," Stanley insisted. "How ridiculous to even behave in such a way."

But the small smirk on his lips let the apprentices know he was quite pleased to be regarded in such a way.

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