I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 70: Needing A Mage

Chapter 70: Needing A Mage

Sven and Irene were finally able to slip off of their horses once the others had ensured that the giant monster—which was so much bigger from up close—was grounded once and for all. Even though it was still alive, it was hard for ogres to stand up quickly.

"Rope!" Arthur shouted to Gunnar who was on the other side of the writhing monster.

Irene could hardly pay attention to what her father and Gunnar were up to because, as the knights tied the monster to ensure it wouldn’t be able to get up again, apprentices were ordered to use axes to hack at its neck and head.

Despite the awful monster’s weak screams and pathetic thrashing, they relentlessly went on with their endeavor until one of them hit an artery and its black blood poured out onto the forest floor.

The girl wasn’t the only one to feel a bit woozy at the sight of something so horrible. It wasn’t only awful in sight but smell.

It struck not only her that there was a familiar scent rising in the air.

Sir Gunnar took his attention from where he had been tying the ogre. He recognized the stench in the air and, based on the apprentice’s expression, he knew she had noticed it as well.

"Iro, go summon the mages," Gunnar requested. "They will be interested to get their hands on whatever is going on here. After that, we will drag this thing out of here and burn it. There will be no necromancers in these mountains if we have anything to do with it."

"Yes, sir!" Irene responded, quickly returning to her horse and making herself useful since she was the only apprentice not actively working on the ogre.

In only a short while, Irene was off towards the Duke’s Tower, only casting a few glances back towards the forest that had, once again, concealed the scene with the ogre.

Her heart was still racing and she was in disbelief at how horrible an ogre was yet how resilient the knights were in taking it down. She admired how practiced their actions were and how there was organization in the chaos that she could not yet recognize.

Her father and Sir Gunnar worked well together and could read situations with few words and more actions because of how in tune with one another they were.

Once the girl reached the tower, she rushed inside and up the stairs to the highest floor where she knew the mages were located in the guest wing for the Duke’s family. It was strange that, despite his resistance to having them there at all, they ended up living in two of his guest rooms.

It wasn’t as if the Duke’s family had many visitors often anyway. The Duchess didn’t seem like someone who cared to entertain guests or really take on the role of host or entertainment for anyone.

As her hand raised to knock on the wooden door where she could hear the quiet voices of mages discussing things with one another, she felt strangely nervous. The last time she was at a mage’s door, Sir Gunnar was paralyzed by magic and they had found a magical relic that put voices into their heads that they could not control.

Duty called.

The girl’s gloved fist met the door and there was shuffling before someone answered for her.

She was in disbelief when the door opened and staring back at her were a few sets of eyes. All she had been hoping to find was Stanley but he wasn’t part of any of the mages who opened the door.

Since none of them seemed like they were going to respond, the apprentice spoke up first.

"I am looking for Stanley," she explained, making sure that her voice came out confidently.

Deeper in the room, she heard more shuffling and the sound of papers falling to the ground but she didn’t dare look deeper into the disorganized space.

It was surprising to hear that there were ten of them taking up the two guest rooms but, from what she could tell, it was organized chaos. There certainly was a place for everyone even if it meant they had to sleep with beds nearly filling one wall to the other. She wondered what the other room looked like.

Fortunately for them, the wealthy Duke didn’t skimp on guest quarters and the sizable room wasn’t entirely filled. The mages had even brought shelves and desks inside. She wanted to ask how they possibly did that but she didn’t want to impose.

Soon the old mage came forward and he crossed his arms when he saw her.

"Haven’t you given me enough trouble for one lifetime?" he asked her.

The girls’ eyes widened at him but she saw the faintest hint of a smirk and she knew that his odd joking was his way of accepting the situation.

"There is an ogre in the forest the knights and apprentices have taken down," she explained. "When it was stabbed, that... smell that my wound contained came out of the monster in the form of... steam?"

The more she spoke, the more she realized she wasn’t sure how to explain what she had witnessed out at the edge of the forest.

Part of being a knight was adaptability. It turned out that adaptability also meant accepting the unexplained at face value and not questioning it further.

Stanley paused for a long while while stroking his beard thoughtfully. He eyed the apprentice up and down.

"But no one is hurt?" he asked.

"No injuries as far as I can tell," she responded.

The mage let out a sigh and he pulled his cloak from a rack next to the door.

"We will be there shortly."

When Irene made it back outside to retrieve her horse and join the others, she found that a few of the knights had tied ropes to their horses so that they could drag the monster down the hill and into the fields.

"What is that for, father?" she asked Arthur when she found him, standing to the side and holding his helmet.

"We wouldn’t want the forests to burn since we’re going to have to erase all traces of this monster once the mages have done what they’ve needed to," he explained. "Are they coming?"

Before she could answer, there was a disturbance towards the Duke’s Tower and the group turned to look at the commotion as mages walked out of the practice yard arguing about one thing or another.

’We’ turned out to be Stanley and four other mages who looked a bit older compared to the ones who answered the door. It made Irene wish she could get to know them a bit better.

Once they made it to the ogre, the apprentices stepped a bit closer surrounding the mages, but Sir Gunnar quickly rounded up the children and teens.

"Time to return to duties," he ordered.

They couldn’t argue but Irene was rubbed the wrong way. Each time it had to do with the mages and the strange happenings around the Duke’s Tower, they were always swept to the side and made to be quiet or weren’t told any details.

It planted a seed in Irene’s head.