I Will Be the Greatest Knight
Chapter 98: The Importance of Life

Chapter 98: The Importance of Life

"Sir Arthur!"

A mage rushed out of the back entrance of the Duke’s Tower, her head turning left and right as she scanned the place for the knight who was supposed to be resting.

By that time the sun had almost risen and the entire order of knights was participating in their usual duties as they slowly woke up for the day or went to sleep depending on which duty schedule they were on.

The mages, who weren’t normally early risers, were insistent on taking care of Sir Arthur because he was beloved to the knighthood. The Duke would certainly pay them well and treat them kindly if they proved themselves worthy healers.

However, Sir Arthur wasn’t making their job easier by getting up in the middle of the night to go outside. When the mage whose turn it was to check on Arthur found his bed empty, she panicked and ran throughout the tower until she saw people already outside.

The red-headed knight turned to the door where the mage had emerged.

"Sir!" she exclaimed. "You must return to your room for treatment. You ought to not spend so much energy. You still need to recover from the blood loss."

Arthur wasn’t one to care what others thought of him and he simply shrugged, having decided he should go back inside since the apprentices were all emerging anyway. They would need the practice yard for their purposes. He didn’t particularly feel like showing them how suddenly having to use his left hand was truly affecting him because they may lose faith in the order.

"Lead the way," the knight calmly stated.

The mage sighed in relief before she turned to the tower and began walking back inside.

Arthur looked back over his shoulder and nodded at Irene. He then tossed her the practice sword he had once been using and she caught it before dutifully taking it back to the practice shed so it would be ready for whoever wanted to use it next.

When the girl reemerged, she looked around at the other apprentices who were going to the practice field. She noticed that they were giving her cautious glances and she wanted to avoid it altogether.

Having to attend practices with one less apprentice than normal was already too heavy for her to handle.

This was the side of knighthood she hoped she would never become numb to. Every living creature deserved the proper acknowledgment as they went from the phase of living to the phase of death.

Sir Gunnar soon appeared in the practice yard, ready to lead the apprentices in another practice. He had given them the previous day off completely. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted which was certainly a rare occurrence.

After a day of rest, they were all ready to move since most of what any of them wanted to do was laze around or relax and eat. Many even got bored enough that they went to the library seeking entertainment or rode horses through the plains.

The tragedy that had befallen them earned a day of decompression. Since Sir Gunnar had spent most of the day drinking away his sorrows or sleeping, he needed it just as badly as they did.

They made it through warm-ups, practice, and a quick sparring session with partners before those who lost the quick matches were supposed to head to breakfast duty.

Irene felt happy that she somehow managed not to get knocked over despite having practiced with her father much earlier in the morning.

That thought alone struck her. She wondered if she would ever practice with her father again in a way that made her truly breathless. It wasn’t that he seemed weak to her but he seemed to lack a bit of his usual spark.

However, the sadness she would face wasn’t finished for the day.

As she sat down to eat breakfast, there was a disturbance towards the front of the Duke’s Tower. It sounded like a woman wailing. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the first time they heard such earth-shattering heartbreak that week.

The bodies of the two knights and apprentices were being given to their families.

That particular day, Irene found that the apprentice she didn’t care for was named Jorund because he was the one who died unfairly at merely fifteen years old. She had never liked him because of how he treated her when they were meant to spar with one another and he knocked her down unfairly. She always thought it was a bit funny how Felix always defended her by picking apart the apprentice’s appearance.

However, it didn’t sit well with her any longer.

His mother’s crying furthered Irene’s thoughts about death and how each person deserved fair acknowledgment.

Shortly after breakfast, the girl had to leave the dining hall quickly. She couldn’t hear someone crying because she felt terrible that her father, who was still very much alive, made her so weak and emotional.

Some families would have to figure out how to live without their loved ones.

One of the fallen knights was a father with a family in a distant village. He had two small children just like Arthur. The other had only been knighted for three years.

Everyone seemed to take on the same sort of melancholic feeling as all the knights and apprentices had to make up for lost manpower.

Despite how she had avoided seeing her father after his outburst the night before, Irene went to the room her father was recovering in. She didn’t bother knocking because a mage was there making him an herbal concoction that was supposed to make his dizziness go away.

Only when the mage left did Irene shut the door and she walked to her father’s bed, barely making it before she fell into him and wrapped her arms around him.

"Do you ever get used to this heaviness?" she asked.

He knew right away what she meant. The cries that day were heard throughout the entire tower.

"Never," Arthur admitted. "Every lost life deserves this feeling."

He validated her thoughts from before and she felt vindicated. It was enough to keep going forward and attend her duties to the best of her abilities in the coming couple of weeks.