Chapter 294: The Village - I Will Be the Greatest Knight - NovelsTime

I Will Be the Greatest Knight

Chapter 294: The Village

Author: QueenFrieza
updatedAt: 2025-07-13

CHAPTER 294: THE VILLAGE

However, that one instance of snow collapsing in the distance and causing the ground to shake wasn’t the only time it happened.

As Irene went through the village in hopes of finding a building she could open and stay inside, she felt on high alert because the ground shaking noise happened two more times. Each time she would run between the lumps of snow or slightly visible buildings, she would see the evidence of snow settling as flakes slowly settled on the ground after whatever was so heavy fell first.

Her heart felt flighty, as if it would jump out of her chest at any moment.

What she realized was that the trip to the north had been peaceful, all things considered. Of course, now that she was at the highest north point she would reach, things were starting to happen that were full of the unexpected.

She had to remember how to be a knight considering drawing her sword hadn’t been required thus far.

Wandering through the village, her hopes were starting to be dashed that she would have to spend the night outside after filling her heart with hope that she would be able to enjoy a fire indoors once she reached the village. Unfortunately, things were in much worse shape than she was expecting. The buildings were smaller and far more buried in snow than what she experienced in the township.

It also seemed that there certainly was a snowdrift that covered half of it. That could only lead her to believe that there was much of the village she wouldn’t even be able to experience. All it did was further push her desire to return to this place when the snow melted. Hopefully one day she would have knights who were willing to take the journey alongside her.

By the time she found a building that’s door was actually able to be opened, the sun was dipping low in the sky.

"You’re my only hope," she muttered through her scarf.

Fortunately, it did seem to be a place of residence even though it was awfully small.

Just like all the rest, it was an a-frame home, but the snow was so deep that the shape of the building did nothing to stop the snow from piling high. As soon as she walked through the front door, she was pleased to see that at least Sammy would be able to stay towards the front door.

Everywhere else in the dwelling was cluttered unbelievably, but in the most unexpected of ways.

While there was a hearth in the middle of the room which seemed to be the usual for buildings like that, on every wall there was boxes or chests piled all the way to the ceiling. On top of that were items that were completely indescribable to her.

Since it was a place to stay, she decided to leave it alone until she got settled in. It was likely she would be there for a few days as she pulled out her grandmother’s map of the village and sought out things for herself.

After removing her saddlebags and saddle, she led Sammy inside, having to squeeze tightly against his side so that she could pull the door shut.

It seemed he knew he was going to have to stay still because he soon plopped to the ground, moving a bit awkwardly since his hooves slid across the floor.

"Sorry I don’t have hay for you to lay on here," she explained. "It’s getting too cold and dark to look around outside."

He huffed but didn’t complain more than that. She was relieved.

In the meantime, Irene found a pile of extremely dry and brittle wood. It wouldn’t be great for a fire that lasted a long time, but it did mean she could pull it apart with her fingers for kindling and light it with the flint she had used almost all the way through. She imagined that, at the end of this journey, she would have worn the flint into two pieces after running an axe through it so many times to get a spark.

The shreds of wood lit easily and Irene opened up her supplies. The first thing she grabbed was a pot. She then squeezed past Sammy and retrieved a lump of snow that created a mountain outside of the pot. It would melt down and fill it to the very top.

Her favorite meal at the moment was boiled water that was salted. She would then drop a few pieces of grouse legs or wings inside so that the bones would further season the broth with marrow and the meat would thaw and grow tender. She would usually add a pinch or two of Sir Sven’s spices. If she was feeling extra motivated, she might try and add a bit of the dried vegetables or nuts she had for a bit of seasoning. However, she was saving those for quick meals during the day so she wouldn’t have to retrieve much from her packs and could keep them on a pouch at her side.

Keeping energy when she spent much of the time shivering was extremely important. Admittedly, she was proud that she had made it so far. There was a point she had to admit that she had gotten her cold tolerance from her mother, no matter how much she tried to build it up and match the other knights and her father.

Once she was truly settled and able to look around the place, she saw two bed platforms that would help keep her off the ground and less cold while she slept. She was grateful because otherwise she would have had to move boxes or chests around for a bed.

As she had taken to doing, she muttered to herself as she made her observations.

"Who were you?" she asked to the empty room, only her horse listening to her. "What did you hide away in all these boxes?"

Her green eyes drifted through the space and she realized that they were making the house seem even smaller than it likely was.

"Am I cruel to go through your personal things as if you had no secrets?"

She felt strangely connected to the place. Whoever lived there likely knew her grandmother and possibly her father. If she actually looked through the things in the chests and boxes, would she find secrets she wasn’t supposed to? For someone to keep so many belongings locked inside of a home with them, she imagined they had something to protect.

Finally, her food was completely finished and Irene took one of her blankets to hold the pot so she could eat directly out of it.

"If only mother could see me now," she joked to herself. "How ladylike I’m being. It is quite a good thing that no one can see me now. You already know I’m unladylike, Sammy."

The need to hold oneself back in society as a woman wasn’t possible in a place as wild as the north. She now understood why her grandmother looked down on such behavior. It was a matter of survival to move in a way people deemed to be manly. Whether it was protecting herself or merely wearing clothing that was easy to move in, it seemed that everything the south required of women was meant to keep them weak.

These thoughts led Irene through her entire meal. By the time her spoon was scraping the bottom of her metal pot and she had slurped down all of the salted and lightly seasoned broth, she knew that the sun was likely down. She couldn’t even tell if there were windows in that place because the high stacks of things blocked all possibility of light.

She held her pot to her lips one last time, but suddenly it clattered from her hands as it fell to the floor.

The ground around her was shaking and she merely sat there with her hands pressed firmly against the wood planks that made up the floor as she looked alarmed at all of the things stacked up around her. Was it a mistake to decide to sleep in a place like that when the ground shaking avalanches kept occurring?

Considering everything still stood and only she seemed unaffected each time that happened, she decided she was going to have to be alright with the place she stayed. However, it further drove her point to leave all of the items alone.

If they had lasted that long without falling, then her digging through certainly wasn’t going to help. Only if she found another place to stay would she decide to go through the chests and reveal their secrets. Knowing Sunstoian people, all she could imagine were weapons or religious texts. Perhaps her grandmother’s need to have strange rocks and jewelry all around her would be explained there as well.

All her musing didn’t matter for now.

The rest of the evening was spent finally opening up her journal and writing down a Sunstoian sentence to get practice with the language before she wrote an entry about how cold she had been and how happy she was not to be subjected to pain any longer. It was even worse to handle when it was freezing cold outside.

With that, she was finally lulled to a shallow sleep. Twice through the night did the shaking disturb her, but other than that she slept quite easily. It was something she was going to have to get used to until she left that place.

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