Chapter 184 : Chapter 184
Chapter 184: Shield of Steel (3)
What value is there for a knight who cannot handle weapons?
Probably many people would answer ‘none’ to this question.
A knight is an existence that always stands at the vanguard.
If such a knight cannot even handle a single weapon properly, how can he protect the people following behind him?
Therefore, Michael should not have become a knight.
This was the conclusion Johannes reached.
He tried to train him continuously to handle weapons, but each time, Michael failed.
It wasn't a problem like lacking talent.
When young, Michael was rather the one who showed more talent than any of his brothers.
But from a certain moment suddenly, he became unable to hold a weapon in his hand.
It must be a psychological influence.
The moment Michael held a weapon, he started acting like a person suffering from something.
Training weapons like wooden swords, which he could clearly perceive as fake, were okay, but the moment he held a real weapon, he showed an unstable appearance without fail.
Perhaps it was since he witnessed a person dying in front of his eyes for the first time── precisely, his own killing, Johannes vaguely guessed.
He realized that the fundamental reason Michael couldn't hold a weapon lay in trauma after all.
However, whatever the trigger, Johannes thought it didn't matter.
Because eventually, it was a process everyone had to go through someday.
Fighting to protect someone means, eventually, you have to harm someone.
Becoming a knight was such a thing.
Sooner or later, it was something everyone would realize someday, and something they had to accept.
So he thought Michael would also understand this fact soon and return as usual, just as he did, and just as his two older brothers did.
However, before long, Johannes came to realize.
That he judged wrongly.
Miki couldn't accept it.
He couldn't withstand the contradiction of having to become a ‘person who harms people’ rather than a ‘person who protects people’, the image of a true knight he had admired.
In that sense, it could be said that Michael had miserably no talent as a knight.
Even if he ignores the fatal weakness of not being able to handle weapons and insists on becoming a knight, he would eventually face a meaningless death before long.
Johannes couldn't watch such a sight.
Just because he was born bearing the name of Irons, he couldn't dress him in clothes that didn't fit, called the knight's armor.
He couldn't kill Michael.
People said.
If born in the Irons family, isn't it natural to become a knight?
It was something Johannes had also heard countless times.
Because Irons wasn't just a prestigious knight family.
The first Irons who established the family became a symbol that Halflings could achieve anything.
The Irons were those who shouldered that hope.
Therefore, they had to become knights.
But that was, eventually, just words others said.
Just expectations they made on their own.
To Johannes, his son was more precious than the expectations of his kin whose faces, names, and existences he didn't even know.
Even if he loses their trust, he couldn't lose his son.
He didn't want him to shoulder a burden forcibly and sacrifice himself.
──So, he wanted Michael to give up the path of a knight.
“You must be proud of your sons.”
That day was the day the second son, Raphael, received his knighthood following the eldest son, Gabriel.
Of course, as long as one is born in the Irons family, there is a perception from that moment that ‘that person is a knight’, but that is only a perception.
Becoming able to be called by the title ‘Sir’ by the people of the world was after being formally knighted as a knight.
And although Irons was prestigious, it was merely one family in the end.
They didn't have the authority to grant knighthood to themselves.
Therefore, for them who do not belong to a specific nation or order of knights, the way to be recognized as ‘free knights’ in the true sense, not simply self-proclaimed or by role, was only to establish great merit and be knighted as an honorary knight of some nation or order of knights.
And on this day, Raphael was proudly recognized as a knight by having his merits established in battle recognized just one year after his older brother Gabriel was knighted.
“Following Sir Gabriel, even Sir Raphael. For both of them to be recognized as knights already when they are still so young, it's truly amazing.”
People gathered at the mansion to celebrate this praised Johannes for already raising two sons into excellent knights.
“It is the result of their own efforts.”
To such praises from people, Johannes replied calmly as usual.
“Haha. As expected of Sir Johannes. You are humble.”
“Sir Raphael has become the youngest knight to be knighted. As expected of the Irons family.”
“Now if only the third son, Master Michael, is knighted, all three sons will become knights.”
“Master Michael will surely be soon too, right?”
“Isn't he Sir Johannes's son? Naturally, he will grow into an excellent knight.”
“Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard stories about Master Michael.”
“Ah, I have heard directly from Sir Gabriel. He said, ‘He is a child who trains harder than anyone else among us’.”
“Ah, as expected.”
“An Irons is an Irons.”
“Even if he hasn't revealed his prominence yet, he seems like someone who will soon blossom his talent as a knight.”
Suddenly, hearing them chattering on their own about Michael's future which they didn't know properly nor had even met him.
“──No.”
Until he cut them off firmly like this.
“That child has absolutely no talent as a knight.”
Johannes spoke in a tone stricter than ever.
It was such a stern attitude that even those who knew nothing about Michael were greatly flustered and tried to defend him first.
“S-still, he is Sir Johannes’s son…”
“I-it must be because Sir Johannes’s standards are so high. Ha, hahaha.”
“I-I see. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that that desire for improvement not satisfied with the present made the current Irons family.”
“As expected…!”
“E-even if he possesses ordinary talent, since he has an excellent teacher like Sir Johannes, wouldn't Master Michael surely be knighted someday too…?”
“O-of course. Haven't you succeeded in raising not only your sons but all your disciples into excellent knights so far? Surely Master Michael too…”
“Then Michael would become my only failure.”
“……!”
“I cannot make that child a knight.”
Everyone in that place realized at once that Johannes was speaking truly sincerely.
Michael, who was passing by nearby by chance, too.
Of course, Johannes’s words meant ‘I do not want to make that child a knight’.
However, to those listening to his words, they were words that could only be heard as ‘I do not have the ability to make that child who has no talent a knight’.
And Johannes knew this.
That his words would clearly be accepted that way.
And that Michael was listening to his words right now.
Of course, he didn't know well the trigger for coming here.
That the more he stayed by the side of Gabriel and Raphael who were already recognized as knights, the more he felt pathetic about himself who hadn't even properly gone out to battle let alone being knighted yet, and was wandering the mansion alone.
However, he had already noticed by presence long ago that he was secretly listening to his story behind the wall.
Nevertheless── no, that's why, he said it.
“Michael will never be able to become a knight.”
To provoke Michael.
To make him lay down the path of a knight that doesn't suit him on his own.
Because he knew well that unless he did at least this, Michael would never give up the path of a knight.
It was clearly an extreme method, but the right method.
Johannes sincerely believed this.
And the next day, Miki suddenly left the mansion.
“Father, Miki has…!”
Michael, the good younger brother who always listened well and had never rebelled usually, suddenly ran away from home without a word.
Gabriel and Raphael, who didn't know the reason, naturally had no choice but to be flustered.
Because it was something that couldn't happen unless something happened.
“We have to go find Miki right no──”
However.
“There is no need for that.”
“──Yes?”
Gabriel, who created that ‘something’ himself, calmly calmed the two down.
“To that child, the name Irons is only a burden. If he leaves this house and gives up the path as a knight, that is enough.”
“W-what are you saying right now…?”
“Don't you guys know too. That that child cannot become a knight.”
“No, Father, that is…”
Raphael, who tried to retort for Michael right away, couldn't continue his words easily.
“…….”
On the other hand, Gabriel remained silent from the beginning.
The two love Michael.
That much, they knew well.
How fatal the ‘weakness’ Michael possesses is as a knight.
So, how dangerous it is for Michael to become a knight.
“Just…”
But they couldn't stop him.
They couldn't not support him.
“What have you done, Father…?”
Because they knew too well how much Michael wants to become a knight, and admires the existence of a knight.
“I said that that child will never be able to become a knight.”
Unlike Johannes who spoke exactly what he said yesterday nonchalantly.
“I said I can absolutely never make that child a knight.”
“……!”
Johannes continued to speak.
What ‘act’ he did yesterday.
To make Michael give up, who would absolutely never give up, what words he said even knowing all that he was listening.
Hearing this, Raphael ground his teeth.
And the moment he was about to shout, putting all that anger in.
“Fath──”
──Thwack!
And.
Seeing Johannes fall to the floor just like that as a dull sound suddenly resonated, he couldn't do it.
Gabriel, who approached silently, swung his fist at Johannes.
“B-brother…?”
Raphael, who was rather flustered by that, asked.
“…What are you doing.”
Actually, Johannes looked not that flustered even while saying this.
“…The reason I stop with this is because I do not doubt the sincerity that what Father did was out of consideration for Miki.”
Gabriel continued to speak with difficulty with a voice revealing that he was suppressing his anger greatly.
“And although it's sad… because I agree to some extent that you had to go that far.”
“And yet you hit me.”
“Yes, Father.”
Clenching the fist that still had strength in it tightly.
“What I just committed must have clearly been an immoral act as your son. …However, I am also that child's older brother at the same time.”
So, to you who did such a thing knowing how big a hurt that child would have received, unless I feed you one like this, I can't resolve my anger at all.
Gabriel spoke with a trembling voice, with his usual calm attitude, for which he often heard he resembled Johannes the most, nowhere to be found.
“So, I hit you.”
“…Is that so.”
“I cannot forgive Father. At least until Miki forgives Father.”
“Understood.”
And only after Gabriel and Raphael left the room soon, Johannes slowly stood up from his seat while touching his throbbing jaw.
***
“I…”
Johannes, of course, although today is the first time I met him ‘directly’, still I knew well to some extent what kind of person he is.
“I… thought that it would be good if you didn't become a knight…”
So.
“Not becoming a knight forcibly, tied to the name of Irons…”
How surprising a sight the appearance of him shedding tears like now is too.
“I hoped you would live… doing what you can really do well… what you want to do…”
So how flustered must they be.
The current appearance of that ‘Man of Steel’, whom they thought would never shed something like tears even if the world split in two, kneeling and pouring out tears.
“F-Father…?”
Not only the astonished two brothers, but even Miki who suffered heavy injuries tried to spring up upon seeing that appearance.
But that was also brief.
“…I didn't think I should become a knight because I am an Irons, Father.”
Miki spoke wearing a gentle smile.
“Of course, it wasn't that I hadn't heard words like ‘Since you are an Irons, naturally you will become a knight, right?’. But still, such words had no meaning to me.”
Like Johannes, to convey the sincerity he had never conveyed until now.
“I didn't think, since I was born in this family, naturally I should become a knight.”
So, not for a single moment did he think of his name Irons as a burden.
“It is because of Father.”
“……?”
“When I was young, because Father was so cool, I came to admire knights. Since then, I have admired many knights, hearing stories of the world's heroes but… the person I respected the very first, and the most, was Father who became that trigger.”
Not because he is an Irons.
Because it's Johannes, he wanted to be like him.
“I decide what kind of life I will live, Father. Even if it's the Father I respect, I cannot concede that alone.”
“……I am sorry, Michael.”
And then, he hugged Johannes who started crying like a child.
“I am really sorry……!”
Patting him, who was finally admitting that he was wrong all along.