Warhammer 40K in a box

Chapter 217 Knight Erich

Sir Erich Hoffmann Wolfgang Reinhard von Theodsburg was an Imperial nobleman and an Imperial Knight.

He holds the title of knight of the Theodosburg family, and when he came of age he passed the family trial, sat on the Iron Throne, and became a noble Imperial Knight.

This is the life journey that every descendant of the Theodosburg family must go through. At the age of sixteen, they must complete the trial ceremony, win the recognition of the ancient Iron Throne of the family, and become an Imperial Knight.

The Trial Ceremony is not only a test of physical strength and mind, but also the ultimate test of will and loyalty.

As for those who failed to pass... Erich once personally killed a childhood playmate who had participated in the trial ceremony with him but failed.

It was a cold winter night. The moonlight shone on the cold stone ground, illuminating the intertwined shadows of the two people.

At that time, he had become a madman because he failed to pass the trial ceremony. The light in his eyes had disappeared, leaving only endless pain and confusion.

In order to relieve his friend's pain, Erich had to pull out the coming-of-age gift he had received from him—a dagger inlaid with the family emblem—and stab it into his chest.

The moment the sword blade pierced his flesh, Erich's hand did not tremble, but his heart seemed to be torn apart.

Although it was cruel, both parties had actually agreed before participating in the ceremony that if someone failed to pass the trial, the other party would end the other's suffering.

This is an ancient tradition of the Theodosburg family and the last mercy to the loser.

Erich clearly remembered that they sat side by side on the high wall of the castle on the eve of the ceremony, looking at the starry sky in the distance, and made this heavy vow.

At that time, they naively thought that failure would only happen to others.

This is a test that every descendant of the Theodosburg family must undergo. Only those who pass it can become imperial knights who carry the family's honor.

And those who fail? They are just waste, the blood of the family, and need to be eliminated.

The elders of the family always admonish their young descendants in this cold manner, as if losers never existed.

Every descendant of the Theodosburg family has been educated and instilled with this philosophy since childhood, or perhaps it can be said that all knight families in the empire have the same philosophy.

Because for these knight families, only those who can pass the trial and become knights are qualified family heirs.

If the family does not have enough Iron Thrones and Knight Mechas, that is one thing. There is nothing that can be done due to objective conditions.

But as long as there is a vacant Iron Throne, the descendants of the Knight family must undergo trials to become a true Imperial Knight.

But for Erich, becoming a knight was not as "interesting" or full of "adventure" and "excitement" as he had imagined in his childhood.

The gap between reality and fantasy was like an unbridgeable chasm, shattering his previous aspirations.

When Erich was a child, family rules were less strict. He didn't have to memorize the original family epic, which outlived his own life, but only needed to memorize short fragments adapted into fairy tales. Back then, he would sit by the fireplace, listening to the elders' gentle voices recount those embellished stories, as if war were merely a gorgeous ball, and the knights the dazzling stars.

Because of this, the cruelty of war is downplayed, and there are only legendary stories like heroic adventures.

This was very attractive to children, and it also gave Erich the idea of ​​becoming a knight to go on adventures and experience those legendary stories.

However, when he grew up and faced the family's complicated and perverted rules, where every breath had its own standards and regulations, he found that being a knight was not as interesting as he had thought.

The family rules were like an invisible net that bound him tightly, and even his every move had to follow strict standards.

Every swing of the sword, every salute, even every breath, must conform to the ancient traditions of the family.

The adventure stories that once fascinated him have now turned into endless training and boring rituals.

Trapped in the family rules, Erich felt like he was going crazy.

He once thought that becoming a knight meant freedom and glory, but now he understood that the so-called glory was just another form of shackles.

He felt as if he was trapped in a huge iron cage, surrounded by high walls of rules, and he could only struggle in it but could not escape.

This may be why the elders in the family like to make friends so much, and why they respond immediately and positively when others ask them for help when they have a little trouble.

He didn't understand it in the past, but now he has understood that he can only go out to fight if someone calls him, and he doesn't have to follow those perverted rules!
So when he learned that a certain star region in the Solar Star Region was about to launch an expedition with the nature of a holy war and that the other party was also calling on the Imperial Knights to participate, Erich took his knight mecha Glory Halo without saying a word and rushed to the Mariupol star region on a transport ship.

After getting on the ship and leaving the knight world where his family lived, Erich finally understood why the elders in the family loved to go out so much. War was really like a vacation!
The three months away from his family on the transport ship were simply the happiest three months in Erich's life.

He didn't need to recite a list of ancestors that was 100,000 words long every day, nor did he need to follow the family tradition of 28 rituals to strictly regulate his movements and eating speed when eating, and he didn't need to follow those complicated etiquette rules for every word and action.

He could eat whatever he wanted, as long as it complied with the aristocratic etiquette common to the empire.

Although this was also a very complicated set of etiquette, compared to the strict rules of the Imperial Knights... Ha! It was like the difference between an elementary school student's composition and a college student's thesis.

The former can only be regarded as a guide to some behaviors and etiquette norms, while the latter is a code that must be strictly followed. Moreover, the complexity of the latter is more than a hundred times that of the former.
To Erich, the former was even less rigorous than the simplified version of the family etiquette he had learned when he was twelve.

No one here will remind you that this is not allowed or that, nor will anyone ask you to recite the 10,000-year-old family tree before eating, nor will you need to recall the great achievements of your 18 generations of ancestors and recite them in full before taking a bath...

Ah, this is simply a life in heaven!

Erich sincerely praised the Emperor and hoped that this expedition could last for a few more decades so that he would not have to rush home.

With such wonderful expectations, Erich finally arrived at the Mariupol sector where the expedition was launched, and gathered with other people who participated in the expedition. He then transferred to a transport ship of the Ministry of Military Affairs and headed to the starting point and main battlefield of the expedition - the Rostov sub-sector.

(End of this chapter)