"Mercenary?!" Miranda asked, looking at Avina's clear eyes and straight eyebrows, even in the dark.

Avi sat up, nodded, and cupped his cheeks thoughtfully. Miranda also sat up, frowning slightly, holding her breath.

"Aunt Joni won't agree, mercenaries are a very dangerous profession..."

"Perhaps, this will make me think about it again," Avi knew what he hated the most, "I can't live in the stables forever, and I'm a real failure compared to those knights' squires."

"Actually, you can consider joining the regular army... What if—" said Miranda, clasping her hands on her knees.

Avi looked at her steadily, and said softly, "You know that I will leave here one day," he quickly turned his gaze to the sky, "Go to the outside world, and when you come back, I must bring you honor and" At this time, Avi's mind was not about the outside world, but about what his mother had told him about his father-"Your father is a foreigner in a distant country, but you will not go to that place." ”

Avina's pale blue eyes and pale white cheeks set off each other in the starlight, and Miranda watched his side face quietly, as if it were the last moment—the moment to be by her side.

It was already late at night when Avi left Miranda's house, and his pace was steady, but his brain was already plagued by all kinds of thoughts, after all, wanting to be a mercenary came a little suddenly. And when he was about to walk to the home of the knights' stables in the city, there were two more corpses in the dark alley next to him, and the thick black blood slowly flowed out from the **, and no one knew.

Avi couldn't sleep at night, and woke up a little late the next day, while her mother had gone out to work. The two men didn't talk.

"Knock knock", "Knock knock", there was a quick knock at the door, and Avi got dressed and went to open the door.

"Are you Avi, the son of Joni?" two uniformed soldiers with long swords stood outside the door.

Avi nodded subconsciously.

"We are the sheriffs of Golden Hoof City, and now we will take you to interrogation. One of the round-faced shorties said.

"Interrogation, what's going on?" Avi still had eye droppings in his eyes, but his ears were the quickest to wake up.

"Just follow us. The two sheriffs walked away with Avi in their hands, unable to let a humble groom struggle.

In July 947 of the Old Kingdom calendar, the city of Golden Hoof in the Oguna Empire.

Later historians believe that if it had not been for the recklessness of these magistrates, if it had not been for this self-righteous "ruling", perhaps this man named Awei would have stayed at the horse farm for the rest of his life, perhaps the mainland would have ushered in the end it should have come to an earlier time, or it would have been even later. But one thing is for sure, the influence of this man on Fidel Torres is enormous.

The time is almost when the sun goes down, and the sheriff's office in Golden Hoof City is still very "lively".

"How many times do you want me to say that?" Avi leaned back with his head bowed and his body half-curled, "I went straight to my house after I left Uncle Charlik's house last night," he already felt very hungry after not eating for a long time, the sound of his stomach was inversely proportional to the volume coming out of his mouth, and the cramped seat space made him feel more and more uncomfortable, "I didn't kill anyone at all, I..."

"But you're motivated!"

"You don't have an alibi either, you said in person that you were near the scene of the crime last night!"

"Many people can prove that you had an argument and a conflict with the victim group yesterday!"

"There are also many people who can prove that you have been unhappy because of some things before!"

"You're just a lowly ant people, and you must be jealous of those young and promising squires!"

“”

"That's enough!" the eyes of the man sitting on the interrogation table narrowed into a slit, and the protruding eyebrow bone and the socket formed a "shadow cloud" between the eyebrows, and the area of the shadow was still increasing.

There were only a few sheriffs and Avi in the entire interrogation room, and when the sheriff sitting in the middle finished speaking, everyone became quiet, for this man was obviously the most powerful of the people in the room, and he could decide something—even something that could be decided by God.

"The trial will be fruitless like this," said the sheriff's name, Talon, with rusty bronze cheeks and thin, bloodless lips that seemed to be ischemia, an expression and appearance that made his nickname "God's Judge" more appropriate, "Avi, we all know that you are already an adult. ”

Speaking of this, a sheriff next to Daron sneered: "Even if he is not an adult, he is a man without a father, and no one can help him bear the crime!"

"I didn't kill anyone!"

"Very well," Daron said, nodding, "Now the two dead young knight squires have had a conflict with you, and their companions have also identified you," he tapped a finger on the wooden table in front of him, and immediately pointed at Avi, "but you firmly deny the crime against you, and we have no definite physical evidence other than human evidence and motives, so as subjects of the Empire, let's let you accept the 'just verdict'." ”

Avi immediately raised his head and looked at Darron, the corners of his mouth slightly open but unable to say a word. In Avi's eyes, the Sheriff's underground examination room, which could not even be illuminated by sunlight, began to distort, and the walls seemed to turn into sharp thorns, slowly approaching him from all around him, and the sheriffs were like devil's messengers with forks in their hands, staring at him with a mysterious smile, and Daron had become the embodiment of the Lord of Hell, and blue flames seemed to burn around him, but they could not hide the whiteness of Daron's lips.

After a moment, Avi slowly said from his extreme panic, "I am"

"This is your only choice," the only choice of the Ant-People in the face of the absolute justice of the Empire, "whether you want to say that you are innocent or guilty, God will give us a just decision." With that, Daron stood up, put on his hat, and left the interrogation room.

"Oh, you are fortunate enough to be able to accept the 'Righteous Verdict', and I really owe you to Lord Talon. A sheriff said.

Another sheriff also said lightly: "I didn't expect Lord Daron to encounter such trouble as you on the first day of his inspection in Golden Shoe City, what a guy who doesn't know whether to live or die, your lord is the most just sheriff in the empire, and now the evidence is conclusive, I still want to deny it!"

Several of the sheriffs walked out of the interrogation room in unison, while two guards entered from the outside, picked up Avila, who had fallen into silence and confusion, and led her into the underground cell.

The dark, smelly underground cell is home to rats and other bugs, but not Avi's. Except for some plaintive moans, it is estimated that the only sound is the wax dripping from the candles.

"Dinner" was a pile of muddy leftover porridge that smelled strangely fishy, but Avi just sniffed it, and couldn't imagine what it would be like to eat it. He clasped his hands on his bent knees and sunk his head deeply. The feeling at this moment is a bit like being scolded for being a child that no one wants for the first time, as if being abandoned again, as if the limbs are bound by a malicious rope in the vicious world, and they can't move.

"I didn't kill anyone. Avi thought silently. Although he had a motive, and although he did show up over there last night, very close to the scene of the murder that the sheriff had spoken, he knew that he had never intended to kill them.

Suddenly, in his mind, some memories and impressions from his childhood rushed out, which was some images that made the people present not want to eat all day, that is, the justice of the "justice verdict". This had to make Avi let out a bleak laugh, and then he couldn't help himself, silently shedding tears. After all, he was only eighteen years old, and he had not recovered from the fact that he had been arrested in the morning and was now in his dark cell. The dream I said last night, the returning Miranda and her kind mother...

Thinking of this, he trembled. Mother Joni must be worried by now, and the whole city must know that she has become a murder suspect. Since childhood, he already knew that his mother had given birth to him unmarried, and because of this, he was discriminated against by the religiously minded people of the empire. Luckily, Joni's horse training skills are exceptional, otherwise he and his mother would have been exiled long ago.

Will someone come to my rescue?

Mother, Uncle Miranda Charlik?

No, I'm a murderer, I'm a lowly man, I'm a man who is not even as good as a horse.

"I'm such a piece of shit!" Avi clutched his knees, clutching the flesh on his thighs. Bullied and discriminated against, he finally got a place in the horse farm with his horse training skills, but he was framed and became a prisoner; he was treated differently, he finally grew up, he was able to help his mother, and he had the opportunity to leave here to break into the outside world, but he flew into trouble; he was despised and neglected, and finally discovered the secret of communicating with horses, but he may never see them again.

"'Winter', remember when you told me that you wanted to be a real war horse galloping to the ends of the continent? Avi muttered to himself in his heart, not knowing if it was because of the sudden and huge stimulus, or if it was something he had imagined in such a harsh environment, in short, in this corner of the cell, everything he had had begun to gradually crumble.

Outside the bars of the cell, owls in the trees were singing repeatedly, and the sound seemed to be similar to that of horses.

It's like talking.

"Humans are cold and selfish. ”

"Humanity is lonely and sad. ”

"Humans eat losers. ”

"We don't have losers. ”

Avi covered his ears with his hands, not wanting to listen to the sounds. A trace of blood oozed from between his clenched teeth, and it was unknown whether it was the blood of the lungs or the flesh of the teeth in his heart.

"If this is what God calls fairness and justice, then I'd rather ..."A voice echoed through Avi's heart, and the last candle in the underground cell burned out, ushering in an absolutely dark night.