This is probably the best day of the year in Lante.

The early summer sun dyed the distant sea as golden as a wheat wave, and the damp sea breeze ruffled the young man's black hair, blowing a faint smell of the sea, mixed with the smell of the grass and earth around him, and he took a deep breath, and all the insignificant happiness of the past ten years seemed to rush from memory. The boy, Donner, rolled over and sat up.

It's been ten years, and my mother, who is buried in the inconspicuous mound next to me, has been dead for ten years.

Ten years is enough to make the memory blurry and difficult to identify, but in the young man's heart, that day is still so clear, like yesterday.

Donner, who was six years old at the time, stood in the crowd at the funeral as if watching the most absurd play of all time. He was like a crappy extra, wandering outside the emotions of the crowd, shocked inside, and cold hands and feet.

He later learned that it was his mother's funeral, and that the crying child beside him was his brother Richard, who was two years younger than him, and that the trembling back in front of him belonged to his father, Tom, a blacksmith.

Yes, on that day ten years ago, he crossed over, there was no sudden appearance of the space-time tunnel, there was no car accident electrocution jumping off the building and other accidents, he suddenly traveled from a modern earthling to the child of this mysterious continent, everything seemed to be unexciting, no one knew, the heart of the childhood Donner, like a stormy wave.

From that day on, he carefully survived, hiding himself and adjusting to the identity of a six-year-old. He couldn't understand the language, so he simply kept silent, and people only thought that he had lost his mother at a young age, and he had been hit and became silent.

He would pull the bellows in his father's stuffy blacksmith shop, wring a towel to wipe his father's face when he was sweating profusely, he would dress and feed his younger brother, and he would take his younger brother to the market to buy bread and vegetables. The simple lady in the bazaar would secretly stuff the poor boy with a small piece of black bread. The blacksmith's income was meager, and Donner always gave his brother more of his limited food, and every time his father saw this, he would turn around and sigh quietly.

Donner sympathized with the father and son, who had lost two family members in one day, so he tried his best to share the pressure of life for his father and give his brother more warmth.

At first, he thought he had traveled to some small southern island in medieval Italy. After a few months, he slowly understood the language, and realized that the reality was more surprising than he had expected: this was not the earth, it was a world that he had never heard of.

I am located on a small island called Rand, close to the mainland of Hulls, and when the weather is good, I stand on the northernmost cliff of the island and look north, and occasionally see the stretching coastline of the opposite continent.

The island of Lant is very small, most of the inhabitants live in the town of Lant, and the name of the island and the town is derived from the only local nobles, the Lant family. Legend has it that the ancestor of the Rand family was an officer of the Fermont Empire 600 years ago, and the empire gave him this small island. As far as the size of the island is concerned, Donner can't help but wonder if the Rand family is bragging, or if the king is too stingy. This is really not something that a six-year-old should be thinking about.

The strangeness and panic gradually disappeared, and Donner's face slowly returned to a smile, he accepted his father and brother from the heart, and sympathy slowly turned into family affection. My father's hard work was exchanged for gray hair on his temples and black bread on the table.

This home without a mistress is not complete, and the old blacksmith is a quiet character, but for the first time, Donner feels the warmth of home. He cherished the warmth, but he couldn't be at ease when he thought that the real Donner's soul had died with his mother ten years earlier, and that he was nothing more than an impostor outsider. Over time, he even felt like a thief, stealing a life that didn't belong to him.

The stars are moving, and it is ten years in the blink of an eye. Richard had grown into a sturdy young man, and although Donner was still taller than his brother, he was slender and fair, and he did not look like a blacksmith's son. And in the past ten years, he has never spoken, and people have privately called him the dumb son of the blacksmith.

Fourteen-year-old Richard is becoming more and more like his blacksmith father, a sturdy man who can easily pick up his father's formidable hammer, and his face, which has been sunburned by the island's abundant sun, always has the simple smile that is the hallmark of the inhabitants of the island of Lante.

According to the aesthetics of the islanders, Donner was a little thin and his skin was too fair, he was always alone in a daze, and he smiled back only when someone greeted him.

"How much more like his dead mother," the neighbors lamented, and some might even say, "Tom, your family looks like a nobleman." ”

Hearing this, Tom the Blacksmith just laughed wryly. Donner, of course, is not a nobleman, nor will he be, he is a somewhat weak mute son of his own. In fact, the simple inhabitants of the island rarely had the opportunity to meet the nobility. Baron Rand does not live on the island of Rand, where there is only one clerk who helps him manage the island and collect taxes.

Donner doesn't feel pathetic. Compared to the orphanage of the previous life, the island of Lant is like paradise. The four seasons are warm here, the people are simple and welcoming, and every time the ladies in the bazaar hug themselves, their big breasts are pressed tightly, which always makes Donner blush and heartbeat with embarrassment.

The beautiful calm beach is a children's paradise, and in the distance on the sea, beautiful white sailboats sail by, and the occasional boat docks at the small port of Lante, which will bring sailors full of stories.

In the evening bazaar, at the entrance of the tavern, the down-and-out sailors would talk about how they had served as an attendant to a noble lord, and had seen valiant knights, dressed in glittering armor, who could single-handedly fight hundreds of thieves, and the mysterious magician, with a fireball that could instantly burn such a knight to ashes. The stories of the sailors are rough and direct, and often do not justify themselves. It is rare for a troubadour to come to the island, and the stories they tell are more magnificent and mysterious, and when it comes to emotion, they will play the worn-out lute, and sing in a low voice, and the voice of too much wine will be muddy and hoarse, like the low crunch of a sailboat on the shore with the night wind, which is the voice from afar. At this time, even the noisiest sailors will be quiet, and their eyes will reveal a rare yearning.

Compared with the mysterious magician, the images of knights who always appear with beautiful princesses and epic wars are more in line with the tastes of the boys of Lante Island, so almost every boy has a wooden sword, and when he usually wields it, it seems that he really has a mission to rescue the princess.

According to the laws of the Empire, boys could carry swords at the age of fourteen, and in the nobility or wealthy families in large cities, children of this age could go to knightly schools for training. In addition, throughout the empire, children of the poor had the opportunity to participate in a special selection once a quarter when they reached the age of sixteen, and those selected could enter the Knight Academy for free. Of course, this kind of selection is more like entertainment, because the chances of passing are really slim.

Two groups of young men of the same age as Donner on the island have gone to Dorne, the capital of the province of Tres, to participate in the knight selection in spring and summer. As expected, no one passed. No one is disappointed either, because for the children of the island of Lanta, going to Dorne together at the age of sixteen is more like a trip to commemorate adulthood. As isolated, no one remembers the last time a child passed the audition.

As spring drew to a close, Tom the Blacksmith tried to ask Donner if he would like to go to Dorne with children his age. Donner just smiled, and did not answer, from that day on, after his father had finished work, he was not in a hurry to extinguish the fire, but took the hammer, and beat himself into a piece of wrought iron, he was naturally thin, and after three or four strokes of the hammer, he had to take a breath and rest for a while, but he did not stop, and once he had even out, he continued to beat again, and continued to beat for two hours a day.

He didn't speak, but old Tom understood that Donner wanted to be at ease with himself, and that there would be a successor to the work of the blacksmith's shop.

"This kid is just asking you to go out to see the world, not to let you fly away. Daddy, I'm still very tough, and it's not your turn to take over. The old blacksmith, as usual, reached out to stroke Donner's black hair, his mouth seemed to complain, but his face was relieved with a smile of satisfaction, "Dorne City, it's not bad to go and see." ”

In this way, Donner had to hammer his wrought iron every day, and when it was thin, he would roll it up or bend it and continue to beat it, and the guest looked strange, and asked Old Tom what his son was fighting, but he could not answer, but said that he was playing and that he was practicing his strength.

The mute son of the blacksmith's family is learning to make iron. Within a few days, the neighbors took it for granted.

"When you're done, give me a horseshoe first, and we'll have two blacksmiths in Rand, Tom, and someone will steal business with you in the future, haha." "This is Uncle Jim, the town's horse-drawn cargo.

While helping his brother drum up the fire, Richard accidentally touched his forehead with soot while wiping sweat, and at the same time replied for his brother: "Uncle Jim, your skinny horse can't break a horse's shoe in half a year, and my brother must help me fight a sword, a real sword." ”

In recent months, Richard has been pestering his father to give him a sword, and at the age of fourteen, he is close to an adult man, and the wooden sword at his waist already looks a little nondescript.

No matter what everyone said, Donner just smiled and continued to look down and pound the iron lump that hit him seriously. In the course of a few months, he had already worked on some of the wrought iron, which at first had not been shaped, but now every few days he had beaten it into a large piece of uniform thickness, and in the words of Aunt Mary, a few more strokes would be a good iron basin. It's just a pity that the iron basin that is about to take shape has not been hammered into a lump by Donner in a few strokes.

One day when the height of summer was about to pass, Donner motioned to his brother to burn the fire to the fullest, and then beat the ravaged lump of iron more seriously than ever before, and Richard, who was desperately blowing the wind, heard the sound of the hammer almost in a single piece, and suddenly stopped, and then he saw his brother sitting on the ground, smiling proudly, and large sweat dripping down his face. It seems to be a ...... in the charcoal stove A sword?

Donner counted the time and turned off the charcoal stove, not intending to take out the sword. Old Tom pointed to the bucket and motioned for Donner to quench the sword, but Donner shook his head and refused.

"You can play with your brother," said Old Tom, taking a sip of the island's own crude rum, and said with a smile, "Bastard boy, who dares to fight a sword without a few years of kung fu?"

"Daddy, I've never seen you fight a sword when I'm so big. Richard had pestered his father for months without success, and had visited the town's sword shop countless times, where only one type of sword was sold, the most common standard longsword in the Empire, and the tavernkeeper's son, Turner, had replaced Richard as the idol of his peers on the island by virtue of one such sword, and every time he carefully drew the sword, his expression was solemn as if he were a knight being honored by the king.

And now, Richard will also get a sword, a long sword that his brother has made for him.