When you first see Fabio Sergi, he doesn't make any surprises or impresses.

And even if you talk to him more after that for some reason, you won't remember the person firmly because of it.

Ordinary, featureless, that's about the only adjective anyone who knows him can find when they think of this person.

The 23-year-old Fabio, who lives near the small town of Scotti, is part of a mighty shepherd army in the southwestern part of the Padrossi Empire. He was like the embodiment of the stereotypical image of the shepherd and other Lamanite peasants, always keeping his head bowed, rarely speaking, preferring to be with his flock, short, dark, and submissive to be with the people.

If anyone asks you to praise Fabio from the bottom of your heart, I'm afraid that even if you, a near-omniscient sage, have racked your brains and can only spit out a dry sentence: "The shepherd's job is well done." It is impossible to name the commendable characteristics of the other men.

Short, not good at words, not good at sociability. The shepherding job seemed to be his only merit, but even the reason why he did it was only because his father was a shepherd was a simple and uninventive reason.

My father was a shepherd, my grandfather was a shepherd, and further up, my great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were also shepherds. The reason for this is his motivation for pursuing this industry.

He has accepted the fact that this is where he rightfully should. The idea of changing his fate is an extravagant fantasy for Fabio today, but in the past, he did have such an opportunity.

When he was still young, with the opening of a new primary school in the town, the family also worked hard to sell a few sheep to pay for his tuition. I want to see if I can learn to make him a scholar and get out of this cycle of being a shepherd for generations.

But it is clear that even if both his father and mother think he is a smart child, this is just wishful thinking on the part of the illiterate people.

When he was seven or eight years old, he showed excellent memory and quick thinking, and he only needed to tell him to remember it once, etc., and the blind confidence caused by the blind confidence caused by the eyes of these parents "my child is so good" gave him, and he hit a broken head and broke blood when he first went to school.

Half of the family's property, half of the sheep that could be sold as a continuous output of sheep was invested, and Fabio felt at a loss as a result of the huge pressure of his parents' hopes, and almost everyone in the school had a certain foundation, so the tutor skipped the teaching of the Raman alphabet and began to learn vocabulary, grammar and arithmetic, which made his every day in a state of fog.

So he made a decision that couldn't be simpler for ordinary people.

Fabio fled.

With the money his parents had worked so hard to save, Fabio started with a section or two, and then didn't show up in the school for a day or two, or even a week or two. Lying to his parents became what he did best during that time. And in the third week of skipping class, the only thing Fabio thought about at the moment he was fired from the academy.

But only.

How should I spend this "saving" money.

Dressed in beautiful student costumes, he used the money his parents had saved so hard to buy expensive sweets and snacks, and at the cost of this money that should have been used to change his fate, he exchanged for feelings that he had never experienced in his previous life.

Be valued and sought after.

Fabio was fascinated by the dirty faces of the children from the periphery of Scotti, who were also from the surrounding towns, and the envious glances at his clothes and the candy in his hands.

And after giving them to these children, he became a "big brother", leading several younger brothers to the scenery all day long.

But the illusion of luxury will be exposed one day, when Fabio, who is out licking candy and wandering around with a group of younger brothers, who is clearly out during school time, bumps into his father, who has come to the town to buy low-quality grain that most people usually feed their livestock as rations, and everything becomes shattered, including his family.

After learning that he was only enriched, the envious eyes of the younger brothers turned into merciless ridicule and contempt. My father began to drink heavily, and my mother cried every day, and my father fought Fabio and his mother at the slightest mistake.

Fabio's back straightened and bent gradually under these series of accusatories, beatings, and ridicule and disdain, and he could no longer walk down the avenue with his head held high.

From the age of thirteen or fourteen, Fabio, like other poor peasants, was submissive, always bowing his head and silent.

His shiny elementary school uniform began to accumulate dust and fall apart, and finally became rags of stuffed windows, dirty rags, and even cushions for the legs of the table when they could no longer be put on.

He had no choice and didn't know what he could do to make amends, so he could only continue to do what he did best.

Evade.

When his father beat him, he held his head and ran away in his heart.

I couldn't bear it anymore and started to run away.

Flee to the mountains, hide between the crevices of various rocks and trees, and be accompanied by sheep and beautiful flowers and plants.

When his father beat his mother, he also ran away.

He was so weak that he couldn't help even if he wanted to—Fabio kept convincing himself with such reasons, and stood by and watched.

Eventually, after an overdrinking, my father confused the stick with the axe, and my mother collapsed in a pool of blood and never got up again.

The village sheriff came and took his father away, and Fabio never saw him again.

The property is his.

A dilapidated civil engineering house, a straw hut, a sheepfold and eight sheep.

He was free, and there was no one above who would put pressure on him anymore.

And then what?

What to do?

He didn't know.

Year after year, Fabio turned sixteen. He attended the coming-of-age ceremony in the small town of Scotty, but stayed in the corner, no one spoke to him, and no one noticed him.

I don't know when no one called him by his first name anymore.

After the coming-of-age ceremony, all of my peers went to work in other places. All but one of those who attended the primary school together in the early years became a new teacher were all successful in their respective fields.

Many are married at the age of sixteen or seventeen, and now they have children.

The only constant is him.

The name Fabio, like his home at the foot of the mountain, was like the glitz and glamour of his glamorous months in the town more than a decade ago, something that no one would ever remember.

"Shepherd"

A new generation of children began to refer to him by this term, and as the term spread, others around him, including those they had known before, began to refer to him with this contemptuous term.

"Shepherd, are you going to sleep with your goat in your arms again tonight, I have heard that goats are more tender than women, hahahaha-" Whenever he was compelled to enter the town of Scotty to replenish the necessities, he was greeted with foul words and insulting ridicule. But Fabio only smiled at all this, and accepted it resignedly.

If anyone approached him, he would be startled. The children used this to bully him, and then laughed out loud because of it. Because of his short stature, he looked like he was 13 years old, not 19.

"Shepherd, shepherd. ”

"Hey, I can't keep calling you shepherd, what's your name? ”

This is probably the only person of the more than a thousand people in the town of Scotty and the surrounding area who will still show kindness to him. She was an outsider, supposedly from the Southern City-State Alliance, from the Vislan region, and somehow ended up in such a town.

"I-I-" Fabio blushed, but he couldn't say anything from a stranger who had had had a few contacts, and a fair-skinned girl.

"If you don't have a name, then I'll call you nameless!" said the blonde girl, who seemed to like to give names to people, her cheerfulness was contagious to everyone around her, and this tenderness made Fabio feel like life was blooming again.

He began to get into town more and more.

As he became more acquainted, he took her to the mountains to see the beautiful scenery he would see when he was shepherding his sheep. A sea of wild flowers, the blue moonlight on the cliff tops, the silver river that sparkles in the moonlight.

Then, when the other party was immersed in the beautiful scenery, he secretly looked at the incomparably beautiful side face in the hazy moonlight, and the little spring light exposed at the neckline of the summer loose clothes, and was in a daze for a long time.

He was smiling.

Fabio was smiling.

When shepherding sheep and entering the city, they all laughed.

"Yo, shepherd, have you become less interested in sheep, hahaha-" The banter and insulting teasing continued, but Fabio just laughed.

"Tsk, what a boring guy. ”

He just laughed.

Laughing.

Soak up a moment of peace and sunshine.

"Do something!

"Do something—"

And then everything broke down again. She screamed, panicked, and her face discolored. Surrounded by the two of them are the three of the small town of Scotty, who hunt at those who are powerless to resist them. She hid behind him, Fabio had a stick in his hand, but what was the use of it, the men on the other side were each taller and stronger than him, and had axes, machetes, and pitchforks in their hands.

"Do something!" she said, her eyes filled with fear and hope.

"I-I-" Fabio tried to raise his hand, mimicking the sword-wielding stance of the knights and adventurers he had met in the town, lowering his weight and clutching the stick in his hand.

In just a moment, Fabio felt like the stick in his hand had literally turned into a sword.

And then.

"Hahahahaha

"Smack-" grabbed and pulled, and the skinny shepherd was pulled forward. The stick was easily snapped by his opponent, followed by a raised kick in his abdomen. "Boom!" "Pss

"I-" Instinctively, he crawled and climbed, trying to escape, wanting to get away.

"Leave this coward to you!hahahaha-"

"Ahhh

"What are you guys doing!"

And then, like a legend would have been. Riding on a white horse, a knight in bright armor appears on the stage, and easily repels the gangsters who offend the lady like a hero.

"Thank you, noble knight!" as he hid behind a pile of stones in the distance, looking at the ragged girl with her eyes shining and looking up at the savior, Fabio knew that there was no place for her to be around her.

Her joy and sorrow were no longer related to herself, and the intoxicating gentle smile would be directed at others from this moment on, and from the perspective of an onlooker, this tenderness only pierced the heart like a needle.

"I-I-" After two days of tossing and turning, Fabio mustered up the courage to enter the market in the small town of Scotty again. But in the moment he was face to face with her, he couldn't say a word of explanation that he had thought about for a long time.

Yes, what words can I say and explain clearly?

The shepherd bowed his head.

And she turned away, as if she hadn't seen him.

It was an even more uncomfortable feeling than the kick a few days ago. He began to deliberately try to avoid her, but instead she took the tall and handsome Imperial knight and began to go to the places he had taken her to see the night view.

In Fabio's heart, it was a sacred place for the two of them, and now she was here with the others, laughing loudly, her face full of happiness.

He hid in the grass, and like a despicable thief, he watched from afar the happiness of the two of them.

Fabio felt his heart stop beating in the silvery moonlight of the night when she and the knight finally kissed each other in the silvery moonlight in the hard-to-find rose fields on the high ground, where he and her sanctuary should have been.

She went to live farther in the town, and it was said that she was about to be betrothed to the knight. That's what the people in the market of Scotti Town are talking about.

He was back to being a lonely, stinking, spurned shepherd.

Time passed, in the blink of an eye, and years passed. Happy days are always fulfilling, but this kind of chaotic life is not necessarily good. I just eat, sleep, sleep, eat, do my essential job, and don't have much communication with other people.

Thin, dark, with no presence, no one will notice you.

Just live like this, it's fine.

Just live like this.

Only.

- Is that okay?

The winter, which was supposed to be no different from the past, suddenly dropped in temperature. In just a few days, a layer of frost formed everywhere.

The temperature dropped to near freezing, causing Fabio to hang a long snot, and he began to worry about his flock, because it was too cold for him to move and did not go to repair the sheepfold, causing a sheep to disappear.

He was wrapped in layers of clothing, his hair and beard were disheveled, and he lived like a barbarian. Carrying a stick with a brass bell, he searched for the place where the sheep might run.

"Hey, over there, do you know where to pick red roses? Suddenly, the voice from behind him felt a little familiar, and when he looked back, she was riding with the tall and handsome knight, and looked down at him with a smile.

"Uh-" Fabio stared at her blankly, his pupils widened, and he couldn't recover for a long time.

She's so beautiful.

"Hey, sir, do you know where to pick red roses? "I'm getting married, that's where our first kiss was, and I hope to pick the flowers there," she said. ”

Like lightning and thunder, a series of memories that he thought he had forgotten flashed again, and Fabio covered his head.

"Yes—yes—toward the front, and toward the front, and then, upward. "He hadn't spoken to anyone in years, and his stuttering was worse and a little hoarse.

"Oh, that's the direction, I forgot I didn't come back for a long time, thank you, strange sir. She smiled softly, but the shepherd felt no warmth.

'It's finally over—' For some reason, Fabio just wanted her to leave as soon as possible, even though it was supposed to be a reunion after a long absence.

"I hope to receive your blessing, strange sir. But she continued, the passion he had once enjoyed, and now he felt like he wanted to run away.

"Uh-yes-" Fabio felt like he had eaten a sticky slime, and struggled to squeeze out the words as he barely opened his mouth and almost suffocated, "Yes, yes, congratulations, Mrs. Husband, and Mr. Knight." ”

"Thank you. She smiled and thanked her, and then sailed away with the knight.

The cold wind howled.

Burst after burst.

I don't know if it was freezing or something else, Fabio found his hands trembling, shaking wildly.

He didn't know how long he stayed in place, until he finally woke up with a scream of "————" in the cold wind.

Fabio turned his head dumbfounded, as if it was the direction the two of them were in.

She shouted again.

"Help!!Who's going to save us!!"

Shepherd.

Galloped up.

He didn't know where he got his courage.

Life flashed in an instant, like a scroll he couldn't understand in elementary school, so he had to flip through it:

Escape from elementary school, escape from the father who beat her mother, escape from her. All this guilt and remorse condensed into the impetus for every step he took, and he had never run so fast, as if he had mustered up the courage to face things for the first time in his life, and the filthy and smelly Fabio hurried towards it like a flying stride.

"Boom ————" "Evil———— and then the moment he saw the behemoth, his feet went limp, and he fell directly to the ground.

"Oh my God, it's a-"

"Dragon—"

"Roar—" "Run away, darling!" the beautiful white horse lay low, a huge claw on its body. The two men who tumbled off their horses were covered in mud and messes.

"I, my legs, legs don't have the strength to do it—" she said in a trembling voice, her face frightened and tears welling up.

"Damn!" the knight turned around and pulled out his one-handed sword at his waist, but the thin blade was as weak as a bamboo stick in front of the huge black earth dragon.

Fabio clearly watched as the dragon tilted its head, its pure black eyes with no pupils or whites of the eyes, as if trying to think about what these little two-legged creatures walked upright in front of them.

"Can you get up, try to get up, we must run to the other side of the forest, we can't lead it to the town!" said the knight, and she still couldn't get up.

The voice pulled away from reality for a moment, as if he was in someone else's dream, listening to those ethereal whispers, lacking reality.

'Town'

'yes, it's such a big guy, if you let it get close to town, a lot of people will die. ’

It has cooled down recently, and even the people in the security team have been napping all day. Defenseless, let alone a dragon, even if the highlanders attack, they can't be prevented at all. ’

'But, but why should I care about the lives of those guys, why-'

'Do something!'

No, but how could I have overcome it?

'Do something!'

No, I don't need it here.

'Do something!'

There are others who can take on this-

'None'

'No one else'

"Do something, something!"

"Shh————hh

"Whew————" and slowly spit it out.

"Hey————!!!" opened his mouth, and in the midst of the spat splashing, he let out a loud roar that made people wonder how the thin and short body could have this kind of energy.

"Huh-" The two of them turned their heads around.

"Bang Dang, Bang Dang—" Fabio desperately waved a wooden stick with a brass bell.

"Over here, you stupid, brute!" he shouted.

"Boom—roar—" "Knock——!" The dragon turned around and ran towards him with heavy steps.

"Woo——! The shepherd's legs went limp, and he felt like he was about to pee his pants uncontrollably. But the moment he met her, looking at her with tears glistening, Fabio gritted his teeth.

"I'm me, I'm saying—this way—damn, damn brute!" he felt his tongue and face tingle, stammering and growling desperately, before turning to lure the Earth Dragon in the other direction.

Before leaving, Fabio turned to look at her again.

But she didn't look at this side, and after the earth dragon turned her head and ran this way, she only showed a reassuring expression, and then looked at the knight who was protecting her.

'Is it?'

That's right. The short, smelly shepherd had a look of loss on his face, but also a little detached.

Even if I plucked up the courage to play the hero once in my life, no one was watching, no one cared. ’

"Pop ——!" The stick broke, and Fabio ran wildly.

"Knock knock!" the earth dragon chased after him with an astonishing momentum.

'What a stupid way to die, Fabio, in order to make a show in front of others, but he didn't even look at you, and he has long forgotten who you are. ’

'What a stupid way to die. ’

He ran wildly.

A long-term shepherd who knows the local terrain well, even if his mind is not clear, he instinctively knows which direction to drill.

"Click——!! The earth dragon bites off the trunk of the tree.

"Knock ——!!" the earth dragon knocked over the rocks.

The earth-shattering momentum and the fact that the multi-ton behemoth was in its immediate pursuit was enough to terrify even the bravest Imperial knights, but he could always dodge through the tiny nooks and crannies with his nimble and short body, and continue to run ahead.

"Hanging, cliff-"

The sweat from the desperate running made him so cold that his tongue was knotted when the cold wind blew him, and he couldn't stop shivering because of fear or cold, Fabio didn't know how long he had been running, and he didn't know how he could run on par with such a huge dragon.

More than ten years later, he felt happy again after a long absence.

There is no pressure, no expectations, no responsibility for anyone, and no need to look into the eyes of others.

Just run wildly on the familiar mountain trails.

"Hahaha-"

"Hahahahaha

Hold your back.

Laugh out loud.

"Whoa—"

"Knock!!" the bite of the upper and lower jaws made a loud collision sound, but the brain had completely turned into a puddle of black sludge, and the earth dragon had lost its reasonable judgment about the situation.

The huge body of the "Roaring ——!" was unbalanced and inevitably fell towards the bottom of the cliff.

"Whoa!!" it clawed desperately at the rocks and dirt, eventually dragging its own body weighing tons downward.

"Whew——!"

"Bang!!" there was a loud crash on the frosty valley floor, followed by a long silence.

And after a few hours, snow slowly fell in the sky.

Covered in this massive black body.

————

Two days later, the sound of horses' hooves sounded on the edge of the awkward cliff.

"Teacher, look at that. ”

"Well, I noticed. ”

"Did someone lure it to the side of the cliff and fall down?"

"What kind of person can outrun the earth dragon that even a war horse can't outrun," Filippo said in disbelief, standing behind Milan and Henry, who were examining the traces.

"Qiang Lang—" Henry picked up the half-broken stick, and the brass bell at the end shook gently to make a sound.

"Whew-" Mira exhaled a white breath, and Margaret behind her noticed something beside her.

"It's a wild rose. Henry spoke, and only four men came up, and Ferruccio remained at the foot of the mountain to guard the carriage and horses.

"Romantic dreams," Margaret whispered in her flower language, and then reached out to pluck a few that looked relatively intact from the field of flowers that had been planed by the earth dragon and had frozen to death due to the cold.

"May this unsung hero have a good dream. She handed one to Mira, and then reached out and scattered it towards the bottom of the valley.

Filippo cautiously poked his head out and glanced down, "Wait, what about the corpse of the Earth Dragon." ”

“”

Mira and Margaret also poked their heads out to take a look.

The valley floor was covered with a thin layer of snowflakes at a depth of about ten meters, and there was nothing but a pool of frozen black blood and half of what appeared to be a human corpse.

"Get back on the road quickly, you must warn the people of Scotty. Henry got up and began to walk towards the back.

"Can you still get out of a fall from such a high place? There was a hint of fear in Filippo's tone: "Sure enough, he has completely become an undead." ”

"It's so loud that someone else in the town of Scotti should have noticed. The good news is that they're going to do something about it, and that's good for us. ”

"And the bad news is. Henry's eyes narrowed half-narrowed.

"These preparations are likely to be useless. ”

"It's time to go!" "Shhhh

"Hmm. ”

"Whoever you are, rest in peace. The white-haired girl dropped the red rose in her hand and turned around.

The freeze-dried flowers shattered the moment they fell, and the petals fluttered with the snowflakes, swirling towards the bottom.

The group of five people who re-embarked on the road spent a considerable amount of time before they walked down the complex hillside of nearly two kilometers and returned to the right road.