bestfiction Chapter 555: Your destiny is in your own hands
Chapter 555: Your destiny is in your own hands
In the wasteland on the eastern border of the Kingdom of Midland, lead-gray clouds hang low, as if within reach.
The cold wind mercilessly lashed the simple farmhouse. This building made of rough stones creaked in the strong wind, as if it would be swallowed up by the inclement weather at any moment.
Inside the room, a well-dressed man was pacing back and forth anxiously.
The spurs on his feet made a harsh metallic clang with each step, echoing in the silent room.
Every few steps, he would stop and look at the hunched farmer in the corner with a scrutinizing gaze. The man was wearing coarse cloth clothes with patches on top of patches, and his hands were nervously twisting the straw rope. His knuckles turned white from excessive force, and the veins on the back of his hands bulged, showing his inner panic and anxiety.
"I said, are you going to sell it or not?"
The leather-armored man finally couldn't help but roared angrily, his voice exploding in the small room.
"If you don't sell me, I'll go to someone else's house! Let me tell you, if that noble lord hadn't specifically asked for your girl, I wouldn't bother running around to this shabby place and suffering like that!"
"Eh--"
The farmer sighed deeply, turbid tears welling up in his eyes and sliding down his wrinkled cheeks.
His voice was hoarse as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper, and his cracked lips trembled, as if every word he spoke was squeezing blood from his bones:
"She's my own daughter... How could I bear to sell her..."
His eyes fell on the corner of the room, where a dark-skinned little girl was curled up in a tattered blanket. She was about twelve or thirteen years old, so thin that you could see the protruding spine, but her eyes were surprisingly bright, and she was looking at this side at the moment.
Seeing the farmer's hesitation, the man in leather armor approached the farmer and sprayed him in the face with the foul smell of alcohol:
"It's because you can't afford to raise them! Why do you have so many children?"
He stabbed the farmer's chest with his fingers.
"If a family gave birth to six children like yours, it would be a miracle if they didn't die!"
His tone was full of sarcasm and disdain.
"You're in luck today! A genuine noble has taken a fancy to your Casca. Twenty silver coins! Enough for everyone in your family to last until the next harvest!"
The farmer's Adam's apple rolled violently, and his cloudy eyes stared at the corner of the house.
There, Casca was hugging a tattered rag doll tightly, her thin body trembling slightly in the cold wind. At this moment, his throat felt like a ball of cotton was stuffed in it, and he couldn't utter a word.
"I'm telling you, the nobleman's carriage is waiting outside!"
The man in leather armor waved his hand impatiently.
"If your daughter marries a noble, she can live a luxurious life in the city and save your family from having to feed themselves!"
Seeing that the farmer was still hesitant, he pushed the farmer towards the door and said:
"If you don't agree, I'll leave!"
"I...I'll just sell it."
The farmer's voice was as soft as a mosquito. After he finished speaking, he collapsed on the ground, holding his head in his hands and sobbing silently. His tears soaked his tattered collar and wet the dust on the ground.
The man in leather armor sneered, took out a heavy leather bag from his waist, and threw it on the table. The crisp sound of coins colliding was particularly harsh in the silent house, and each sound seemed to hit the farmer's heart.
"That girl...her name is Casca, right?"
The leather-armored man turned and asked, then walked straight to the corner of the house without waiting for an answer. He roughly grabbed Casca's arm, and the girl's terrified scream pierced the quiet of the farmhouse:
"Dad! I..."
"Casca!"
The farmer suddenly stood up and rushed over with tears in his eyes, "Daughter, take good care of yourself in the future..."
Before he could finish his words, the man in leather armor had already grabbed Casca by the collar and dragged her out the door.
In the open space outside the village, a shiny black carriage was parked in the dry grass.
The curtain of the carriage was half rolled up, revealing a pale face - it was a slender man with long hair like a waterfall, and he was playing with a silver pocket watch.
As the leather-armored man approached with Casca, he glanced up casually.
"That's her?"
"Yes, sir!"
The man in leather armor smiled flatteringly.
"Although I'm a little thin, I'm still young."
He pointed his finger at Casca, his eyes revealing a hint of greed and vulgarity.
The nobleman addressed as "Sir" looked at Casca carefully.
The girl's sun-tanned skin was stained with grass debris, and her bony collarbone was exposed under her tattered linen dress, but her eyes were surprisingly bright, like an untamed deer in the wilderness.
The nobleman raised his hand with a meaningful smile and said,
"Get in the car."
The carriage slowly drove away from the village, and the wheels made a dull sound as they rolled over the frozen soil.
Inside the carriage, Casca clung to a corner, vigilantly staring at the noble opposite her. The man's face was mostly covered by raven-feather black hair, revealing only his stern chin and tightly pursed thin lips.
The noble was now also looking at Casca with great interest.
He leaned forward slightly, and half of his face, covered by his raven-feather black hair, was hidden in the dim light. Only the corner of his mouth was raised slightly, faintly visible in the shadows.
When Casca met those eyes, she felt a chill running down her spine. The look in her eyes was as sticky as a poisonous snake's tongue, and as vicious as a hungry wolf's staring at its prey. Just when Casca felt that something was wrong, the noble suddenly pounced on her.
"what!"
Casca's blood seemed to freeze instantly. When the noble suddenly pounced on her, she instinctively dodged and her lower back hit the wooden board of the carriage hard. The pain made her vision go black.
But her instinct for survival made her ignore the pain and she rushed towards the car door.
The carriage was still speeding and the cold wind blew into the carriage, but she didn't care about it. She pushed open the creaking door and jumped down.
"Damn pariah!"
The noble roared behind him, his voice distorted with anger. The coachman hurriedly pulled the reins, and the strong horses stood up, kicking their front hooves in the air, splashing a cloud of mud. The wheels rubbed violently with the ground, making a harsh sound, and the carriage stopped abruptly.
The noble stumbled out of the car, and he hurried to catch up with him.
"You little bitch! How dare you run away?"
Each kick brought a teeth-grinding thud, but it failed to stop the girl from crawling forward. Casca's palm was cut by the gravel, and the blood mixed with the melted snow water left a dark red trail on the muddy ground.
"dad……"
She shouted hoarsely, but her voice was blown away by the cold wind. The chimney of the farmhouse in the distance had long disappeared, leaving only the bare dead trees casting hideous silhouettes in the twilight.
Casca bit her lip and dug her nails into her palms - she couldn't stop, stopping would mean death.
However, the nobleman caught up with her, panting, and grabbed her hair and pulled it back.
"Run? Why don't you run?"
He said with a grim smile:
"As the sacred bloodline chosen by the gods, you lowly dirtbags were born to kneel and lick my boots!"
As he spoke, he roughly tore open Casca's clothes with his hands. The pieces of linen fluttered in the wind, revealing the girl's thin shoulders.
At the critical moment, a burst of rapid horse hooves sounded through the air. The noble felt a sharp pain in his left ear, and warm blood instantly soaked his collar.
He staggered back and saw a white-haired young man riding on a tall horse, the sword in his hand dripping with blood.
The afterglow of the setting sun gilded the young man. Griffith looked down at the noble from above, a cold smile curling his lips.
"Just because you were born into a noble family, you think you were chosen by God?"
Casca looked up at him and felt that he looked like someone who had walked out of a saint's portrait in a church. He was surrounded by a divine light, like an angel descended to earth as described in the legend.
But the next second, the angel dropped his sword to the ground:
"If you have something you wish to protect, take up the sword."
At this moment, the noble took the opportunity to rush towards the sword, but Casca was one step faster than him!
The girl instinctively grasped the hilt of the sword, but was knocked down on her back by the noble. The sharp blade pierced the noble's chest without warning, and warm blood splattered on her face.
Casca's eyes widened in horror as she watched the noble twitching and dying on top of her. The hilt of the sword in her hand was stained red. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, and her heart was beating wildly in her chest, as if it was about to burst through her chest.
"Wow!"
She screamed and dropped her sword, just as a strong hand grabbed her shoulder from behind.
At the same time, a warm hand touched the hilt of the sword. Griffith knelt on one knee and held Casca's trembling hand.
"look at me."
His voice seemed to carry an irresistible force. When Casca finally mustered up the courage to look up, she met a pair of eyes that were hotter than the sunset.
"If you have something you want to protect, you should learn to take up arms."
Griffith said this, pulling a snow-white linen towel from his saddlebag.
"That move just now, you dodged faster than most people on my team."
Casca felt the pounding heart in her chest gradually calm down.
The towel was warm from the sun, and it reminded her of the bread her mother baked when she was a child.
She looked down at her blood-stained fingers, and the trembling sensation was gradually soothed by a strange force - like the sky suddenly clearing after a storm, or like the fire suddenly shining into the house in the cold winter.
"Griffith! We've solved this too!"
Jiedu's voice came from afar. He was riding a horse with a short bow on his waist, and the feathers in his quiver swayed gently in the wind.
Casca looked in the direction of the sound and found that the magnificent carriage had overturned on the side of the road. The coachman's body was lying in a pool of blood with a black feather arrow stuck in his back.
"Are they thieves?"
Casca muttered to herself, but now they were about to leave. Casca didn't know why she had the courage. She stood up and asked Griffith:
"Um...what should I do?"
Griffith turned half his face and smiled:
"As you like."
However, in a moment of impulse, Casca blurted out:
"Please take me with you!"
When she said this, the whole place was silent, and everyone looked at Casca in surprise.
"Hey, stop joking, miss."
Gorkas glanced at Casca and spoke first to break the silence:
"We are thieves, please respect our profession. Shouldn't you have panicked and run home after seeing us kill someone?"
"Besides, we're not just any ordinary bandit gang. Once we've earned enough money, we're going to the battlefield to make a name for ourselves. How can we bring women and children with us?"
Casca bit her lip, tears welling up in her eyes:
"If I go back on my own, the officials will definitely suspect I'm colluding with the thieves... That would bring trouble to my family."
She took a deep breath and mustered the courage to look Griffith in the eyes.
"I'm a fast learner and I won't be a drag!"
The white-haired knight looked at the girl's stubborn face and suddenly smiled:
"You might die."
Even so, Casca nodded vigorously. Griffith was silent for a moment, then shrugged.
"I said, whatever you like."
After saying this, he jumped on his horse and said loudly:
"gone."
After a while, two Black Watch cavalrymen followed the ruts.
They dismounted, and one of them kicked the overturned carriage, frowning and saying:
"There are quite a few people in these horseshoe prints."
Another person squatted down and examined the body and said:
"Captain! This noble was pierced by a sword. The wound was clean, a single blow killed him. It looked like the work of a well-trained warrior."
"Go back and report immediately!"
The captain jumped on his horse.
"They said the bandit gang we offered a bounty for has been found!"