Revelation Continent, along the Eastern Sea, Dawn Town, Holy Resonance Farm.
Little Sam hurriedly ran out of the farm owner’s room, his face pale, his hands still trembling, the whole person seemed to have lost his mind.
It wasn’t until he collided with the wine-serving maid at the corner that he came to his senses.
"Little Sam? How did you get inside the estate? Don’t you know the master hates it when slaves enter..." The wine-serving maid hadn’t finished speaking when she suddenly froze, her gaze fixed on Little Sam’s hand.
A large amount of blood covered Little Sam from his elbow to his cuff, and then to his palm.
The wine-serving maid couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She looked at Little Sam, then back in the direction he came from, and pointed at him with a trembling finger, "You, you are..."
"I... I didn’t mean to." Little Sam’s face showed some panic as he brushed away the maid’s hand and ran outside.
Not long after Little Sam ran away, he clearly heard the maid’s scream.
"I didn’t mean to kill him, it wasn’t on purpose, he was forcing me." Little Sam repeated to himself, and when he rushed out of the estate door, looked at the vast farm outside, and the passing herders, his eyes suddenly turned deep: "No, if I go out like this, I’ll be discovered. I need to calm down."
"Killed him, killed that beast. If I’m caught, I’ll surely die. I must leave here."
Little Sam took a deep breath, forced himself to calm down, took off his blood-stained coat and threw it into a sewage pit, walked to a nearby bucket, and washed the blood off his hands.
Then he acted nonchalantly and walked toward the outside.
Along the way, many people saw Little Sam, and some noticed his pale face and asked a few questions, but he dismissed them with exhaustion as an excuse.
Until he was about to reach the farm gate, behind him came the noise and shouts for his capture.
There were already few people directly in front of Little Sam, and without looking back to see the situation, he ran straight for the outside.
He was lucky; the guards at the farm gate had not yet received the news, and they did not stop him, allowing him to rush onto a path leading into the wild.
Running through the dense forest, Little Sam finally exhaled slightly.
But not long after he relaxed, he became alert again. Because when he looked back, he realized he had stepped on many dead branches along the way. Without his coat to conceal, his arms bore scratches, and from time to time, he left behind trails of red on the ground.
"They’ll definitely be found by trackers," Little Sam thought, "I can’t stop, I must keep running."
Little Sam continued running toward the darkened forest, this time taking care not to leave any traces.
As he ran, Little Sam kept thinking to himself, "That bastard might just be a farm owner, but the nobility in town often visit the estate to secretly meet with him. Maybe the nobility were involved in that incident. So, I can’t go back to town; the sheriff is surely in league with that bastard. I must stay away from Dawn Town... Ideally, I should leave the Silver Vein Principality altogether."
"But where should I go?" Little Sam wondered, "What should I do about the future?"
Little Sam didn’t want to think about the future, but he killed someone, and moreover, as a slave, he killed the farm owner. Even with an inside story, it wouldn’t earn him any sympathy. In the Silver Vein Principality, he no longer had a place to stand.
Escape was the only option. But even if he managed to flee to other countries, he had no identity, a branded slave mark on his body. Perhaps on the whole Revelation Continent, there was no safe place for him.
Could it be that he had to escape overseas? But how could he?
The future seemed bleak. All of this happened because he killed the farm owner, but if he hadn’t, he would have died.
The hopeless future is always better than eternal extinction, right? Little Sam told himself that.
"No matter what, I just want to live." Little Sam dared not think of the future anymore because if he truly dwelled on the hopeless future, he feared he would be persuaded by death.
Little Sam was now focused entirely on leaving, rushing through this forest, taking the path to White Sea Bay, then across the strait to other countries.
After running for about six or seven hours, with the curtain of night already drawn, he reached a small hill. As he looked back from the mountainside, he saw the faint light of torches in the distant forest; though he couldn’t see who the torches belonged to, he vaguely heard the sound of barking dogs carried by the night wind.
The tracking dogs bred by the town’s Knight cohort!
Little Sam glared fiercely at the distant firelight, exhaled a turbid breath, and turned to run towards the other side.
He hadn’t eaten anything and was so hungry he could barely run, but he dared not stop.
But even so, Little Sam already vaguely knew in his heart that he probably couldn’t escape. He couldn’t evade the keen nose of the tracking dogs... in at most half an hour, he would be caught.
Yet despite knowing the outcome, Little Sam still wanted to try. Maybe, just maybe he could find a river ahead to wash away his scent.
However, Little Sam saw no river.
The clamor had already begun to reach his ears vaguely, and despair was almost gripping Little Sam’s heart.
Little Sam even thought about finding a cliff to end his life... At least, compared to the torture after being captured, or even becoming a sacrifice, that sounded better.
But he didn’t want to die; he still wanted to live.
But, was there any chance left? Little Sam cried out hopelessly in his heart, questioning, pleading. He truly didn’t want to end his life like this. Back when he became a slave, he didn’t want to die, let alone now.
Little Sam, burning his last flicker of hope, kept running forward.
But fate seemed to be against him. Although the night gave him some concealment, it also caused him to overlook obstacles on the ground. He tripped over a dead branch, and most critically, his ankle... it twisted.
Feeling the stiffness in the wind, Little Sam finally despaired.
"Huh, why is there a forest here? Is the path mark set wrong?"
Just as Little Sam was hopelessly looking at the starry sky, possibly for the last time, awaiting death’s judgment, he heard a voice at his ear.
No one was around. Where did the voice come from?
Little Sam lay on the ground, straining to lift his head towards the direction of the sound.
At some point, a slightly casual red-haired man was walking out from between the trees.
The red-haired man clearly saw him.
Little Sam clearly saw, under the moonlight, the man’s golden eyes suddenly light up, and he walked towards him.