A simple seal ring lay quietly on the windowsill.
Seeing the ring, Winters didn't hesitate to stand at attention and salute meticulously.
The ring's band was severely deformed, and the face seemed to have been violently cleaved, leaving only a startlingly jagged break.
But Winters knew what the face had originally been engraved with because he should have had one too.
It was the "Great Alliance Ring," a gift from the Alliance Army Academy to its graduates, both as a congratulations and a reminder to always remember Marshal Ned's original intent in establishing the Military Academy.
The middle-aged man raised his hand to his brow in response, a gesture of returning the salute: "Relax, kid, no need to be so tense."
As he returned the salute, the middle-aged man switched his glass to the left hand. Winters noticed that on the man's left hand, the little finger and ring finger were missing—the fate suffered by the ring was terrible, and the wearer must have endured even more.
