Subjugating the Game of Thrones

Chapter 7 Drowned Man

"Onions, yes, but they're smugglers, not knights. Let's hurry, my lord. You can still catch them; they're in the hall, waiting for the steward to assign them rooms!"

Without allowing the servant a chance to enter, Renly quickly suppressed the chaos of his thoughts and sprang to his feet. After a few brief inquiries, he hurried down to the lower levels of the tower with the servant, his steps quick and urgent.

The first level of the tower was a vast hall, seemingly filled with everyone from the castle at the moment, creating a cacophony of noise. Greetings rang out as Renly spotted Ai Ju, the kitchen assistant, Amon, the stable boy, Ben, the family guard, and Holder, the kennel master.

They were huddled together, discussing and making a racket, each with the same expression—surprise, disappointment, and back again.

At first, Renly paid little attention to this, his focus entirely on three individuals not far from the crowd.

One with a square face, one with a round face, and one with a pointed face.

They were dressed in unremarkable black cloth robes over brown linen trousers, covered with gray woolen capes, their hoods thrown back and wrinkled against their backs, still dripping with water.

Though they stood alone in the corner, they seemed to be the center of attention for everyone in the hall, pointing and gossiping, making two of them visibly uncomfortable. However, the leading man, with brown hair and eyes, and a thin, ordinary face, appeared quite calm.

"Your name is Davos?" Renly approached, his gaze filled with curiosity as he looked at this middle-aged man who was different from his memories.

"Yes," the smuggler replied, his weather-beaten brown eyes sweeping over the short servant following and the boy's clothes made of golden velvet. With a touch of humor, he bowed, "Lord Renly, Davos at your service."

He had a keen eye and was clearly familiar with the castle's situation. But Renly didn't comment on this; instead, he glanced at the crowd not far away and asked, "Only onions and salted fish?"

"I apologize," the man replied. "The storm was too sudden, and we had no time to react. In truth, if not for our good swimming skills, you might never have seen us at all."

Unashamedly, his expression was very disappointed.

The smugglers' boat had capsized, and most of the food they carried was lost. This not only dashed Renly's expectations but also belittled the smugglers' risky attempt to cross the blockade to come to their rescue.

The food they salvaged was limited, and although he hadn't seen it, just listening to the discussions not far away was enough to understand. Renly even heard the stable boy say that the food the smugglers brought was not even enough for their share and added three more mouths to the castle.

"I mean, before the shipwreck, there were only onions and salted fish?" he asked again.

Renly wanted to ask why his boat had capsized because, under normal circumstances, this boat should not have capsized.

The Onion Knight should have brought a boat full of onions and become the savior of Storm's End. Otherwise, how could he be called the Onion Knight?

But who could answer this question?

Things obviously didn't develop as he remembered, and what did this imply, as well as the consequences of the lack of food?

He instinctively rejected thinking about this matter.

"Only onions and salted fish," Davos answered the boy's question.

Hearing this, Renly sighed with mixed feelings, stepped back, and said goodbye, preparing to turn around and leave.

However, after only two steps, he suddenly thought of something and turned back to look at the middle-aged man who had started whispering with his companions.

"Have you been to the Iron Islands, Davos?"

He didn't expect him to suddenly come back and ask a question, but the smuggler seemed to have been waiting to answer all along, replying without any pause, "I've been there a few times, the earliest was ten years ago, and the most recent was earlier this year."

"Do you know about the Drowned God's ritual of the ironborn?"

Davos was puzzled as to why this noble child was asking such a question, but he still replied, "It depends on what kind of understanding."

"Death, how can one reduce the possibility of dying from drowning?"

"You can work on the rescue techniques afterward. Although the Drowned God's priests claim they are performing the kiss of life from the Drowned God, in reality, it's just—"

"For the one being drowned?" Renly interrupted.

His blue eyes, in the dim light, seemed to turn into two dark pools, the luster emanating from them unfathomable.

"I mean, if you were the one being drowned, how would you increase your chances of survival?"

"This..."

Davos was at a loss for words.

He felt the black-haired boy's question was quite bizarre. Simply put, it's about choking you to death in the sea.

Of course, the ironborn believe that true believers of the Drowned God would not fear drowning, as they would be reborn after it.

Fortunately, through the drowned's (the Drowned God's priests) primitive cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques**, the drowned indeed could come back to life.

At the moment, Renly was being drowned, and he desperately hoped for such luck.

He also prayed for the mantra mentioned by the smuggler Davos to help him get through the difficulty, as he was very curious about this "dream" world and even eager to see its true face.

However, no matter what kind of mood he was in, the difficulty he currently faced was how not to drown.

...

At the beginning of the ceremony, the ample oxygen made Renly's senses very clear. His wide-open eyes could vaguely see the seabed sand within a palm's reach, the green seaweed emerging from the sand, swaying with the sea water, a silver fish panicking and darting away, and three lines of characters, three lines of strange characters, on the surface of the sand.

Even though the current situation was very tense, Renly couldn't help but be attracted by these three lines of characters. However, his vision was blurred in the water, and he only saw a few glances before a pair of rough feet stepped to the left of his line of sight, and the sand raised by them covered everything in front of him.

The surrounding environment was terrible. The ocean blocked most of the worldly sounds outside the water surface, and only a faint prayer sound lingered around, as if coming from the sky.

"The supreme god who drowned for us, let your servant Hal reborn from the sea as you did. Give him the blessing of sea salt, give him the blessing of solid stone, give him the blessing of steel..."

The most important thing is to stay calm.

Renly said to himself in secret.

He kept holding his breath, and as the ceremony progressed, the oxygen in his lungs became thinner and thinner, and his body instinctively began to urge him to struggle to get up. However, the pressure on the back of his head and both shoulders was particularly solid.

As time passed, pain gradually bred, and everything became more and more unbearable.

The most important thing is to stay calm.

When he couldn't hold his breath, he thought about the mantra mentioned by the smuggler again.

How can one stay calm when dying?

He remembered he replied to Davos at the time.

The grim reaper representing death is terrifying, but if we don't want to be taken away by him completely, we'd better face him. You have to know that this behavior is to seek life in death.

The other party replied.

Seeking life in death... seeking life in death...

The sharp pain brought by forced breath-holding made Renly's thinking hazy and tense. He tried to suppress himself, suppress... until a moment when he could no longer suppress his instinct to breathe, so he opened his mouth wide.

The salty and wet sea water surged in.

The most important thing is to stay calm...

He sobbed to himself.

But when his thinking was unable to extricate himself from the pain brought by drowning, when the cold liquid irrepressibly invaded his lungs, when the seawater made his entire viscera convulse crazily, a contrary thought flashed in his mind vaguely --

This is really f*****g nonsense!

The dark then occupied his body and mind. After an unknown period, the cool breath of life quietly came from the outside, and at the same time, there seemed to be a roar.

"The dead do not die!"

It seemed that there was a sharp-edged pebble under his waist, which made him very uncomfortable. He wanted to reach out and pull it away, but he felt that his limbs were stiff and unable to move.

"The dead do not die!" Another roar came, accompanied by a forceful beating on his back, which seemed to gradually unfreeze his whole body.

"The dead do not die!" When the third roar came, he subconsciously thought he should respond to the other party, so he murmured and opened his mouth.

"Must rise again..."

The other party was roaring a very famous sentence in the customs of the ironborn, so he could catch up. He just didn't know whether he said this sentence or not, but everything around him