Subjugating the Game of Thrones

Chapter 9 Drowned Man（3）

“Harlaw’s line is cursed!” On the morn after the Drowning, a towering man with flowing locks, a Drowned Man, gathered a crowd of nearly a hundred souls, including Lann’s squad, and began his fervent sermon.

“Because they’ve spurned the gods, the great Drowned God has driven the Valyrian dragons from the east to roast the black-hearted King Harren and all his kin. We are freed!”

“Freedom! Freedom!”

The faithful ironborn roared in response, but at a gesture from the Drowned Man, they fell silent once more.

“Though we’ve cast off Harlaw’s yoke, the Drowned God sees that we must not be led astray by other kings who defy the divine. Thus, the God has sent his own son, our sacred King Rhodric, to guide us on the righteous path—”

With a flourish of his arm and a voice that rose in fervor, he continued.

“Behold, children of the iron, this is the Drowned God’s greatest gift! None are more worthy to rule the Iron Islands, none more deserving of the Seastone Chair!”

“Long live the Son of the Drowned God!”

“Long live King Rhodric!”

The ironborn bellowed, veins bulging with fervent loyalty, as others echoed their cries.

Yet, their clamor was cut short by the Drowned Man’s indignation.

“But not all of the ironborn recognize the greatness of the Son of the Drowned God, not all follow the divine with devotion—”

...

His sermon continued, but Lann curled his lip, uninterested in the predictable rhetoric. Though he sensed he’d been thrust into the history of Westeros, it offered him little aid.

A year of sporadic noble education had taught him to recognize the heraldry of Westeros and the brief tales of honor and valor behind each coat of arms. But true historical knowledge? That was beyond his grasp.

So, he was uncertain of his group’s exact predicament, choosing to go with the flow, to observe and understand before acting.

At that moment, he blended in with the crowd, clad in an old black leather cuirass, a quiver of arrows slung across his back, a short bow at his side, standing tall and ready for battle.

In truth, Lann was indeed leaving the beach, bound for a place called Oak Island.

Oak Island was the seat of the godless foes mentioned by the Drowned Prophet, and their mission was to bring retribution upon them.

Lann’s goal was also Oak Island, but not merely because of the crowd’s momentum. It was because of the three lines he had seen during his drowning the day before—

Reach Oak Island successfully

Kill 7 ironborn

Prevent King Rhodric from jumping into the sea

...

Clearly, his abilities were not limited to traversing history.

But Lann remained wary.

From the moment of his birth, he had seen vague information hovering over him, but he never knew what it meant.

How did it appear?

What was its purpose?

How was it connected to him?

Could it be harmful?

Many questions needed answers, as they likely concerned his future fate, and no normal person would have such a thing.

Yet, before that “strange dream,” before he clenched the false tooth, those emerging numbers offered no clues, except for the subtly changing numbers as his heraldry studies deepened.

Now, with this new change, Lann was naturally very concerned but also more cautious.

On one hand, he coveted the transcendent power that the term “golden finger” might bring. On the other, he feared there might be a trap.

But behind this caution, some instinct told him his paranoia was ridiculous, as if a voice within him kept saying, "Do you need to worry about yourself?"

...

Instincts aside, Lann never forgot to doubt his “golden finger,” for he could not comprehend what it was.

But he did not resist—

He couldn’t be sure it was good, but who could say it was bad?

So he thought, aside from observing, trying to accomplish these three tasks might not be a bad idea.

But another problem arose—if he really mixed with the people around him to complete those tasks, he would inevitably enter the battlefield and might be shot dead by an arrow.

Lann didn’t mind dying, as his previous experience proved that dying here would only send him back outside this history, back to Storm’s End, to continue being the third young master of House Baratheon.

It was just the pain that came with death that was unbearable...

“Well, it’s better to live than to die. Live one day at a time. Maybe complete a task and see what happens, will I get a reward? Who gives it?”

"Going to Oak Island seems pretty simple... I wonder what would happen if I had a son here? In three hundred years, there would be a bunch of great-grandchildren?"

The brown-haired young man’s thoughts wandered.

Standing by the seaside under the scorching sun for about an hour, the Drowned Prophet with the ashen black long hair finally ended his speech before setting sail with a sense of lingering satisfaction, then waved for the hundred-odd ironborn soldiers to board a two-masted warship that had been prepared for a long time.

...

There were too many ironborn boarding the ship, and the cabins below deck naturally could not accommodate them. After receiving a straw mat, Lann and a few familiar faces from his squad made a bed on the edge of the deck.

The cool sea breeze blew, and the hundred-odd soldiers were on the deck, waiting for the end of the voyage with laughter and chatter, showing a leisurely atmosphere for a while.

"Hal, when we get to the battlefield, you stick behind me," the blond teenager, Jace, leaning against the ship's board, said seriously. "I'm better with an axe than you are with a bow, so I'll be in front, and you cover me with your bow."

Lann wanted to say he didn’t know how to use a bow at all, but he couldn’t say that, so he nodded at the young face in front of him, thinking about how to get through the coming difficulties.

The blond Jace didn’t notice anything unusual about his companion. He continued to talk incessantly.

"We’ve never been to the battlefield, so we can’t rush to the front unless ordered..."

"I hope someone will accept the iron money I pay, so when I go back, I will be a real ironborn. But my father said it would be okay as long as I go back. Hal, did your father say that to you?"

"I don’t remember," Lann told the truth.

"Are you homesick?" the other party asked strangely. "You used to talk a lot."

"Aren’t you the same?" Lann didn’t answer directly.

He had no memory of his previous life, so the best way to deal with it was to throw the question back.

"I’m not. I’m a strong person, and strong people never miss home," the blond teenager said, reaching out to Lann a pebble that was grayish-white with a warm yellowish tinge. "Here, I picked this up in front of my door before I left. It’s for you. I hope it will make you happier."

Lann looked at the stone, reached out and took it, and thanked him. The other party said seriously, "The Drowned God will bless us, he will. The great King Rhodric will also pray for us. Hal, remember to follow me later, and we will go back. As a real ironborn."

The teenager's voice was full of expectation, and Lann hoped he could fulfill his wish.

However, things change, and the summer sea is like a fickle old woman in menopause. The sky was still blue when the ship set sail in the morning, but it had become gloomy just after noon.

A storm enveloped and the wind surged. The two-masted warship, sailing against the wind, not only failed to move forward but even began to retreat.

The soldiers on the deck, lying or leaning, got up in a hurry to avoid being trampled and bumped into, and the sailors began to run around, trying to lower the raised sails. Unfortunately, a red-haired young sailor accidentally stepped empty from a high place, screamed, and fell into the surging sea, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"We need not fear the wrath of the storm god, for the great Drowned God has already opened his magnificent water palace to us! Do not forget, the Son of the Drowned God has personally sounded the horn for us to move forward, we have a god—"

On the deck, the long-haired Drowned Prophet’s gray-green and blue coarse cloth robe fluttered with the wind, holding the floating wooden stick high above his head, and his face as tough as an old farmer's cheeks flushed with the roar, looking very excited.

However, a gray hair that was blown up by the wind just happened to get into his throat, so his inspiring words had to be choked off halfway, and then he bent over and coughed violently in the wind.

"Hal, be careful!" A sentence floating against the wind was very faint, and Lann, who was holding the tight rope on the side of the ship, turned his head hard and found that a rolling barrel was bouncing fast on the deck.

"Unlucky!"

He cursed under his breath, then lay down with the sway of the ship, and the oak barrel passed by his scalp, and he immediately hugged the root of the mast in front of him, never letting go.

The storm was fierce, and the rain was like a shuttle. The narrow and long warship's shell was like a black peppercorn floating in a kitchen frying pan, rolling and shaking with the boiling liquid.

A few times its side almost paralleled the sea surface, and it was only at the last moment that it barely corrected itself, which was a stroke of luck amidst misfortune.

However, temporary luck can't prove anything. As long as this terrifying storm doesn't stop, this warship named "The Invincible Midwife" will find it hard to get through the difficulties.

"It's just a journey, it should be the simplest, right?"

Lann, full of rainwater on his face, wiped his face hard, and saw Jace, who came out of the village with "himself", screaming and rolling over with the tilt of the deck, so he quickly stretched out his spare leg to block.

His foot barely hooked the tail layer of the black leather armor of the blond teenager, which made the other party open his mouth and thank him, but Lann felt that his ankle seemed to be chopped into two halves by the hard leather armor that had been boiled and processed.

Unfortunately, his dedication was of no use. In the dark and irritable environment, when an even more fierce storm came, the Invincible Midwife was violently shaken again, as if there was a huge sea monster dragging this fragile ship in the storm below, and many iron soldiers on the deck screamed and were thrown into the sea.

The blond teenager who had just been saved by him was also in this column. Lann watched the other party's desperate and helpless young face disappear in his sight, which made him feel as if a big stone was pressed on his heart, making it difficult to breathe.

"Did he die in the original history?"

He couldn't help but think this. Unfortunately, Lann had no time to think about this issue.

Under the lightning and thunder, with a violent shake, the heavy mast, which was already greasy due to the rainstorm, finally broke free from his arms!

The brown-haired young man fell into the sea.