What Brotherhood?

Once a bounty mission was completed, other players would only be notified after a delay. Even if I stole his kill, he had no way of knowing I was a player.

And they certainly would not dare kill a Lannister lightly, especially one who was carrying out a mission for an important figure.

Besides, as a Lannister, once I collected the 3,000 Gold Dragon bounty, why would I need to worry about failing to win these mercenaries over?

"Brotherhood!" The instant Ian thought of an excuse, evil surged in his heart. Before Harui could slit the Brotherhood Hunter's throat with his dagger, Ian lunged forward and drove his sword through the captive's chest.

Harui's eyes widened as he stared at Ian in shock. The mercenaries around him were equally dumbfounded, unable to understand what Ian was trying to do.

The mission-completion notification ringing in his mind jolted Ian awake from that momentary frenzy. He could hardly believe that he had actually done it.

At the same time, he realized that the tightly wound string in his heart had finally loosened.

So he was not afraid of killing people. He was simply afraid of death.

Ian raised his faintly trembling arm and wiped the blood splattered across his face. Its scalding warmth and thick stench made his stomach churn violently.

It smelled of rust. It smelled of blood.

But he had to suppress the urge to vomit, because he knew his act was not over yet.

Ian knew full well that the rule allowing only the victor to return alive meant he had no right to pretend to be noble. And the race-against-time pace of this mission had left him no time for awakening or transformation.

From the moment he had crossed into this world, he was no longer Xia Ze. He was Ian, and Ian was all he could be.

Pulling his sword from the corpse slumped against him, Ian swept his bloodshot gaze across the crowd. Then he shoved the body forward and violently slashed at its neck. Unfortunately, the blade only sank a few centimeters into the shoulder blade, failing to sever the head as he had intended.

"Ser, what are you doing?" Harui demanded, forcibly suppressing the fury in his heart.

"A member of the Brotherhood Without Banners!" Ian roared furiously, his voice brimming with endless hatred. "If it weren't for these bastards, I wouldn't be a bastard now!"

Ian turned to the mercenaries beside Harui and growled, "My father's original wife is already dead! If they hadn't ambushed my father and gravely wounded him, he would have married my mother long ago! I would already be a legitimate Lannister, not some lowly Hill!"

The mercenaries backed away one after another, intimidated by Ian's bearing. Unless it was necessary, who would willingly offend a mad Lannister?

And there was clearly no need to do that now. Their employer, Harui, had hired them to kill the enemy threatening him. Now someone else who also held a grudge against that man had killed him first. It did not affect anything at all, did it?

Besides, their employer himself had never been able to bring himself to do it.

"Brotherhood Without Banners?" Harui's face instantly twisted into a vicious grimace. He bellowed, "Kill him! Kill him for me!"

"Capture him, and I'll double your company's pay!" Harui roared in rage, waving the dagger in his hand through the air. It was obvious that if his average Attribute Points were not only five, he would have charged forward to kill Ian himself.

Ian was suddenly alarmed. How was that possible? How could he be so decisive? I'm a goddamn member of House Lannister! He wanted to kill me without even hesitating?

Harui's absurd order left the surrounding mercenaries stunned. They all turned to look at the same person.

Watching this, Ian suddenly understood. He had forgotten that Traveling Merchants started with one hundred Gold Dragon! Unlike a poor bastard like him, who could only seek out mercenaries one at a time, a Traveling Merchant had enough funds to send servants out and hire an entire Mercenary Company directly!

Since players all appeared in this world out of thin air, he only needed to confirm with the Mercenary Captain whether their company had accepted any newcomers recently to eliminate the risk of players infiltrating the company!

"Madmen! You want to offend House Lannister?" Faced with the mercenaries eyeing him like prey, Ian could only force himself to stay calm. "Kill me, and House Lannister will hunt you to the ends of the earth! No matter where you hide, they will find you and grind your bones to dust! A Lannister Always Pays His Debts, whether kindness or hatred. House Reyne of Castamere is the best proof of that!"

(PS: House Reyne had once been the second wealthiest and most powerful house in The Westerlands. For rebelling against House Lannister, they were exterminated by Tywin Lannister, who also destroyed their castle, Castamere. The famous ballad "The Rains of Castamere" tells of House Lannister's ruthless suppression of the rebellion.)

"To hell with your Lannister nonsense! You really know how to make things up! Not bad acting, kid. If I didn't know that the Brotherhood Without Banners was only established after The Mountain ravaged The Riverlands, when Eddard Stark sent Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr to hunt him down, I might actually have been fooled by you!" Harui glared at Ian and sneered. All he wanted now was to skin this bastard who had toyed with him alive.

"This guy is no Lannister bastard at all. He's a fraud! Kill him! Kammel, I order you, kill him!" Harui ordered the Mercenary Captain again.

Fuck! How did I forget that? This was definitely the cowardly planners' fault! Why the hell did they make Brotherhood Hunter a starting class when the game began with Robert heading north? Otherwise, I never would have gotten the timeline wrong!

Ian's heart sank to the bottom. Harui had fifteen mercenaries beside him, a third of them cavalry. There was no chance of Ian escaping unscathed.

The more you said, the more mistakes you made. After studying A Song of Ice and Fire for so many years, he had actually stumbled over a minor timeline error. Wait. The timeline?!

"Absurd!" Ian suddenly burst into loud laughter, hoping to conceal his nerves with it. "What nonsense are you talking about? The Mountain ravaging The Riverlands? When did that happen? Ser Gregor has a poor reputation, but when I left Casterly Rock, he was still dutifully serving beside Lord Tywin! Don't go pinning crimes on my house's vassal for no reason!"

The mercenaries immediately broke into laughter.

"And Lord Stark is still holed up in that godforsaken Winterfell of his! Since when did affairs in The Riverlands fall under his authority? Are you having hallucinations or something?" Ian continued mockingly.

"I'm not, I mean..." Harui did not know how to explain himself for a moment. He had not expected this fake bastard to seize upon his flaw using the very same tactic.

Getting the timeline wrong was a fatal mistake for players, but it could not convince these mercenaries, because to them, the "future events" discussed by players were nothing more than mad ravings.

How could Harui explain it to the mercenaries? Was he supposed to tell them that they were merely a bunch of natives, while the players were chosen ones who knew the future?