Currency and races

Eren woke from his sleep, still feeling a little dizzy.

After blowing Astapor sky-high yesterday, Eren had returned to camp, laid on a great feast, and held a grand celebration of the destruction of all of Slaver's Bay. He had also let himself go after drinking, leaving him still a little dizzy when he got up.

Eren crawled out of the milky fragrance surrounding him, rolled over, and began putting on his clothes.

After dressing and eating breakfast, Eren took Lydia with him to handle administrative affairs, listening to the various departments report their spoils while also tallying the gains from Astapor.

This trip to Slaver's Bay had successfully achieved the objectives he had set. Sweeping through the three city-states had yielded countless treasures of gold and silver, most of which consisted of gold and silver bars or various pieces of jewelry and ornaments cast from those metals.

He had acquired very little currency such as Gold Dragons, however. In the world of Game of Thrones, the Free Cities, Slaver's Bay, and Westeros each had their own monetary systems, and these systems suffered varying degrees of depreciation during wars. Gold Dragons, Silver Stags, and Copper Stars, for instance, were coins minted after Aegon I the Conqueror conquered Westeros and unified the Seven Kingdoms.

Before that, each of the Seven Kingdoms had possessed its own currency, and the monetary systems of that time had suffered even greater depreciation. Now that the Seven Kingdoms were unified, Gold Dragons still had decent purchasing power as long as no war broke out.

Of course, the influence of Gold Dragons lay mainly in Westeros and the cities along the Narrow Sea coast of Essos. Places like Slaver's Bay were far from the Narrow Sea coast by land, and the sea route was much the same. What was more, the Smoking Sea, formed after the destruction of Valyria, lay between them. Many strange things lurked within the Smoking Sea, making passage through it difficult.

Taking the longer route through the Summer Sea would double the time required, so Gold Dragons did not have much purchasing power in Slaver's Bay. Their value amounted only to that of the gold from which they were minted.

As a result, sweeping through Slaver's Bay had not yielded much currency in the form of Gold Dragons. To Eren, the only value of these coins was that the gold, silver, and copper coins were themselves made from gold, silver, and copper, and could be melted down and recast.

Eren did not place much importance on this assortment of currencies. Once he had territory of his own, he would certainly establish a mint and unify the currency. He had also decided that all future foreign trade would be settled either in the currency he issued or in gold.

In addition, there were nearly six or seven hundred thousand captives this time, all of whom would become part of the empire's future population. The next step was to have these captives intermarry extensively with the Dothraki, bringing about a great fusion of peoples. Fortunately, their skin tones and features were much like those of the Dothraki.

Long ago, Slaver's Bay had belonged to the Ghiscari Empire, which had once ruled many important regions of Essos. It had originated in Old Ghis and developed from there into a military, economic, and cultural entity known as the Ghiscari Empire. At its height, Ghis had trained disciplined legions that marched in lockstep and claimed to be undefeated.

The architecture of Ghis had mainly consisted of brick towers and pyramids backing onto slave harbors. Its symbol was the Harpy, with a woman's body, bat wings in place of arms, an eagle's legs, and a scorpion's tail, clutching lightning in its talons. The Sons of the Harpy who caused unrest in Meereen in the later parts of the screen adaptation had taken their name from this.

The Ghiscari Empire had fallen more than five thousand years ago. After Valyria discovered dragons and rose rapidly, the Ghiscari had also attempted to obtain the power of dragons for themselves, going to war with Valyria as a result.

The two sides had fought five major wars in all, and with the aid of dragons, Valyria had won every one.

In the final war, Valyria had crushed the legions of Ghis, and Dragonfire had burned Ghis and its pyramids to dust. After Ghis fell, the Valyrians had scattered salt, sulfur, and dead bones over every inch of its land to prevent any survivors from returning. This act had been similar in its purpose to Eren blowing Meereen, Yunkai, and Astapor sky-high.

With the destruction of Ghis and its empire, most pure Ghiscari bloodlines had ceased to exist. After a long time, the surviving people had rebuilt the region upon its ruins.

Colonies had risen in remote Slaver's Bay: Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen. As centers of the slave trade, these city-states had become extremely wealthy, which had also made them targets for Eren to pillage and drown in blood.

The Ghiscari who now lived in Slaver's Bay were actually a mixture of many races. Most had stocky builds, amber skin, broad noses, black eyes, and wiry hair streaked red and black.

Their skin tone was much like that of the Dothraki, which also made it easier for Eren to have the races intermarry. After all, with such similar skin and hair colors, the resulting features would not be so conspicuous after they mixed. Ultimately, Eren could accept yellow and white skin, but not black. Racial integration also had to follow Eren's preferences; he could not accept them being turned black.

As for why he had destroyed Slaver's Bay rather than establishing a nation and building cities there, it was because Slaver's Bay was too close to what had once been Valyria, which had been destroyed when the Fourteen Flames erupted simultaneously.

That unprecedented catastrophe had reduced Valyria to ashes within hours. It was said that volcanoes within a radius of five hundred li had erupted at once, their searing smoke and flames even burning the dragons in the sky. The ground had begun to split open, lakes had evaporated in an instant, mountains had exploded, the earth had fractured, and seawater had surged in.

Eren did not believe that this disaster had occurred naturally. Dragons were creatures born in fire, and the surviving Valyrian, Daenerys Targaryen, possessed the constitution of the Unburnt. There had once been no shortage of Valyrian dragonlords, and Eren refused to believe that none of them had possessed that same constitution.

If even creatures immune to fire, such as dragons and dragonlords, could be burned to death by the flames erupting from the Fourteen Flames, Eren did not believe there was nothing suspicious about it. Valyria's destruction must have had something to do with magic, or even gods.

Slaver's Bay was too close to Valyria. If things such as magic or gods really were watching, the dangers involved remained unknown to Eren at present. After all, he could hardly go looking for trouble by testing how magic could harm him.

Eren therefore planned to go to Pentos to establish his nation. Daenerys, that treasure who could hatch dragons, was one reason; another was that Pentos lay a little farther from the ruins of Valyria and was safer.

Once he had occupied Pentos, founded his nation, and allowed it to stabilize for a while, Eren would seek out all kinds of information about magic. He intended to complete this plan before the arrival of the Red Comet.

Judging by the original work, Daenerys's dragons had hatched when the Red Comet arrived. The original work also stated that dragons were magical creatures. Without a source of magic, dragons were like people without oxygen. In this age when magic was at a low ebb, dragon eggs could not be hatched no matter what, as House Targaryen had already demonstrated in recent times.

The fact that Daenerys's dragons had hatched at the same time after the Red Comet appeared proved that the source of magic was connected to the Red Comet. On this point, Eren thought that the so-called source of magic was very likely radiation from the Red Comet.

Each time the Red Comet appeared, it would irradiate the land, and radiation itself would gradually disappear with the passage of time. In this respect, it was very similar to the source of magic. Eren thought he could research this in the future.