"Filthy peasant! How dare you secretly count the apples on Lord Finn's trees! You must have been planning to steal them!"
"I'm innocent, my lord! Everyone knows I can't count!"
"Bullshit! Still trying to deny it? I'll give you five lashes to teach you a lesson!"
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
"Aaah~~~~ Wait, my lord, that was the sixth!"
"Ha! You sly bastard, and you said you couldn't count!"
Another flurry of lashes followed his words.
Only after beating the man for a good while, until he passed out, did the farm steward lower his whip in satisfaction.
"Hang this fellow up! Let those ungrateful peasants take a good look!"
"Yes!"
"Where the fuck am I..."
Corleone slowly came to in a daze, his head and body wracked with terrible pain.
All he remembered was finally surviving eight years of combined undergraduate and master's studies and obtaining his medical license. He had been about to reach the pinnacle of his life.
Yet on his first day seeing outpatients, an out-of-control hundred-ton overloaded truck had plowed straight inside...
"Damn it..."
He shook his head, and memories that were not his flooded his mind.
The Riverlands, picking apples, collecting coppers, visiting brothels...
Fuck!
I've transmigrated into the goddamn Middle Ages!
Opening his swollen eyelids, Corleone cursed inwardly without pause. He raised his head and discovered that his hands were tightly bound and he was hanging high in an apple tree.
With his master's-level training in surgery, he could naturally assess that he had suffered at least dozens of external injuries of varying severity. The pain made him suck in sharp breaths again and again.
Looking around, he saw a dozen or so people scattered below, men and women dressed in ragged, patched clothes, standing around and pointing at him.
"That wretched Corleone! Lord Finn has already shown us an immense kindness by giving us work. Not only is this fellow ungrateful, he even tried to steal his lordship's apples!"
"Exactly! If he angers his lordship and gets our wages docked this month, we'll all go hungry."
"May the Stranger take him and appease Lord Finn's anger. May the Mother show mercy and bless his lordship's lands with a bountiful apple harvest."
"That's right! It's surely because of maggot-like scum such as Corleone that the last crop of apples was so sour and bitter. The poor harvest even left young Master Derek thinner. It broke my heart to see him!"
"Work hard, everyone! Let's get the young master nice and plump to repay Lord Finn's kindness!"
"Oh-ho-ho!!!"
With those spirited cheers, the farmhands scattered excitedly and returned to their hard labor.
From beginning to end, not a single person expressed even a shred of sympathy for what Corleone had suffered.
Fuck your mother...
Their callousness chilled Corleone's heart, but he was too weak to curse aloud. He could only open his mouth and rasp, "Hah... hah..."
These ignorant fools!
Seven above, this body's original owner hadn't had the slightest intention of stealing anything. He had only been standing under the tree, counting for fun!
Besides, this Lord Finn they spoke of was no decent man, but a lord stingy beyond measure.
A strong laborer like Corleone earned only ninety-one coppers for an entire month's work, less than two silver stags.
And that was for working more than fourteen hours every day, without a single day off!
Even in the fertile Riverlands, that money only bought Corleone nearly moldy black bread and a small bowl of watery gruel so thin he could see the bottom each day.
Even so, the original owner had saved enough to visit a brothel every six months, even if it meant going without food. Such perseverance was rare indeed.
Kindness?
Fuck his kindness!
But however angry he was, Corleone knew very well that explaining the class struggle between landlords and peasants to these farmhands, so accustomed to exploitation, would be like talking to a brick wall.
He merely regulated his breathing in silence, hoping to recover some strength and think properly about how to survive in this utterly feudal world.
Just then, a translucent image suddenly appeared before his eyes.
[Name: Corleone] [Class: Doctor] [Skill: Surgery lv2] [Available skill draws: 0] [Please note: draws can be obtained through payment. Rates are as follows: lv1 (apprentice) 10 Gold Dragons/draw; lv2 (veteran) 100 Gold Dragons/draw; lv3 (expert) 1,000 Gold Dragons/draw; lv4 (master) 10,000 Gold Dragons/draw; lv5 (grandmaster) 1,000,000 Gold Dragons/draw]
A cheat!
Corleone's eyes immediately lit up, only to dim again an instant later.
Even the lowest apprentice-level draw cost 10 Gold Dragons. Where was a dirt-poor farmer like him supposed to get that much money?
Just how much was 10 Gold Dragons?
On his monthly wage of 91 coppers, he would have to work for over a hundred years, even without eating or drinking!
And with each level, the Gold Dragons required for a draw increased tenfold. From lv4 to lv5, it even jumped a hundredfold to a million Gold Dragons. That was fucking absurd!
It practically meant that even if Corleone worked without sleep or rest from the time humans were still monkeys until the twenty-first century, he still could not scrape together that much money!
Isn't this just condemning me to death?
I *** your **, you fucking system!
[Ding~~~ First system activation detected. The host receives one free unranked draw!]
Godfather!
I admit I spoke a little too loudly. There were too many people outside just now. Let me kowtow to you!
Start the draw!
Corleone gave the command silently, and the system panel began changing rapidly as a mass of multicolored cards whirled before his eyes.
Only after a good while did a black card shimmering with a kaleidoscope of colors appear before the dazzled Corleone.
[Skill-Fate's Gambit (unranked, cannot be upgraded)] [Your pocket will always contain one Gold Dragon that cannot be used as currency. When an enemy attacks you, you may use it to forcibly initiate "Fate's Gambit." If your opponent chooses to continue attacking, you will gain 100% immunity to the next instance of damage and the right to execute them (cooldown: 7 days).] [PS: I bet there are no bullets in your gun.]
Clop... clop...
Clop... clop...
While Corleone was absorbed in studying his cheat, a rapid clatter of hooves approached from the distance.
The riders made quite a commotion, letting their horses trample freely through the fields and crush plenty of wheat. Clearly, they had not come with good intentions.
"What are you looking at? Get back to work!"
Seeing all the farmhands turn their eyes toward the riders, the steward who had beaten Corleone barked at them, then took two subordinates to meet the newcomers.
"Halt, knights! These are Ser Finn's lands. Please rein in your horses and don't trample the crops!"
"Whoa~~~~~"
His shout seemed to work. After leading his party across the fields, the man at their head reined in a short distance before him.
Their leader was a tall, thin man with a goatee and a necklace strung with coins around his neck.
His mount was particularly eye-catching: it was actually a zebra with black-and-white stripes!
Hanging from the tree, Corleone saw it clearly and could not help marveling. Zebras were fierce by nature, after all, and even in his previous life they had been virtually impossible to tame.
Under everyone's gaze, the man lightly squeezed his mount's flanks and swayed over to the steward one step at a time, his expression flippant. But one of his ears was wrapped in gauze that seemed to be seeping blood, making him look somewhat comical.
"Sorry, my men aren't very polite. We were just getting thirsty on the road and came to ask for a few apples."
After looking around briefly, the tall, thin man grinned. "Ser Finn, was it? I've heard his name before. Who was it he serves again?"
"Lord Edmure Tully, sir."
Seeing that the newcomer's tone was fairly mild, the steward relaxed a little, though he did not let his guard down completely. He added, "The apples aren't ripe yet."
After all, there were over a dozen of them, every one looking vicious. They did not seem like easy people to deal with.
At the steward's answer, the man's smile grew even brighter, and he deliberately raised his voice. "Oh! Looks like I remembered correctly!"
"We are a company of knights sworn to Roose Bolton. By order of His Grace Robb Stark, King in the North, we have captured the Kingslayer, Jaime Lannister, and are taking him back to Riverrun!"
His voice was loud, and Corleone, hanging nearby, heard every word clearly.
His heart immediately lurched.
Roose Bolton!
Robb Stark!
Jaime Lannister!
He knew those names all too well. He simply had not thought much about it earlier, having only just transmigrated.
Now it seemed he had actually transmigrated into the world of A Song of Ice and Fire!
If his estimate was right, this should still be during the War of the Five Kings!
Sure enough, before Corleone could process it, the tall, thin man waved his hand, signaling several of his men to spread out and reveal two people tightly bound together on a horse behind them.
One was tall and armored, with a broad, rough face and glaring blue eyes, seemingly always brimming with anger, though he could just make out that this was a woman.
The other was very thin, his head hanging in dejection. His filthy long hair made him look exactly like a wounded male lion.
Most importantly, a cord hung around his neck, and dangling from it was no jewel or ornament, but a... severed hand!
Before you continue