A "real" dream

Westeros, the Reach, Oldtown, the Citadel.

Under the sunlight, the thin mist over the Summer Sea gradually dispersed, revealing an immense port city along the coastline.

This was Oldtown, situated at the southwestern corner of Westeros. It was the second-largest city in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, as well as one of the continent's more developed cities.

The city also had a history stretching back over a thousand years. It had already existed when detailed written records began, and throughout the history of Westeros, Oldtown had always played a very important role, even though the ruling House Hightower was not the region's warden house.

Yet no house in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros dared underestimate House Hightower. The headquarters of the Faith of the Seven and the Citadel were also located here. This city could be described as the equivalent of Shanghai in China.

At the same time, this ancient city was also one of the places that had left the deepest impression in Eddard's memories. In the memories of his body's original owner, most of his experiences after the age of ten were connected to this city.

The Citadel's headquarters stood in the northeastern corner of this prosperous port city. It was an enormous complex composed of countless towers and stone buildings, protected by a towering wall.

On either side of the main entrance stood a tall green sphinx statue. This terrifying creature from the eastern continent had a lion's body, eagle's wings, a serpent's tail, and a human face. One statue had a male face, while the other had a female face.

Among these buildings stood a domed structure that was the tallest and largest of them all. It occupied nearly a third of the Citadel complex and served as its largest archive and administrative center.

At that moment, in a room within this towering building, a middle-aged maester wearing charcoal-gray maester's robes and a maester's chain around his neck was staring blankly at a raven message in his hand. In the dim yellow candlelight, his face could not be made out at all, as though it were some distorted image.

After a period of silence, the maester seemed to reach a decision. He rose, removed the glass shade from the lamp on the table before him, and blew out the candle inside.

Then he crumpled the letter in his hand and walked straight over to the enormous fireplace behind him. Water was still boiling over the fire, and as it boiled, the kettle's lid and spout made a racket like a raven.

The maester turned a deaf ear to it and simply tossed the letter into the fire. Watching it turn to black ash in the fireplace, the middle-aged maester with the indistinct face spoke as though talking to himself:

"Edd Flint, you heretical bastard, you really are lucky! It seems that heretical god of yours has blessed you, but I will never let you off just like this.

"You and your teachings should all be thrown into the Summer Sea. Magic and all such things are heresy. An unclean creature like you will not be lucky forever. Only knowledge and truth are the mainstays of this world."

After venting these words, the middle-aged maester walked toward the door. Only after opening it did he discover that a large crowd of gray-robed maesters had already gathered in the corridor.

These maesters were heading toward the hall. When those around him saw the middle-aged man, they nodded in greeting. He seemed to be someone of considerable authority.

From the conversations beside him, the middle-aged man then learned that they were going to the hall to watch a maester receive punishment. This maester had been put on trial for violating a taboo, charged with researching dark magic and conducting experiments on human bodies.

As he listened to his fellow maesters' discussion, an almost imperceptible smile appeared on the middle-aged maester's face.

Then he disappeared into the crowd. From a distance, the stream of maesters looked like gray mud, without a trace of color, just like their unchanging lives of study. Before long, a large crowd of maesters had gathered in the Citadel's Conclave hall. They were discussing the maester on the central platform. Although they came from different places, their eyes were all filled with contempt and disdain as they looked at the maester under the knights' guard.

The maester on the platform looked to be in his fifties. His upper body was slightly bent, as though he had something of a hunchback. His graying hair and head that was nearly a third bald made him look rather old.

"Silence!"

At that moment, a knight on the platform who appeared to be their leader seemed to receive an order. He turned and shouted at the many maesters below.

The knight's ringing voice echoed through the space. Gradually, the maesters below stopped their discussions and looked toward the people on the platform.

The Conclave hall was a fan-shaped space. At the fan's handle stood seven enormous marble pillars that looked quite old. This was also where the platform stood, and many matters concerning the Citadel were announced here.

There were thirteen people on the platform at that moment. Seven figures in maester's robes were barely visible beneath the enormous marble pillars, their forms difficult to make out clearly. The knight commander stood beside the maester on trial, with four knights behind them.

These four knights wore various kinds of armor that looked extremely ornate, but none bore their family sigils. They belonged to the Citadel's guard knights, whose main duties were to protect the Citadel's property and maintain order.

"Ahem... I now announce that Maester Qyburn has been accused of researching heretical teachings and conducting human experiments in violation of the rules. Following deliberation, the Citadel's Conclave has decided to strip Qyburn of his standing as a maester and remove his maester's chain, effective today. Now, remove his garments and chain!"

An aged voice came from the maester in the center, who wore a silver-white mask. He pointed from afar with the silver scepter in his hand.

At their commander's signal, the guard knights roughly stripped the man named Qyburn of his clothing and chain. Before long, Qyburn was left wearing only a thin linen undershirt and shorts, looking utterly bedraggled.

Then, amid the loud curses of the maesters below the platform, the guard knights shoved Qyburn toward the exit. They were so rough that he nearly fell to the ground several times. Even so, there was not the slightest flicker of emotion in Qyburn's eyes, nor did he curse back at the maesters insulting and abusing him.

Just as Qyburn was about to reach the entrance of the Conclave hall, clouds of black smoke began rising from his body. As the smoke continued to expand, the old man transformed into an enormous smoke monster.

The smoke monster resembled a ball made of cotton, seemingly without a solid body. Only its blood-red eyes could be faintly distinguished, and those eyes were filled with savagery and terror.

With the appearance of this terrifying monster, the Conclave hall, bustling with voices only moments earlier, instantly became a living hell. Death and bloodshed became its prevailing theme.

Wherever the monster's body passed, death and blood descended upon the maesters. After slaughtering everyone present, the terrifying, gaseous creature was all that remained in the area.

"Stop prying into me! Ah!"

At that moment, the monster suddenly looked toward some unknown location. Immediately afterward, it transformed into a twisted, bizarre soft-bodied creature and charged straight into a certain area.

Boom!

Amid a series of strange explosions, Eddard, who had been watching from a god's-eye perspective, came under attack. That terrible pain transcended both time and space. The sensations of swelling and tearing left him in extreme distress.

The North, Sea Dragon Point, Flint's Finger Castle.

"Ah!"

With a series of frightened, helpless gasps, Edd Flint jolted upright in his feather bed. He was drenched in sweat, his black hair clinging to his neck.

His body was still twitching and spasming from his excessive agitation. The dream had been so real, as though Eddard had personally suffered that injury, leaving him lost in confusion for a time.

In the dream, Eddard had seen all kinds of people in the Citadel. Some were very familiar, while others he had never seen before. For some reason, he felt he could even sense the maesters' breathing and body heat. When his old friend Maester Qyburn was put on trial, Eddard had even sensed the fluctuations in his emotions.

But just as Eddard was about to look into Qyburn's mind, an indescribable, terrifying emotion had suddenly emerged from Qyburn. In theory, after his exposure to horror films on Blue Star, Eddard should not have been so easily overwhelmed.

Yet the malice and hatred of the monster in his dream had terrified him. This was not fear in the ordinary sense, but the fear prey felt toward a hunter.

That final, terrifying blow in particular, with its world-destroying might, had frightened Eddard terribly, as though he had experienced it himself.

Knock, knock, knock...

"Lord Eddard! Lord Eddard! Are you all right?"

Just as Eddard was sorting through his tangled emotions, someone knocked on his bedroom door. Immediately afterward, a somewhat hurried, panicked voice reached his ears.

"Mm... I... I'm fine. It was only a nightmare." Eddard had intended to continue resting, but the moment he thought of that terrifying, bizarre dream, he abandoned the idea.

"Never mind. It's getting late anyway. Get things ready. I'm getting up!"

The person who had spoken was Eddard's head maid, Auntie Aiju. Upon hearing his reply and instructions, the plump woman in her forties seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Then Eddard heard her footsteps. It seemed Auntie Aiju had gone to prepare his washing things.

Eddard then turned his gaze toward the bedroom window. The sky had already begun to pale. Auntie Aiju usually rose very early. She was both his head maid and his personal cook, and had served Eddard's House Flint for nearly ten years.

Before long, Auntie Aiju came in with the only young maid under her supervision, Wild Rose. Wild Rose was the kennelmaster Dogg's youngest daughter and was only twelve that year. Her hair was tied in a long ponytail, and her somewhat narrow face was covered in freckles. She was so thin that she looked as though a gust of wind could knock her over, and she would blush at the sight of Eddard.

With the two maids' assistance, Eddard dressed. In the North, clothing mostly consisted of cloaks and leather garments. Once he was dressed, the maid Wild Rose held up a silver mirror from Myr for him.

Although he had been in this world for over a month, Eddard still felt a sense of unreality whenever he saw that white man's face in the mirror. On the one hand, he rather liked his current life of having everything done for him; on the other, he somewhat missed the conveniences of his former modern life.

Eddard's body in this world was fifteen years old. His black hair and black eyes came from the mother he had acquired with it. She had come from a noble family in southern Westeros, House Blackwood.

Eddard was about 1.7 meters tall and somewhat frail, with none of a northerner's height and bulk. If not for the mediation of House Stark, the Wardens of the North, his relatives would have seized this castle long ago.

At first glance, Eddard looked a little like Skandar Keynes, the British actor from Blue Star in his previous life, who had played Prince Edmund in the fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia. Eddard, however, was considerably taller and more strongly built.

It was precisely this face that made the young maid Wild Rose blush uncontrollably every time she saw him. It had to be said that Eddard's current looks were more than enough to make him a rake in this North full of unkempt men.

After washing up, Eddard went to eat in the dining room on the first floor of his castle. Only a wall separated it from the first-floor council hall. Beside the dining room was the castle kitchen, which connected to three modest levels of cellars used specifically for storing grain.

Although House Flint of Flint's Finger was not one of the North's great noble houses, its strength had always been above average. Because its lands lay in the south and bordered the Neck, the population under House Flint's rule had consistently remained at around thirty thousand.

By the time Eddard entered the dining room, many people were already seated inside. The first person he saw was a tall, heavily bearded middle-aged man, who was holding up a mug of ale and drinking with the two young men seated across from him.

"Hahaha! I told you long ago, that boy who grew up in the south doesn't have our blood at all. He's just..."

"Ahem..."

Just as the middle-aged man was spouting his nonsense, one of the young men opposite him caught sight of Eddard. The young man began coughing desperately to signal to the middle-aged man across from him.

"What's wrong, my dear cousin? Are you feeling unwell? Although I'm no longer a maester, I did study medicine quite well. A remedy made from ox gall and tansy petals is very effective for a cough!"