When the captain of the guards, who had gotten thoroughly drunk the night before, saw Clay staggering toward him the next morning, the last traces of his drunkenness vanished at once.
Had he not been so familiar with his young master, the captain might not have recognized him. Clay was hardly a presentable sight.
Clay was the very picture of dishevelment. Clumps of mud covered his face, hair, and clothes, and there even seemed to be traces of vomit on his expensive silk coat. He stank as though someone had fished him out of a pigsty.
"Uh... young master, what happened to you?"
Now thoroughly sober, the captain put on a smile and hurried over to Clay. He merely twitched his nose at the foul stench, pretending not to notice it.
Please-as an old hand in White Harbor, he knew all too well who stood before him. The old Earl was already advanced in years, and his heir, Lord Wylis, was not in particularly good health. Any day now, the young man before him might become the imposing Earl of White Harbor, wielding enormous power.
As Clay's guard, he had not even known that Clay had disappeared for an entire night. If the old Earl learned of the young master's current state, he would have the captain strung up from the tip of a castle tower.
Clay thrust out a filthy boot and kicked the captain flat on his face, cursing:
"You useless bastards! Your young master had too much to drink last night, and where were you lot? You left me sleeping facedown in the mud all night! I ought to whip you to death..."
He sounded entirely justified, but Clay was not actually angry at all.
Clay had said it deliberately. He needed to establish an explanation for his appearance before anyone could form another impression.
Before daybreak, Clay had cleared away every trace and climbed out of the Godswood. After some thought, he had decided not to return directly to his room. If some early-rising southern noble spotted him sneaking along the way, it would be very troublesome.
Those southern lords would not care about the details, especially with Robert visiting Winterfell at this particular juncture. Anything could be blown out of proportion.
You say you're not an assassin. Where's your proof? Sorry, if I suspect you are, then you are. Given the queen's temperament, Robert might really throw him into a cell, even if he only kept Clay there until after his departure.
Steeling himself, Clay had simply found a mud pit with no one around and lain down in it, clutching an empty wine bottle. He had pretended to have collapsed in the mud after a night of drinking until the early-rising guards found him at daybreak.
Watching the captain anxiously fawn over him, Clay felt a little relieved. His improvised performance had passed muster after all.
"Get me some bathwater, now!" Clay snapped in a low voice.
Under his younger sister Wylla's shocked and disgusted gaze, Clay returned to his room without a change of expression to bathe and change his clothes.
Having finally made himself look human again, Clay pushed open the door in satisfaction. He had only just sat down when Wylla sidled up, her face full of gossip.
"Clay, confess. Which noble lady did you do it with last night? Tsk, we Manderlys do have some standing, you know. Couldn't you have picked somewhere cleaner? Or do you or that young lady have very unusual tastes?"
"..."
Clay was stunned. He badly wanted to pry open his sister Wylla's head and see just what she had stuffed inside it.
"Watch your language, Wylla. A noble lady shouldn't say such things. Keep this up and you might never find a husband."
"Even Grandfather can't tell me what to do..."
Ignoring Wylla's muttering, Clay, now human again, left the room and sat on a stone bollard. The biting north wind cleared his head, and he finally had a chance to inspect his system.
After he had become the first witcher in the history of Westeros, his system had upgraded along with him.
At the time, he had been too busy escaping the Godswood before anyone discovered him to check exactly what had changed.
The pale blue system opened once more, and Clay saw its display:
-- Witcher System (Level 2) Potions (expand dropdown) Bombs (expand dropdown) Equipment (expand dropdown) Magic Pool: 120 Unlocked signs: Quen (Level 1), Yrden (Level 1), Aard (Level 1), Igni (Level 1), Axii (Level 1) Items (expand dropdown) --
He still had 120 points of magic left, more than enough to let one test subject endure the pain as Clay had and become a true witcher, though it could not negate all those extremely severe side effects.
This also meant that Clay's plan to expand the ranks of witchers had officially begun. He was already excitedly considering candidates in his mind.
But that was not what excited Clay most. Becoming a witcher not only meant he was now a powerful warrior whose physical abilities far surpassed those of ordinary people and whose wounds healed extremely quickly. More importantly:
He could finally try brewing the witchers' wide variety of potions!
He opened the potions tab, and sure enough, the system did not disappoint him.
Basic formulas for four potions had already appeared:
Swallow, Cat, Thunderbolt, and Blizzard.
Though they were only basic formulas, their significance in this low-magic world was extraordinary. Aside from the dragons that might later soar through the skies, every victory and defeat was decided by blades on the battlefield.
This game of thrones was, in essence, a process in which the gamblers with the strongest armies used the resources of violence at their disposal as chips, desperately trying to win their opponents' chips at the gambling table. A gambler who accumulated enough chips could exchange them with the proprietor-if there was one-for a prize. That prize was called the Iron Throne!
To put it bluntly, whoever had troops called the shots. Without troops, what the hell were you even playing for? Just go home.
Even the man who said "chaos is a ladder" always had one or several major patrons behind him when he created chaos. First it was Lysa Tully, then Cersei and Tywin. Finally, he simply took control of the Vale of Arryn and joined the table himself.
That was the proper way to play this gamble called the "game of thrones." People like "Emperor" Joffrey Baratheon and "Faceless Man" Arya Stark were all in the business of overturning the table.
And now Clay, backed by White Harbor, had become a witcher. Once he had fully assimilated this power, he too would be capable of overturning the table.
Clay did not study the specific formulas for those four potions. There was no hurry for that yet. Suddenly displaying an absurd level of martial prowess would only arouse suspicion.
As his excitement faded, he pondered something else. What secrets did the Weirwood, or the Heart Tree, conceal? He had tried so many plants and animals in the North. Why was it the Heart Tree alone that held such enormous magic?
If it was because the Heart Tree was the focus of worship, because of some so-called power of faith, Clay thought that view had cause and effect backward. When worship of the Old Gods arose, people had probably discovered the Heart Tree's magic and worshipped it because of that, hadn't they?
That raised another question: where exactly did the Heart Tree's magic come from?
He did not believe for a moment that this plant possessed magic by its very nature. There had to be some other reason.