Kossi was the first one to follow Kal.
Back then, he was down on his luck—barely scraping by in places like Mud Gate, picking up whatever quick-handed work he could find just to survive.
His first encounter with Kal was, in hindsight, rather theatrical.
The moment Kossi laid eyes on him, he was convinced that this young man was in desperate need of his help. So, without hesitation, he stepped forward and eagerly began introducing Kal to all the delights of Silk Street in King's Landing, insisting that any newcomer had to experience it firsthand.
He wasn't wrong—at the time, it was Kal's first visit to King's Landing, and everything looked fresh and novel to him.
As for Silk Street... Kal would later come to understand exactly what kind of place it was.
But contrary to Kossi's expectations, Kal didn't spend most of his time there. Instead, he ended up staying in a brothel tucked behind Rhaenys's Hill—one known as Chataya's.
The madam of the house was a tall woman from the Summer Islands, with sandalwood-colored eyes and skin like dark mahogany. Her name was Chataya.
King Robert had a particular fondness for the place, and the Lannister dwarf was also a frequent visitor.
Unlike many other establishments, this brothel didn't fall under the control of Master of Coin Petyr Baelish. Even Varys, the Master of Whisperers, kept his many legs out of it.
As for Kossi—when Kal later asked him if he wanted to join his line of work rather than keep pimping and hustling for odd coin, the young man, realizing Kal wasn't just any ordinary guy, didn't hesitate for a second.
Work was work, after all. And while sellswords didn't have the best reputation in Westeros, it still beat drifting aimlessly through life as he had been.
Kal, for his part, saw something useful in this guy—a sharp wit, and a missing front tooth from a theft gone wrong. More importantly, Kossi knew King's Landing like the back of his hand, and that was exactly what Kal needed.
With this reliable recruit now at his side, Kal decided it was time to return to his old trade—the one he had practiced for five years in the Free Cities of Essos: the business of being a sellsword.
Kossi proved to be clever and easy to work with. Though he lacked formal education, his street smarts gave him a knack for reading people and sensing the mood.
So when Kossi now came up, bold as brass, and said what he did, Kal fully understood what he was getting at.
After all, the man who had once sheltered him—the one who had helped him gain a foothold in a place like King's Landing—had mysteriously died. And now there were whispers that the queen herself disliked this so-called bastard named Kal Stone.
Naturally, such rumors were bound to stir up thoughts among the kind of sellswords who lived by the motto 'drink today, die tomorrow', and whose loyalty had always been as fleeting as the wind.
No one would willingly follow an eighteen-year-old boy—unless he reeked of gold dragons.
Kossi saw this. Kal did too.
But Kal didn't seem to care. When it came to his men, his demands were simple: a touch of discipline—no more, no less.
What he hadn't expected, however, was Kossi's unease the moment he sensed trouble brewing.
Thinking about that, Kal glanced at Kossi's departing figure and smiled faintly. Then he turned back to enjoy the view just ahead.
...
"Dogtooth Kossi, got chewed out again, huh? I told you to shut your damn mouth. Keep flapping like that and there'll be a draft coming out your pants!"
"Yeah, even Mary from Simon's Tavern says your breath smells like a dead fish rotting in the gutters of Mud Gate!"
"Eh~? I thought I was the only one who thought that!"
Kossi had barely returned to the squad when the men who saw him scamper off to talk to the captain started jeering at him.
Their mouths spilled out the filthiest curses, laced with the kind of crude jokes that got their blood running.
Kossi grinned wide at the insults, flashing the infamous gap in his front teeth that had earned him the nickname 'Dogtooth'.
But the moment someone mentioned Mary comparing his mouth to a dead fish, his smile dropped. Scowling, he growled through gritted teeth, "Don't tell me you sorry bastard were hitting on Mary behind my back. Say one more word and I swear I'll tell Simon!"
"Hey now! Like you didn't do the same. That night I got up to take a piss, I saw you pressing Mary onto the table. If Simon's gonna beat someone, he's starting with you!"
"The thing is, Mary sure didn't say that when she had me in her mouth!"
"Maybe that's just because your junk's more tolerable than your breath?"
"Ah? So I wasn't the only one doing her?"
"…"
Kossi's return immediately stirred life back into the team. The atmosphere, which had been dull and uneasy from marching with the king's entourage, loosened up in the wake of his banter.
Hearing their crude laughter from afar, Kal simply smiled.
His earlier warning—voiced through Kossi—had unexpectedly relaxed the bastards rather than cowing them.
They really were a pack of shameless mongrels.
As their vulgar jokes reached his ears, Kal scratched at one ear in annoyance, then raised his chin and hollered back at them.
"You filthy bastards who ought to be stuffed into a woman's black bread—get some proper rest, damn it!"
"In 20 minutes, we move out. Before nightfall, we need to find an inn sturdy enough to bear the King's fat arse!"
Kal barked out the orders without the slightest courtesy, seamlessly following up his scolding with the next phase of their task.
The group of rough men just chuckled and roared in response, voices overlapping in crude amusement.
"Aye, boss! But can I stuff her with something else instead?"
"Save your limp thing for Dogtooth to pick his teeth with!"
"…"
As soon as Kal gave the command, the campsite burst back into raucous energy.
Meanwhile, having handed out the rest orders and plan, Kal's gaze drifted again toward the silhouettes of the young women nearby—their figures graceful under the evening light.
But if anyone had looked closely at his eyes in that moment, they would've noticed something strange: his pupils were unfocused, his gaze hollow, like he was lost in thought or drifting far away.
Kal's thoughts, prompted by what Kossi had just said, had wandered back to the past.
Kossi wasn't wrong. Kal had indeed known Jon Arryn. In fact, one could even say he'd been close to him.
After all, he had grown up in the Vale, raised within the walls of the Eyrie. Though after Robert took the Iron Throne, he'd been summoned to wipe the King's arse for him.
Even then, most of his life was still spent in the Vale—in the Eyrie, Moon Door Keep, and the like.
But if he were honest, those memories felt strangely distant to him, hazy and disconnected. None of them ever seemed quite real.
That was because all those memories ended before he turned twelve.
And everything after... came from the moment he crossed over into this world. Fortunately, he had inherited the memories of the original.
Kal Stone—that was the name of the boy whose body he now inhabited in this world.
After inexplicably arriving in this world, Kal had naturally inherited everything that came with it.
In his previous life, Kal had been a great fan of A Song of Ice and Fire. He had read the original books, watched the HBO series (specifically the uncut version), and seen countless videos from content creators explaining and analyzing the story.
So, while he wouldn't dare claim to fully understand the vast world George R. R. Martin had crafted, he did have a decent grasp of the general plot and key events.
But the name 'Kal Stone' felt unfamiliar to him.
It wasn't that the name Stone necessarily had to belong to one of the known characters from the books. Of course not. In this damn world, illegitimate children weren't considered a disgrace by the highborn—at least not strictly speaking.
In fact, in certain situations, it could even be something to boast about.
What puzzled him was the timing of his arrival in this world and the environment he found himself in. The name 'Kal Stone' struck him as particularly odd under those circumstances.
Stone—that was the surname given exclusively to bastards born in the Vale.
And the meaning of the name itself was straightforward: stone.
When Kal arrived in this world, he had just turned twelve. He was a young boy serving House Arryn at the Gates of the Moon in the Vale of Arryn.
His main job was caring for donkeys.
These donkeys were used to transport fresh supplies to the Eyrie—eggs and bacon, butter, vegetables, fruit, and such.
Occasionally, he would also act as a guide, helping to escort visiting nobles and knights through the perilous mountain paths into the Vale using those same donkeys. But that didn't happen very often.
Even so, this was how his twelve-year-old self, newly transmigrated into this world, barely managed to survive—clumsily and with great difficulty.
Over time, he gradually adapted to this medieval lifestyle.
Still, as someone with memories from a past life, Kal's vision was never limited to the meager patch of land in front of him.
Once his life had settled into a rhythm, his gaze naturally began to drift outward, to the world beyond.
And the first thing he wanted to do was investigate his origins.
Having arrived in this world so suddenly and inexplicably, of course he wanted to know who his father was.
Just like Snow was the bastard surname of the North, Waters of the Crownlands, and Storm of the Stormlands...
Stone—his own surname—meant that he, too, must have a noble father whose status was higher than that of a commoner.