'Ding!' A notification rang out in Ian's mind, jolting him awake from his slumber.
He lifted his head, scanning his surroundings with surprise.
It was a somewhat old inn room, with a shaky bed, a wooden table whose color was dulled by grime, and curtains that hadn't been cleaned in a long time, all giving off a cheap aura.
Outside the window, a fine drizzle fell, bringing little coolness and instead making the weather even more muggy.
Ian felt sticky and uncomfortable all over. He gently lifted the covers, only to find that he was completely drenched in sweat.
For some reason, Ian suddenly had a crazy thought and bit down hard on his forearm. Only when the intense pain clearly registered in his brain did he finally release his bite, looking at the tooth marks on his hand with a wry smile.
This feeling, it's so damn real.
Although the organizer was well-known in the industry, and he had never doubted their capabilities.
But when he truly appeared in another world in another body, he still had a feeling that it was too dreamlike.
After sitting for a few minutes, Ian managed to force himself to calm down.
At this point, he suddenly discovered that there really were some extra memories in his mind. Although the memories didn't contain specific people or places, they had a complete story that matched the background.
The clearest among them were some knowledge-based items, such as the crests of the minor nobles in the Vale that Ivan hadn't memorized in his previous life (for now, let's call the time before entering the game his previous life, as all content in this book takes place in the world of ice and fire), the entire process of an Andal knight's vigil in the Sept, and some methods for riding horses and using swords.
Just as the auxiliary AI said, having these memories would be of great help for him to impersonate a true mercenary knight.
Mercenary knights, also known as Hedge Knights, possessed only their equipment and warhorses as wealth, and were named so because they often had to sleep under hedges in the wild.
Of course, a mercenary knight starting as a player wasn't yet in such dire straits, otherwise Ian wouldn't have chosen him.
Taking a deep breath, Ian climbed out of bed and walked to the window.
The sky outside was gloomy, and the thick, gray glass reflected Ian's beautiful golden hair. He quickly pushed open the window, and immediately a magnificent tower appeared in his sight. Its tall, black body still stood out like a crane among chickens amidst the surrounding tall castle complex.
However, the tower's tip, which pointed directly at the sky, was tilted to one side due to melting and deformation, looking like a giant, semi-molten black candle.
"Is that... melted stone? The masterpiece of Dragonflame? Is this Harrenhal?" The scene before him overlapped with the images in Ian's memory. He licked his chapped lips, feeling a sudden dryness in his mouth.
Ian turned and walked to the table, picked up the kettle, and poured its contents into his mouth. Instantly, a faint spicy sensation and a hint of malt spread across his tongue.
Damn it! This is too inauspicious!
Although choosing to start in the Riverlands was his own decision, the Riverlands is so vast, why did it have to be Harrenhal?
Harrenhal was built by the last King of the Iron Islands and the Riverlands, 'Harren the Black,' over 40 years, exhausting the financial and material resources of the Riverlands, on the shores of God's Eye Lake, hailed as 'Westeros's largest fortress.'
Its walls were thicker than those of Storm's End, its gates were as large as Highgarden's main keep, and Harren the Black boasted that it was an 'impregnable fortress.'
However, just as a certain unbreakable alliance broke down by itself, the impregnable giant walls and towers of Harrenhal did not fall to a ground siege, but instead faced Dragonflame from 'Black Dread' Balerion, the dragon ridden by 'Aegon the Conqueror,' descending from the sky.
Harren the Black and all his children were ultimately burned alive in the highest tower, and the semi-molten black candle in Ian's vision was thus named 'The Kingspyre Tower.'
Since then, Harrenhal has been shrouded in a curse. Not only have all families granted Harrenhal died out without heirs, but almost everyone who has occupied this castle in any form has met a miserable end.
"How unlucky." Ian wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and asked in his mind, "By the way, what time period are we starting in?"
"King's Hand Jon Arryn has just died, and King Robert Baratheon is preparing his funeral and plans to travel to Winterfell after the funeral to invite Eddard Stark to come south and serve as King's Hand," Annie replied.
Ian nodded knowingly.
In the original ice and fire novel, King Robert was already close to Winterfell at the beginning, but now Robert is still in King's Landing and has not yet departed.
The land distance from King's Landing to Winterfell is approximately 2300 kilometers [Note 1]. Considering that Robert's royal procession travels on the King's Road, it should take him about 2 months to reach Winterfell.
In other words, the current time is roughly three months before the start of the original novel, which would be around the end of 297 AC.
This time is more than a full year away from the outbreak of the Five Kings War in later generations.
This means Westeros still has more than a year of peace.
This made Ian wonder again. When he signed up, the organizer promised that all designs for this game were prepared before the players transmigrated, and after the competition officially began, the organizer would not interfere with the competition in any way (the kind that wouldn't even fix bugs if discovered).
So, what kind of mechanism did the planners design in advance that would make players abandon peaceful development and choose to fight other players in a time of peace?
It should be known that in this kind of competition, there is little room for error in the early stages. If you get killed, everything is gone, so players should not choose to confront each other head-on in the early stages.
"Alright, AI, now tell me the detailed mechanics of this game," Ian asked his auxiliary AI with confusion.
"There are three main mechanisms in this game," Annie began to explain directly.
"The first is the kill mechanism: For each player killed, you will gain 4 points and inherit all unused system resources (including points, attribute points, skill points, and system items) from the killed player, and receive certain additional rewards based on the killed player's development.
If the player personally kills the target, they receive full income. If the player's subordinates or other 'hired individuals' assigned by the player kill the target, the player only receives fifty percent of the kill income."