Chapter - 16

I stood outside the grand hall where a feast was being held in honor of the city's recent purification from the plague. I was the guest of honor and as such, I had to make a grand entrance. Fashionable lateness was the law, after all.

I was dressed to impress, or at least as impressively as I could with my nonexistent wardrobe. I doubted having my actual wardrobe would have even helped. The guards outside the door noticed my presence and promptly opened the door, causing all eyes to fall upon me.

As I entered the room, I was met with familiar faces, but unlike last time something was different. The expressions on their faces were no longer filled with a mix of curiosity and disdain like the last time I was in the throne room. Instead, I could see fear and terror etched upon their faces as they relived the dread they had experienced just a day prior.

Despite their attempts to hide their emotions, I could see right through them and I couldn't help but smirk at the change in their behavior. 'Where did all that haughtiness go?'

The King was the first to greet me. "Well, look who is finally here," he sounded a bit annoyed that I was late, as he had been looking forward to the drama that was going to unfold after my arrival.

He then called me up to the high table and gave me a seat in between him and Jon. 'Wow, I was moving up in the world!' By the look on The Hand's face, he seemed like he wanted to talk about the hot potato I had dropped in his lap.

I look around and spot Littlefinger at a lower table, still smiling. 'So, Jon probably hasn't confronted him directly,' I'm almost disappointed, but that is probably the smart way to deal with the situation. He will need evidence and look for the stolen money before any accusations can be thrown around.

Judging by the relaxed face of Littlefinger, he had not noticed his missing wealth as well. 'Dammit, that's more disappointing. I wanted to watch him panic.'

As soon as I take my seat, the King stands up and raises a toast. "To the White Mage of Winterfell, the man who saved the lives of half the capital and is also the sole reason that King's Landing doesn't smell like shit for the first time in centuries."

The second part of the toast got a lot more enthusiastic cheers than the first part, which was pretty messed up to be honest, but also expected. It reminded me that I needed to activate the kill switch on the shit-eating bacteria before I left the city. No matter how much I trusted my safety precautions, it was probably a good idea to pull the plug as I wouldn't be here to fix anything if things started to go wrong. It probably meant that the city was going to start smelling like shit again in a few years, but that wouldn't be my problem anymore.

I planned to send out the signal for them to kill each other and then themselves tonight, and everything should be done by the time I leave tomorrow.

After some casual conversation with the king, he got drunk and was distracted by the maids giving him alcohol. I turned to Jon and asked casually, "So, how enlightening was our earlier conversation?"

He obviously knew what I was talking about, so he also started talking vaguely, as a feast was not a good place to discuss confidential information.

"I've given it some thought and found some discrepancies, but I will need more time to put everything together so that the opportunity doesn't slip by if I start without proper confirmation," he said.

I hummed a little disappointingly at the lost opportunity of getting to watch the drama, but it was the correct way to get things done properly, so credit to that. I guess I would have to settle for hearing the story of how that went down at a later date.

"I would call someone uninvolved in the issue but still competent and trustworthy to do the task," I suggested.

He considered my advice and replied, "Finding someone with the first two characteristics might be simple enough, but trust is a scarce resource here."

"You have a point. There's not much I can help with that," I said, shrugging.

"It's fine. You've been enough help in pointing out the issue," he said, and that was the end of that discussion.

I didn't mind the silence after that, and by the looks on everyone's faces around us, I could tell that they were curious about what we were discussing but had the tact to not ask.

Looking at some more faces, I could tell that they had different issues they wanted to talk to me about. I decided to get the food out of the way in case I didn't get a chance later and start eating. The food was pretty good. They had a wider range of spices available than what was found in Winterfell.

A server approached me and asked if I wanted some wine. I thought, why not. I had tried the wine available here and while it wasn't as good as some of the wine I had in my previous life, it was better than I had expected.

The server filled my cup and moved on. I took a sip to taste it and immediately realized what had just happened.

I had tasted the wine in this world before. What I had just been served barely had enough wine to make it the right color; the rest of it was poison, a very concentrated version. I hadn't done much research on poisons in this world, but based on the way it was rapidly trying to swell and clench my throat muscles to suffocate me, I could safely assume it was The Strangler.

Just as I came to this conclusion, my enhanced biology went to work immediately. It isolated the poison and started breaking it down into harmless components and healed the very little damage that had been done to some of my throat muscles, which was surprising, but it was probably due to the concentration of the poison.

I didn't really mind it much. I only had a little irritation in my throat. Even if it had succeeded in restricting my airway, it wouldn't have achieved much because, while I did need oxygen, I could easily breathe through my skin due to my somewhat redundant biology.

Just as my body goes to work on fixing the mild nuisance, I take a subtle glance around the room.

Very little time had elapsed, and the cup was still at my lips, so no one had yet noticed anything amiss. However, my quick glance was enough to identify who had attempted to poison me.

The Queen was trying hard to conceal the smirk that had appeared on her face the moment the cup touched my lips. Meanwhile, the server who had poured me my wine was attempting to leave the room quickly and inconspicuously.

I had several options on how to deal with the situation, but I went with the option that any sane man would do if they were in my place.

Slowly, I brought the cup down from my lips but still held it in my hand and called out to the server.

He stopped in his tracks and looked back at me. I could see from my peripheral vision that his face was contorted in contemplation about whether he should start running, but when he looked at me and saw that I was fine, he probably assumed that I hadn't drunk it yet, so he hadn't been caught. Slowly, he walked towards me, thinking that I hadn't figured out what was going on.

I stop paying attention to the server and look at the Queen, who still has a smug look on her face, but is slowly realizing that something was wrong.

I lock eyes with her and down the entire cup of poison in one go.

I see the disbelief and horror spreading across her face, and it's a better high than any I've experienced before.

I raise the empty cup in a salute towards her and never break my gaze. I flash a smirk and say,

"That was the best fucking wine I've ever had. Fill me another cup and leave the bottle." like an absolute Legend.

I'm too busy relishing the shock, disbelief, and horror spreading across the Queen's face to care about the server's reaction.

I hear the King laugh at my proclamation and say, "Now you're talking, healer. And here I thought that living in Winterfell had made you dull."

The Queen breaks our gaze first and looks down. I can see that she is terrified, as evidenced by her trembling hands.

I look around the room and see that the only people who know what has just happened are me and the Queen. The server has turned tail and disappeared, but I doubt he'll get far. Cersei wouldn't let anything tie back to her, especially since it was a failed assassination attempt.

I stop looking at the Queen for now, not wanting anyone else to notice what had just happened or misinterpret the situation. I look back at the King and say, "I don't know what gave you that idea, Your Grace. I can assure you that I am the life of a party."

The King replied in disbelief, "You say that, but I have yet to see you drink properly?" His challenging tone brought back memories of my college days.

Instead of replying, I grab the bottle of poison and down it in a few seconds, mostly out of reflex and also to prevent anyone else from accidentally drinking it.

I wipe my mouth, act a little tipsy, and say with a slight slur, "Is that proof enough, Your Graces?"

While I could temporarily shut down my body's ability to break down alcohol instantly to actually get drunk, there was no fucking way I was going to be even slightly drunk in the middle of this vipers' nest, especially minutes after I had just been poisoned.

From that point on, as you can imagine, the King and I got into a drinking contest. He lasted longer than I expected, and I continued to act more drunk as the night went on. 'I should get an Oscar for this,' I thought to myself.

A lot of people had approached me to talk after they saw my drunken state. Littlefinger was one of them. He tried to extract information from me through seemingly innocent questions, credit where credit was due he was quite good at it. But I just continued to act more drunk and give him meaningless answers. Eventually, he saw the encounter as a lost cause and just left, while trying to hide his frustration.

The Queen I had noticed had left slightly earlier than it was polite to do so but everyone was too drunk to care or notice.

After a few hours of drinking most of the people had left. I looked at the quiet hall and saw that a few of the guests had passed out on the tables and the floors. The King had just been hauled out by two Kingsguards, and I decided it was time to leave as well.

As I made my way back to my room, still acting drunk, I realized something 'The Strangler was surprisingly fucking tasty and I might have to try it again sometime.'

I couldn't help but snort, 'That's probably the first time anyone has said that sentence in this world.'

Just as I opened the door to my room, I realized that someone unexpected was waiting for me inside.