19 Chapter 19: Robert's Rebellion
Chapter 19: Robert's Rebellion
….
-Arthur (XX)-
After the business with the House of Black and White, I immediately started walking back to the mansion that I had in Braavos. I needed to rest or I would pass out from the overexertion.
Magic was a bitch.
As soon as I reached my mansion, the maid was there to greet me. "Welcome back, my lord."
The head maid, the pretty thing with green eyes and dark hair looked at me lovingly. I smiled back and nodded. I and this woman had a child, but honestly, except for her background we rarely ever did anything more than fucking.
I just walked past all of the maids, whispering to one of them. "Bring a new maid to my room," and so I went to my bedroom and immediately laid down on my bed.
Today would have been a good chance to kill off all the faceless men and get it over with. But sadly, things weren't that easy. How many faceless men were around the world? As soon as I destroyed their headquarters each of them would be out in the hunt for me and that would be tiring. They might even decide to kill off my whole bloodline.
This was why I hated situations like this because I had an army and could wipe the bastards out. It wasn't beneficial at all, especially at such a time. So instead, having them as "friends" would be better. They didn't want their headquarters destroyed either, but if they dared to try and assassinate me once more then I had no other choice but to go and slaughter them all. I will burn their Gods to the ground if I have to.
They knew that, or at least they should figure it out soon. I wasn't someone they should mess with. Though once I have enough power, then I will still kill them all. Having an enemy who tried to kill me still alive made things very uncomfortable. Though technically, I did kill the men who attacked me, this wasn't something that could be solved by a technicality.
I winced as my heart suddenly started beating rapidly like a rabid dog. It hurt from how fast it was beating. "Fuck, this bitchy magic. If you are gonna be such a pain, at least be more useful."
It felt like I was going to have a heart attack at this rate, so I took a deep breath and went towards one of my drawers slowly, making sure that excessive movements don't raise my heart rate.
Taking a flask that contained a small dose of strange liquids I took a sniff of it and a heavy sense of sleepiness hit me. This was something I had made in case I was assaulted in my room by many people and I had to run away. I would have used something stronger than a sleeping bomb, but this was the strongest "poison" I could build a tolerance to. After all, throwing thin in the ground and knocking myself out too would be silly as hell.
The sleeping potion slowed my heart rate down considerably and it stopped hurting. Having lost lifespan was a little regretful, but the return had been worth it. By the end of the day, Braavos will become mine and so will be the Iron Bank. Now saying that I had infinite money would be a lie, but with the Iron Bank and the Monopolies I had managed to make until now, it was pretty damn close. Even the Lannisters who have had time for thousands of years to store their money and lived in a gold mine were poorer than me.
Tch, thinking about it brings me excitement more than a thousand whores could. Beautiful women are temporary, so their looks fade with age, but money lasts forever if you manage it right. Also, money can get you as many women as you want.
Okay, I need to calm down and not get excited or my heart rate will increase. Let's think about something other than money.
Yeah… how about Magic? Such a mysterious and complicated thing, but at the same time it was a very simple thing. I could feel my physical fatigue and my body felt like I had run a marathon half to death.
I almost overused my magic and tapped into my lifespan while rushing here, if I had been two days later they would have made their decisions and I would have had to quietly assassinate them. That would have taken a lot of time, and by the end, I might have even lost.
Plus I had to keep Hypnosis on my ship's crew for them to not notice me. The amount of Mana… well I call it mana from the terms of the RPG games I used to play. But it was more like a fire that allows you to affect the world in certain ways. Like physical stamina, but in a magical way. And it took a long time to regenerate it, this will take me weeks before I am back at full capacity.
Magic in this world truly is a flawed thing.
…
Then as I am lying down on my bed. I hear the creak of a door. I saw that it was one of my maids.
She had blond hair with purple eyes and a nice and busty body. Those types of eye colors weren't natural back in my first world so I do have quite a liking for them.
She just looked at me with a smile on her face and said, "How have you been, my lord?"
Damn, she reminded me of my dumb secretary in my past life. She always acted just so stupid, the only reason I hired her was that she was hot. Some poor guy even married her, well, I still had continued fucking her even then. But my condolences went to the guy, I had met him a couple of times.
If a girl seems too out of your league… then she is. I had learned that lesson from fucking the guy's wife. Honestly, I wasn't into fucking other people's wives, but if they had pretty wives and the opportunity presented itself, then I was okay with that.
Though, this world was different. I had learned from my first life, don't fuck with people you know nothing about. So while I was tempted, first I asked the maid. "Are you married?"
I don't wanna fucking die from some jealous husband. Still will fuck her though, but I will also kill her husband and make it seem like an accident so he doesn't get in the way.
"No, my lord," she bowed politely and started taking off her clothes. "I am unmarried and have no family. I was picked up from the streets by your people and brought here to work as a maid. I only have a sick mother at home…"
"...'' Damn, I didn't ask for her life story and I don't care about it either. So I decided to interrupt her before she could continue blabbering. "I have had a tiring day, so you will be doing all of the work. If I fall asleep halfway through it, then don't wake me up."
Honestly, I just wanted to have some fun before sleeping and the maid in front of me was pretty, but not someone worth my attention, and I had my hawk keep an eye on things in case anything happened.
The maid looked at me with a frown, insulted that I would fall asleep in the middle of a session with her. Sadly, it's the truth because today was too tiring."If you can make me lose the past 20 minutes without sleeping with pleasure, then you will get a year's salary as a reward."
Once she heard that, she smiled lustfully as a greedy look appeared in her eyes. "Let's have some fun, my lord."
Yes, that was it, young lady. Get more excited so that way I can suck off some of your life energy. There was a technique from Asshai, that should help me get rid of the fatigue and help regenerate my Mana. It had some side effects on whomever it was used on, meaning the maid in this case.
But I didn't care~ Plus I was giving her a year's worth of salary, what more could she ask for?
…
After spending some quality time with my new lover. She was the one to get tired first while I sucked off her life force. She probably lost a couple of years of life span just so I could regenerate my Mana faster.
I just looked at her, lying naked on my bed. If she was born in my last world with her looks she would have been a top-class model. It was such a shame.
Then I just got up, put some clothes on, and got ready to call a meeting. I was already fully dressed, and now… it was time to prepare for Robert's Rebellion. Only a couple of days have passed since I left Westeros, but things there right now are already in a complete mess.
First and foremost I must hire Sellswords and let them be meat shields in this war. No way I was sacrificing my men needlessly in this war. Also if the whole Mercenary Group is eliminated, then I won't have to pay them.
After all, who would I pay if they all went out and died? Their ghosts? I don't have that kind of ability so I will keep their money safe with me… even if any of them survive, they can have "accidents". Though I was rich, those who waste money needlessly will not have it for long.
***
After taking care of something in Braavos, such as killing anyone who dared speak against him, Arthur was able to rule the richest free city with an iron fist. Anyone who got in his way was tied to an anchor and dropped on the sea. Rumors started spreading that the bottom of the sea was filled with men who had opposed Arthur.
His ruthless demeanor, especially of even exterminating the families of anyone who dared go against him put everyone in line. Power… absolute power, that was what made the people obey.
But even during these days, new policies were written and business started booming under Arthur's command. So the Merchants weren't complaining any longer and instead went full-on to support Arthur, some did so die to the earnings while supporting him because they were afraid of him.
***
It took one month to eliminate every uncertain factor in Braavos and Arthur's ruthless ways had earned him a lot of authority and fear in a short amount of time. But Braavos had never been better before as Arthur used his knowledge of Civil Engineering in the past to revolutionize the city at breakneck speeds.
Hundreds of years of improvements were done to the city within a month. While in his previous life Arthur had used a lot of tricks to get up the company ladder, as a Civil Engineer, he wasn't the best out there… but he was good. Good enough to become the head engineer after the previous one got fired in a big company.
Cement, ceramic, porcelain, etc. Things that should have been discovered yet, but were aesthetically pleasing were poured into Braavos endlessly. With tens of thousands of people as a workforce, things were built very fast and people worked around the clock.
In truth, to Arthur, this whole Rebellion was a big gamble as it could go both ways. In canon timeline, Robert had won, but that wasn't something guaranteed as even then he had barely won and was heavily injured. Also, this was a war, he might die before he was able to even do anything.
Arthur would choose Robert's side, he was the man he had bothered to create a good friend. But if this Rebellion failed, his backfall would be Braavos and he was preparing to hole himself here to survive the Mad King's wrath if that happened. Also, newly made ships were pouring out of Bravos rapidly, and some were even new models that were never seen before. Especially… ships for war.
By using Magic, Arthur made sure to create certain machines that could be hidden from the public eye. Though due to the Magic, it was something no one else would be able to create unless they knew modern Engineering and Magic on top of that.
Since he had control of the faceless men, he made them find out the spies that were in Braavos and offer bribes. If they didn't accept, then it was just another body added to the bottom of the sea. His hawks were also joining in the spy mission, slowly like a puppeteer, Arthur was able to control everything within Braavos, and anything that happened in the city he would know about it. So no matter what, his workshops weren't getting monitored and his secrets weren't going out there, he made sure of that.
By the end of it all, Braavos had grown a little bigger, and Arthur had gathered ten thousand soldiers with him and hired another ten thousand sellswords. Five thousand soldiers were left in Braavos to keep the place under control and keep the peace. Just in case anyone got any revolutionary idea, he would crush them.
***
-Jon Arryn POV-
Staring at the walls of Gulltown, I couldn't help but feel a sense of uncertainty in my heart. Could we win this war? These doubts reign over my mind and I couldn't even sleep sometimes, visions of the Mad King burning us all alive predominated through my thoughts.
Only a fool wouldn't feel afraid at times like these. But… At the same time, this wasn't a battle that I could abandon so easily. Too much was riding on our victory. But first, we each had to settle our disputes within the North, Riverlands, Vale, and Stormlands before we could do anything else. We wouldn't want our enemies to attack our backs.
When the Mad King requested Robert and Ned's heads, I contemplated sending them. Who wouldn't?
The Targaryens were a feared dynasty for almost 300 years now. But, they didn't have dragons any longer, their source of fear wasn't something that could be brought back any longer.
Marq Grafton, that son of a whore, was the main problem here and the army he had fathered in Gulltown. Eddard was supposed to take a ship here and go North, but instead, he now had to go and make his way home. Hopefully, he isn't killed by bandits on the road or captured by any rogue troops.
We had to break the Gulltown defenses if we wanted to win this war. But how? After all, leaving this port alone would mean that the Mad King's army could be transported here. That would be an obvious weakness we wouldn't be able to do anything about unless we take back the city.
Sighing, I went back to camp, with my guards following me. Turning towards one of them, I said. "You, go and notify the other Lords that-"
"Lord Arryn! Lord Arryn!!" Suddenly, a soldier's call interrupted him.
"Who do you think you are to call you Lord out!" One of the guards pulled out his sword and was ready to slay the man.
But the soldier got on his knees. "My Lord, I am but a scout. I have big news! There are hundreds of ships around Gulltown, my Lord!"
My heart dropped at that. Had the Mad King somehow gotten even more ships?!
