Chapter 2

~o~

Well, there was something to consider about medieval times. My time was not that constricted by activities. Now, that might not sound important, but it really was. The time varied, but you generally spent one or two hours with a Maester, learning how to read, how to do very basic mathematics, and the history of Westeros. Of course, they called it letters and numbers while the history was confined to mostly great events in the past and about the different Houses across the continent. After that, a couple more hours on sword practice. However, that was four hours at max, if even that much. Now, these were the mandatory hours; I could still practice more and have a man-at-arms teach me for however long I wanted or bug the Maester for more information. It was a possibility, though most children took this time to play with their peers.

I wasn't most children, seeing how I was a reincarnated person. And that was the crutch of the issue. I didn't have any desire to go exploring or messing around with real children—well, children with fresh minds, that is. Practicing how to use a sword was no real joy, just endless repetition, muscle burns, and pain. Sure, it was going to be necessary since this was the medieval times after all, but if there was anything else to do besides practicing and studying the books, I would say there was none. There were few fiction books in Westeros that weren't written by Maesters so creativity was on the low side. Well, there was always a story to tell, and maybe even an interesting one, if I ever got passed the dry writing. With life as it was, there weren't much advances in any of the fields of art, especially creative writing.

With such a lack of things to do, my free time—as you could imagine—was rather immense.

"The moment you enter the cavernous room, you notice old blood staining the walls. Other than that, the room is too dark to see much further than a few feet."

"Ser Lurin bravely runs into the darkness—ow!" Cersei pulled Jaime's ear.

"Don't be stupid, Jaime."

"Stay in character," I sternly reminded her. She let go of his ear with a huff.

"Ser Pound pinches Ser Lurin's ear and says, 'Don't be daft. I've a torch.'"

"Roll 2d6 to catch Ser Lurin's ear. Otherwise, he runs off into the darkness alone."

Cersei picked up and dropped two misshapen little boxes with numbers ranging from one to six on each side. Despite my best effort, it tended to fall on one side so I put the worst number, one, on that side so it showed up less frequently. After all, people did like to win.

"That's ten. Ser Pound manages to grab Ser Lurin's ear and pull him back with some stern words. However, out of the darkness, you hear screeches echoing off the walls. It sounds high-pitched, an inhuman sound that no human could ever make. As you listen, you hear it getting louder and louder."

As you could imagine, I had to figure out my own ways of whittling away time.

There was a real goal here besides entertaining my siblings. Once we play through a couple of campaigns, then they would likely want to try being the Game Master of their own campaign. At that point, my work would be done, and I would be able to enjoy the fruit of my labor by being simply a player in their table-top role-playing games.

If I couldn't find entertainment, then getting someone to create it for me was the next best thing.

Well, it wasn't really the next best thing, but it was as good as it was going to get.

"And when can I play again?" Uncle Gerion Lannister asked.

"When they get safely back to town, you can make a new character. Next time, you should think twice before trying to slay giant fire-breathing spiders."

We were seated around a square table in my room because it was always my room for some reason. Cersei on my left, Jaime in front, and my uncle, Gerion, on my right. On the table was a bunch of parchment and feathers as well as caped ink bottles. To put it simply, we were playing a table-top roleplaying game. Or at least what I could remember of one. I fudged through the rest of the rules or made them simpler. It had been a long time, but I had read through the Game Master's manual and the player's rulebook for a few such games that interested me. Unfortunately, Komachi didn't find it that much fun. Playing with just myself didn't work out so well, so they were probably collecting dust at the bottom of a cardboard box in my closet. That was, if my processions haven't been burned already.

Well, since the books became kind of useless to me, and it was large, thick, and had a hardcover, I had cut out a rectangle in the center of the pages and hid certain magazines in the slot.

I really hope they burned them.

"You enter a quiet and foreboding room. The stone floors are littered in red markings, a sign of a magical incantation. At the center is a shrine. Roll for knowledge check."

Jaime and Cersei each took turns rolling the dice, then adding it to the numbers on their character sheet. Since they weren't proficient at arithmetic, they took a bit more time to do it, with Cersei having to help Jaime in the end. Well, I called it a character sheet, but it was just a blank parchment with some numbers on it. Both of them couldn't read yet, unlike me, but I did teach them numbers up to twenty and how to do addition and subtraction. Well, up to twenty for Cersei; Jaime couldn't seem to comprehend the numbers when it went into the double digits. When they told me the numbers they eventually came to, I nodded.

"Ser Pound recognizes the figure on the shrine. It is the form of the nameless god. It is only then that you notice it beckoning to you, in a sort of silent call that you can't ignore."

Cersei turned to Jaime. "Don't—"

"Ser Lurin walks up to the shrine and slices the statue with his sword!"

"Jaime!"

"The moment the statue breaks, the room darkens and screaming fills the room. The screams are a combination of voices, hundreds of them. Men, women, children. All combined together in a chorus that hurts your ears. The ghastly forms of people start appearing, their bodies so translucent that you can see through them. The moment they are fully formed, they slowly shamble their way towards you."

Cersei put her head into her hands. "And it was going so well."

"It's not my fault!" Jaime pointed down at his character sheet. "Ser Lurin is a religious fanatic. He couldn't let a shrine to a fake god stand."

"Your brother has a point," Gerion said with a nod.

"Not you too, Uncle," Cersei said with a groan of dismay.

There was a knock on the door, interrupting us, before it opened to reveal a maid. She bowed her head to us.

"My lords and ladies, your mother wishes you to the dinner table."

"Oh? Has it really gotten so late?" Gerion rose from his seat. "This game of yours is much more enthralling than I'd expected."

"You're welcome to join us again anytime, Uncle," I said as I rose from my chair. My siblings did so as well. "A seat will always be open for you."

"I'll take you up on that," he said cheerfully. "But we shouldn't keep your Lord father and mother waiting, should we?"

~o~

My mother, Joanna Lannister, was more frequent in our lives. She had her stern side, but she was more often warm and comforting. There was something about her warm smile that reminded me of Yuigahama. In comparison, Tywin Lannister wasn't the most fatherly of men, and he was often busy with the duties of lordship. He usually didn't have much time to spend with his children.

Though in my case, that wasn't quite true considering that I tended to accompany him more often on his duties, but I couldn't imagine it being the same for Jaime and Cersei. Were they jealous of me? I should be jealous of them! Joanna and Tywin were much more lenient to them. If they wanted the attention, they could have it. I would pass it to them if I could. The fact that it would free me from his lessons was just a…side benefit. No, really!

Still, by the time I noticed, my mother's belly had become far more swollen than before. Had it already been a couple of months?

Time. Time passes strangely in the Lannister castle.

Days, weeks, months. It all tended to blend together, especially when I was doing the same things everyday like it was routine. The same Maester teaching, the same sword instructor demonstrating. Only the contents changed; everything else stayed the same.

Until the day it wasn't.

Why do I say that? It is because I found something of great significance, enough that it completely changes everything.

Magic… It exists!

In a little corner of the castle's library, I found a book. Well, a tome, really. It took a little to disperse the cloud of dust that came after I blew it off the cover. The cover itself was rather mundane, with only a golden outline of a triangle on the front. However, the inside was far from ordinary. No matter how I looked at it, it was clearly a magic book.

My medieval fantasy is finally here! No more historical medieval bore simulator for me anymore!

…is what I would like to say, but I came upon a tiny little problem.

It wasn't an instructional book.

Let me clarify further. It was basically a spellbook.

It was written in the language of Westeros, but it was obviously a translation. In my previous life, there had always been those English to Japanese translations, some of which were really good, but then there were also amateur translators who had a bare grasp of either language or used machine translations which were basically using a program to translate for you. This was more like the latter.

I didn't know how much of it was simply obscure terminology or just bad translation, but it probably wasn't a good idea to try any of these. An eye of newt could easily be translated as something like an eyebrow of newt. It was likely that any spell I try would fail, and I didn't know if there would be a backlash. However, when I turned to the very end of the book, I saw what I was looking for.

Written by an author in Asshai and translated by a traveler from Westeros.

I had read a little about the land before, but just barely. It was far on the other side of the map, being in the south-east of the continent of Essos. With what I had, I quickly scoured the library for more information, but there was almost none. Bare mentions about a land of shadow and gloom, buildings of black stone, and people who were perpetually shrouded in masks and veils. Basically, they liked black.

I needed more books in the language of the Asshai'I and a language teacher if I could find one. If I was going to learn magic, I needed to do it right. I would need a ship commissioned to go to Asshai and bring back books, but a round-trip like that would probably take months with this level of technology. Having men scour Westeros for the books had a lower chance of finding something, but it was better than nothing.

The problem was that there was no way I could hide this from Tywin. That meant I had to go through him for this request, and that was a bit difficult. To put it in perspective, most of Westeros were of the Faith of the Seven. It was similar in style to one particular religion from my old world so I had a good idea what it was about even though I only knew scattered tidbits about the details. To say they had a healthy suspicion about magic was the understatement of the year. They were outright fanatical in their disapproval. The old man wasn't much of a believer, but I wouldn't put it past him to be extremely suspicious of it.

So I had to be cautious and plan out my words carefully in order to manipulate him into doing what I wanted.

"Father, can you get me books on magic?"

Unfortunately, I didn't know how to do that, seeing as how I never that much practice in socializing in the first place.

Across his office desk, Tywin Lannister merely raised an eyebrow as he continued to look down at his desk. His writing feather never stopped moving across the parchment, scratching ink onto the paper.

"Tell me why I should indulge this heretical fancy of yours?"

"It's not heretical if you never believed in the religion."

His feather stopped.

"Never say those words beyond these walls," Tywin said, raising his eyes to meet mine for the first time in this conversation.

"Which means I can say it here then," I said, feeling a little relieved with how the conversation was going. However, the hard part was coming. "With the stories of dragons and children of the forests, there is a possibility that it's real."

"I do not deny that magic is real. The Targaryens were proof of that, if nothing else."

"But you are wondering why I want those books. Why I feel that it is necessary even with the risk of it being exposed to the public," I said. "That's because information is power, and the only way to defend against magic is to know magic."

Tywin gave me a stony look, but he still nodded once for me to continue so I did.

"If my uncle dies because of a heart attack, I will want to know if that was an actual heart attack or if it was the work of a death note—I mean sorcery," I quickly corrected. "If you don't know about poisons, how can you cure it? And what is a cure? It is sometimes just another poison being used to fight the original poison. I can't fight against a swordsman if I don't understand the sword arts. Even then, there are many different disciplines in swordsmanship that I might not be able to anyways, but at least, I would have a chance."

"Magic has been disappearing since the last dragon died. What magic is left are just the dubious prophecies of wood witches and the potions of the alchemists," Tywin said plainly.

"There's more to it than that. We need to be ready."

"You speak as if you already know this will be a problem in a future."

"I like to prepare for the worst case scenario." I moved up to the desk. "My fate is my own. I don't want my life to be controlled by the will of some wood witch hiding in a forest. If my destiny is to fall, then I'll fight that fate with everything I have."

Tywin looked stunned with his eyes a fraction wider. Honestly, I would be too if I heard something like that from my six year old son. Six years old. That was like first graders, learning how to add and subtract with blocks. He was silent for a few moments before he put down his inked feather.

"Your idea has merit, flawed as it is," Tywin finally said. "I will make arrangements—"

"Asshai," I said, interrupting him. Seeing his gaze become a degree colder, I quickly followed up on it. "The city of Asshai is a big source of these magic books. Send a ship there to find and bring back as many books as they can. Well, books that follow a certain criteria. I can make a list later."

"Reasonable," Tywin said, "but costly. It would be cheaper and less time consuming to hire an expert to deal with magic for you."

"I don't mind a teacher, but would you trust a stranger with your life? I wouldn't." Seeing Tywin nod his head, I said, "I want to do this myself. In return, I'll do the finances for a month."

Tywin stared at me.

"T-two months."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Three is my final offer!"

I started sweating.

"…six months."

Tywin relented by closing his eyes, letting me give a sigh of relief.

My relief was short-lived.

"In addition, you will be joining me when any lord seeks audience with me for the next three full moons. Hopefully, your negotiation skills improves by the end of it."

Goddamn it.

~o~

Jaime and Cersei were both children full of enthusiasm and energy.

In contrast, I was the complete opposite. As Jaime raced through the hall, followed closely by his two best buddies, a couple of children from bannermen whose names elude me, I trailed after them in a lazy and sluggish walk. I liked to think of it as me being a zombie and they being frightened survivors in an apocalypse. Of course, when one of those survivors, specifically the one named Jaime, came back and dragged me by the wrist, my daydreams died a horrifyingly dull death.

Of course, the other children never protested my presence, though I did feel their nervous reluctance. Or was it caution? In any case, they tried to be friendly out of duty since I was the boy most likely to become the Lord of Casterly Rock in the future; it was most advisable for them to make a connection with me. Most advisable, indeed. It was also most advisable for me to make a connection with them, but if I did it simply because of that reasoning, then I would have listened far more to my homeroom teacher, Hiratsuka Shizuka. However, I didn't before, and I did not have plans to start now.

"If you'd just run a little, we'd be there already," Jaime said.

"If I run, I might trip, fall, and break my neck," I said.

"But you won't."

"I won't," I agreed. "Does that mean I've to run now?"

"If I said yes, would you run?"

"No."

"Then what's the point of asking?" Jaime looked exasperatedly at me.

I didn't answer him as I allowed him to drag me through the hall. The two other children were waiting for us up ahead; one with impatience and the other with nervousness. Only when we passed them did they fall in behind us, at a more sedated pace.

I opened my mouth to say something to them—anything really. I was supposed to get them on my side because they were my future bannermen. To do that, I needed to make small talk and use my charisma to sway them. Not that I knew anything about how to do that. Well, the words were easy enough to think of, but if I had to put it into practice, I would probably end up with enough traumas that I would have to scream into my pillows just to bury the memory whenever it comes up. You would think that it would be easier to do that here, with a castle being bigger than a house, but there were servants and guards everywhere. There was nothing that brought them quicker to your door than hearing you scream.

Why was I so pessimistic? If Cersei were to wink, it would be an adorable and enduring gesture. If Hayama Hayato were to wink, it would be a handsome and cool move. If I were to wink, they would think something was wrong with my eye. I would say the world was unfair, but that was just how it was.

In the end, I simply shut my mouth and continued on.

When we reached a certain room, one of them moved ahead to open the door.

Inside, in the center of the stone room, was a table nearly as long as the room itself. There were several empty chairs, but besides that, there was nothing more in the room. I turned as one of the children closed the door and locked it. I felt a chill go down my spine as I quickly moved away from them, to the other side of the room. Wasn't this…

I frowned. So in the end, it came down to this. For a moment, I wondered who put him up to it, but I supposed it didn't matter at this point. I only had myself to blame for my naivety.

"I never would've guessed it," I mumbled as I slowly moved to the side and placed a hand on the top of a nearby chair. I guessed it goes to show that you couldn't trust family either. Still, I dreaded it so I stalled for time. "Why?"

"I want father to pay attention to me, just like he does with you," Jaime said.

"I see." I slowly moved around the table, my hand moving from chair to chair. "They'll find out."

"They won't if nobody tells them."

"Do you really think that you can do all this without someone seeing something? Hearing something?" My hand gripped the chair that was at the farthest point of the table. If I yelled hard enough, someone would come, but I didn't want to instigate them just yet. I had to time it right.

The other two children sent a nervous glance at Jaime, but he returned it with a glare that shut them up. I really never thought it would end up like this.

"If you're going to do it, then do it. Otherwise, I'm going to leave." I didn't move. All I did was put my other hand on the chair and tighten my grip, preparing myself for the inevitable. I could see Jaime gritting his teeth, as if he was summoning courage. This was it.

"Please teach us about tactics and strategies!"

Huh…?

~o~

"Idiot, idiot, idiot!" Cersei was slapping down on Jaime's head and back while he was crouching down, trying to shield his head with his hands.

"Ow, ow, ow!" Jaime was crying from the pain. "I didn't know!"

I felt stupid now. I had known Jaime all my life, so I knew he wouldn't do something like what I was thinking. It was just that everything fit so suspiciously well that I couldn't help it. Well, I couldn't deny the possibility at the same time; this was the medieval times after all, and I was the heir. If I went by this way of thinking, this meant I was in the right, and Jaime deserved a little punishment.

So I told Cersei. That worked out fairly well, didn't it?

Until Cersei turned on me and slapped my shoulder.

"Ah!" I leaned away a little. I was sitting down so I couldn't exactly back away. "What was that for?"

"To suspect your brother? Don't you listen to what father says? Family is what's most important!" She began slapping my shoulder. "Trust your family!"

"Ack! Stop! I admit it! I was wrong." I scrambled out of the chair, but Cersei followed behind like a vengeful wraith.

By the end of it, Jaime and I were both sitting in chairs, rubbing our battle wounds—his head and my shoulders respectively. I had to admit I got off a little easier than Jaime. Cersei was sitting in her own seat, looking exasperatedly at us.

Lesson number one: don't make Cersei mad.

"Both of you, use your heads a little more."

Jaime and I solemnly nodded our heads. Once the moment was over, I turned to Jaime.

"I'll teach you, but not them."

"Why not? They're my friends."

"But they aren't mine," I said. "So the answer, for them, is no."

Jaime was frustrated, and it showed. Cersei, on the other hand, just gave me a knowing look. For a temperamental girl of six years, she was pretty smart for her age. I didn't count because I cheated.

"Well, I'll join as well. Somebody has to be here to make sure you two don't do something stupid."

Ah, my cute little sister. She couldn't admit to her true feelings—wait a second, was she a tsundere?! Next thing I know, she would become my childhood friend who…

Oh right, she was my twin sister so it was impossible for me. That meant that somewhere in the castle, there was a childhood harem protagonist living in the shadows. Or could it be one of those scenarios where the main character only shows up once, makes a lasting impression, and forgets about her while she pines for him in the far future?!

No, I won't allow it!

"Hachi, why are you shaking your head?" Cersei asked.

"No time for explanations," I said as I stood up from my seat. "I've to go burn some flags."

"Flag? What are you—wait, Hachi! Come back here!"

~o~

In the end, I never did find the protagonist.

However, I did find something useful. It was an empty room that nobody was using. Big enough for my purposes.

It was in here that I started building the foundation.

Foundations of what, you might ask?

Of my gaming war room.

It took a few weeks, but by the end of it, I had a massive map of the world laid out on the floor. I had thought about hiring a painter to simply paint on the floor, but the flooring wasn't smooth. So I had the painter recreate the map onto a massively large block of wood. It was technically made up of several planks, closely packed together. That was why there was sometimes a tiny line of gap in between each plank which annoyed me, but I couldn't do anything about it without having to replace the whole thing.

My victory over Tywin left a bitter taste in my mouth. It wasn't because of a honorable notion or anything like that. Most children would have reveled in it, but I wasn't a child. I had never been an adult either, but I was too old to be fooled by how easy it was. Because of the lack of real rules, it was more like a test than a game. What was the difference? In a test, he would go through with an action even though he personally knows it to be wrong, simply to see if I choose the right answer. How could I be satisfied from something like that? It was the difference of answering a question in a textbook versus a question in a game show. Basically, singleplayer versus multiplayer.

That was why I had started work on this room. I had been given a lot of leeway when I explained to Tywin what this was about, but this was still only one part of it. In order for this room to be useful, I needed to make the rules. A turn-based strategy game had to have rules that covers all aspects of it, not just combat. I wanted to include governance of the land as well. Ruling, taxes, recruitment. Maybe even have a deck of cards for random events. Possibly multiple decks that depended on certain conditions.

It was a grand idea, but I was doing it from memory so it was difficult. Balance was not much of an issue though, since the idea around balance was based around the idea to make all units, armies, and factions be viable. Of course, this did not hold much favor in this world where it was better to use realism and make it as accurate as possible. As such, I wasn't going to worry about balance when I put together the unit stats, with input from their real-life counterparts.

It was going to be difficult to put out a rulebook. An eraser was not something that existed yet, and the amount of parchment I would need was staggering. Still, I was itching to dip the feather into the ink and scratch out words onto parchment. The anticipation of my impending entertainment at the end was more than enough to excite me.

Tywin would probably want me to keep my rulebook a secret though, only privy to those of the Lannister family and trusted friends. I didn't think it was too much of a big deal, and I would have spread it around to get better and better opponents, but I supposed that if I do that, it would also increase the military prowess of our rivals. Still, even if they were to play it, I doubted they could remember all the rules and such, not to mention the updates I would have to implement to fix up the game. I had no doubts that I would have to eventually expand it too with expansions. I could probably sell a copy of the rulebook for plenty of gold dragons, even if it wasn't up to the quality of what I remembered in my past memories. I would probably have to put the rulebook in safebox to keep it safe because that kind of money would tempt many.

Well, that was useless thinking since I haven't even started writing it. It was going to be awhile, but it wasn't like I had much else to do.

~o~

A/N: A little bit slow this chapter. Setting up a few things.