Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Title: And the Nobel Prize Goes to...

...

-Arthur (VIII)-

Eddard looked around and didn't know whether to fight me or not. But by now I had the hearts of the audience set aflame, they had already lost quite some money against me. They wanted to at least see my face bashed in a little.

"C'mon Stark! Break that drunk's face!" 

"Just look at that smug look! His face is pretty much begging to be punched!"

"Go Stark! I just bet all my savings on you!"

"I did the same!!"

"Me too!"

The crowd yelled out for a fight, they wanted it. People like this, with their blood had gone to their head, we're easy to point in the direction I wanted.

Eddard felt the peer pressure and walked forward after I did some gestures for him to come. He whispered something under his breath, but I didn't pay attention to it as my eyes were on the money pile that had been bet against me.

The healer in my group held up five fingers once he saw me looking in his direction. Meaning that I would get 500 Gold Dragons if I won this fight 

*Clang!*

My shield fell on the ground as if it had slipped out of my fingers by accident. C'mon people! Can't you see how 'drunk' I am? Bet some more money.

"O -Oops sorry, it slipped out of my hand," I sheepishly apologized and went to pick up my shield.

Ned looked at this with a strange look on his face. "I don't think it would be honorable to count this as a duel Lord Arthur." 

He was easy to read. Most likely he didn't want to ruin my record of winning streaks, after all my fame would drop significantly if I lost as my whole gimmick was being unbeatable with the sword. 

Ahh~ it almost made me feel bad for using a guy like him. But sadly that's how the world worked, usually, the good people would always be used by the bad. Well, I don't make the rules on how reality works, I only abuse those rules.

"H -Hey now Ned, no need with the f -formality, call me Arthur or just Ari for short. We are friends after all aren't we?" I said to him while stuttering through my words. Acting drunk wasn't hard, I just needed to think what I would do if my reasoning was lowered and the thought process hit the gutter.

He smirked. "Yes, I guess we are friends. You can call me Ned too. Though you already seem to be doing so."

I drunkenly smirked too and gave him a thumbs up. "W -Well we better start the fight before I piss myself."

"Hahahaha…" Ned laughed, finding the situation funny. As his worries about my future seemed to disappear. 

"Begin!" Jon Arryn announced the start of the fight. 

Immediately after he said that I dropped my sword and shield on the ground before jumping into action.

I ran towards him, and Ned slashed at me horizontally. But I ducked under his swing as low as I could. While running forward, Ned's arms couldn't move back fast enough to defend himself as he was holding into his sword. Also, he had never seen a situation like this, so his body couldn't react in time as I extended my palm and pushed his chin while tangling my leg with his.

He immediately started falling as his core weight was affected by gravity. But he also used one of his hands to grab me by the shirt to pull me down with him. I fell and as I did so, my foot was already nested into his other sword-wielding hand and slammed on the ground. 

I ended up sitting on his stomach, while his hand with the sword got squished by my leg. This made him unable to react as I did a stabbing motion toward him… but then I looked at my empty hand.

"Ah, right, I dropped my weapon..." I said jokingly and waved my hand around. Though as the fight wasn't over, I looked at my hand and a look of realization drew on my face. "Oh well..."

Baam!

I punched Ned on the face, once, twice, and then he was knocked out. I felt a crunch while punching, did I break his nose?

To finish my drunken act, I got up and started dancing and doing strange dance moves for this world. Like the moonwalk while singing around. "Another one bites the dust…"

"Tu~ turu~ tun~" I even tried to make the beat of the song with my voice. But it didn't sound well at all, and I noticed the people looking at me strangely.

"Bahahaha~ look at him go! You're an amazing singer!" Yelled out one of the audience members while he laughed along.

"Hey man! I lost money to that guy! Can you stop celebrating?" But some people had lost a lot of money so they weren't in a good mood.

"Well sorry for you being a dumbass bro. Bahahaha~" some others laughed at the man's misfortune.

"Yeah, a special kind of stupidity is needed to have the brain to bet in a drunk fight."

The people who didn't have the money to bet on these fights mocked the people who did have the money and lost it. 

After I do some more stupid stuff to sell it off as I was drunk. I looked around and mentioned towards the other people around me."So do I have any other challengers?"

I rubbed my shoulder slightly and stretched, acting as though I didn't say anything the fatigue was getting to me. Playing myself as an honorable man who doesn't know what to stop fighting was the best play I could make to earn me some money.

…

I had another twelve challengers that night, each of them lost against me and my money pile only grew larger as at the end I no longer needed to fake the signs of fatigue. Yet I still defeated every single drunk man that came to fight me that night, not even once did I lose. Heh, fighting drunk people truly was easier than expected. 

Even though I wasn't a martial artist in my real life, some moves could still break even the strongest of knights. For example, one fight was settled with me grabbing my opponent's hair. Once someone does that they can guide the body of the opponent wherever they want so it was illegal in all forms of fighting sports. But there were none of those rules out here in medieval times.

The night though wasn't very profitable after Ned as already most of the people had lost their money. Still, there were quite some winnings and I decided to spread a huge sum amongst my companions to keep them loyal.

The men were overjoyed, after all, that is an astronomical amount of money for them. They could live the rest of their lives relatively easily in any village they might decide to settle on. But by now, I was sure that their loyalty to me was hard as steel and they would follow me along, after all, instead of ending up as some farmer by leaving now… they could live like Lords. 

Using their greed to my advantage wasn't hard. None of them had any experience dealing with someone like me.

…

…

…

Time passed and I had to leave the Vale. I couldn't stay here forever. My ambitions wouldn't end with just being a glorified bodyguard. Now I needed to start building my army because Magic was something amazing, it wasn't necessarily too strong. Twenty well-armed knights could tear me apart with no difficulty if it came down to it. So that was why getting a big army was needed.

In this place, I had a lot of fun with a lot of young girls. Also, fu*king some Noble girls who were fostered here in the Vale. Probably some bastards will start running around now, but none of that mattered.

Every lord had their bastard children when they were young. But of course, when they got older, they acted like the kids didn't exist. I haven't decided what to do with mine yet. Maybe I will take them under my wings? Or maybe not? That's debatable, but I knew for sure I won't be like Ned and create drama in the family because of his 'bastard'.

The women of this world were also easy to trick, I just had to act as their knight in shining armor and use some cliche lines from some books. After that, they just pretty much threw themselves at me to take their maiden hand (virginity) before they got married to some old man who probably won't even be able to get it up. 

In the end, I had to do my duty as a knight to always help maidens in their time of need. My delving into Blood Magic also became heavier as I started delving deep into the Prophetic side and started reading people's fates after they got drunk. Apparently one of my guards would die before me, so keeping him to my side would be a good idea.

Though something creepy kept happening every time I used divination, usually I forgot the visions that I saw and they could be highly inaccurate or a metaphor. But something stood out when I decided to write my memories before forgetting them, this was my little loophole for the Magic. Yet… all the writings had something written in them on top of that person's fate. Like someone was sending me a warning through a prophecy? 

'Beware of who the true players of the game are.'

..

These thoughts all ran through my mind and I saw the giant statue of Bravos in the distance. The ship rocketed due to the wave and the small slip of paper that I had read hundreds of times slipped out of my fingers and landed into the water.

It felt like the future me was sending me a warning. And even though the Giant of Essos stood before me, one of the biggest statues in this world. My eyes tracked into the paper that fell in the water. 

The limit of Blood Magic was that one could only read a person's fate three times in their life, and if the Magic User revealed too much their blood vessels would erupt. So I always had to write in riddles, even to myself.

It was a shame a Blood Mage can't read his own fate, but this warning had put me on edge. Still though, I knew that worrying about such things was useless, as Prophecies aren't necessarily unbreakable. So my decisions will be my own in the end. But taking that into account, Bravos should be a good place to start. My Tourney fighting days are now over, time to start playing for real.

'East shall be your ghost's fortune'

That was another fate that one of the guards got. The Ghost here was obviously me as I was the one possessing a body. But if this fate reading led me in an illogical poath, I will immediately abandon it. 

I shook my head to get rid of such thoughts and looked at the city in front of me. Bravos, a city of trade. It is a place of trade where I could use my talents and modern trading knowledge to its fullest potential.

…

A/N: Prophecies aren't something people should mess with. Arthur knows that one mistake and his blood vessels would all rupture at once, essentially killing him. But he is using his previous life knowledge to give himself hints, like tricking the magic by using the word ghost, which he would immediately know would refer to him.

P.S: He can only contract one animal to make a Blood Pact, like he did with the eagle. So he won't be making those anymore. Arthur won't try experimenting with Magic in this case either as he could end up as a horrible monstrosity or die. Magic can help the user, but it can also kill him. Also while magic is a boon, it isn't Arthur's best strength or advantage he has in this world.