Game of Thrones: A Sellsword's Crown

001 - Transmigration and the System

The instant Ronan Harrow opened his eyes, his hand clenched around a weapon that was no longer there. His palm closed on empty air. That empty grip jolted him fully awake.

In all his years as a mercenary, he had never been caught this badly off guard. His weapon was gone, and he had failed to realize his squad was missing until it was already too late.

For a mercenary who lived one bad second away from death, that kind of lapse could get him killed.

While Ronan was still trying to make sense of what had happened, the clash of two armed groups drew his attention.

They were fighting not far away. Both sides looked crude, almost primitive. When Ronan looked down at himself, the strangeness deepened. His camouflage was gone.

In its place hung a rough set of dark brown linen clothes that looked as if they belonged to another century. Several centuries, perhaps.

He studied the men, then himself, and felt the shape of the truth settle in.

'I've been thrown into another world.'

Not just in spirit, either. He had arrived here in the flesh, in a world that looked as if it belonged to the Middle Ages.

The weapons fit the setting well enough: arming swords and spears, curved blades and bows. This was an age of blades and spearheads.

Their fighting, however, was painfully stiff. The two sides tore at each other like maddened beasts, all force and almost no skill. It was a grinding brawl.

From Ronan's perspective, the commander on the mounted side was an idiot. He had cavalry and still let them get tangled up with infantry. He had taken a winning hand and thrown it away.

Ronan had no words for it. Annoyance was one thing. Survival was another. As a mercenary, he adapted quickly. He snatched an abandoned arming sword from the ground and claimed it as his only weapon.

His first priority was getting off this battlefield alive. On an open plain, slipping away unnoticed was never going to be easy. His movement drew attention almost at once.

An enemy charged without a word and slashed at him.

Ronan was not some helpless bystander. He caught the strike with his blade, kicked the man off his feet, and drove the sword through his chest before he could rise.

For someone used to firearms, the heavy sword felt clumsy in his hand. Still, it worked.

These men barely had armor worthy of the name. Even a roughly forged sword could punch through flesh and bone without much trouble.

Ronan would have preferred the quick, familiar weight of his combat knife. It was the one thing he trusted more than most men, and it had not made the trip with him.

He studied the battlefield while backing toward the side that gave him the best chance to live.

Soon he realized the mounted force had mistaken him for one of their own. Most likely, because the men he had killed belonged to the other side.

The problem was that the mounted side was losing badly.

Their cavalry had given up its mobility and let the infantry drag it into close quarters. Once bogged down, riders with curved blades could not deal effectively with spearmen and shielded footmen dragging them into the press.

Reach mattered. It always had. If the cavalry could not break free from the infantry pinning them down, defeat was only a matter of time.

Ronan saw the problem, but seeing it did not mean he could fix it.

Beyond the knot of men around him, the plain boiled with bodies: lines breaking, banners dipping, riderless horses screaming through the dust. This was a battle of thousands. One man's skill could only do so much inside that storm.

Just as he was preparing to withdraw, the system came online.

It explained the impossible: he had fallen into the world he knew from A Song of Ice and Fire, not in Westeros, but somewhere in the Disputed Lands of Essos.

Then it brought an unexpected surprise.

'Divergence Points? Special units? Interesting.'

The way to earn those points, however, was far less generous than he would have liked.

By the time he found a gap in the press, four more men were down and his borrowed blade was wet to the hilt. He had counted. At least five men had fallen to his sword.

For all of that, he had earned only one Divergence Point. That came out to a miserable 0.2 points per kill.

[System]

Significant Divergence Points are awarded only when your actions change the fate of major figures in this world.

So the men he had killed were nobodies. Their deaths meant nothing to the wider story, beyond a few nameless men dying earlier than they should have.

If Ronan wanted to unlock reinforcements, he would have to put in real work.

He knew enough to understand the problem. The major players of this world were far beyond his current reach. Changing their fates would be difficult. Getting near them might be difficult enough.

'At least I have the skills to stay alive.'

He opened his status panel.

[System]

Name: Ronan Harrow

Class: Sellsword

Weapon: Arming Sword

Talent: Conquest (An unpredictable talent with a chance to inspire absolute loyalty and infatuation in the target.)

Skills: Advanced Combat, Survival Mastery, Firearms Mastery, Marksmanship, Expert Driving

Summoned Units: None

Divergence Points: 1

'Well, that talent is interesting. I just hope it isn't as questionable as it sounds.'

[System]

Current world conditions: blades, mail, and horses. Firearms Mastery has been converted into Master of the Forge, granting mastery over steel tempering and an instinctive feel for heat, fuel, and quenching.

Marksmanship and Expert Driving have merged and converted into Mounted Archery.

The system's adjustment suited Ronan's needs perfectly.

The theory was simple. Doing it at speed, from a terrified horse, should have taken years. The system skipped those years and gave Ronan enough of an edge to influence the battlefield.

Before long, he had seized what he needed from the chaos: a riderless horse, a spear, and a bow.

With the core tools of a mounted archer in hand, Ronan went on the attack.

He cut down the enemies trying to close around him, then used arrow fire to help the allied riders shake loose from the men clinging to them.

He shot as he retreated, squeezing every advantage from the cavalry's mobility. The riders who broke free soon fell in behind him. Unfortunately, they were almost useless with bows from horseback.

All they could do was hurl spears into the enemy. It was not much, but it was better than nothing.

At least the battlefield was littered with abandoned spears. Against dense infantry, cavalry throwing spears from a safe distance could cut men down without closing in.

Compared with the rest, Ronan quickly became the most dangerous man on the field. He also became the one man the enemy leader wanted dead.

The bearded commander, a heavy axe gripped in both hands, charged toward him heedless of the distance.

The horse's shrill neigh and the commander's furious roar rattled the men around them. Facing an enemy determined to kill him, Ronan drew his bow with almost lazy calm.

The commander ignored the threat and trusted his iron armor to stop the arrow. Ronan aimed lower, where the plates failed to meet.

The arrow slipped through the gap beneath the collar of his armor and buried itself in flesh.

The bearded commander froze for a heartbeat. By then, he had already committed to the charge.

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