Erwin’s thinking was simple enough.
The plan hadn’t changed.
Keep the dragon a secret for now, start out as an ordinary noble, and climb one rung at a time.
Get himself recognized by the lords of Westeros, King Robert included, and build up his own strength slowly while he waited for the War of the Five Kings to break out.
When it did, he’d be ready to take whatever he could get from it.
If he could find some way to earn Onyxia’s forgiveness in these next few years, so much the better.
Failing that, there was always the trick every transmigrator before him seemed to pull off.
End up her husband, and he’d still be standing near the top of this world one way or another.
For now, though, it was time to put that fine set of Seventh Legion plate and the millions of gold sitting in his pack to work, building himself an eastern lord worth talking about.
And the level on his sheet needed climbing too.
Every level brought stronger numbers and better skills, and if he kept at it, maybe he’d eventually pick up every trick a warrior could learn.
This was a world that respected strength above everything else.
Having a blade arm worth something meant he wouldn’t be standing helpless the next time his life was on the line.
So once he’d reached this inn, Erwin had set the whole show in motion.
A man playing at nobility couldn’t very well walk around with no one behind him.
Better to spend a little coin now and put a few hands at his back.
There was another reason behind it too.
According to what the third bandit had told him, King Robert planned to hold a tourney in King’s Landing in two months, to celebrate his eldest son Joffrey’s name day.
Erwin saw the opening the moment he heard it.
A chance to walk among the people who actually ran this world.
But a man didn’t just show up to a tourney with nothing to his name.
He needed enough skill with a blade to turn heads, the King’s included.
Which meant it was time to clear out that bandit gang in the kingswood.
Scared half out of his wits, the third bandit had told him everything he knew.
All three of them belonged to a gang holed up in the kingswood, the kind that made a living robbing whatever fat lambs happened to wander through.
Thirty-odd men, all told.
So Erwin’s plan was to gather a few hands, use some cunning, and wipe the gang out clean.
More experience out of it, and with luck, another two levels besides.
He’d worked all of this out on the walk back to the inn.
Hunting bandits might land him right back in danger.
But if he passed on it, he’d be passing on the only chance he had to grow stronger.
It was good practice too, if nothing else.
Better to bleed a little now than to walk into something far worse later with no notion of how to survive it.
So that night, after supper and a bit more time spent poking through what the system had to offer, Erwin lay down on the bed without bothering to strip off his armor, longsword still in hand, and let sleep take him.
Nothing disturbed him through the night.
Morning came before he knew it.
By the time Erwin woke, the sun was already well up.
He checked over his gear, and the hair he’d stuck across the door bolt the night before was still exactly where he’d left it.
Satisfied nothing had been disturbed, he let out a breath.
Downstairs, he found Willem already waiting for him, and the common room had filled up with sellswords sitting in twos and threes.
“Morning to you, m’lord!”
Willem was on his feet the moment Erwin came down the stairs, hurrying over to give his report.
The others in the room turned to look too, and in the morning light his armor caught the eye more than ever.
Most faces in the room carried the same look of hope.
Work for a lord dressed like that, and the coin was bound to be good.
Counting Willem himself, he’d pulled together twenty-one sellswords with their own arms, and eighteen farmers looking to earn some coin.
That ran a bit against what Erwin had expected.
He’d figured on fewer trained men and more farmhands.
It had come out the other way entirely.
Twenty-one sellswords was more than enough to satisfy him, though.
“The men are gathered, m’lord.
What’s the work, then?”
Erwin hadn’t told Willem or anyone else yet what all this was actually for.
Fair enough that he’d want to know.
“Simple enough.
King Robert’s holding a tourney soon, and I mean to see King’s Landing for myself.
The road there isn’t safe, though, not after what I ran into already.
That’s why I need men at my back for the journey.”
That was all this was?
The sellswords’ faces brightened at the news.
A job that easy might as well be coin found lying in the road.
A few wore a different look, Griff and his men chief among them.
To their thinking, the ride from the Wendwater to King’s Landing was short enough that hiring dozens of men to guard it, and paying good coin for the privilege, marked this lordling as nothing but a coward.
Seemed the run-in with bandits had rattled him worse than he was letting on.
Even Willem thought Erwin might be making more of this than it needed.
Did guarding one lord on a short ride really call for a company this size?
A man who didn’t know better might have taken them for a war band setting out to clear the kingswood instead.
“When do we ride, m’lord?”
“No rush yet.”
Erwin waved a hand and settled into a chair, crooking a finger at the innkeep waiting nearby.
The man came trotting over at once, all smiles.
“What would you have of me, m’lord?”
“Same as yesterday.
See that all these men of mine get a good meal and ale.
Can’t march on an empty stomach.”
“Understood, m’lord!”
At the promise of more coin, the innkeep’s whole face lit up.
“And…” Erwin paused.
“Find me a few wagons.
Load them with vegetables, pork, ale, whatever you can get.
Some of it feeds my men on the road, and whatever’s left, we sell off in King’s Landing.
Also…”
“Find me a few sturdy wooden crates as well.
I’ve a use for them.
Willem, go with him and see it’s all handled.”
Willem didn’t understand the reasoning behind any of it, but he nodded and went off with the innkeep to see to it.
The rest of the men, hearing their employer meant to feed them again, broke into grins, singing Erwin’s praises to anyone who’d listen.
Soon enough, bread, stew, and ale came out by the armful, courtesy of the innkeep’s wife, and the common room filled with noise again, men eating and drinking their fill, in high spirits all around.
Erwin sat alone at his own table, taking small sips of the mint honey tea he’d pulled from his pack earlier.
Some time later, Willem came back driving a wagon loaded with a few large wooden crates.
“M’lord, the innkeep’s still out buying up the vegetables and pork you wanted.
I brought the crates back first.”
Out in the yard, Erwin looked over the crates he’d asked for.
“Good work.”
He nodded, then pointed to the farmers squatting nearby, eating their fill, the same men he’d hired that morning.
“You lot.
Fill these crates up.
Rocks, dirt, doesn’t matter what, just fill them to the top.
The heavier, the better.”
……….