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Leon and Jon Snow’s raucous feasting finally drew attention from the head table.
The little imp stood right up on the dining table to get a better look, manners forgotten, because at this point nobody cared about manners.
Every eye was fixed on Leon’s extraordinary appetite.
One busybody had done the math: in a single sitting, Leon had put away at least 3 jin of cooked meat, 2 jin of flour worth of meat pies, and a generous spread of assorted fruits and vegetables besides.
“Good lad.” The Old Bear was already roaring with laughter.
“No wonder you refused to leave — you’ve had your eye on the food this whole time.”
Leon’s country-bumpkin eating drew genuine delight out of the man, and the banquet hall grew louder and warmer for it.
Night was settling in by the time they finally pushed back from the table.
How many oak barrels of ale they’d emptied between them, nobody could say.
Leon and Jon Snow staggered back to the recruits’ wooden tower leaning on each other, both reeking of alcohol and meat.
The stench hit the barracks first.
Every recruit in the room was instantly, completely awake.
Not one of them dared make a sound.
Even the deep sleepers who’d been snoring a moment ago seemed to reach the same decision without a word: hold your breath, stay still.
The recruits who had traded blows with Leon earlier that day were especially quiet.
Not a whimper, not a groan.
Leon’s combat prowess had made an impression.
A thorough one.
The ones who’d actually fought him kept turning it over in their heads afterward, and still couldn’t figure out how they’d found the nerve to throw the first punch.
Leon didn’t spare it a thought.
He’d spent several nights in a row freezing in the sentry tower, and the moment his back hit the bedboard he had no intention of doing anything except lying there and savoring it.
The recruits’ bedboards couldn’t touch the veterans’ quarters — no goose-down, no cloth-stitched quilts — but whoever had packed the straw today had done a generous job of it.
It was soft, and full, and fine.
After a long silence, one figure peeled away from his bunk.
The fear had been eating at him.
He couldn’t sleep.
He crept to Leon’s bedside, steadied himself, and spoke in a low voice.
“Viktor…
Lord Leon.
I hope you won’t hold what happened today against us.”
No reply.
He waited, heard nothing, and began to ease away.
Then the moonlight caught Leon’s face.
Eyes closed.
Breathing steady.
Not a trace of tension anywhere in him, sleeping like a man without an enemy in the world.
The fellow reached up and touched his own cheek.
Still bruised, still swollen from the punches Leon had landed.
Something uncertain flickered behind his eyes.
His thoughts had barely begun to wander when Leon’s voice drifted out, low and drowsy, like a man talking in his sleep.
“Mm…”
The fellow shot straight up like a startled rabbit.
He scrambled back to his bunk on shaking legs, yanked the covers over his head, and lay there trembling.
Leon waited until the rustling stopped, then touched his own face.
Am I really that frightening?
he thought.
In truth, he hadn’t fallen asleep yet.
The fight, the feast, the endless back-and-forth of the evening, he’d been moving nonstop since the brawl and hadn’t had a quiet moment to check his Mount & Blade Panel.
Now that the room had settled, he exhaled softly, barely a breath.
Panel.
The attributes hadn’t shifted much.
Only one change worth noting: Level 0 had become Level 1.
One freely allocatable attribute point had appeared alongside it.
Leon considered it.
His current stats were working fine, and this wasn’t a skill specialization point, so there was no urgency.
He’d hold it in reserve for when he actually needed it.
The system, though, was more interesting.
Several new entries had materialized, and he took his time reading through them.
Active Quest: Kill Alliser Thorne.
Reward: Black and White Kiss (a Valyrian steel sword of exceptionally high quality)
Passive Quests:
One, Bloodthirst: Kill or defeat 9 people to restore a portion of stamina.
(10/100, unlimited growth potential)
Two, Enfeoffment: Unlocks upon commanding more than 10 people.
Allows promoting subordinates who have gained combat experience into elite troop types.
Current Night’s Watch branch promotion paths:
Branch 1: Night’s Watch Recruit, Night’s Watch Footman, Night’s Watch Guard, Night’s Watch Ranger, Night’s Watch Chief Ranger.
Branch 2: Night’s Watch Recruit, Night’s Watch Ranger, Night’s Watch Elite Ranger, Night’s Watch Sworn Brother, Night’s Watch Oathkeeper, Night’s Watch Defender of the Realm.
Two lines, two different destinations, two different final units.
The way Leon read it, Branch 1 leaned toward frontline strength and battlefield support.
Branch 2 was built around ranged firepower.
Setting aside how hard each tier would be to climb, Branch 2 topped out at a Tier-6 unit at minimum.
That alone made it the stronger path by a considerable margin.
If he ever got to lead troops, he’d need to find a way to push them toward the Ranger line.
Then there was the Alliser Thorne problem.
Even today, bleeding and burning through his last reserves, Leon hadn’t managed to goad the man into striking first.
Thorne hadn’t taken the bait.
The man was a cunning old fox who’d survived decades at the Wall.
If Leon simply assassinated him outright, Thorne’s standing among the Night’s Watch would make the fallout devastating.
The legion’s goodwill toward him would drop to nothing.
The more Leon turned it over, the heavier his head felt.
His thoughts grew slower, thicker.
The straw pressed warm against his back.
One by one, the problems he couldn’t yet solve drifted out of reach, until finally his mind went quiet, and sleep took him.
➤ Next: Gang Fight, or Single Combat Against One Hundred Rangers!