This body was his now, and as far as Baelon could tell, it was in excellent health.
His cries were weak, and after only a couple of wails he was already dizzy from lack of air, but he certainly did not feel as though he were about to die or unlikely to survive until tomorrow.
That was wonderful news.
It meant that his birth had directly changed the fate of the heir prince who was supposed to die after only a single day in the original story, altering both the Dance of the Dragons and the future of Westeros.
If that was the case, perhaps his arrival had changed the fate of the original host’s mother as well.
Baelon forced his eyelids open and turned his head toward the birthing bed.
He was not particularly excited about experiencing a mother’s embrace for the first time.
He mostly wanted to see the familiar scene from television play out.
This should be the classic part, shouldn’t it?
The exhausted mother would smile weakly and say, “Let me see the baby,” before lovingly taking him into her arms.
He remembered dragging a little stool in front of the television as a child and watching scenes just like that.
He opened his eyes as wide as he could, only to see blurry patches of black and white.
Everything before him was a shapeless blur.
He could not make out anything clearly.
But…
the bed was awfully quiet.
Had she fainted from exhaustion?
That seemed likely.
Childbirth was a dreadful ordeal, after all, especially with the medical care available in a place like this.
Baelon tilted his head and stared unblinkingly toward the birthing bed.
Strangely, the haze clouding his vision began to clear little by little.
The world gradually came into focus.
First came the colors.
Soft green, vivid red, silver, brilliant purple.
Bright, vibrant colors bursting with life, like midsummer.
A few seconds later, his mind began piecing the image together.
The gauze curtains were as green as the clearest lake water, soft and translucent, stirring in the breeze like a gently flowing stream or willow branches in spring.
Through the curtains, Baelon could see the bright red birthing bed.
Blood spread across the white sheets like burning fire.
He saw silver hair as pale as moonlight and amethyst eyes staring straight at him, wide open and utterly lifeless.
Did people keep their eyes open after fainting?
No.
Anyone who saw the woman on that bed would understand at once.
She was dead.
The first sight Baelon Targaryen beheld upon entering this world was a corpse lying stiff upon a blood-soaked bed.
Her belly had been cut open, her insides spilling out.
This was the mother who had carried him.
The warm stench of blood struck him full in the face.
Baelon’s stomach cramped, and his throat convulsed with an uncontrollable retch.
He clamped his mouth shut, swallowed hard, and continued staring at the bed.
The face he saw was neither loving nor gentle.
It was twisted by terror, agony, and suffering, pitiful beyond words.
Viserys noticed that the child in his arms had gone completely still and cried out in alarm, “Mellos, quickly! Look at the child!”
Several people in the birthing chamber immediately crowded around.
Concerned faces blocked Baelon’s view, cutting the blood-soaked bed into fragments before hiding it entirely.
But the smell of blood seeped everywhere.
It drifted through every gap in the crowd and slipped into his nostrils.
Baelon closed his eyes.
A cheerful yet strangely eerie mechanical jingle suddenly sounded inside his head.
[Ding-ding-ding! Congratulations, congratulations!]
?
His cheat?
But congratulations?
For what?
[Congratulations to the Host on a successful reincarnation!]
[Matching the most suitable cheat for you. Please wait!]
An inexplicable anger suddenly welled up inside him with nowhere to go.
What made it almost laughable was that even Baelon did not know what right he had to be angry.
This was probably what they called shedding crocodile tears, Baelon thought bitterly.
His stomach clenched again, and this time he could no longer suppress the retching.
Yet there was nothing in a newborn’s stomach to bring up, so all he accomplished was sending another wave of panic through the birthing chamber.
Baelon himself was not worried.
It was perfectly normal.
A classic scene from novels.
The protagonist always threw up after seeing someone die for the first time.
Meanwhile, at the tournament grounds, knights from every region and House fought fiercely, spilling blood as they competed for glory.
Cheers thundered across King’s Landing.
Queen Aemma Arryn died amid those cheers.
Baelon Targaryen was born amid those cheers.
…
The birth of the realm’s heir and the death of the Queen were both matters of state that had to be announced throughout the Seven Kingdoms.
One attendant after another carried the king’s orders to the lords of the Seven Kingdoms who were still watching the tournament.
As the news spread, smiles vanished from their faces and were replaced by solemn expressions.
One by one, the lords quietly rose from their seats and followed the attendants away from the stands.
Rhaenyra looked around, her heart beginning to beat faster despite herself.
The steadily emptying stands filled her with unease.
Not even her uncle Daemon Targaryen, still fighting valiantly in the arena below, could hold her attention anymore.
She wondered how her mother’s labor was going…
But Rhaenyra soon learned the answer.
Or rather, once hundreds of black ravens took to the bright, clear sky, even the most distant lords of the Seven Kingdoms knew.
After giving birth to her son, Prince Baelon, Queen Aemma left those she loved forever, her soul departing for the Stranger’s realm.
Rhaenyra could not remember how she had taken off the red silk gown she had chosen especially to welcome her little brother into the world and changed into a solemn black robe.
She pleaded again and again until her father finally allowed her to see her mother one last time.
That could only happen, of course, after the Silent Sisters had sewn Queen Aemma’s nearly bisected body back together with needle and thread and made certain that the Queen’s remains looked at least somewhat presentable.
A shroud was wrapped tightly around the Queen’s stitched body.
Though the Queen’s soul had gone to the Stranger, the body she left behind still had to be burned in Dragonfire according to House Targaryen custom.
For a time, the entire Red Keep was consumed by grief and activity.
The household had to host the lords who had come from across the realm, prepare the Queen’s funeral, and care for the newborn Prince.
…
When Baelon woke again, he was so dazed that for a moment he had no idea where or when he was.
This tiny body really was rather fragile.
How had he managed to fall asleep in the middle of retching?
He had not even gotten the chance to examine the most important thing any Transmigrator could possess, his cheat.
While his mind was still clear, Baelon gathered his concentration and focused on the System.
[Host: Baelon Targaryen
(Average adult value: 5)
Strength: 0.15
Agility: 0.2
Constitution: 1.23 (+1)
(The Host will not contract any of the 241 diseases sown upon the mortal realm by the gods, including smallpox, blood plague, erythema, epilepsy, and others.)
Charm: 6 (+5)
Hair as bright as silver foil and purple eyes.
Congratulations, Host!
You have randomly obtained the rare-tier skin, “Champion-Class Targaryen”!
Charm +1
Detected that the Host has automatically acquired and equipped the top-tier title, “Heir Prince of Targaryen”!
Charm +5]
[The most suitable cheat has automatically been matched to the Host, the Pet Battle and Training System!]
Aside from Charm, those stats were painfully low…
The high Charm score made sense, though.
The Targaryens had the Valyria Bloodline flowing through their veins and possessed Dragonbond.
On top of that, his status was that of a Prince destined to rule the Seven Kingdoms.
The title “Heir Prince of Targaryen” alone meant that the moment this infant learned to speak, he would possess the authority to command countless adults.
Still, Baelon frowned.
What exactly did it mean by diseases “sown upon the mortal realm by the gods”?
Did the gods truly possess enough power to control disease itself?
Wait.
The gods of this world held power over life and death.
They could even resurrect the dead!
After pondering it for a while, Baelon shook his head and pushed those thoughts aside.
Whether the gods were real or not was hardly something he could worry about at this stage.
For now, focusing on his golden finger was far more practical.
A new icon had appeared beneath the semi-transparent System panel.
He opened it and read the description.
The System could provide a trial space that both he and his pet could enter.
It contained one hundred levels, each inhabited by different monsters.
He had three challenge attempts each day.
Whenever the Host and pet cleared a level, they would receive gold coins and loot dropped by the monsters.
More importantly, his pet could gain buffs.
[Current Available Level: Death Forest, Level 1
Monster: White Wolf
Attempts Remaining: 3
Host’s special Bloodline detected.
Pet type locked as Dragon.
Buff Pool Locked!
Available Buffs, choose one of three:
Field of Fire · Blue Lv.
1: Dragonfire Temperature +2%
Colossal Lv.
1: Size +3%
Sharp as a Blade Lv.
1: Damage from Claws +5%]
Percentage-based buffs!
And all three choices on the very first level were excellent.
As expected of a cheat specially matched to him.
The Targaryens could tame dragons.
Fully grown dragons could reach a hundred meters in length, while their Dragonfire could melt steel.
Dragons were already the equivalent of nuclear weapons.
If one of them could keep stacking System buffs on top of that, wouldn’t it become practically invincible?
And this was only the first level.
If the buffs were already this powerful now, then what would happen after clearing all one hundred levels?
Baelon suddenly found himself too excited to sleep.
His future was so dazzlingly bright that he could practically see the ending already.
This was a textbook Dragon Overlord start.
He clenched his tiny fists in excitement.
Then, without warning, the blood-soaked bed and those lifeless purple eyes flashed through his mind.
Baelon’s excitement abruptly faded.
He paused, then reassured himself that this was only a normal psychological reaction.
In his previous life, while killing time online, Baelon had once stumbled across an article claiming that after seeing a dead body for the first time, a person should stay awake for twelve hours to lessen the risk of psychological trauma.
But this tiny body simply refused to cooperate.
After retching twice beyond his control, Baelon closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep.
He silently pulled the fist he had unconsciously stuffed into his mouth back out and let his thoughts wander.
The obstetric forceps he had once read about online, along with the vacuum extractor he had seen in films, ought to come in handy during a difficult birth.
Perhaps it was because he had transmigrated, but his memory had become exceptionally sharp.
Even things he had long since forgotten after learning them in school, along with random short videos he had only watched in passing, were now perfectly clear in his mind.
The problem was that while he knew roughly what forceps looked like, he knew nothing about their pressure points, curvature, structure, or the exact way they were supposed to be used.
He would have to gather a group of Maesters and experiment.
By testing them on cows and sheep suffering difficult births, they should gradually be able to refine a workable pair of forceps.
Oh, right.
Midwife training would also have to be put on the agenda.
If untrained midwives used forceps carelessly, they might do more harm than good to both mother and child.
Still, while forceps would take time to develop, puerperal fever was something he could deal with once he grew a little older.
Who would have thought that a disease which had killed countless women in childbirth could be prevented simply through proper sterilization?
Once they learned how to distill alcohol, not only would more mothers survive childbirth, but more wounded knights would live through their injuries on the battlefield as well.
Now only one problem remained.
How was he supposed to explain a child possessing so much unknown knowledge?
To many people across the Seven Kingdoms, the Targaryens were practically synonymous with Sorcerers, and no one dared openly defy a Targaryen mounted on a dragon.
Then Baelon had a sudden inspiration.
Ah!
A Dreamer!
As the Prince from Viserys’s prophetic dream, wouldn’t it be perfectly reasonable for his own prophetic dreams to be a little unusual?
Tap, tap…
Soft footsteps approached.
With a creak, the wooden door opened a crack, and a gust of wind slipped through.
The cool air brushed over Baelon, and he turned toward the sound.
The newcomer was a girl of eight or nine.
Silver hair, violet eyes, a black robe embroidered with a red dragon, and a black cloth bundle held in her arms.
She had to be his elder sister in this life, Rhaenyra Targaryen.
Rhaenyra walked over to the cradle and crouched beside it.
Her red-rimmed eyes quietly studied him as two similar pairs of violet eyes met.
Time passed in silence.
Only the sea wind howling through the cracks between the stones broke the stillness.
Baelon gradually began to feel uneasy.
In the middle of the night, the two of them alone in a bedroom, with her staring at him without saying a word…
Wasn’t this a little frightening?
Images of royal siblings slaughtering one another throughout the dynasties of his previous world’s history began flashing through his mind.
The more he thought about it, the worse it seemed.
To Rhaenyra, was a younger brother whose birth had led to their mother’s death more a brother or an enemy?
Worse still, the moment this brother was born, he had taken away her place as heir.
And Baelon, future Dragon Overlord that he might be, was currently a helpless infant who could not even control his own bladder.
A cat could probably kill him.
In the next instant, Baelon curled his lips into an innocent, toothless smile.
He gently grasped the finger Rhaenyra had rested against the side of the cradle, trying to awaken some sibling affection.
Big sister!
I’m your silly, adorable little brother!
Rhaenyra came back to herself and slowly opened the cloth bundle.
Baelon’s eyes widened.
He was ready at any moment to start screaming at the top of his lungs and bring someone running.
What kind of royal family was this anyway?
There wasn’t even a maid in the infant Prince’s bedchamber!
Rhaenyra drew a large dragon egg from the bundle.
Its tiny scales shimmered with brilliant golden light beneath the candles.
It was, without question, the most beautiful jewel Baelon had ever seen in either of his lives.
Its radiance was dazzling.
Rhaenyra placed the dragon egg inside Baelon’s cradle, then gently lifted his hand and set it against the shell.
“This is the dragon egg I chose for you, Baelon.”
“One day, a great dragon will hatch from it and protect you.”
“I’ll protect you too, my little brother.” Rhaenyra stroked Baelon’s head and whispered, “I swear it.”
Warmth and hardness spread through his palm from the dragon egg.
Baelon froze for a moment.
So he had only been frightening himself.
He had judged Rhaenyra’s intentions with the suspicious mind of a foolish little infant.
He sighed inwardly and curled his fingers around hers in return.
The education and culture of his previous life had influenced him so deeply that, for a moment, he had forgotten that Kinslaying was a grave sin in this world.
There were relatively few cases of family members slaughtering one another simply to seize a throne.
Quite unlike the royal families of his old world’s history.
What, you wanted to inherit the throne without first sacrificing a brother or nephew?
His soft fingers tightened around Rhaenyra’s little finger.
She could hold herself together no longer.
Quiet sobs escaped her, and tears streamed down her face.
Baelon had no idea how to comfort a child who had just lost her mother.
All he could do was look at her quietly and keep his tiny fist wrapped around Rhaenyra’s finger.
The candle flame crackled.
Muffled voices sounded from beyond the doorway, breaking the silence.
Rhaenyra hurriedly wiped away her tears, composed her face into a stern expression, and fixed a sharp gaze on the door.
The instant the two maids appeared in the doorway, she seized the initiative and snapped, “Where have you been?!”
One maid carried silk swaddling clothes in her arms.
The other held a hanging cradle.
Both froze where they stood, their faces paling slightly.
The younger maid stammered, “Princess, we went to fetch the hanging cradle and swaddling clothes needed for the night.”
At night, they were supposed to move the Prince into a suspended cradle and hang it above the floor to keep rats, cats, and other animals from climbing in and biting him.
“And you left Baelon here alone?!” Rhaenyra demanded.
The older maid hurriedly lowered her head.
“It was our oversight…”
“We’ve watched the Prince all day without taking our eyes off him. We haven’t been shirking our duties!” the younger maid protested unwillingly.
“We only stepped away for a moment to fetch the things we needed. Just a moment…”
Rhaenyra’s face remained cold.
“What are your duties?!”
The older maid, whose brown hair was threaded with gray, answered, “To care for Prince Baelon. From the moment of his birth, his cradle is never to leave our sight.”
“It was our mistake. Please forgive us this once.”
Her expression was earnest.
“You know this, Princess. Everyone in the castle knows it. Whether I was caring for you before or attending to my other duties, I have never made such a mistake.”
Before Rhaenyra could reply, the younger maid hurriedly defended herself again.
“But Princess, ever since the Queen passed away, everything in the Red Keep has been in chaos.”
“During the day, whenever we went to fetch the umbilical protector, the soft hood, the little feather cushion, or anything else, one of us always stayed behind to watch the Prince.”
“But once night came, the Prince needed fresh swaddling clothes and had to sleep in the hanging cradle, so we…”
Rhaenyra’s anger flared.
“Enough!”
“Ser!”
At her call, a tall knight in white armor and a white cloak stepped through the doorway, almost filling it entirely.
The maids immediately fell silent.
Rhaenyra raised her voice.
“Baelon’s life concerns the fate of the realm. Whatever excuse you may have, there is no justification for leaving the Prince alone in his cradle!”
“You abandoned your post without permission. One year’s wages will be docked! See that you care for the Prince properly from now on. If it happens again, you know what the consequences will be!”
“Yes, Princess!” the two maids answered meekly with lowered heads.
Baelon frowned slightly.
He knew little about the laws of this era and even less about the details of Western history, so he could not judge whether Rhaenyra’s punishment was appropriate.
But there was one basic thing he did understand.
You did not casually punish and offend important servants such as cooks or other attendants who had direct access to you.
And if you did punish them, then at the very least you did not continue allowing them to serve you personally afterward.
She had just punished these maids, and now they were still supposed to continue caring for him at close quarters?
A newborn infant?
Was she trying to make sure something happened to him?!