Game of Thrones: Bastard? I’m the Damn Heir!

Chapter 371 371: So… You Intend to Kill Me?

"I have no name, my lord. We are only given one when it is needed."

Under Kal's questioning, the squirrel-like girl shrank back, drawing in her neck.

The Child of the Forest was scarcely taller than a human child. Her large ears twitched faintly, her gaze evasive. After hesitating and moving her lips a few times, she still cautiously glanced at the hollow tree behind her and nodded.

"Yes. The greenseer is in the cave beyond. He… sent me to invite you."

Kal found it faintly amusing. He stroked his chin, his gaze shifting toward the pitch-black abyss before him.

"He sounds quite hospitable—if not for the fact that I've been led in circles, half-lost, ever since I began searching for him."

The Child of the Forest said nothing. She merely raised her torch, casting light over the snow-covered ground where the wights had already burned down into scattered piles of ash, then stepped aside to reveal the cave behind her.

"I would not advise that we simply walk in like this…" At that moment, Meera Reed—whom Kal had personally chosen to accompany the expedition beyond the Wall in search of the Three-Eyed Raven—spoke up.

She looked uneasy. Afraid. Uneasy in a way that bordered on dread.

As though the cave before them were a gaping maw ready to swallow the living whole.

Meera thought of her brother's recent gloom, and of that green dream—the prophecy of his death.

"There may be danger inside. His… purpose may very well be this."

"To draw us into the cave, and then…"

She did not finish the sentence, but her meaning was already clear.

Jojen Reed had not expected his sister to step forward at such a crucial moment to oppose the king—or rather, to oppose him—and could not help widening his eyes in shock.

The Child of the Forest remained silent, standing quietly to the side.

Kal, however, looked at Meera for a long moment before turning to meet Erevi's eyes.

Faced with his questioning gaze, Erevi simply nodded… and then shook her head, leaving the others unable to understand what she meant.

But clearly, Kal himself did.

"The danger you fear means nothing to me."

"The one who should truly be afraid is the half-living 'seer' within."

"If he can truly 'foresee' anything at all."

This was not some riddle-filled city like Gotham, and Meera had no idea what a riddler was.

Especially not when the man speaking so confidently was the king to whom all the noble houses of the North had sworn allegiance.

…

"The First Men called us 'children,'" said the Child of the Forest, walking at the front of the dim cave, holding up a torch that offered only the barest measure of visibility.

This darkness meant little to Kal and Erevi.

Meera and her brother Jojen stayed close together, following step by step behind the others.

Suddenly, she seemed to recall something. She looked around—but the golden-furred dog that had followed them all this time was nowhere to be seen.

That was a "dog" that could stand against a dragon.

Meera remembered the name whispered in private within Castle Black.

"A griffin without wings. A dragon that cannot breathe fire."

"There are tales from Nightfort of hellhounds. 'Star-Eyes' Symeon once saw them fighting there. Even the high walls of Dragonstone bear statues of them."

"They are hounds of legend—far larger and stronger than direwolves."

"But it doesn't quite look like one…"

"No one has ever truly seen a hellhound. Perhaps that name was only given out of fear. So why don't we call it the King's Hound?"

"That is, if King Kal would not take offense and have your tongue torn out."

"King Kal is known for his mercy—so long as you are not his enemy. And we are not his enemies, are we?"

"…"

"The giants call us 'wo-da-na-gan'—it means squirrel-folk…"

The voice of the small figure at the front of the cave snapped Meera out of her thoughts.

She set aside the idle chatter from Castle Black about that strange dog and refocused—partly on the Child of the Forest's words, and partly on Jojen.

For the first time, she felt that perhaps Jojen's green dreams—dreams that had never once been wrong—might unfold differently this time.

"They call us that because we are small and nimble, and because we love the forests. But we are not squirrels, nor are we children."

The Child of the Forest spoke at length, almost incessantly, about her kind.

Kal looked at her ears, and at the three fingers on her hands, and thought the name "squirrel-folk" was not entirely unfounded.

To giants, after all, their size would indeed be no different from that of squirrels.

"In the Old Tongue, our name means—'those who sing of the earth.'"

"Long before your ancient language was born, we had already sung in our own tongue for tens of thousands of years."

"But you are speaking the Common Tongue now. Did the Three-Eyed Raven teach you?" Kal asked.

The sudden question made the small figure at the front falter for a moment—then she continued walking.

"It was meant for a boy named Bran. But… the seer told us that you prevented it."

"He says you are not a seer, yet you seem to know certain things. And he… cannot see you."

"For a time, we even believed you to be an enemy."

There was no shortage of information hidden within her calm words, yet Kal merely narrowed his eyes slightly and did not respond.

Not necessarily a friend even now, he thought.

"Later, I will have a proper 'talk' with him. There are many misunderstandings between us. Once we 'talk' them through, things will be clearer."

"But right now, I am more interested in you—your kind. In fact, I believe your people should expand, continue your lineage. While I cannot promise you will rule this continent again, under my protection, you will have sufficient safety."

Perhaps sensing the tangible pressure emanating from the "giant" behind her, the squirrel-like girl's breathing seemed to falter for a brief moment.

"I was born in the age of dragons. I walked among men for two hundred years—watching, listening, learning."

"I had intended to keep wandering, but my legs grew weary, and so did my heart. So I turned back home."

Whether this was meant as an answer to Kal's offer or not, her meaning was clear enough.

A polite refusal.

A faint smile curved at the corner of Kal's lips.

"The future will be far more interesting than those two hundred years you have seen. You may yet have reason to look forward to it."

"And after resting for a hundred years, that should be enough."

"After all, dragons have returned to the world, have they not?"

"When the time comes… I will," the girl replied.

The torchlight flickered across the dark stone walls of the cave, illuminating narrow cracks and shadowed crevices.

She stopped, turning to face them.

"We must go downward from here."

"You must follow me."

"Below is warmer. He is waiting for you there as well."

"The Three-Eyed Raven?" Kal's gaze shifted slightly. "I look forward to this meeting."

"The greenseer…," she corrected weakly.

The cave grew narrower the deeper they went. The path became tight, winding, and low.

This caused the group to bump into the ceiling from time to time, loose dirt falling with each impact—onto their hair, even into their eyes.

Thick roots jutted out from the tunnel walls, some hanging with fibrous tendrils and cobwebs.

The Child of the Forest still walked at the front, torch in hand. The cloak woven from leaves rustled softly behind her. She turned her head to glance back, as though to see the others in their awkward state.

But to her misfortune, what she saw was another "Child of the Forest" who looked remarkably like herself.

The shock sent her shrinking back against the wall.

"What's wrong? Keep walking. Don't worry about us."

The "Child of the Forest" smiled—but the voice that came from her throat was that of the tall man from before.

The squirrel-girl's shock had been expected by Kal. Compared to him—who needed to alter his form—Erevi, as a dark elf witch, was even more suited to this place than the true Children of the Forest.

For Kal, she was an added layer of assurance.

The cave began to branch.

The left path was black as tar. The Child of the Forest led Kal's group into the right one.

As the torchlight flickered, the shadows twisted. The walls themselves seemed to shift.

Massive white serpents slithered in and out across the ground.

Clusters of soft, pale, slick things—whether milk snakes or corpse-worms—twisted together in writhing knots.

But as they drew closer, the white serpents turned into the roots of weirwood trees, and the slick, writhing mass proved to be nothing more than tricks of light and shadow.

Aside from Meera and Jojen, no one was afraid.

The path curved and descended further.

After passing through countless forks, they arrived at a vast cavern—nearly as large as the great hall of Winterfell.

From the ceiling hung rows of stalactites, like fangs pointing downward.

From the ground rose jagged stone pillars, thrusting upward like teeth.

Stalactites?

A karst cavern?

At the sight, Kal's eyes flickered slightly.

Yet the Child of the Forest did not stop. She continued forward.

Pale roots became omnipresent, bursting through soil and stone, twisting together, blocking many passages and forks.

And on the ground, bones began to appear.

Small ones like birds and beasts. Massive ones like giants. Even those of the Children of the Forest.

Of course, there were also human bones—wolves, bears.

They had been placed within carved stone niches, looking down upon those who passed through the tunnel.

Weirwood roots grew from within those skulls, intertwining together.

Some skulls even had ravens perched upon them, their bright black eyes fixed on Kal and the others.

More than decoration, Kal felt this place resembled a ritual ground—or perhaps it had always been one.

He cast a subtle glance at Erevi.

She gave a calm nod.

A longsword glowing with a soft, radiant light appeared out of thin air—like a white-hot lamp illuminating the entire passage.

The ravens were startled by the sudden brightness, cawing harshly as they scattered.

"It's getting darker and darker. Compared to your torch, I think this works better."

How could it not?

An energy blade born of the fusion between technology and magic—ancient technology from the background lore of a game world.

The adorable squirrel-girl thought she was looking at the sun itself. She could not even tell that what Kal held was a weapon.

"…"

The final stretch, now no longer cloaked in darkness, grew steep.

Kal and Erevi moved with the agility of mountain goats, descending the last steps in just a few bounds.

From the depths ahead came the sound of flowing water.

Alongside broken bones, loose soil, pebbles, and the stalactites they had seen before, a natural stone bridge appeared.

It spanned a chasm, beneath which an underground river flowed.

Yet before such a spectacle, neither Kal nor Erevi looked toward the abyss across the bridge.

Instead, they turned to look behind them.

A king appeared.

His skin was pale, adorned with dark wood. His expression seemed as though lost in a dream. A throne woven from weirwood roots wrapped around his withered limbs, like a mother cradling a child.

He was so gaunt, his clothes so tattered, that at a glance he might have been mistaken for a corpse.

Roots coiled both inside and outside his body, supporting and binding him in place.

This skeletal king had pale skin. Only from his neck to his cheek ran a streak of red birthmark. His white hair—fine and delicate like the surrounding roots—trailed all the way down to the earthen ground.

Among the roots wrapped around his thigh, one pierced through his trousers, bored into his shriveled flesh, then emerged again from his shoulder.

Dark red leaves sprouted across his skull. Countless gray mushrooms occupied his forehead.

A thin patch of skin clung to his face, already splitting apart, revealing yellowed and brown bone beneath in multiple places.

Looking at him, Kal could not tell whether he was still a man—or a corpse possessed and claimed by a weirwood.

"The Three-Eyed Raven?"

"Or should I call you—the Targaryen bastard, the 'Bloodraven,' former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch… or Brynden Rivers?"

The Three-Eyed Raven had no third eye.

In fact, the single eye he still possessed was red.

That blood-red eye studied Kal—and Erevi, who stood beside him with an utterly indifferent expression.

Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root extended from the empty socket, crawled down his cheek, and burrowed into his neck.

"Raven…?"

"Brynden… Rivers…"

"You truly know me. And you know me… Kal-El… or should I say, Mya Stone? One who… was meant to be a girl."

The pale king's voice was dry. His lips barely moved; if one did not look carefully, one might not even realize he was speaking.

It seemed as though he had forgotten how to form words.

But that was only how it seemed.

"Mya Stone… such a distant name. No—rather, such a distant identity."

"It seems you know quite a bit as well… more than I expected. But you are right—the 'original me' was indeed meant to be a girl…"

The conversation between the two kings left everyone else—including Erevi—utterly lost.

Yet no one dared to speak. Even breathing seemed cautious, their eyes wide with tension.

"…"

After Kal's admission, the Three-Eyed Raven fell silent, as though unsure how to proceed.

"Since your birth, whether you were a boy or a girl did not matter. The change occurred when you were twelve… I, from—"

He had not finished speaking before Kal cut him off.

The light blade hummed softly as it moved through the air.

"Don't pry into things you shouldn't."

"What you know, you know. That is enough."

"And as for before that—whether it was Kal Stone or Mya Stone—that wasn't me."

"The one standing before you… is me."

Kal's tone was calm, revealing nothing of what he intended.

The Three-Eyed Raven fell silent once more. Within that sea-like blood-red eye, something complex flickered.

This silence lasted even longer than before.

Kal, however, was patient.

He waited.

Until the Three-Eyed Raven spoke again.

"I know… that a god has descended upon this world…"

"So… do you intend… to kill me?"