Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 174: Frost Beneath Black Stars
“I was joking! I truly was joking!”
Sitting beside the campfire, Lannor looked at Eddard with complete sincerity, as if he were pouring his heart out.
Eddard sat across from him while Jory re-bandaged the wound on his arm.
When the camp first saw the duke’s scouting party return bloodied, missing men, and reeking of battle, everyone instantly reached for weapons as though enemies were already upon them.
Only after Eddard briefly explained what happened did the tension loosen.
“I know you didn’t mean it that way, Lannor. But a promise...” Eddard’s face twisted with conflict.
To a knight as rigid as he was, he had sworn in the name of Stark itself, in the name of his house.
Breaking that kind of vow would wound him deeper than a sword.
But at the same time...
Would that not amount to selling off his daughter?
“Eddard, forget the agreement.”
Lannor spread his hands earnestly before his chest, as though calming an argument.
“Truthfully, I’m a wanderer with no fixed home. I like roaming and chasing danger. If Arya ends up handed over to me because of some oath, then you’ll likely never see her again for the rest of your lives. And frankly, I don’t particularly want to travel with a little rascal either. So let’s leave it here, as a joke.”
Arya sat beside Lannor with a surprisingly calm expression.
She already knew he would eventually return to his own world. Back in the Otherworld, she herself had chosen to come home.
So even though she loved adventuring beside him, she could still accept his refusal rationally.
Still, when Lannor called her a “little rascal,” the girl quietly planted her boot atop the tip of his and ground down twice.
“If you still feel your family honor would suffer,” Lannor continued solemnly, “then let me, as the other party to the agreement, formally declare this: I relinquish all claim to Miss Arya. The payment shall instead be converted into silver equal to her weight.”
“That acceptable?”
Eddard looked at his youngest daughter, then at Lannor’s utterly sincere expression. Finally, he pressed his lips together and nodded.
He valued honor deeply.
But he was also a father who loved his child.
If things could end this way, then so much the better.
After Gregor Clegane’s corpse was left lying openly upon the Kingsroad, the journey north truly became easier, just as Eddard predicted.
Apparently Tywin Lannister had already learned that among the men escorting the Lord of Winterfell rode a sorcerer capable of overwhelming the Mountain and burning him alive inside his armor.
Whether Tywin believed the stories or not hardly mattered.
From that night onward, no interception force dared launch another direct assault against them.
Only scattered sabotage remained, ruined sections of road, damaged bridges, scattered obstructions laid across the Kingsroad to slow their progress.
But the infiltrators simply lacked the manpower to inflict any truly meaningful damage on such a massive road.
During the following days of forced marching, Arya rode double with the cavalryman who had lost half a hand. The little girl held the reins while Nymeria ran behind the horses.
Eddard found it strange that his daughter had somehow learned to ride.
He certainly had never taught her in Winterfell, and there had been even less opportunity in King’s Landing.
Arya’s answer was immediate.
“I learned ages ago. It’s not hard. Horses are easy to understand if you pay attention to their feelings. I’ve even ridden ... ridden a warhorse bigger than this one!”
Lannor knew she meant Pope.
Yet the fact that Arya had managed to ride Pope after only a handful of days, even grasping the basics of horsemanship so quickly, genuinely surprised him. Her talent for training, or perhaps communicating with animals, was remarkable.
Once they left the edges of the Crownlands behind, Eddard and the guards visibly relaxed further.