c7: First Blood and Covenant
Immediately, Ian remembered what the organizer's receptionist told him before entering the game:
"This time we've embedded the competition entirely within the game world. Players will face brutal conflict and even death from the very moment they land. Development resources will be scarce. You'll have to take extreme risks to compete for them. In fact, many of you won't even receive a single unit of aid from the auxiliary system. You may fall behind and be eliminated solely due to game mechanics."
The receptionist's warning had sounded ominous, but now Ian fully grasped its weight. The difficulty of this round's main mission was absurd! How else could it make sense that "a large number of players would be unable to gain any resources at all from the system throughout the game"?
Ian slapped his forehead, realization dawning.
"If completing missions doesn't grant points early on, then to avoid getting flagged by the assassination mechanism for being in the bottom rankings… we have to earn points by killing other players?"
The thought sent a chill down Ian's spine an instinctive reaction, much like what Jon Snow might've felt the first time he stepped beyond the Wall and realized that monsters weren't stories—they were real.
Feeling the pressure build on his shoulders, Ian wasted no time and quickly scrolled down through the game's mission log.
He recalled hearing the system alert twice just before the game began meaning the bounty missions had been activated at the very moment the game started.
[Bounty Mission 1: First Blood]
Mission Goal: Kill the first player.
Mission Reward: 3,000 gold dragons (2,500 delivered in gold bars), 3 attribute points, 3 skill points, and the right to summon 2 S-class NPCs of your choice within this area.
Note: Completion will be globally announced to all players after a delay of 24 in-game hours.
"???" Ian stared at the screen. The outrageous bounty froze his breath.
Was this what the receptionist meant by "extremely limited development resources that require players to take huge risks to obtain"?
If main mission points couldn't be earned early on, then the player who secured the "First Blood" reward would undeniably gain a powerful early lead akin to how Petyr Baelish rose through the ranks of power not by brute force, but by manipulating opportunities no one else saw coming.
In this kind of large-scale competitive simulation with 100 players, the stakes were different. Unlike single-player isekai scenarios where the protagonist could leverage modern knowledge or insights from the canon to survive and thrive here, everyone had that knowledge. Everyone was a contender. Everyone knew how the events in Westeros played out until someone changed them.
In a world so sensitive to cause and effect, even a small butterfly-wing flap like helping Arya escape Harrenhal early could be enough to cause a timeline collapse or diverge key alliances.
Which meant that the moment a player appeared somewhere unexpected or too conveniently timed, their identity would become suspect. Other players, observing through ravens or rumors or even controlling local bannermen NPCs—would instantly deduce that they were "one of the hundred."
Without enough strength or social cover, exposure was equivalent to suicide.
Take the idea of joining Daenerys Targaryen as an example. It was something every player must have considered. After all, she was the last scion of the Targaryen line, a trueborn with dragons. If you could tie yourself to the Dragon Queen early, you could theoretically hitch a ride all the way to the Iron Throne.
But that was a delusion.
Out of the 100 players, at least half probably had the same plan. Daenerys, exiled in Essos and surrounded by Dothraki and suspicious advisors like Ser Jorah, would not easily trust any outsider. As soon as one player stepped forward, offering loyalty, everyone else's attention would be drawn. The moment someone appeared at Vaes Dothrak or Qarth claiming knowledge or friendship, their identity as a player would be blown wide open.
Unless that person was strong enough like Sandor Clegane reborn, unkillable and fearsome they would be targeted, sabotaged, or hunted in the next chapter.
And even if someone did gamble everything for a shot at joining Daenerys's inner circle, few had the power to even reach her, much less win her trust.
This was not a game of idealism or wishful thinking. This was Game of Thrones, where power meant survival and first blood could be the key to both.
Because starting as a player with mediocre strength and no political backing, there is essentially no realistic path to getting close to Daenerys Targaryen the Dragon Queen herself.
Why is that?
In the original timeline of Game of Thrones, only two men from Westeros successfully reached Daenerys during her formative journey in Essos: Ser Jorah Mormont and Ser Barristan Selmy.
Was it because only these two had the motivation to seek her out? Of course not.
When the news spread that Khal Drogo, the Great Khal of the Dothraki, was marrying Daenerys, she became the center of attention. Ambitious adventurers, self-exiled nobles, sellswords from the Free Cities, bastard sons of minor lords, and opportunists from all across the Narrow Sea tried to tie their fates to House Targaryen. They weren't drawn by sentiment but by strategy. The Targaryens were exiled royalty, but they still had the symbolic weight of dragons, bloodline legitimacy, and Illyrio Mopatis's backing in Pentos.
But in the canon narrative, none of those hopefuls even appear in her camp. Why?
The answer lies in Illyrio Mopatis, the wealthy magister of Pentos and secret benefactor of Viserys and Daenerys. As both their protector and manipulator, Illyrio had every reason to limit access to them. Whether to prevent potential assassins, filter out opportunists, or simply maintain control over Viserys's decisions, Illyrio isolated the Targaryens from most outsiders.
From start to finish, only Jorah Mormont—the disgraced former Lord of Bear Island, exiled for illegal slave trading and desperate to regain favor and Barristan Selmy, the legendary Kingsguard dismissed by Joffrey, managed to infiltrate her circle. Jorah was introduced via Varys, who had a longstanding connection to Illyrio as part of the Blackfyre and Targaryen restoration conspiracy. Barristan, on the other hand, approached Daenerys under the alias "Arstan Whitebeard", using his legendary reputation and loyalty to prove his value.
Without powerful credentials, political utility, or military worth, getting close to the Dragon Queen is delusional. Illyrio had no incentive to risk destabilizing Viserys's fragile claim with wildcard followers.
That's precisely why Ian didn't start the game in Essos. The political barriers were too dense.
"Hmm, maybe that sounds like a stretch…" Ian murmured, shaking his head and returning his focus to the First Blood mission. "I'm still confused."
"Speak," came the AI's calm reply. The greatest advantage of the system assistant, Anne, was its instant responsiveness like texting someone who never sleeps.
"First off this is a real world simulation, right?"
"Correct."
"So there's no health bar over a player's head. No floating names over NPCs either, right?"
"Correct."
"And the organizers went to great lengths to generate believable backstories and implanted relevant memories to make us blend in?"
"Correct."
"Then how are we supposed to find other players?" Ian threw up his hands. "Even assuming all 100 of us were dropped somewhere in Westeros or Essos, that's like tossing salt into the ocean. What are the chances of a player actually encountering another in the early stages? And even if we do, how would we identify them?"
He paused, then added thoughtfully, "Sure, I can guess the top five most popular player archetypes—hedge knight, wandering bard, exiled noble, sellsword, septon but what good is that? It barely narrows it down. Westeros is overflowing with such people."
"How many hedge knights roam the Kingsroad? How many mercenaries drink in the taverns of Oldtown and Gulltown? We might as well try to catch a shadow."
"Even if we assume a player is impersonating one of these roles, hunting them down based on that suspicion alone is unrealistic."
Only after a player's influence or power rises maybe when they marry into a noble house or start altering canon events will their presence become suspicious. At that point, their deviation from the original story would alert experienced players. But by then, we'd be in the mid-game already.
And that doesn't match the system's warning that "players will begin killing each other from the start."
So what am I missing?
"I can't answer questions outside my authority," Anne replied in a mechanical tone.
Ian didn't expect Anne to actually answer that one. He was really talking to himself trying to solve a puzzle he hadn't yet cracked.
There are two steps to finding other players: encountering them, and identifying them.
But the total landmass of Westeros spans over ten million square kilometers, and Essos is even larger vast enough to contain the Dothraki Sea, the Valyrian Peninsula, Qarth, Asshai, and Yi Ti. The logistical chance of bumping into a fellow player in the early phase was near-zero.
Even if all 100 players spawned in King's Landing, the city's half-million population, slums like Flea Bottom, and dozens of noble districts would still make chance meetings rare. It would be like trying to find a specific rat in the Red Keep's cellar.
Unless…
Unless the organizers intentionally narrowed the field of activity. Like setting spawn points in major cities, or even more deliberately having all players gather in one location.
What if they're all in the same tavern?
"Wait Allies!" Ian slapped his thigh. "Of course! The pre-registered player factions!"
Before entering the game, some participants had formed secret alliances and chosen mutual meeting locations in advance. Ian's own alliance had withdrawn, which made him forget that others might still be operational.
How would players locate each other in the early stages?
Not through wandering or guessing.
But through prearranged contact. A shared passphrase, an agreed-on tavern in Gulltown or an old gods weirwood in the North, even coded messages baked into dreams by the AI.
The only way to locate a fellow player early on is if you already planned to meet them.
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