With Ser Willem and his retinue gone, the courtyard of the Red House suddenly felt empty.
Now, only Viserys, Rhaenys, and Daenerys remained.
As the saying goes, 'where there's wind, there's qi,' and the upkeep of mansions and castles requires a large number of people, a lively atmosphere.
Once the manpower is scarce, the houses will fall into disrepair.
A typical example is Harrenhal, with its five massive towers; however, the House of Riverrun could only fill the lower floors of two of them, leaving most of the place desolate.
Having learned from previous experiences, choosing servants was a troublesome matter for Viserys, as they still needed a cook, laundress, steward, and gatekeeper to manage the house.
Moreover, Viserys and his sisters didn't need an excessive number of servants; a typical mansion would have a majordomo, maids, cooks, stablehands, security, gardeners, kennel masters, and so on, truly a massive money pit.
Although in the long run, Viserys would have to flee. Even if the three of them were completely useless, their looks and lineage alone were very attractive, being descendants of the most ancient Dragonlords.
But for now, the Red Door House still needed to be maintained.
Leaving aside everything else, it would be too outrageous to make Daenerys and Rhaenys do the work of a laundress and a cook.
However, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, the city watch captain who managed this large residential area of the Sea Lord's Palace, surprisingly and generously told Viserys that he could introduce them to some reliable servants, which felt like the sun rising in the west.
Viserys wasn't particularly surprised, as he had already sensed that the guard accompanying Xaro might be an official close to the Sea Lord, and of no low rank.
Even Xaro himself was a Braavosi nobleman with significant backing.
For the Sea Lord, these exiles had no right to negotiate terms; it was merely a sudden event that brought the exiles to the Sea Lord's attention again.
"Try the sea snails," Viserys said to Rhaenys and Daenerys in the reception room.
The fragrant sea snails were sprinkled with garlic and butter.
This plate of sea snails was expensive; if it weren't for boosting his attributes, Viserys wouldn't have been so extravagant.
Rhaenys and Daenerys cooperated and started eating, but they were little girls after all, and their appetites weren't that big.
Most of it was eaten by Viserys; the 'Glutton' talent felt like a direct kinetic energy conversion, where only high-quality food could be converted into strength.
Viserys's strength attribute had now increased to 1.2, but at this rate of eating, he would sooner or later deplete all his resources.
"Xaro's suggestion, are you going to take it, Viserys?" Rhaenys asked with some hesitation. "To hire another batch of servants, recommended by him."
"You're a little worried," Viserys said, looking at Rhaenys. A beautiful girl with olive skin, black hair, black eyes, and long, supple hair, she indeed resembled a Dornishwoman, a Rhoynar, characteristics of the salt people.
The main reason was that the Targaryen family didn't have the bug of caste resilience; even Baelor Breakspear, as the firstborn, looked like a Dornishman.
"I'm worried they might be Braavosi spies. While they won't abscond with our money like the previous ones, they will observe our movements..."
"We have no choice," Viserys said, wiping his mouth. They were already in Braavos, essentially in the tiger's mouth.
Given that, the risks associated with leveraging their influence were acceptable. The few of them had no leverage whatsoever; what difference was there between the Sea Lord looking at them and looking at white mice?
To directly negotiate with the Sea Lord, they would certainly need corresponding capital.
"How much money do we still have?" Viserys asked Rhaenys.
Rhaenys was currently managing Ser Willem's small treasury, while Viserys possessed his mother Rhaella's crown and other jewelry, which could also be exchanged for a good sum of money.
Originally, after being driven out of the Red Keep, Viserys and Daenerys had survived on these jewels, but they didn't last long before they became vagrants begging for food.
These jewels represented the dignity of a king, and Viserys didn't want to sell them and truly become a beggar king, as in the original timeline.
"After hiring those servants, we can still support ourselves for a few more years, provided we don't have any major living expenses," Rhaenys said.
Including the rent for the house, the servants' expenses, and the medical fees previously spent on Ser Willem, their money was actually being used up quite quickly.
Adding to that Viserys's current tendency to become a big eater, it was likely that this amount of cash would become increasingly insufficient.
He lacked money before transmigrating, and he still lacked money after transmigrating; this was truly a wasted transmigration.
"I still need to make money," Viserys thought to himself. Running out of resources was imminent.
Money was a lubricant and a stepping stone, especially in a free trade city-state where only money mattered.
Daenerys and Rhaenys were not laborers, and Viserys's means of making a living currently seemed very limited.
Looking at it from all angles, Viserys truly only had his unique good looks, and only this one point held the most value.
Even though the Free Cities were almost all former colonies of the Dragonlords, they still highly revered the bloodline of the ancient Dragonlords.
But to truly stoop to completely selling his looks, that would be too much of a dark joke.
While he was worrying, Viserys suddenly noticed another anomaly in his attribute panel; a new talent panel had appeared.
"(Poison Mushroom Incident occurred, fate axis altered, randomly awarded one talent skill.)"
Viserys looked closely with anticipation; it was a brand new card that rotated several times on the talent panel.
On the card was a tall, stout middle-aged chef, one hand holding a spatula, the other a wok. His confident and spirited demeanor made one call him a god of the culinary world.
"[Talent: God of Cuisine. From the extreme north of the world to the southern Sothoryos, from the lighthouse of Lonely Light in the west to the magnificent Yi Ti in the east. I have witnessed countless wonders and cooked countless ingredients, all for the ultimate beauty of food.]"
Viserys looked at the card; this was a purely lifestyle skill, unlike 'Glutton' which had a touch of magic. But it was a bonus, a complete surprise.
Viserys felt as if he had experienced the chef's entire life; this was the God of Cuisine in the world of Ice and Fire.
He was skilled in all culinary arts, including steaming, boiling, and cutting. He had also cooked all sorts of ingredients, such as sharks, mushrooms, lampreys, mammoth meat, and venison. His footsteps had traversed thousands of mountains and rivers, and he was confident he could perfect the art of cuisine.
The happy things didn't stop there; Viserys found that his strength attribute was also increasing.
"Is this a buy one, get one free?"
After his initial joy, Viserys understood the logic behind it: chefs and blacksmiths both did physically demanding work, wielding heavy objects like woks and hammers.
Without a strong physique, one could simply not become a good chef.
"I'll make another dish for you," Viserys said, standing up and addressing Daenerys and Rhaenys. He wanted to test the value of this talent.
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