The dwarf touched his own face, then vigorously rubbed the face of Prince Leo the Fourth, who lay unconscious beside him. In the end, he pressed his face close to Leo's and compared them in a mirror.
"Divine craftsmanship, truly divine craftsmanship!"
"Hmph, the Stranger's four great divine arts are not an empty boast!" Dany said proudly. She wore a white lab coat, her silver hair tied into a high single ponytail, arms crossed over her chest, chin slightly raised, a confident smile on her face.
The dwarf pinched his Adam's apple and said in disbelief, "Even my voice has changed. The Stranger's divine art, the Han-style facial reconstruction technique, is actually this terrifying!I was worried about the voice and the eyes before, but I never expected…"
"Your Majesty truly pays attention to every detail," Tyrion said with heartfelt admiration.
Before drinking the milk of the poppy, he had already noticed several problems. First, the voice was wrong. Second, he had heterochromia, one blue eye and one black, while Prince Leo had black eyes. Third, skin tone. Both of them were white, but the dwarf was of Andal stock and much fairer, while Leo was a native of a tropical island, his skin noticeably darker.
After waking up from sleep, all these problems had been solved by the Dragon Queen.
Dany slit the throats of the dwarf and Leo, carefully comparing the length, width, and thickness of their vocal cords, as well as the tightness of the surrounding muscles. She adjusted them bit by bit, roughly making the dwarf's voice about sixty percent similar to Leo's.
Sixty percent was close enough.
Heterochromia was even simpler. Just turn the dwarf into a one-eyed man and that was fine.
Without Dany even needing to explain, the dwarf understood how he should cry to his new father: during fierce fighting, his eye had been struck by a vicious raiding party, and he had gone blind.
Turning skin white was difficult, but turning it dark was far too easy.
After contacting Quixi and using a potion she recommended, they could even soak the dwarf until he looked like someone from the Summer Isles.
"My appearance has changed, but what about memories and language?" the dwarf asked worriedly.
"Bang!" Dany threw a thick stack of documents onto the table in front of him. "Leo only knows High Valyrian. He is the Long-Nosed King's illegitimate son. The king, wary of his brother's power, did not have him killed, but he was far from fond of him.
"The Long-Nosed King himself did not pay much attention to this bastard either. After all, he was still, in name at least, the king's son.
"So the Long-Nosed King, as well as the nobles of Elephant Isle around him, know no more about Leo than you do after reading this file."
"And Prince Leo is mediocre in talent. From the age of twelve, he practically lived in brothels, indulging in a life of wine and debauchery. He ruined his body before fully maturing, so although he is not a dwarf, he looks like one.
"His life trajectory is extremely simple. With your intelligence, and your experience as the top connoisseur of King's Landing's gentle pleasures, you should be able to muddle through easily, right?"
"Of course I hope to, and I will do everything I can to muddle through. Otherwise, it's my own life on the line," the dwarf said, lifting his head from the documents with a bitter smile.
Dany nodded in satisfaction. "Very good. Now let's talk about your objective this time."
"First, you must meet the Long-Nosed King. Leo has truly grown tired of living. Egged on by a few young nobles, he traveled thousands of miles to Slaver's Bay, wanting to go to the battlefield and earn glory."
"Second, you will follow the Long-Nosed King into the underground camp."
"An underground camp?" the dwarf said incredulously. "Did the allied army dig an underground city outside the walls? Five thousand elephant soldiers, five thousand giant elephants!"
"I find it unbelievable too, but we searched everything within a hundred kilometers. An enormous force of five thousand elephant soldiers vanished overnight.
"Other than underground, I can't think of anywhere else that could hide such an army."
The dwarf turned pale with shock. "How did they manage it? If they dig all the way beneath Meereen, and five thousand elephant soldiers suddenly erupt upward, hiss!"
Dany looked at him deeply and smiled. "Actually, the five thousand elephant soldiers aren't the most terrifying part. Do you know what is?"
"The creatures that dig the tunnels," the dwarf said, his face ashen, voice trembling. "What kind of monsters are they?"
"Aren't you known as a dragon expert? How can you not guess?" she replied.
"Dragon worms?" the dwarf said with difficulty.
Dany nodded lightly. "There's a very high chance they're dragon worms."
Dragon worms are also called firewyrms. Though called worms, they are actually a subspecies of dragons.
Like wyverns, dragon worms share similarities in form with true dragons. They have no wings, and firewyrms cannot soar through the sky. They can only burrow through rock and soil.
However, dragon worms also possess the fire magic of true dragons and can spew dragonflame.
The most famous Hand of the King in Westeros, the lowborn Septon Barth, once wrote a "scientific" masterpiece after studying the secret Targaryen royal tomes, titled Dragons, Dragon Worms, and Wyverns: A Non-Natural Evolutionary History of the Dragonkind.
That book, beyond discussing the differences between dragons, dragon worms, and wyverns, mainly expounded a secret regarding the origin of dragons: the dragons of Valyria did not arise through natural evolution.
In the past, dragons had gone extinct at least once. The ancestors of the Valyrians used sophisticated blood sorcery to extract special "genes" from dragon worms and wyverns, fusing them into complete dragons.
In that era, although dragon worms rarely appeared in the world, scholars were by no means unfamiliar with them.
What was infuriating was that Saint Baelor, that stupid bastard, later listed A History of Unnatural Evolution as a banned book.
Not only were all existing copies of A History of Unnatural Evolution confiscated and burned, but even the secret tomes in the Royal Library failed to escape destruction.
Only the Citadel's underground vault preserved a complete set. All copies circulating outside were fragmented volumes.
The dwarf had once expended enormous effort and energy trying to collect that set.
So when Dany made only a slight hint, he immediately guessed that it might be a dragon worm digging tunnels.
But could a dragon worm really excavate a cavern of that scale?
The mount of Aegon the Conqueror, the Black Dread Balerion, could swallow a mammoth whole in a single bite. From that alone, one could tell how enormous an adult dragon was.
As for dragon worms, judging by their habits alone, they seemed somewhat like fire-breathing earthworms. But they were indeed distant relatives of dragons, and the size of an adult dragon worm was enormous, not much smaller than a true dragon.
"Ah, if Septon Barth's A History of Unnatural Evolution were still around, that book had detailed descriptions of dragon worm habits," the dwarf said regretfully.
"The maesters secretly preserved a complete copy of A History of Unnatural Evolution. Once you finish your mission, you can go to the Citadel and read it.
Right now, your task is not to study dragon worm habits, but to determine whether that monster really is a dragon worm, and then pin down its exact location."
"Without knowing a dragon worm's weakness, how do you plan to deal with it?" the dwarf asked.
"I have dragons, and eight hundred knights wielding Valyrian steel swords," Dany said solemnly, offering a perfunctory answer.
Of course, she knew the dragon worm's weakness: cold.
Dragon worms loved volcanic environments and could swim in magma pools, but they could not survive for long in low-temperature soil.
She already had a countermeasure.
But the dwarf was going to act as a spy. Telling him too many secrets was dangerous. If his identity were exposed and he were caught by Jenny, who knew how many tricks would be used on him to force her plan out of him?
Better to give him one piece of false intelligence. If the dwarf truly met with misfortune, he could at least be "fortunate enough" to transform into a living Jiang Gan.
Yet the dwarf seemed to see through her sinister intentions. He merely fixed the Dragon Queen with his one eye for a long moment and did not pursue the matter further. Instead, he asked, "How should I notify you? Should I carry a shapeshifter animal companion?"
"Shapeshifters were exposed long ago, and there are magic towers that suppress glass candle communication."
Dany explained Jenny's daily, irregular "true Dragon Roar," and the appearance of a second magic network hub controlled by Oros. Then she concluded:
"I must admit that Balerion and old monsters like Melisandre are far stronger than me in terms of experience and technique.
But since the Seven's radiance cannot conceal everything, if magical means of communication cannot be used, you can always pray to the Seven."
"Pray? Pray for the Seven's blessing?" The dwarf looked utterly incredulous.
"Heh, did you forget that you still have the Seal of the Holy Knight?"
"What do you mean?" The dwarf's face turned pale as he stared at Dany warily and asked hoarsely, "Could it be that you can listen to my thoughts through the Seal of the Holy Knight?"
Dany shook her head and smiled as she asked, "Do you remember how the allied wyvern knights communicated with one another back when Benni was still alive?"
During the Battle of Tholos and the later Battle of Meereen, the allied wyvern squadrons all transmitted information through Balerion's faith channel, just like wearing wireless headsets.
The allied wyvern knights were all carefully selected, either of pure Valyrian blood or devout believers in Balerion.
Thus, Benni, as an avatar of Balerion, could serve as a signal tower and communicate in real time with nearby wyvern knights.
At this realization, the dwarf let out a long sigh of relief.
He knew that this method of communication only transmitted information over short distances through the faith channel.
It could not read thoughts at all. Moreover, if the distance was too great, beyond ten kilometers, the faith communication would suffer from poor signal, and a bit farther than that, it would drop entirely.
"You seem to have never used this function before," Tyrion said in confusion.
"I simply never used it on you, because you never had the chance to join me in dragon battles during the day. Recently, when bombing the allied camps, I've been using it every day."
The dwarf thought carefully and realized that was indeed the case. Only during the Battle of New Ghis had he joined the Dragon Queen in a dragon battle, and that one took place at night, amid complete chaos.
"Your Majesty, this method of communication is something you learned from Balerion himself. Would he really have no countermeasures?" the dwarf asked again.
"Jenny certainly has countermeasures, but…" A trace of smugness appeared on Dany's face. "Do you know that Melisandre once tried to forcibly seize Aegon's dragon?"
"She failed."
"Hehehe. I've said it before. Other than me, no one will ever be able to take a holy knight's wyvern!"
Dany smiled proudly and said, "After the prisoner exchange, I will shatter the Seal of the Holy Knight in your mind and completely annihilate it.
Once you enter the tunnel and confirm absolute safety, you can quietly pray to the Seven. The power of faith will slowly restore the Seal of the Holy Knight."
The dwarf said with a complicated expression, "People like you, these transcendent beings, should never exist in the mortal world at all.
With you around, we ordinary people have no meaning in striving.
There is no hope, no future we can control ourselves. We are destined to be ruled by transcendent beings, utterly powerless to resist."
"You also want to build a 'true world'?" Dany asked calmly.
The dwarf nodded in admission and sighed. "All ordinary people with ambition and resentment feel both fear and hatred toward transcendent beings.
That is the foundation on which the Citadel developed the theory of the true world.
Thinking about it now, the maesters merely put into practice the will of all us mortals. They were not guilty. The real crime lies in the injustice of heaven.
I have read books my entire life. My wisdom, strategy, and experience all surpass yours. You are uneducated, dull, and foolish, yet with a simple spell, you can see through all my battle plans and then easily defeat me on the battlefield.
Why should that be so?
Anyone would feel indignant and resentful."
"Looks like your resentment runs pretty deep too," Dany nodded. Then she suddenly said, "But do you realize that you, too, should be eliminated in the true world?"
(End of chapter)
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