The road to the North was long. Longer than Levi ever imagined.
It had been nearly four months since the first swampberry sale, and now he found himself sitting atop a loaded wagon, chewing on a slice of dry cheese, and listening to the constant creak of wooden wheels grinding against mud and rock. The horizon stretched endlessly ahead—winter-kissed hills and thinning woods.
He glanced down at his coin pouch, then opened his cheat engine. The numbers had stopped growing.
Gold: 56
Fifty-six golden dragons. That was all. A fortune in the eyes of a small village, but Levi knew better now. The cheat system—his supposed miracle—recognized only silver stags as currency. No matter how many dragons he earned, the number would never tick upward again.
"Figures," he muttered. "The one time I get rich, and it's in the wrong currency."
He closed the cheat window and looked around. Two wagons behind him, Harwin was riding a dark brown horse, speaking to one of the caravan leaders. Twenty wagons in total now. Packed with food, grain, ale, supplies, and the hopes of a lazy cheat-powered merchant who was rapidly learning the limitations of his so-called blessings.
The journey from White Harbor had not been easy. It took nearly five days to prepare after the meat and cheese fiasco. Levi had struggled to fill the wagons, buying wheat, grain, and dried meat—whatever his system accepted. Lizard meat was the cruelest joke. The one meat that worked. He tried pork, venison, even salt beef, only to see no change. Then he stumbled across a broken shop tucked near the river, half its windows shattered, and found the lizard meat again.
He had almost cried.
Still, he bought it.
Every bite mattered.
Now, nearly a month later, they were moving.
The caravan route followed the main trade roads as best it could, cutting through hill valleys and forests, sticking close to the King's Road where possible. White Harbor had been Levi's last glimpse of civilization on that scale. The further north they traveled, the more sparse the land became—villages tucked away like secrets, hamlets surrounding old keeps, and the occasional towering fortress that loomed above mist-covered marshland.
Each stop was an opportunity.
At every town, Levi made note of the local noble family. Sigils flew above longhouses and timbered halls—boars, ravens, towers, bears. Most were unimpressed by a boy barely past his teens offering crates of swampberries and dried beans, but some listened. A few even tasted.
They left behind names Levi began to memorize.
House Holt. House Ironsmith. House Slate. House Talhart. House Woods. House Cassel.
Most were minor families—bannermen to House Stark—but each held sway over a few hundred souls and had mouths to feed. Levi sold grain, beer, even bundles of firewood. Some nobles laughed at the swampberries. Others quietly bought them. He noticed the wealthier ones didn't mock it. They simply paid and moved on.
It was here, in this gradual spread of trade, that Levi's true journey began—not the ride, but the realization.
He was not a merchant. Not truly. He was a gambler.
But now he was starting to learn.
With every new village, he made contact. With every new contact, he added a name to his growing list of allies and rivals. Not enemies—no one took him seriously enough to be hated. But he was watched.
Especially by other merchants.
Rumors began to spread.
"Some up jumped lad from White Harbor buying every wagon in sight."
"Flooding the roads with grain and cheese."
"Giving away swampberries like they were silver."
They weren't wrong. Levi had spent like a man possessed.
And now the pressure was mounting.
At night, he sat with Harwin and some of the guards by the fire, listening to the quiet murmur of men sharing stories, sharpening blades, or playing dice.
"Word is another caravan left from White Harbor two days after us," said Harwin, tossing a stone into the fire. "Merchants with coin. Real ones. Might try to get ahead of us. Reach Winterfell first."
Levi chewed on a crust of bread. He had waited weeks before eating it. It triggered the system. Now he had enough to duplicate it—but it was as hard as stone.
"Let them come," Levi said, squinting at the fire. "They'll ride faster. Burn out sooner."
Harwin snorted. "You think like an old mule sometimes."
Levi raised his chunk of bread like a toast. "Thanks. I think."
The other guards laughed.
He'd grown familiar with a few of them—especially ten who weren't part of Harwin's original hires but joined the caravan after seeing Levi's coin.
They were a mixed lot.
Half were Northmen—hard-eyed, shaggy-bearded men with simple weapons and thick accents. The other half were Southerners. Leaner, younger, more talkative. Some had been sellswords. Others failed apprentices. One, an older man named Byren, claimed to have once guarded a noble from the Vale.
Each had a story.
Each had reason to follow.
And Levi, to his own disbelief, had begun to listen.
Winterfell loomed ever closer.
They would arrive in another fortnight, perhaps less. The road had been fair—few bandits, few delays—but the strain was showing. Supplies were stretching thin, and Levi was forced to start using the system again, duplicating barrels of beer and sacks of flour. The trick was not to do too much. Not all at once. It had to seem real. Plausible.
He had to act like a man with hidden reserves, not a walking miracle.
One night, as snow began to fall lightly on the camp, Levi stared at his coin pouch again.
He pulled up the system window.
Gold: 12 Food: Stable Materials: Low Weapons: None
He sighed. "Fifty-six dragons. All useless. The only showing are what's left of my silver stags"
Then, softer: "I don't get it. Why bring me here? Why give me a cheat that only works with cheap currency? Why swampberries? Why silver stags? Why rotten old stone slabs? only barely manageable food."
He trailed off.
There was no answer.
The wind howled.
He looked north.
Somewhere beyond that wind-blasted line of hills stood Winterfell. Beyond that, the broken shell of Moat Cailin.
He clutched the coin pouch tightly.
"This better be worth it."
And somewhere in the darkness behind him, lizard meat stirred in its crate.