Chapter 40 – No Beef
"After one action finishes… you can immediately perform another, ignoring all restrictions."
Podrick stared at that line for a long moment.
Then he exploded.
"Seven hells—this mechanic is downright broken."
"Honestly, I wouldn't have dared to dream of something like this.
Used properly?
I could cut down gods and demons alike—
march from King's Landing to Winterfell, killing my way north without even blinking!"
"At this point I've got stat advantages and busted mechanics.
If this isn't full-on cheat mode, then what is?"
"Gods… hacking the system really does feel good."
He gazed again at the glowing character panel hovering before him.
Even though he had already celebrated earlier in the bedroom, the sheer excitement boiling inside him refused to settle.
Numbers, stats, bonuses—those he understood well enough.
But this new Transcendent Agility feat, [Flowing Motion], was something else entirely.
A gift from heaven.
A jackpot within a jackpot.
Just one line of its description alone was enough to make a grown man weep with joy:
"Ignore ALL restrictions."
Podrick knew exactly what that implied.
Put bluntly—
This was a universal immunity to interruption and control.
A myth-tier anti-CC skill.
With this alone, no one on earth could stop him unless he wanted to be stopped.
And paired with [Endurance] and [Iron Body]?
He wouldn't just win fights.
He'd become a walking blender.
A six-sided engine of carnage.
Compared to this, even [Heavy Weapon Master], the feat he gained from Transcendent Strength, suddenly felt like garnish.
From this moment onward, Podrick's opponents were no longer "people."
Or rather—no ordinary person could even dream of challenging him.
Even someone like Bronn—in a fight to the death—Podrick now had ninety-eight percent confidence he could crush the man outright.
Why not a full hundred?
Because after weeks of training and observation, Podrick strongly suspected that if Bronn had a character panel of his own, his Agility would also be at—or near—Transcendent.
Whether Bronn possessed any feats, Podrick couldn't say.
But he was no weakling.
Anyone who could survive being surrounded by three or four armored knights, kill them, and walk away with nothing but a few new scars—
that man was more monster than sellsword.
And in their daily sparring bouts, Podrick rarely enjoyed an easy win.
Most victories came through trickery, timing, or exploiting openings.
Raw power?
Bronn still held the edge.
"Still… where do I stand now?"
He pressed down his bubbling excitement and began tallying up his imagined matchups.
"If I fought Shagga, the Mountain, Jaime Lannister, the Red Viper, or Ser Barristan Selmy… who would win?"
He paused.
Against Bronn or Shagga—similar tiers—he had confidence.
But the true monsters…
Peak Jaime Lannister.
Gregor Clegane.
Barristan the Bold.
Oberyn Martell at his deadliest.
Podrick quietly exhaled.
He wasn't arrogant enough to think he could conquer legends outright.
"Sure, I've transformed…
but I'm still twelve."
A boy of barely five and a half feet, with a long way to grow.
He could tank blades now.
He could crush armor.
He could fight like a demon.
But technique was still technique, and experience was still experience.
And those men—those legends—had bathed in battle for decades.
He wasn't there yet.
"Still… give me a few years," he muttered, eyes narrowing.
"A few years."
"And even the legends won't be safe."
Especially Barristan Selmy—that absolute legend.
The man who could ride into the heart of an army and take the enemy commander's head as easily as plucking an apple.
Yes, age had carved its lines into him, but his sword was still sharp, his footwork still sure. Even now he could probably duel any of the Kingsguard with one hand tied behind his back.
"…Mm. No. I still need to keep a low profile."
"I'm not strong enough to stop eating beef yet."
In other words—
he was nowhere near invincible.
"Especially in King's Landing. Maybe to outsiders I look like nothing more than Tyrion Lannister's forgettable little squire…
but Littlefinger and Varys are watching. Those two would gut me for sport if they knew what I really am."
"Secrets are best kept hidden. Revealed at the right moment, they become a killing blade."
"And as for how to use all this… I need a plan."
Forcing down the excitement boiling through him, Podrick turned around and quietly slipped back into the Hand's Tower.
The small courtyard behind him remained empty.
On its stone floor, two enormous wooden storage chests—each nearly as big as a horse—and now stacked one atop another, stood as mute witnesses to his monstrous new strength.
---
The red comet still hung like a wound in the sky as the city shook awake under a veil of mist.
Stories—ugly, tragic, cheap—began their daily cycle.
Already, early risers found new naked, headless corpses floating in the gutters.
In a certain alleyway, five men hung like butchered livestock—genitals cut off and looped around their necks, wrists nailed into the wall with ship-spikes.
Ah—no.
They were no longer men.
Two had already bled out, stiffening into corpses.
Three still clung to life, breaths shallow and ragged, whimpers barely a whisper.
One poor bastard's mouth had been slit from cheek to cheek, muscles severed, jaw unhinged. Half his teeth were gone. Half his tongue too.
Somehow—Gods know how—he was still alive.
No one intervened.
No one cared.
The bystanders knew better than to ask questions, and the City Watch—the proud Goldcloaks of King's Landing—laughed louder than the crowd when they arrived.
Only when the gossip had run its course did someone finally order the alley cleaned.
By then, the blood on the walls was already sticky and brown.
This was normal now.
King's Landing had become a city where one couldn't empty a chamber pot without hearing three or four horrid stories in the time it took to pour.
---
Podrick finally made his way down from the Tower of the Hand, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes.
As he shuffled toward the courtyard, he noticed a crowd forming.
"What happened? Why are all of you gathered here?"
Compared to the mountain clansmen, Pod looked… pitifully small.
He squeezed and wormed his way through the mass of bodies until the scene became clear.
A ring of clansmen were cursing loudly.
Tyrion's household servants stood off to the side, wearing expressions of fear and resentment.
And in the middle—
Shagga, son of Dolph
—massive, wild-haired, scratching filthy dreadlocks with one hand—
was circling the stacked wooden chests with childlike fascination, muttering to himself as he examined how one heavy crate had been placed cleanly atop another.