Game of Thrones: From a deserter to a high-ranking official

Chapter 15 Cannibalistic Family

If Tiberius were to give this cave an adjective, he would only choose two words:

It smells bad and is black.

Yes, it stinks. This godforsaken place is stagnant, and it reeks of a sweet, nauseating mixture of excrement, rotting flesh, and some other unknown substance.

Tiberius heard that humans have a fear of the smell of their own kind's corpses in their genes, because it is a biological instinct that tells you there is danger here, enough to kill our fellow human beings.

"Click".

Vito seemed to have stepped on something, and then he looked down.

"Damn it!" Vito complained. "A human skull!"

Just as he kicked the bone away, he suddenly heard a whooshing sound in his ear.

It was Tiberius!

He threw his javelin, pinning down a barbarian who was trying to launch a sneak attack.

"Damn it!" Vito cursed. "A sneak attack, huh!"

Sure enough, in the dark cave, many ugly-faced, deformed savages dressed in animal skins and rags came rushing in, wielding wooden clubs or rusty weapons.

"Meat!" they mumbled in a garbled, common language. "Meat with iron plates! Meat with weapons! The meat has entered the house!"

"I'll fuck your mother!" Vito shouted, cocking his crossbow and tossing torches to scare away the charging cave cannibals. "Home? You call this a home? Go to hell!"

However, the situation is not actually critical.

The twenty-odd knights Jules brought were mostly veterans of countless battles. They were highly skilled and had killed more people than they had eaten.

At the same time, these cave cannibals, though seemingly fierce, are actually not skilled in martial arts and are mostly weak.

Moreover, their weapons were extremely rudimentary, even laughable: rusty knives, iron-tipped wooden clubs, and some farm tools.

These things couldn't penetrate the plate armor worn by the knights at all. And the knights themselves lacked even basic armor, so the damage and impact from the knights' weapons had no armor to help them absorb.

Tiberius drew his scimitar and stood in the center, watching the other knights wield their longswords and maces, each swing taking the life of a cannibal.

For these killers, the narrow space of the cave certainly restricted their movements, but on the other hand, it also forced the cannibals to engage in close combat with them.

[Damn, my uncle's men are really good fighters!] Tiberius thought to himself in amazement.

However, among these people, Jules is undoubtedly the most capable fighter.

Jules held a sword in each hand, his wrists twirling as the two longswords danced up and down like fluttering butterflies. In the blink of an eye, several howling cannibals were reduced to corpses on the ground.

"Damn, my uncle is amazing!" Tiberius thought to himself. "No wonder he was able to make a name for himself in Essos!"

"Damn, these guys! They stink!" After the battle, Vito pulled a crossbow bolt from an enemy, smelled it, and almost vomited. "Don't they shower? There's a swimming pool right outside their house!"

"Uncle, remember to leave a few alive," Tiberius reminded him.

He didn't want these murderers to be so bloodthirsty that they killed everyone who could be used as evidence.

"Don't worry, Vito will handle it." Jules tossed the two swords to Tiberius, letting him wipe the blood off them. "Vito is an expert in kidnapping; he used to be a pirate."

"Boss, those aren't pirates! They're Listhurst raiders!" Vito complained, while tying up a cannibal missing an arm with rope. "Governor Listhurst gave our captains special permits back then!"

"There's no difference, they're all robbery, just one has a certificate and the other doesn't," Jules retorted calmly. "As for Governor Rees, they're no different from sex slaves; one sells his body, the other sells his conscience... and the latter does it more frequently."

[This sounds like a veiled attack, after all, Lisandro is the governor.] Tiberius thought to himself.

"Alright, let's continue deeper." Jules picked up the torch and continued forward.

“However…” he suddenly stopped and said to Tiberius, “Your spear throw was very accurate, not bad. The name ‘Lightning’ may well be known throughout Essos in the future.”

The other knights nodded approvingly, especially Vito.

"Damn, your spear throw was spot on! You pinned that sneaky dog ​​to the stone wall!" Vito walked over and patted Tiberius on the shoulder. "Without you, I probably would have taken that blow head-on, maybe even passed out and been bedridden... Hey, do you think he'd still be as smart as you after passing out?"

"Maybe, but I reckon it would have been a different time traveler back then," Tiberius thought to himself.

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"Got you!" Tiberius grabbed an old man hiding in a crevice in the rocks and dragged him out. But when he looked closely, he suddenly burst into laughter.

"Come, come! Uncle Jules, Vito! I think I've caught a big fish!"

Jules looked closely and saw that the man Tiberius had grabbed had a relatively normal face, like a normal person rather than a hybrid born of inbreeding.

"This is……"

Tiberius patted the man's face with his scabbard and said, "Judging by his age, he's most likely the head of this cannibalistic family! Probably his grandfather or great-grandfather."

When Tiberius said this, he looked at the infant corpses in Vito's hands. Their faces were also twisted and distorted. They looked more like apes or deformed creatures than humans.

Clearly, by this generation, the genes of these inbreeding cannibals have deteriorated significantly, and after a few more generations, they may resemble apes more than humans.

Tiberius first punched the old man's head a few times, then pointed his spear at him: "Listen, you old beast, I'll ask you a question, and you'll answer me!"

The old man was timid and hesitant, but intimidated by Tiberius's fists, he could only keep trying to please him.

"Tiberius, ask him, Miss Serafina... no, never mind, ask him, have he and his family eaten the people recently kidnapped?"

After Tiberius and Vito beat him up, they learned his name from the old beast: Sonny Bean.

When asked about the two young ladies, the old man finally spoke.

"They, the two girls who are to be offered to the gods, are inside there." He pointed tremblingly to the depths of the cave, to a crevice that was almost invisible unless you looked closely.

The gap was so narrow that only one person could barely pass through.

When Tiberius and his companions entered the crevice, they discovered a larger cave inside, but it was clear that the cannibalistic family had not properly maintained or explored it thoroughly.

Sure enough, there were two girls lying inside. One had distinct silver-gold hair, clearly a member of the Rojaer family, while the other had red hair and was obviously the female companion from the Hein family.

They were all locked in a corner, their hands and feet bound like piglets. And it was clear that their physical condition was not very good.

Tiberius didn't know if these cannibals would starve their animals before slaughtering them, like humans do with pigs, cattle, and sheep, to remove the gamey smell from the meat. However, the reason they weren't given food was probably because they themselves were starving.

When Tiberius came in and ripped the silk from their mouths, the two girls let out a horrifying scream that nearly ruptured Tiberius's eardrums.

"Miss Serafina! We are mercenaries sent by your father, Lisandro. We are here to find you and your friend, Miss Hein!" Tiberius quickly knelt down to reassure them.

"You don't believe me? No, no, no! Look, this is the insignia of the White Legion! We really were sent by your father!"

It must be said that Tiberius's youthful, even childlike, face was very effective in comforting girls.

"Vito." Tiberius summoned Vito and instructed him to have several knights escort them out.

Tiberius and Vito then explored deeper into the cave.

"They ate quite a few people..." Inside a cave, they found some valuables and clothing.

Tiberius used the tip of his javelin to pick up several pieces of indeterminate-color silk. "How long ago were these clothes? And don't these cannibals wear these kinds of clothes?"

"And gold and silver coins too." Vito grabbed a small handful. "Rice's, Mill's, Tyros's... Damn, what's with the Braavos square iron coins?"

"Looks like they've really sampled guests from all over the world," Tiberius remarked.

"Oh, right." Vito's expression twisted slightly as he picked up a relatively new dress.

"I should know why Miss Seraphina and Miss Hein weren't eaten now," Vito said in a barely suppressed tone. "And you're not allowed to laugh! It's really a bit darkly humorous."

"Why?" Tiberius asked.

After watching Serafina and Miss Hein leave the cave, Vito used the tip of his sword to lift up a large-sized dress.

The clothes are relatively new, suggesting that the owner of these clothes was recently murdered.

However, judging from Tiberius's opinion, the girl wearing this outfit is probably tank-sized.

"It's simple. I reckon the lady who was eaten before them was... well, voluptuous," Vito said cautiously. "This dress is the evidence."

"So they ate the lady first, while Miss Hein and Miss Serafina, whether in breasts or buttocks, were clearly not enticing enough," Tiberius asked.

Vito shrugged. "Of course, in the eyes of these beasts, their allure and our allure are two different things."