Having finally grown accustomed to the pain in his back, Lind leaned on the crutch Old Man Bain had made for him a couple of days ago and walked out of the house he had been confined to for over a month. Although his injuries would still need at least another half month to fully heal, they no longer prevented him from walking normally.
Right now, his most urgent task was to familiarize himself with the people and affairs of White Village as quickly as possible, so he wouldn't reveal any flaws and let others notice something was wrong.
After all, the memories he had inherited were very limited. Aside from knowing that his current name was Lind and that he was a hunter, everything else came in fragments, offering very little useful information. He didn't even know why he had been injured so badly.
As Lind walked through White Village, he quickly judged from the surrounding houses that the place was extremely backward—possibly somewhere in the ancient Western world.
Although he had already made some guesses from Old Man Bain's clothing and the furnishings inside his house, he still clung to a sliver of hope.
"Bear Hunter?"
After walking some distance along the village's only street, Lind finally encountered the first villager. Upon seeing him, the man blurted out a nickname, his face instantly filled with obvious fear. He then lowered his head and hurried past Lind, as if Lind were some kind of ferocious beast.
Although Lind was curious about this strange reaction—and why the man had called him Bear Hunter—he didn't reach out to stop him and ask. Right now, Lind needed to speak and act as little as possible, and instead listen and observe more. Only then could he avoid exposing the fact that he and the original Lind were completely different people.
As he continued walking down the street, he encountered more and more villagers. Some called him by name, others called him Bear Hunter, and every single one of them wore expressions of awe or fear—the only difference was the intensity of those emotions.
Though the village wasn't very large, the physically weakened Lind still took a long time to reach the small tavern at the village entrance.
Over the past month and a half, he had learned that Old Man Bain ran a small tavern in the village. Although White Village was a completely unfamiliar place to him, he still found it accurately—after all, it was the only tavern in the village.
"Your wounds aren't healed yet. Why did you come out?"
When Lind reached the tavern entrance, Old Man Bain—who had already heard the movement outside—walked out and spoke with concern the moment he saw him.
Old Man Bain had thick brown hair and a beard with very distinctive features. His body was fat, making him look like a large wine barrel. His left leg was gone, replaced with a wooden peg, and three fingers were missing from his right hand—likely chopped off by a sharp weapon.
Lind smiled and explained, "I've been lying down for over a month. Coming out to walk around will help me recover faster."
To Lind, Old Man Bain was undoubtedly his benefactor. During the month he had been bedridden and unable to move, it was Old Man Bain—and only Old Man Bain—who had taken care of him. Because of this, Lind had almost mistaken him for the father of this body.
After hearing his explanation, Old Man Bain didn't say much. He patted Lind's arm and motioned for him to go inside the tavern and sit down.
"Hey! Bear Hunter!"
The moment Lind stepped into the tavern, everyone inside raised their cups in unison and shouted toward him. Their voices carried awe as well, but compared to the villagers outside, they were much warmer and far less fearful.
Lind knew nothing about these people and didn't know how to respond without revealing himself, so he simply nodded at them.
No one showed any dissatisfaction at his reaction. On the contrary, they seemed to think it was normal, which made Lind realize that the previous owner of this body had probably been a solitary person.
He walked over and sat at a table by the window. Old Man Bain brought him a cup of wine and placed it in front of him before returning to his own work.
Lind lifted the cup and took a sip. The wine had a sour, vinegary taste and was truly unpleasant, but he still swallowed it down, suppressing the urge to spit it out, without letting any improper expression show on his face.
The atmosphere in the tavern didn't change because of Lind's presence, but the topics of conversation gradually began to shift, with more and more of them involving him.
Perhaps because the subject of discussion was present, their voices dropped significantly. In such a noisy environment, it would normally be difficult for anyone to clearly hear what they were saying—but Lind was different. After more than a month of fusion, although his body hadn't grown stronger, his other senses had become far more sensitive than those of ordinary people. He had spent a long time adapting to this, and now it finally came in handy.
By gathering information from the conversations in the tavern, Lind quickly understood where he was, and what had happened to him. Although he tried his best to restrain his emotions, traces of surprise still appeared on his face.
During the time he was recuperating, he had guessed countless times where he had been reborn. He had gone through countless ancient Western kingdoms in his mind, yet he never imagined that he would be reborn into the world of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin.
Although he had never read the novels written by that author, he had watched the television adaptation. After all, the world of Ice and Fire was simply too famous—back then, it was almost impossible not to notice it. He had even browsed many Game of Thrones forums because of questions raised by certain plot points, reading through countless discussion threads.
Even though he viewed all of it as an ordinary audience member, both the TV series and the forum posts had provided him with a large amount of useful information.
For example, the war that most people in the tavern were discussing—the Usurper's War that had ended last year—should be the war in which Robert Baratheon ascended the throne. This made Lind realize that the current point in time was before the start of the TV series.
That was definitely not good news for him. If that was the case, much of the information provided by the series and forum discussions was useless to him now.
Moreover, according to what he knew, the system of Westeros was extremely rigid. Ordinary people found it very difficult to rise. Bloodline and inheritance were the foundations of power for the nobility, and the body he had been reborn into belonged to a commoner. Even worse, the place he was currently in was the Reach.
The nobles of the Reach were famously ancient. Any random lord's family there had a lineage spanning thousands of years. Even House Tyrell, the Wardens of the South, couldn't rank in the top three when it came to family heritage—one could imagine just how ancient the Reach's noble houses were.
Such ancient lineages naturally meant conservative systems. Bloodline was the sole standard for judging a person's status here. Even if a few exceptions appeared, they could never shake this towering bastion of tradition.
For a commoner to rise in the Reach, there were only two paths. One was to travel to the Citadel in Oldtown and become a maester. The other was to stand out in the various tourneys held by Reach lords—either to be taken in as a knight's squire, or directly gain a knight's favor and be knighted, just like Ser Duncan the Tall, the former Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
Beyond that, Lind also learned that the village he was in was called White Village. It lay on the edge of the Red Lake Forest in the Reach and belonged to House Crane's lands, not far from Red Lake Castle.
The village was called White Village because after building their houses, the locals habitually plastered the walls with a nearby kind of white lime, turning the entire village white.
This village was a direct holding of House Crane, under the jurisdiction of Red Lake Castle. Most of the villagers were hunters, though not the kind who lived solely by hunting. The hunters of White Village mainly served as guides for Red Lake Castle or other Reach nobles during their autumn hunts.
Although the Red Lake Forest wasn't the largest forest in the Reach, it was home to the largest populations of deer, bears, and other animals in the region. Every autumn, House Crane invited the nobles of the Reach to hunt here, using the occasion to strengthen relationships. White Village was a hunter village specifically established by House Crane for this annual autumn hunt.
Lind also learned why he had been so severely injured, why he had lain in bed for over a month, and why the villagers called him Bear Hunter—and feared him.
The matter was also related to the Usurper's War that had ended last year. House Tyrell, the Wardens of the South, had chosen the wrong side during the war. Although King Robert, now ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, hadn't punished them afterward, House Tyrell still felt uneasy. Thus, they sought to collect rare treasures from the Reach to present to King Robert, hoping to improve relations.
House Crane, though ancient, had already declined. Maintaining control over Red Lake Castle was difficult enough, and they even had to marry into the powerful House Florent to prevent their fall.
In such circumstances, House Crane naturally wanted more support. Upon learning that House Tyrell was collecting rare treasures from the Reach, they hoped to use this opportunity to build a relationship with House Tyrell as well.
However, House Crane was already in decline. Most of the precious items from their family heritage had been sold off long ago. The remaining ones bore obvious family characteristics and could never be sold—otherwise, they would become a laughingstock among the Reach nobility. Thus, they could only seek valuable items from other sources.
Fortunately, their lands held the richest animal resources in the Reach, including some extremely rare beasts. As a result, they issued massive bounties targeting specific animals.
The father of this body had been White Village's best hunter. He had set his sights on House Crane's bounty, and after receiving permission from House Crane's steward, entered the Red Lake Forest to hunt a mountain bear.
The mountain bears of Red Lake Forest were different from ordinary bears. They were twice the size of normal bears, possessed strength many times greater, and were covered in a layer of brownish-red fur as tough as armor, making them nearly invincible within the forest.
In the past, more than one group of knights who tried to boast of their valor by hunting mountain bears had died to their attacks. Knights never traveled alone—by their side were squires, guards, and hired warriors.
Thus, when Lind's father entered the Red Lake Forest, no one believed he could succeed in hunting a mountain bear.
In truth, things unfolded exactly as expected. Lind's father died in the forest. By the time the hunters of White Village found him, his body had been torn to pieces—only half a skull and some unrecognizable remains remained.
After collecting his father's remains, the previous owner of this body did not give up on hunting the mountain bear. Instead, he intended to fulfill his father's last wish and avenge him.
Over the following year, he repeatedly entered the forest, searching for traces of mountain bears, and spent large sums of money crafting traps powerful enough to kill one. Finally, more than a month ago, his preparations were complete, and he entered the Red Lake Forest with those traps.
This revenge-driven hunt was both a success and a failure. It was a success in that he truly did hunt a mountain bear by himself. It was a failure because this bear was not the one that had killed his father—and during the bear's counterattack, he was gravely injured. His back was almost entirely flayed, and his spine had nearly been shattered by a bear's paw.
If not for Old Man Bain—his father's sworn brother—who risked his life to lead people into the forest to search for him, carrying him back and caring for him for over a month, he might have already died in the forest. This was also the origin of his title, Bear Hunter.
Aside from his injuries, the mountain bear he hunted brought him no benefits—instead, it brought him trouble.
Because his act of entering the Red Lake Forest to hunt had not received permission from House Crane, the forest's owner, his actions were equivalent to stealing House Crane's property. According to the law, House Crane could have him executed.
However, perhaps because they had gained a mountain bear for free, or because Lind was already on the brink of death at the time and killing him further was unnecessary, House Crane's steward declared that they would not pursue his unauthorized hunting. They even left him five Gold Dragons as payment for the mountain bear.
Compared to the five hundred Gold Dragons House Crane had offered a year earlier, these five coins were pitifully few. But in the eyes of ordinary people, five Gold Dragons were already a massive sum. And the one holding this fortune was a bedridden man who could die at any moment. Naturally, some villagers began to covet it.
Yet these villagers, blinded by greed, were forced to abandon their intentions due to Old Man Bain's forceful intervention. That was why the villagers Lind had encountered earlier wore such expressions—they were clearly afraid of retaliation now that Lind's injuries had nearly healed.
(End of Chapter)