Chapter 3 – The Andal Tongue
"The queen said we have to find out where that brat came from," Camp muttered as he descended the spiral stone staircase, torchlight flickering against the walls. "She also wants him to confess that he was sent by the Hand to assassinate Prince Joffrey. But the idiot doesn't even speak our language—not even the dialects!"
His companion Will snorted. "How are we supposed to interrogate someone who can't speak the language? As for the queen's order, we can just say he confessed. Who's going to show up and defend the bastard anyway?"
"Exactly. He's not even one of us." Camp smirked, licking his lips; the greasy residue from dinner still clung to them. "My guess? He's from Braavos. Soft skin, pale hands—his back shows every lash mark clear as day."
"Maybe he's some noble's son from there?"
"Ha! Braavos doesn't have nobles." Camp shrugged. "But who cares? Dead's dead. My bet is he won't live through the night."
Will raised an eyebrow. "Did the queen give you permission to finish him off?"
"She didn't say no." Camp grinned and rolled a shoulder. "Maybe she's already forgotten he exists."
The two men continued their casual banter as they descended deeper into the castle's bowels. But just before reaching the final steps, Camp halted mid-stride. He sniffed the air.
"You smell that?"
"I've got a cold," Will replied. "What is it?"
"Blood. And something foul… like rot."
Will scoffed. "We're in a dungeon, Camp. Don't forget what our job is. Maybe the fresh air upstairs spoiled your nose."
"Maybe," Camp muttered, though his hand drifted to the hilt of his sword. Something didn't feel right.
Will, on the other hand, was completely at ease. Having worked in this torture chamber for years, he'd never encountered anything truly strange—and didn't expect tonight to be any different.
He swaggered down the final steps and pushed open the iron door without a thought.
Then he froze.
Inside the dim stone chamber, in the corner where the torchlight didn't reach, sprawled a scene straight out of a slaughterhouse.
Chunks of red, white, yellow, and green viscera dripped from the interrogation table, pooling across the floor. What should have been skin hung in torn sheets, tangled with organs and sinew. The stench of iron and bile filled the air.
Will gagged. Even after years of torturing prisoners, the sight nearly made him vomit.
But worse—
The prisoner who had been tied to the wooden post was gone.
"What do you see?" Camp's voice came from behind, tense, as he drew his sword with a rasp of steel.
"There's—"
Will never finished the sentence.
From the shadows beside the door, something flickered—
a red-hot branding iron shot out, driving straight through his open mouth.
Szzzzzt!
The hiss of vaporized flesh filled the room.
Will's eyes bulged wide. He clawed at the glowing iron, mouth working soundlessly, throat sizzling from within. No scream came—only a wet gurgle before his body convulsed, eyes rolling back as he collapsed backward in a heap.
It all happened fast—though to Camp, it felt like slow motion.
From the moment his partner pushed open the door to the instant he collapsed, no more than five or six seconds had passed.
Because the interrogation room's doorway was so narrow, Camp couldn't even see what had happened inside—
not until Will hit the floor.
Then he saw everything.
The pale, bloodstained prisoner who had been tied up just hours ago—
was free.
The boy now stood a few paces from the door, eyes cold, face half-lit by the torchlight. In his left hand, he gripped a glowing iron rod, its tip still burning red-hot.
And he was smiling.
"You'll regret that, boy!" Camp roared. His partner's body was still twitching on the floor, the branding iron jutting grotesquely from his mouth. Rage boiled over.
He raised his longsword and charged.
The prisoner—some skinny, beaten brat—was supposed to be helpless. A toy to be broken. How dare he fight back?
A flush of humiliation burned through Camp's chest as he lunged, blade flashing toward the boy's throat.
He didn't believe for a second that a half-starved teenager with a short iron rod could defeat a trained soldier like him.
And truth be told—Charles couldn't.
But he wasn't alone.
The instant Camp's sword came down—
A heavy clang! rang out from his right.
A massive hammer swung out of the shadows, cutting through the air with a deafening whoosh before slamming straight into his skull.
CRACK!
White exploded in his vision. The impact rattled his brain inside his skull; blood spattered the stone wall. His knees buckled, and he toppled backward, dead before he hit the ground.
"How… is there someone else…?"
That last thought flickered through his fading mind.
He forced his eyes open one last time—only to see the face of his killer.
Not a man.
A skull.
Its pale bone gleamed under the torchlight, streaked with blood. Its jaw clacked open and shut in a grotesque mimicry of laughter.
"Oh… not human," he realized dimly, a strange calm overtaking him. Then darkness claimed him.
---
[Your skeleton has ambushed the medieval inquisitor who whipped you.
Target eliminated.
You have gained partial knowledge of the Andal language.]
---
The glowing text drifted before Charles's eyes.
He froze mid-step, lowering the sword he'd picked up to finish the job.
His gaze shifted—from the corpse at his feet to the skeletal figure beside him, who now stood silently with the bloodied hammer still in hand, its hollow sockets glinting faintly in the dark.
"…What the hell just happened?"
Was the man too fragile, or was this new ability of his too damn overpowered?
He didn't know. But before he could think further, a flood of alien words and grammar began to form in his mind.
The knowledge slid seamlessly into place—like a language he'd known all along.
Andal.
The common tongue of the continent of Westeros.
Westeros. The name struck a faint spark of familiarity from old TV shows and novels—but it was too absurd to believe.
"So this world… really is Westeros?" he murmured. "The Andal language… the Seven Kingdoms…"
The realization sent a chill down his spine.
This wasn't some simplified game world.
The knowledge was too complex, too human.
Every word, every phrase—it all felt real.
And that could only mean one thing:
This world was real.
"…So that's my cheat ability?" he muttered, clicking his tongue with a wry grin. "Could've used a warning, though."
He looked down at the interrogator's broken body—
the same man who'd spent hours torturing him earlier.
"I was planning to pay you back in kind," Charles said quietly. "But it looks like you got off easy."
With a soft sigh, he stooped down and pried the longsword from the dead man's grip.
Then he turned toward the other torturer—the one who'd been knocked unconscious earlier—and walked up beside him.
"Nothing personal," he whispered, raising the sword like a club. "But I need to make sure you don't wake up."
The blade plunged down.
[You pierced the heart of the inquisitor.
Target eliminated.
You gained a trace of life energy.
Your injuries are slightly healed.]
A cool sensation spread from his palm through his veins, settling around the raw welts on his chest. The pain faded into a prickling itch as the wounds began to close before his eyes.
By the time the warmth ebbed away, half his injuries were already healed.
"'Life energy,' huh…" Charles muttered. "Guess I'll take what I can get."
He didn't bother overthinking it.
Sheathing the sword, he pushed open the dungeon door and stepped out into the dim corridor.
Behind him, the white skeleton dropped its hammer with a clunk, bent to pick up a sword of its own, and followed him silently into the dark.
---