The Mountain of Ice and Fire

Polliver gasped, "Sweetmouth, you can't go in."

Sweetmouth and Dunsen stopped and turned back.

Polliver raised his sword with his left hand, his body trembling slightly. He had lost a lot of blood from his back and wrist, and his body was getting weaker and weaker. The sword wavered. "Only with Ser Gregor's orders can you enter."

"Alright, we won't go in," Sweetmouth said.

Polliver felt a sense of relief, his body weakened, and the sword in his left hand fell to the ground.

"Rest well, don't move. I'll go get the maester," Sweetmouth said softly.

Polliver slid down the wall slowly.

Sweetmouth nodded at Dunsen, who understood and went to open the door.

"No!" Polliver said.

He tried to get up, but found his body weak, his legs and arms unresponsive. He barely managed to lift himself halfway before collapsing.

Sweetmouth Rafford was as agile as a cat, moving silently. He went upstairs and called Maester Hallis down.

Polliver felt someone lifting his body. He woke up and said, "Sweetmouth, you can't open the door and go in. It has to be when the Ser is calm, when the Ser gives the order."

"I know, I know!" Sweetmouth carried Polliver on his back, as nimble as a monkey, carried Polliver upstairs, and threw him into the maester's small room.

Ser Gregor could not afford to have a maester to serve him. His stone castle was small, his land was small, and besides gathering a group of daredevils around him, he was not rich.

The Westerlands' famous gold mines?

Sorry, they are all on other nobles' lands.

Productive fisheries?

Sorry, they are all on other nobles' lands.

Hunting and farming?

Hehe, they are also on other nobles' lands.

Gregor's territory consisted of a small forest and a few acres of thin fields.

The number of subjects who could pay taxes to him was only eleven.

The tax revenue from the subjects was negligible to him.

So what did Gregor rely on to support his family?

Entirely on Tywin Lannister.

And he didn't need to support his family, because he was the only one left.

His brother Sandor Clegane had never returned since he followed Tywin Lannister at the age of eight.

He had married two wives before and after, extorting a lot of money from his in-laws for himself and his brothers to squander, but neither wife had a good ending. The first wife was punched to death by Gregor when he had a headache because she brought poppy milk a little too slowly. The second wife was unable to help him up when he was drunk, leaving him to sleep on the floor overnight. When he woke up, he scolded his wife, and she retorted, so he jumped up and knocked her to death against the stone wall.

After the unclear deaths of two wives in succession (he never admitted to killing his relatives), no one dared to marry their daughter to him again.

Gregor was also too lazy to marry another wife. Anyway, every time Tywin asked him to lead troops to patrol the Red Fork border, he would break into the Riverland villages of House Tully and snatch a few women he liked for fun. As long as he didn't kill anyone, raping a few village women in the border villages, Lord Tywin would at most scold him a few words. He naturally didn't care about it at all. He led a group of daredevils without a family, and he was carefree and happy.

As for the Maester Hallis in the house, he was naturally sent by Tywin Lannister to take care of him. Recently, Gregor's headaches had become a little frequent, so he specifically asked for leave to leave Casterly Rock and go home to rest. Tywin was worried about his health, so he arranged for Maester Hallis to take care of him.

Gregor went home because he was no longer the Gregor he used to be. He was a transmigrated senior engineering student. The engineering student didn't want to rely on poppy milk to suppress his headache anymore. He wanted to rely on willpower to quit his poppy addiction.

Everything was for survival, there was no other way.

So he tied himself to the stone bed.

Maester Hallis had only recently become a maester, and was previously an apprentice to Archmaester Ebrose in Tywin's household. Generally speaking, apprentices need to return to the Citadel in the south, at least five thousand miles away—the headquarters of the maesters of the Seven Kingdoms, equivalent to a maester's graduate school—to take the exam. Only by passing the exam can they obtain the maester's chain awarded by the Citadel. The maester's chain is the identity symbol of the maesters. Only the Citadel of Oldtown in the Seven Kingdoms has the sole qualification to award the maester's chain.

However, the Seven Kingdoms are too large. In order to better spread knowledge and cultivate new people in various places, some archmaesters who have obtained at least ten metal links (one metal link represents one kind of knowledge, and the metal link is hung on the maester's chain) can grant their local students with particularly good academic performance maester qualifications. In the future, when there is a suitable opportunity, these junior maesters who have been recognized and awarded a maester's chain by outside archmaesters must also go to the Citadel of Oldtown for examination, registration, and then be awarded a true maester's chain with the Citadel's logo by the Citadel.

In the Seven Kingdoms, to serve the great nobles and to seek one's own status and wealth, being an apprentice is not enough. You must first have the qualifications of a maester before you can be hired by the nobles.

And once you choose to be a maester, you can never marry in this life. According to the oath that the students made in front of the gods when the Citadel awarded the maester's chain, they must dedicate their lives to all kinds of vast knowledge until the last moment of their lives. Of course, in fact, many maesters secretly went to brothels to fight with all their strength after swearing in front of the gods in the Citadel.

Polliver's back injury was not serious, but his right wrist injury was more serious. If he was not treated in time, he might not be able to use his right hand to wield a sword. This was unacceptable to Polliver, Ser Gregor's number one fanboy, and it was also unacceptable to Maester Hallis. If he couldn't cure his first patient when he was sent out to do things alone for the first time, his maester's chain would be given in vain, and he would not be able to go back to face his teacher, Archmaester Ebrose.

While the young Maester Hallis was nervously treating Polliver's sword wound, Dunsen and Sweetmouth Rafford were stunned downstairs.

Two of the thick ropes binding Ser Gregor had broken, and the two-thousand-pound stone bed had moved from the left to the right. The ropes around Ser Gregor were stained with blood.

"Get out!" The motionless Ser Gregor suddenly spoke, his voice full of exhaustion and... a trace of faint sorrow.

Ser Gregor never felt sorrow, only beastly rage.

Dunsen and Sweetmouth Rafford were surprised, but obediently rolled out. They continued to close the door, and then stood guard in front of the door honestly, one on the left and one on the right.

No one was allowed to disturb Ser Gregor, not even Maester Hallis, who was proficient in medicine and was personally sent by Lord Tywin Lannister to take care of Ser Gregor's health.

Not long after, terrifying screams rang out in the room again, followed by the ground shaking again, even louder than the last time.

Dunsen and Sweetmouth were terrified, afraid that Ser Gregor would break free from the thick ropes and kill them both. Although Ser Gregor took good care of his brothers, it was entirely possible to do so when the Ser went crazy.

Ah——!

Ah——!

Ah——!

This terrifying scream like a dying beast echoed in Ser Gregor's room intermittently for two days and two nights.

In the end, the sound became a hissing – hoarse voice.