Chapter 183: Deception
Celia rolled her eyes, but Daenerys smiled.
Ian was right. Daenerys liked handsome, confident men who were also full of clever banter, like Daario Naharis, the captain of the Stormcrows in the original timeline. That guy successfully won Daenerys's heart after she became Queen of Meereen, largely thanks to his endless stream of witty remarks.
Among them, the ones that impressed Ian the most were:
'I have lived a life of adventure. I have not spent a single day without loving a woman, or killing a man, or both. And the days I have lived number as many as the stars in the sky.'
'I would gladly tell you the names of all the men I've killed, but before I could finish, your dragons would grow large as castles, the walls of Yunkai would crumble into yellow dust, and winter would come and go and come again.'
Ian had to admit that witty banter was an art, and his own modest skill was nothing compared to Daario's mastery.
Moreover, Ian's words weren't entirely boastful.
For someone like Ian, who was thoroughly familiar with classical military strategy, able to recite Sun Tzu's Art of War and the Thirty-Six Stratagems fluently, and who had meticulously studied Clausewitz's On War, a veritable bible of military theory, placing him in a world like Ice and Fire was a complete game-changer.
Even including the players, Ian dared to say his understanding of classical military strategy was second to none in this world, which was why he dared to sign up for the competition despite not knowing martial arts initially.
It was just a pity that the developers focused on the entire competition, not allowing players to quickly transition to the lord stage as usual, thus preventing him from fully utilizing his expertise.
"I look forward to your performance, my lord." Daenerys smiled, approving of Ian's confident remark. "Then," she turned to Celia and ordered, "take one dragon egg. We'll make landfall later for Viserys's funeral. The remaining two eggs will be brought to my cabin."
"I need to make some preparations," Daenerys said. "Is there anything else you wish to report?"
"No, Your Grace." Ian shook his head.
"Your Grace." Celia simply bowed, saying nothing more.
Daenerys nodded and turned to leave.
"Have you noticed? Although no one has taught her, she's already learning how to be a Queen," Celia whispered to Ian as Daenerys walked away.
"She was inherently gifted politically. In the original timeline, didn't she learn on her own? After all, her advisors were all incompetent—not a single one reliable. But she still managed to develop a certain level of political acumen, albeit not exceptional. Compared to the people of this world, she was quite decent."
"This isn't a good thing. You want a tool who obeys you completely, but given her personality, I think that might be unrealistic. After all, her current identity is Queen, and she will try her best to adapt to this role," Celia analyzed.
"If the other party were a noblewoman like Sansa or Myrcella, through whom you could only gain a claim to power, you could certainly completely sideline her and turn her into a puppet. But what you need is her dragon. We can't turn the Mother of Dragons into a puppet. It would be very dangerous if her ideas went against ours.
And it's inevitable that her ideas will go against ours. Once we get to Slaver's Bay, she'll be overwhelmed with compassion when she sees those slaves, and it will be very difficult for us to persuade her. After all, in the original timeline, she even disregarded Drogo's objections and Dothraki tradition to forcibly take those Lhazareen slaves from the Dothraki. She has an astonishingly kind yet astonishingly stubborn nature."
"So rather than suppressing or sidelining her, my choice is to teach her." Ian shrugged, indicating that he knew what he was doing.
"Teach her? Let her have her own thoughts?" Celia found it absurd.
"If I don't teach her, she will truly develop her own thoughts. I'm not teaching her how to think independently, but how to think like me. Only when she gets used to taking my decisions as the standard will she not cause us trouble."
"That sounds... somewhat logical." Celia covered her face and sighed. "My God, how could poor little Dany have met such a manipulator like you? You're not only taking her title, her dragons, her body, but also her values."
"Yes, I'm deceiving her. In fact, apart from you and my NPCs, I've hardly ever told the complete truth," Ian admitted directly.
"But she's the luckiest of all those I've deceived. What is this little deception I'm giving her compared to all the deception and betrayal she was destined to endure?
In Pentos, she was deceived by her own brother, who promised to take her home but then sold her to Khal Drogo.
In Lhazar, she saved the godswife Mirri Maz Duur from rape and murder, but that maegi exploited her trust, poisoning Drogo under the guise of healing him, and then using blood magic to kill her unborn child, Rhaego, under the pretext of saving him.
After Drogo's death, his khalasar fell apart, and Daenerys led her remaining followers across the Red Waste to Qarth. They were taken in by the Qartheen merchant Xaro Xhoan Daxos, who proposed to her countless times, but he only wanted to steal her dragons.
She then turned her attention to the warlock Pyat Pree of the House of the Undying, defying everyone's objections to meet their masters, the Undying Ones, hoping to gain their help.
The Undying claimed they would share their knowledge with her, teach her how to wield power, answer all her questions, and teach her the ancient language of dragons, but they only wanted to drain her life force. With the help of the black dragon Drogon, she barely managed to kill the Undying and escape.
Later, she conquered Astapor and gained control of the Unsullied army. After defeating Yunkai, she agreed to spare their city if they freed their slaves. However, no sooner had Daenerys left than Yunkai put collars back on the slaves and began gathering an army and sellswords to plot against her.
She conquered Meereen and even married the Meereenese nobleman Hizdahr zo Loraq, yet she was still betrayed. The Sons of the Harpy slaughtered her Unsullied, and enemies both inside and outside the city formed an alliance, joining forces with New Ghis, Qarth and even Volantis's fleet, all determined to destroy Daenerys and her supporters.
And if you include the show's plot, it's even worse: she was deceived by Cersei, fought the White Walkers alone in the North but lost two dragons and even her best friend and handmaiden, Missandei. And finally, after she captured King's Landing, she was betrayed by that bastard Jon Snow, who kept saying 'You are my Queen!'
Compared to all that, what are my lies?" Ian spread his hands. "Follow me, and there is only victory and glory, no pain or sorrow."
"You're really confident. Do you think you've already got victory in the bag?"
"At least compared to the days of fear and anxiety in Westeros and Pentos, in my current state, losing wouldn't be easy." Ian patted Celia's backside. "Get to work. Prepare for the birth of our first dragon."
(End of Chapter)
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