No one questioned where the men had come from, because in all honesty, no one had the strength to care, everyone was still trying to accept the fact that they couldn't leave this world.
The war with the ice monsters and the wall had been the only easy thing that they had to deal with.
Go fight that.
They had to think of strategies and concentrate, but in the end, it was just something to keep their minds occupied and when the war was over, they were back where they had started.
So as the lord of this place, it was her duty to put the only people that did have clear minds to do what they could and so she ordered the men to scout the areas beyond the wall.
The men did as she told them before they came back with stories about strange creatures that made the forest their home.
The men had been loyal and while they did have a problem with taking orders from a woman, they accepted her position as the lord of this place and did everything that she told them.
The men's relationship with Kirito was completely different, as while they did call her Lady Asuna, they spoke with a lot more respect to him and even went as far as to call him Lord despite him not having the position.
Asuna had to remind herself that these must have been natives of this world and as such they must be used to always seeing the male members of the family as the ones that hold the power.
The men were also old, not too old, while there are a lot of them living in the wall now, they aren't so old that their muscles have completely deteriorated.
They are still strong enough to fight if they have to, but they aren't strong enough to do it if they want to.
So she is happy to let them follow Kirito's orders, after all, he is the one that's going to have to clean up after them if or when they cause a mess.
For a moment, she was tempted to order her husband to take her place and go to Maester so he could help the man with whatever he was doing at the moment.
Everything important had to be logged, and that meant that any coins that were spent or gained had to be logged, the same went for food, water, livestock, and people.
It was like she had been forced to carry weights that didn't weigh the same and she was forced to balance them all.
The problem was that none of the weights were heavy on their own, but when they were all carried at once, they threatened to break her if she didn't have any help, and even with the help it was exhausting to carry the weights all of the time.
They passed by one of the rooms that the orphanage had taken and turned into a classroom, this one was filled with girls who were learning how to sow or knit, while the next one was filled with boys and girls that were learning to read and write.
It was all so heavy, these kids depended on her and her guild to protect them, but how could she, how could they, when they were having to depend on the natives to guide them through everything?
She could see the large wooden door being opened and several children who were dressed in skins or furs were being led into the wall by a group of old men and women.
Another batch that had been thrown away by the people of the south\north.
The kids were either deformed and had heads or eyes that were a little too big or their bodies were smaller than they should have been and because they were deemed useless or too much trouble to be kept they were thrown out of their clans or villages.
The women or girls that were either too old or the same age as she was, only came here because they were too old or they had done something that made them unable to live wherever they had come from.
It was obvious what the people on the southern side of the wall were doing, they were using the walls as a place to throw away the people that they didn't want.
More weight was added to her burden.
][][][
Winterfell
Rickard Stark listened to the latest pieces of information that were being sent to him from the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.
Every change was important because it affected the North, so far not much had changed, the Players as they called themselves had kept their word and stayed on the wall or their side of it.
The only times that they even set foot on the north half was to repair the castles or towers that they had taken.
He had his men copy everything before he had the information sent to King's Landing.
Still, none of this could be ignored, this year's winter was dragging, and if it stayed any longer then the northern houses would be in trouble.
They needed a break from this accursed winter, they needed to refill their pantries and stock up on firewood both of which were already starting to run out.
His house wasn't the only one that saw this and several of the other houses had started to get rid of the ones that wouldn't make it passed this winter.
Except this time they had chosen to do something different, they had taken the people that they knew wouldn't survive and taken them to the wall, instead of telling them to walk into the snow-covered lands.
From the letters of the Lord Commander, he knew that the pantries of the wall were being restocked faster than they could be emptied and that was a problem.
Several of the other Lords had begun to look at the lands behind the wall with envy.
If there was such an abundance of food and wealth if the letters were to be believed then they just had to take it from the players.
In front of him were the hand-drawn pictures of the Ladies and lords that now governed the wall, he had to admit that he was surprised that nearly all of them except for a few weren't married yet.
This was another problem because any of the smaller houses could easily betray the North for the wealth that one of the Player's houses had.
So he decided to offer the Players a chance to trade with him and the Northern Houses.
His plan was simple, he would invite the lords of the wall and offer to open trade with them.
This would allow the houses of the north to be able to visit the wall and keep a close eye on the Player's movements.
Any army that was stationed near the wall could be dismissed as nothing more than the guards of the lords that were currently visiting.
If the Players accepted the offer, then he would know when one of the houses tried to betray him and swear loyalty to the Players.
If they didn't, then he would have to consider taxing the Night's Watch for entering his land, something that he was sure that the other houses would do as well.
Then he would have to look at all of the information that he had on the wall's defenses, before deciding if he would aid anyone that tried to lay siege to them.
He also had to consider his other option, he had a son and daughter that he could use to form an alliance with the strongest houses of the wall.
While he didn't like the thought of sending his daughter to be the second woman of some lord that he didn't know anything about, he knew all too well what such a marriage could and would bring.
His second-born and third-born sons could easily secure peace between his house and the lands beyond the wall.
Everything depended on the Player's decision, if they accepted his invitation then he would judge their characters in the safety of his castle.
But if they rejected his offer, then he would have to prepare himself for a long and difficult war.
Even before that, he would once again visit the wall, just to see if he could be granted an audience with whoever was in charge at the moment, so he could talk to them and prevent the war from happening.