Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

Raymond sat on the edge of the large canopy bed, his posture completely relaxed as he looked at the shattered doorway.

The room fell into an uncomfortable, heavy silence, broken only by the ragged breathing and low whimpers of the battered mercenaries stacked on the floor.

His eyes locked onto the man at the front of the pile. The man was clutching his fractured ribs, his armor dented and his face swelling into a purple mess.

"Captain Boris," Raymond said, his voice smooth and clear.

The sound of his name coming from the mouth of the lord he had intended to slaughter made the mercenary captain flinch violently. Boris slowly raised his head, his single unswollen eye trembling with absolute terror.

"Do you know what you have just done, Captain Boris?" Raymond asked, tilting his head slightly.

Boris remained entirely silent. He didn’t dare to speak, nor did he have a valid excuse to offer. The cold metal swords of the three towering knights standing at attention behind Raymond were a vivid reminder that any wrong word would result in his head rolling across the stone floor. He knew exactly what he had done. He had led a bloody mutiny against his rightful employer.

Seeing the captain remain silent, Raymond rubbed his chin, a soft, slow smile spreading across his face.

"Since you seem to have lost your tongue, let me tell you exactly what abominable crimes you and your men have just committed," Raymond continued, his tone conversational, as if he were discussing the weather rather than a death sentence.

"You tried to instigate a mutiny. You attempted a coup. You committed high treason against the territory. And most importantly, you attempted the cold-blooded murder of a Baron anointed directly by the Crown of this kingdom. Your crimes, Boris, are simply too many to count on my fingers."

Raymond leaned forward slightly, his eyes narrowing. "And do you know what specific punishments are given to common mercenaries who commit such high crimes against the nobility?"

Captain Boris froze completely in place, his entire body paralyzing with a deep, primal fear. The thirty men groveling behind him turned an even paler shade of white, some of them trembling so hard their armor clattered against the stone floor. In a feudal society, the punishment for treason and attempting to murder a lord was never a simple hanging. It meant public torture, the execution of one’s entire family, and being drawn and quartered by horses.

Raymond looked at the absolute terror painted on their swollen faces and kept his calm smile, but internally, his mind was racing at a mile a minute.

"I need to play this perfectly," Raymond thought to himself. "I just transmigrated into this world today. My personal body is incredibly weak, hungover, and completely untrained. Right now, I am entirely dependent on these three summoned knights. If I want to survive the harsh winter and the political enemies surrounding this barren barony, I need every single ounce of human strength I can gather."

He glanced briefly at the three towering knights standing like immovable steel statutes behind him.

"Sure, these three knights are incredibly powerful. With their speed and strength, I could easily command them to slaughter everyone in this castle, pack up the remaining gold, and run away to another kingdom to live a quiet life. But that is completely impossible based on how the system introduced itself earlier"

Raymond remembered the exact words that had flashed in his mind during the activation. It was called the Infinite Family Treasury System, and its metrics were explicitly tied to territory wealth, land mass, and population size. From the brief interaction he had with the system, he immediately had a few ideas and understood what the system is.

The system rules were rigid. If he abandoned his fief and ran away as a rogue noble, his territory grade would drop to zero, his population would hit zero, and his personal power would remain completely capped. He would be a target for the rest of his life.

"I can’t run away, Raymond concluded, tossing the idea directly into the trash. I am stuck with this frozen Althoff Barony. And if I want to build this place up, I cannot afford to slaughter my entire guard force on day one. Even if these mercenaries are treacherous scum, they are still thirty able-bodied men who know how to hold a sword. I need these men for the time being. I need them to guard the walls, patrol the borders, and keep the peasants in line while I figure out how to use the rest of my system rewards. Once the barony grows, and once these men become entirely useless to me... I can throw them away like trash. But until then, I must make them useful."

These cold, manipulative thoughts swirled rapidly through Raymond’s mind, yet his outward expression never faltered. He maintained that same soft, unwavering smile as he stared down at Captain Boris and his men.

To the terrified mercenaries, that silent, unblinking smile didn’t look kind at all. Combined with the absolute carnage that had just taken place, Raymond’s calm demeanor looked like the expression of a literal devil. The contrast between the notorious, drunken deadbeat they thought they knew and this terrifyingly composed lord was breaking their minds.

Unable to take the psychological pressure any longer, Captain Boris suddenly threw himself forward. He slammed his forehead violently against the hard stone floor, a loud thack echoing through the room.

"Forgive me, my Lord! Please, forgive me!" Boris screamed, his voice cracking with pure desperation. He began banging his head repeatedly against the ground. "I was blind! I was foolish! The cold, the hunger... it drove us mad! I swear upon my life, I will never do it again! Please show mercy, your Lordship!"

Seeing their captain groveling, the thirty battered mercenaries behind him immediately followed suit. The corridor became a chaotic scene of grown men weeping, banging their heads against the floor, and begging for their lives in unison.

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