Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

Winter did not end with an announcement. There was no morning when the people of Althoff woke to find the snow suddenly gone or the cold completely driven from the air.

It happened gradually enough that Raymond almost failed to notice it at first.

Snow that had remained untouched for months began sliding from rooftops during the warmer hours of the afternoon, filling the streets with steady dripping as water ran from gutters and collected along the edges of the roads.

The enormous banks of snow piled beside the northern wall slowly shrank, revealing damaged stone, discarded pieces of timber, and patches of frozen earth that hadn’t seen sunlight since the beginning of winter. Icicles disappeared from the eaves one by one.

The livestock started spending longer outside their shelters. Hunters returning from the northern patrol routes reported that streams previously buried beneath ice were beginning to move again, and one morning Raymond stepped outside the castle expecting the familiar bite of winter against his face only to stop when the air felt merely cold instead of actively hostile.

Four months had passed.

Raymond stood at the top of the castle steps with a cup of coffee warming one hand while watching Althoff wake below him.

He had been awake for almost an hour already, mostly because Lily had developed the deeply irritating habit of appearing in his room shortly after sunrise with documents that apparently couldn’t wait until a civilized hour.

She had left him with three construction reports, two inventory summaries, a request from the agricultural specialists for additional labor, Boris’s latest guard recruitment numbers, and a written complaint from residents near the market concerning carts blocking access to their homes.

Raymond had looked at the pile, looked at Lily, and informed her that winter was ending and he therefore deserved one peaceful morning. Lily had replied that paperwork did not recognize seasons.

Raymond briefly considered firing her before remembering that losing the person responsible for organizing half his administration would probably destroy Althoff faster than the Beast Tide had managed.

So he had escaped instead.

He walked without guards despite Lily’s objections, although the distinction had become mostly meaningless because summoned Knights were stationed throughout the town and Boris had enough patrols operating that Raymond rarely traveled more than a street without passing armed men.

The first thing he noticed was the noise. Althoff had once been unnervingly quiet in the mornings.

When Raymond first arrived, people left their homes because they had work to do, not because there was anything worth seeing outside.

Most buildings had been deteriorating, streets were nearly empty, and the few residents who encountered their disgraced lord either lowered their heads to avoid his attention or watched him with barely concealed hatred. He remembered those faces clearly.

Twelve hundred people trapped on barren land with almost nothing to eat, waiting for winter while knowing their territory possessed neither the food nor money necessary to survive it.

The Althoff Raymond walked through now barely resembled that place.

More than five thousand people occupied the territory, and the population increase could be heard before it was properly seen. Workers called to one another across construction sites while carpenters repaired buildings damaged during the Beast Tide.

Hammers rang from workshops that had been abandoned when Raymond first arrived. Smoke rose from chimneys across the settlement, and carts carrying firewood, preserved food, building materials, hides, and tools moved constantly along streets that had once struggled to produce meaningful traffic.

New communal houses stood beside older structures, plain and practical but warm, while several damaged buildings had been demolished completely and their materials reused elsewhere.

The population had grown so quickly that Althoff still had housing problems, yet they were the kind created by expansion rather than decay. Raymond found that strangely satisfying.

Four months earlier, buildings had been empty because people were starving. Now he had people arguing with him because there weren’t enough buildings.

The market near the old central square had become the clearest sign of the change.

What began as a handful of residents trading spare goods had developed into rows of designated stalls after Raymond ordered Lily to organize the area, and people were already setting up despite the early hour.

One family sold bread produced from flour milled from Althoff’s grain stores, while another displayed repaired boots, gloves, and heavy coats made partly from Magic Beast hides.

A carpenter had somehow decided that children with newly employed parents represented an untapped market and was selling simple wooden toys.

Hunters traded preserved meat and materials they were permitted to keep from sanctioned expeditions, while residents who still possessed coin used it alongside direct barter.

Raymond had not introduced formal market taxes yet because the local economy remained too young, although Marianne had already prepared three possible systems after he made the mistake of mentioning that taxes would eventually exist.

"Morning, Young Master. "

Raymond turned toward a stall where a broad-shouldered woman was arranging strips of smoked meat.

He recognized her face but couldn’t immediately remember where she had come from, something that happened increasingly often now that Althoff’s population had quadrupled.

"Morning. How much are you charging for that?" The woman gave him a suspicious look before answering, "Depends. Are you actually buying it, or are you doing that thing where you ask questions and then somebody comes tomorrow with a ledger?"

Raymond nearly laughed. "I’m offended that I’ve developed that reputation."

She snorted while continuing to arrange the meat. "You built half the town with ledgers."

Raymond couldn’t even argue with that. He purchased a strip anyway, discovered that Magic Beast meat was significantly better when prepared by someone who knew what they were doing, and continued through the market while wondering whether administrative harassment had somehow become part of his public image.

Beyond the square, another industry had grown around the remains of the winter migration.

The leatherworkers occupied two workshops now, with racks of treated hides filling covered yards behind them.

Blacksmiths and craftsmen had begun experimenting with horns, claws, bones, and other materials collected from the thousands of Magic Beasts killed throughout winter.

Most of the valuable Mana Cores remained under House Althoff’s control, carefully catalogued and secured for future use or sale, but lesser materials had already entered the local economy.

Raymond paused outside one forge long enough to watch a blacksmith fit a polished section of beast horn onto the handle of a heavy tool while his apprentice worked nearby.

Neither man noticed Raymond immediately, which allowed him several moments simply to watch them work before the apprentice finally looked up and nearly dropped what he was carrying.

Raymond left before his presence could turn an ordinary morning into a formal event and headed toward the eastern side of the settlement, where the agricultural specialists had effectively established their own miniature kingdom.

The original fifteen-hectare basin remained dormant beneath the final remnants of snow, but preparations for spring had already begun.

Harlan and Gideon had spent weeks organizing the growing number of farmers among the refugees, while the five specialists mapped future fields, irrigation routes, livestock areas, storage requirements, and labor assignments.

Raymond’s unused Tier III Land Upgrade Card remained safely in the System inventory, waiting for the right moment to transform one hundred hectares into fertile farmland once the ground had fully thawed.

Nearby livestock enclosures held cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, horses, and oxen, and their numbers would become increasingly important as Althoff transitioned away from relying entirely on stored food and winter hunting.

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