Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

Raymond woke up feeling like an anvil had crushed his skull.

His eyes cracked open, but the world was a blurry, spinning mess of dark wooden beams and a ceiling that felt way too low. A heavy, suffocating weight pressed down on his chest, and his throat burned with the distinct, sour taste of cheap alcohol and vomit.

He groaned, trying to lift his arm, but his limbs felt like water.

”What the hell...” he muttered. His voice sounded deep, raspy, and completely unfamiliar.

He blinked hard, forcing his vision to clear. What greeted his eyes made him temporary froze in place. This wasn’t his cramped, rented apartment. He was lying on a massive canopy bed with tattered, dust-covered velvet curtains. The air smelled of damp stone, stale wine, and urine.

Suddenly, a violent spike of pain shot through his brain. It wasn’t a physical injury; it was a flood of foreign information forcing its way into his mind. Images, names, faces, and places flashed before his eyes like a movie playing at ten times the speed. He didn’t have time to process the details, but a few core facts locked into his consciousness.

His name was Raymond von Althoff. He was the eldest son of a noble family, recently banished to the absolute edge of the Kingdom to govern a barren wasteland. And worse, this body belonged to a notorious degenerate, a deadbeat, alcoholic young lord who had spent the last six months drinking away the remaining family treasury while his subjects starved.

”I transmigrated,” Raymond thought, his mind reeling as the pain finally subsided. ”I actually transmigrated into a fantasy world and I’m a loser lord.”

He lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling as his original memories scrambled to make sense of the situation.

Before waking up in this filthy bed, he had been a perfectly ordinary guy on Earth. He had a decent, stable desk job, lived a quiet life, paid his taxes on time, and never bothered anyone. He wasn’t some elite special forces soldier or a brilliant scientist. He was just an average guy who enjoyed reading webnovels after a long shift.

And his death? It was a complete joke.

He remembered it vividly. It was a Sunday afternoon, his designated laundry day. He was carrying a massive, industrial-sized plastic tub of liquid laundry detergent, the kind bought in bulk to save money, while walking down his narrow hallway.

Out of nowhere, his fat orange tabby cat, Mittens, decided that exact moment was the perfect time to sprint across the floor to chase a imaginary bug.

Raymond’s foot caught the cat. He tripped.

In a panic to avoid crushing the cat, he twisted his body, lost his balance, and went flying into his cramped bathroom. He crashed face-first into the edge of the bathtub. The impact knocked him out cold, but that wasn’t what killed him. The giant tub of liquid laundry detergent exploded under his weight, coating the entire bathroom floor, and his face, in a thick, suffocating wave of blue, mountain-spring-scented soap bubbles.

He had literally suffocated on laundry soap because of a cat. It was a death so absurd, so profoundly embarrassing, that he was certain whatever god ran the universe was probably still laughing at him.

”Dying by dish soap... what a way to go,” Raymond muttered to himself, pushing his body up into a sitting position.

As he sat up, the cold air of the room hit him. He was wearing a stained silk shirt that had seen better days. He looked around the bedroom. It was large, but completely stripped of luxury. Marks on the walls showed where paintings used to hang. Empty spaces on tables indicated where silver or gold ornaments had been sold off. The deadbeat original owner had literally pawned the castle’s furniture to buy cheap wine.

Raymond swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His body was weak, trembling from weeks of poor nutrition and alcohol abuse. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart.

”Okay think,” Raymond told himself. ”I’m in a medieval fantasy world. I’m a Baron. Even if the place is poor, I should still have a castle, some land, and subjects. As long as I can steady the economy, I can live a comfortable life.”

But his optimistic thoughts were brutally cut short.

From outside the heavy oak door of his bedroom, loud, angry voices echoed down the stone corridor. The sound of heavy leather boots stomped against the floorboards, accompanied by the distinct clank of iron armor.

”He’s in there! The drunken bastard hasn’t left his room all day!” a harsh voice yelled.

”Are we really doing this, Captain?” another voice asked, sounding hesitant. ”He’s still a noble appointed by the Crown. If the kingdom finds out we slaughtered a Baron...”

”The kingdom doesn’t give a damn about this frozen trash heap!” the first voice, belonging to the Captain, barked back. ”The old Baron is dead, and the capital sent this deadbeat here to die anyway. There hasn’t been a single coin paid to the guard registry in three months. The treasury is empty. The winter is coming, and there’s no food. If we don’t take what’s left and flee south, we’ll freeze to death along with the peasants!”

Raymond froze. The blood drained from his face.

He didn’t need to dig deep into his new memories to understand what was happening. The barony’s private guard force, mostly consisting of cheap mercenaries hired to protect the border, was mutinying. And their first order of business was to eliminate the useless lord, loot the remaining scraps of the castle, and abandon the fief.

”Break the door down!” the Captain roared. ”Kill the deadbeat, take his signet ring, and clear out the vault!”

Thud!

The massive wooden door shuddered as a heavy boot slammed against it. The iron lock groaned under the pressure.

Raymond’s heart hammered against his ribs. Panic, cold and sharp, flooded his system. He had just escaped a ridiculous death on Earth, only to wake up in a new world and face immediate execution by a gang of angry mercenaries.

He scrambled off the bed, his weak legs buckling beneath him. He hit the stone floor, scraping his knees, but ignored the pain. He looked around the room frantically. There were no weapons. No swords, no daggers, not even a heavy fire poker. The original owner had probably sold his ceremonial sword for wine money weeks ago.

Thud!

Another massive kick hit the door. A loud crack echoed through the room as a splinter formed along the center of the wooden frame. The door wouldn’t hold for more than two more hits.

”Dammit! Is this a joke?!” Raymond cursed under his breath, backing away toward the far wall. ”I just got here! Give me a break!”

He was trapped. The window was a narrow slit built into the thick stone wall, meant for archers, not escaping. He couldn’t climb out even if he wanted to.

He pressed his back against the cold stone, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The footsteps outside were heavy. He could hear the mutinous guards laughing, confident that their target was nothing more than a pathetic, trembling drunkard who couldn’t fight back.

Thud!

The top hinge of the door snapped. The wood buckled inward, revealing a gap where the harsh, torch-lit corridor outside was visible. Raymond could see the glint of a sharpened iron sword through the crack.

”Am I seriously going to die twice in one day?” Raymond thought, closing his eyes in despair. ”First soap bubbles, now a mercenary’s sword. My luck is absolutely horrific.”

The guard captain raised his heavy iron boot for the final blow.

”Open up, your Lordship!” the Captain jeered from the other side.

Time seemed to slow down. Raymond braced himself, his fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white. He refused to beg, but he had no way to fight. He needed a miracle. He needed a weapon. He needed anything.

Right as the Captain’s boot traveled toward the fractured wood, a sudden, piercing sound echoed, not from the hallway, but directly inside Raymond’s own mind.

It was a sharp, crystalline sound that completely drowned out the shouting of the guards and the breaking of the wood. It was a sound he recognized instantly from the hundreds of novels he had read back on Earth.

[ Ding! ]