Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

Raymond stood tall upon the small wooden platform, his wet hands raised toward the dark, swirling emerald clouds as the heavy torrent of mana-infused rain continued to soak his fine silk clothes.

He looked down at the hundred townspeople kneeling flat in the fresh black loam, their bodies trembling not from the cold, but from pure, unadulterated religious awe.

He let a profound, theatrical silence hang over the basin for a few dramatic seconds, completely masking the wild, ecstatic beating of his heart.

Slowly, he opened his mouth, dropping his voice into a deep, resonant tone that vibrated with absolute, calculated benevolence.

”Rise, my beloved brothers and sisters, for the eyes of the supreme Mother of Nature are officially upon you today!” Raymond declared, his voice cutting clearly through the heavy thrum of the downpour. ”Do not grovel in the mud before me, for I am merely a humble vessel chosen to bear her grand, divine light to this neglected territory. She has heard your desperate cries of agony, she has felt the intense weight of your hunger, and today she has personally broken the ancient curse of this barren land to deliver her grace directly into your hands!”

”Man, I am an absolute, golden god at this gaslighting business,” Raymond thought to himself, as he looked at the people before him with his pious mask.

Look at these poor saps weeping in the mud and staring at me like I’m a literal messiah descended from the heavens. If they only knew that I’m just an average, corporate desk worker from Earth who suffocated on a mountain of laundry soap bubbles because of a fat orange cat, their heads would probably explode from pure anger. But hey, a good lie keeps them alive, and it keeps my system multiplier printing free knight levels, so I’m going to milk this divine emissary fraud for every single drop it’s worth.

”What you are witnessing right now is not a mere passing storm, but a sacred covenant between House Althoff and the heavens above!” Raymond continued his pretentious speech, his expression shifting into a flawless mask of deep, dramatic sorrow and self-blame.

”I confess to you all that I spent my initial months here drowning in personal grief and alcohol, completely blind to the agonizing suffering of my people. But the Goddess of Life forcefully shattered my weakness, appointing me as her Divine Emissary to ensure that no child in this barony will ever have to eat dry tree bark or freeze in the dirt again!”

The hundred townspeople looked up at Raymond with deep, fanatical admiration and absolute respect gleaming in their yellowed eyes.

The raw emotion in his voice was so perfectly fabricated, so layered with weaponized humility, that it completely obliterated the last remaining walls of their cynicism.

They no longer saw a deadbeat, alcoholic young master standing on that platform; they saw a radiant, holy savior who had literally forced a torrential rainstorm out of a desert sky to end their misery.

”This miraculous rain is merely the glorious beginning of our new era!” Raymond proclaimed, flashing a warm, amicable smile that seemed to radiate a gentle comfort through the heavy storm. ”With the supreme Goddess standing firmly by our side, your lives from this exact moment onward will become better for good. We will cultivate this rich black soil, fill our empty granaries to the absolute brim, and turn this barren wasteland into a paradise where everyone can live in perfect, abundant peace!”

The townspeople immediately stood up from the muddy ground, their frail arms raised high as cheers of absolute joy and fanatical devotion erupted from their throats.

At that exact peak of public emotion, a sharp, crystalline digital chime rang out inside Raymond’s mind, a translucent blue notification panel manifesting directly across his field of vision.

[ Ding! ]

[ Public Synchronization Complete! ]

[ Town Citizen Trust & Loyalty Index: 45% ➔ 60% (Ceiling Rising!) ]

[ Current Status: Revered Savior / Unifying Leader.]

[System Note: The seed of faith has successfully anchored itself within the core population force. Your societal authority

is now entirely absolute within this specific farming faction.]

Raymond smiled smoothly when he processed the glowing blue numbers, keeping his hands raised to acknowledge the crowd while his mind analyzed the statistical data.

It won’t be long before the entire one thousand twelve hundred people in this town view me in a completely different light,

As long as I can systematically make these people trust my divine mandate, every single one of my future expansion plans will go smoothly without a shred of internal friction. Once the town is completely unified under my name, I can use the full population multiplier to elevate my knight rank into the stratosphere.

The sky above the basin remained completely gloomy and dark, the thick emerald clouds continuing to drop heavy sheets of mana-infused water over the area.

Everyone standing on the open field was entirely soaked to the bone, their tattered garments clinging heavily to their skinny, emaciated frames.

Yet, despite the cold water plastering their hair to their faces, none of them cared about the discomfort in the slightest. It had been literal ages since a single drop of rain had fallen over the Althoff Barony, and to these desperate peasants, this storm was an undeniable, physical miracle that promised to banish their extreme hunger forever.

But as Raymond looked closer at the cheering crowd, his modern, practical thoughts began to shift away from the divine performance, a sudden wave of logistical worry hitting him.

These townspeople didn’t look like normal, healthy humans; they looked like brittle wooden twigs, their bodies severely malnourished from a full year of starvation.

He knew that if he allowed them to stand out here in a freezing torrential downpour for much longer, their weak immune systems would completely collapse overnight.

If they caught a severe cold, he would wake up tomorrow morning to a castle courtyard filled with extreme mass corpses instead of productive farmers.

If a massive illness wipes out a third of my town tomorrow, my population metrics will completely tank, and my knight level will drop back down to zero, Raymond realized, his jaw tightening slightly under his mask.

These people are already on their absolute last legs, and their frail bodies cannot handle a prolonged exposure to a heavy storm like this. I need to get them back inside dry shelters immediately before my agricultural miracle accidentally transforms into a catastrophic curse. I am definitely not holding a mass burial on my fifth day as a transmigrated lord.

Without a single second of hesitation, Raymond lowered his arms and stepped closer to the edge of the platform, his booming voice cutting through the cheers with a tone of urgent, fatherly concern. ”Alright, everyone! Let us all pack up our gear and make our way back to the town gates immediately! Standing out in this heavy rain for too long will cause your frail bodies to catch a severe cold, and the Goddess does not wish to see her beloved children fall ill after receiving her blessings!”

With that command issued, the entire crowd began to orderly file out of the basin, their faces still glowing with an intense, happy determination.

With the active, efficient assistance of Captain Boris and the other private guards, they successfully escorted all the hundred townspeople back toward the main settlement safely.

When the soaked procession finally arrived at the eastern clay gates, the remaining townspeople who had stayed behind were immediately frozen in absolute awe and total shock.

They stood on the dry, dusty streets beneath a blazing sun, watching hundreds of their neighbors march into the town completely drenched in fresh water.

The contrast was simply too ridiculous and bizarre to look at from a rational standpoint. One half of the barony was completely dry with the intense sun beating down on the cracked earth, while just a few hundred meters away, a massive, localized emerald storm was visibly pouring down over the basin.

Looking at the massive crowd of remaining townspeople rapidly gathering around the gate to witness the bizarre spectacle, a brilliant, opportunistic idea suddenly formed deep within Raymond’s mind.

His lips once again twisted into a wide, completely unholy grin, his eyes lighting up with an intense brilliance as if he had just discovered a massive mountain of pure gold.

He knew exactly how to use this visual contrast to convert the remaining citizens into fanatical believers before the sun set.