Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

The northern road leading away from Althoff had almost completely disappeared beneath the previous night’s snowfall, leaving only a faint depression in the white landscape where carts and horses had traveled during the warmer months.

Raymond rode at the front of a small group moving steadily through the snow, his thick wool coat pulled tightly around his body while the freezing wind swept loose powder across the road.

Captain Boris rode beside him with one hand resting near the sword at his waist, while six Bronze Rank Knights followed several meters behind them in complete silence.

Two other villagers who used to be hunters had also joined the group, both men wrapped in thick fur cloaks and carrying longbows across their backs.

They were the ones who had originally discovered the enormous tracks near the boundary, and Raymond had insisted that they personally lead him to the exact location instead of relying on a secondhand report.

Boris had naturally objected to his lord personally traveling toward a potentially dangerous area when they didn’t even know what had left the tracks, but Raymond had dismissed the concern almost immediately.

After spending the past month working himself half to death rebuilding the territory, there was absolutely no chance he was going to sit comfortably inside the castle drinking coffee while something large enough to leave footprints the size of wagon wheels wandered around his land.

The Knights surrounding him were more than capable of protecting him from most threats in this part of the Zulor Region, and Raymond himself was no longer the poisoned weakling who could barely walk across his bedroom without losing his breath.

His strength had already reached the level of an 8-Star Bronze Rank Knight, which wasn’t particularly impressive when compared to the monsters quietly riding behind him, but it was enough that he no longer considered himself completely helpless.

The farther north they traveled, the rougher the surrounding landscape became. The relatively flat wasteland around Althoff gradually gave way to frozen hills, scattered boulders and shallow valleys filled with snow, while patches of stubborn winter shrubs occasionally broke through the white ground.

Behind them, the town had long since disappeared from sight, leaving nothing but wilderness in every direction. Yet the most striking feature of the landscape remained directly ahead.

The Blackridge Mountains stretched across the entire northern horizon like a gigantic natural wall, their lower slopes dark with exposed stone and scattered forests while the higher ridges disappeared beneath thick layers of snow and low grey clouds.

Raymond had seen those mountains countless times from the castle balcony, but looking at them from this distance finally gave him a proper understanding of just how enormous the range actually was.

Raymond stared at the distant peaks for a while before turning toward Boris. "I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Exactly how far do those mountains extend? Every time I look north, they seem to cover the entire horizon, and judging by the maps I’ve seen in the castle, nobody bothered drawing anything beyond the outer ridges."

Boris followed his gaze toward the mountains before answering. "Nobody knows their full size, my Lord. The Blackridge Mountains stretch across most of northern Zulor, but the maps only record the outer regions because those are the areas hunters and soldiers have properly explored. There are old trails running through some of the eastern foothills, and hunters occasionally travel deeper during the warmer seasons, but almost nobody enters the inner ranges unless they have a death wish. Bronze-class Magic Beasts are common near the outer mountains, while Silver-class creatures become increasingly common the farther north you travel. As for what lives beyond the inner ridges, most of what we know comes from stories."

One of the hunters riding several paces behind them gave a dry chuckle before adding, "And most sensible hunters prefer those stories to remain stories, your Lordship. My father spent nearly thirty years hunting around Blackridge, and the first lesson he taught me was that any man who thinks he has explored enough of those mountains to understand them is usually a man who won’t return home."

Raymond glanced over his shoulder at the hunter before looking back toward the enormous mountain range. "Very reassuring. It’s good to know my territory is sitting directly beside an unexplored wilderness filled with increasingly powerful monsters. I was starting to worry life here might become peaceful."

Boris’s lips twitched slightly, but before he could respond, the older of the two hunters suddenly raised one gloved hand and pointed toward a shallow depression beside the road. "There, my Lord. That’s where we first discovered them this morning."

The entire group slowed immediately. Raymond dismounted from his horse and walked through the knee-deep snow toward the indicated location, with Boris and two of the Bronze Knights following closely behind him.

Several enormous depressions had been stamped deeply into the snow, some so large that Raymond could have comfortably placed both feet inside a single print without touching the edges.

The snow beneath them had been compressed completely down to the frozen soil, while broken shrubs and scattered branches marked a wide path heading southeast.

Farther ahead, one young tree had been snapped near the middle of its trunk, leaving the upper half hanging awkwardly toward the ground.

Raymond crouched beside the nearest track and studied it for several moments before looking back at the hunters. "You said these were fresh. How fresh are we talking about?"

"Several hours at most, my Lord," the older hunter replied as he climbed down from his horse and approached.

He pointed toward the edges of the depression without stepping inside it. "The wind hasn’t filled them yet, and the snowfall stopped shortly before sunrise. Whatever made these tracks passed through sometime after that. There are several overlapping trails farther north, although we couldn’t determine exactly how many creatures there were because some of the prints crossed over one another."

Raymond stood and brushed snow from his gloves before turning toward Boris, who had been examining another track with a strangely calm expression.

That calmness immediately caught Raymond’s attention. "You don’t look particularly surprised. I’m guessing you already know what made these."

Boris remained quiet for another second before straightening. "I can’t be completely certain without seeing them, my Lord, but judging from the shape and size, they’re probably Ironhorn Elk. If that’s the case, then these tracks are likely connected to the beginning of the Winter Migration."

Raymond stared at him blankly. "The beginning of the what?"