Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

The Knights reacted instantly, spreading into a broad defensive line in front of Raymond while Boris drew his sword and positioned himself near the center.

The two hunters retreated several paces with arrows already nocked, their previous calm replaced by visible tension as the noise from beyond the ridge became louder.

Raymond stared ahead without blinking, his heart beginning to pound despite his attempt to remain composed.

Whatever was approaching wasn’t a handful of wandering animals.

The ground itself seemed to be announcing their arrival.

Then the first creature climbed over the ridge.

Raymond’s grip tightened around his sword as an enormous elk-like head appeared above the snowy slope, crowned by a pair of thick black antlers that spread outward like twisted branches.

The creature continued forwarduntil its entire body came into view, revealing a beast slightly larger than an ordinary horse, with powerful shoulders covered in thick dark-brown fur and heavy legs that sank deeply into the snow with every step.

Another appeared beside it almost immediately, followed by three more, then ten, then dozens, until the entire ridge seemed to come alive.

"Ironhorn Elk," Boris muttered, lowering his sword slightly without sheathing it. "Bronze-class herbivorous Magic Beasts. This is one of the early herds."

Raymond barely heard him.

Hundreds of Ironhorn Elk were pouring over the ridge.

The herd spread across the white landscape in a broad moving mass, their heavy black antlers rising and falling as they traveled. Clouds of steaming breath escaped from their nostrils, while their hooves churned the untouched snow into broken trails of dark earth.

Some were smaller females and juveniles, but the mature males were enormous, several carrying antlers wide enough to seriously injure anything unfortunate enough to stand in their way.

The combined weight of the herd made the frozen ground tremble continuously, and for several moments Raymond genuinely wondered whether Boris had severely underestimated the danger.

"They’re coming directly toward us," Raymond said, his eyes fixed on the approaching animals as his body tensed in preparation.

"Hold your position, my Lord," Boris replied immediately, raising one hand toward the Knights. "Nobody attacks unless they change behavior. If we strike first, we could provoke the entire herd."

Raymond glanced at the hundreds of massive beasts approaching them and decided that provoking the entire herd sounded like an exceptionally terrible idea.

He remained where he was, although his hand never left his sword. The Ironhorn Elk continued moving closer until Raymond could clearly see individual scars on some of their bodies and patches of snow clinging to their thick coats.

Then, perhaps fifty meters away from the defensive line, the animals at the front of the herd gradually turned east.

The movement spread backward through the entire group almost naturally, and within moments the massive herd began flowing around Raymond’s party rather than toward it.

Nobody spoke.

Hundreds of Bronze-class Magic Beasts simply walked past them.

Several of the elk briefly turned their heads toward the humans, their dark eyes studying the armed figures before losing interest and continuing along their route.

The mature males remained close to the edges of the herd, while females and younger animals occupied the safer center. Within several minutes, the terrifying wall of beasts that Raymond had expected to attack his group had transformed into nothing more than an enormous river of animals moving peacefully across the snow.

Raymond slowly removed his hand from hissword and stared at the spectacle with a strange expression. "That’s it? They’re just... passing through?"

Boris finally sheathed his weapon, a faint smile appearing beneath his beard. "That’s what I’ve been trying to explain, my Lord. Unless something frightens them or we provoke the herd ourselves, they have no reason to fight us. They’re simply leaving the mountains in search of food."

Before Raymond could respond, another rumbling sound came from beyond the ridge. A second group of Ironhorn Elk appeared, smaller than the first but still numbering well over a hundred.

They followed almost exactly the same route, curving southeast as though generations of animals had memorized the path.

Raymond watched them pass, and gradually the caution in his eyes began to change into something entirely different.

These creatures were enormous.

That was the first thought.

The second was how much meat must be sitting beneath all that thick winter fur.

Raymond’s gaze moved across one of the mature males passing near the outer edge of the herd. The beast had to weigh several hundred kilograms.

Even after removing the bones, organs and unusable portions, a single animal could provide an enormous amount of meat. Then there was the thick hide, which could be turned into leather or winter clothing.

The black antlers looked strong enough to be carved into tools, handles or ornaments. The bones could probably be processed into other materials, and if Magic Beasts in this world followed the rules Raymond had already learned, there was also the possibility of Mana Cores inside some of them.

His expression slowly became serious.

Wait a minute.

Raymond stopped seeing animals.

He began seeing resources walking past him on four legs.

Meat.

Leather.Horns.

Bones.

Mana Cores.

Gold.

The barren Zulor Region had almost no conventional agricultural economy because most of its land was worthless, but that didn’t necessarily mean the region itself possessed no economic value.

If hundreds or even thousands of Magic Beasts migrated through this territory every winter, and if House Althoff possessed enough military strength to safely hunt selected animals without endangering the population, then winter wasn’t merely a season they had to survive.

It could become a harvest of its own.

Raymond’s eyes gradually brightened as his corporate instincts began running calculations faster than common sense could stop them.

Their current livestock needed time to reproduce, and the people of Althoff desperately needed more protein after a year of starvation.

Preserved Magic Beast meat could supplement their existing winter storeswithout touching too deeply into the livestock population.

The hides could be processed by leatherworkers. Horns and Mana Cores could potentially be sold once trade resumed after winter.

If some of the townspeople possessed hunting, tanning or butchering experience, House Althoff could even establish an entirely new industry around seasonal Magic Beast resources.

Boris had been watching Raymond long enough to recognize when his lord’s mind was heading somewhere dangerous.

The captain’s faint smile slowly disappeared as Raymond continued staring at the herd with increasingly obvious interest. "My Lord... whatever you’re currently thinking, I would strongly recommend remembering what I said about not provoking them."

Raymond ignored the warning for several seconds, his gaze following an especially large male Ironhorn Elk walking near the rear of the herd.

He imagined the amount of meat on the creature, then glanced toward the six Silver Rank Knights standing around him.

These warriors could probably kill several Bronze-class beasts without breaking a sweat, and if they selected isolated animals from the edge rather than charging into the center of the herd, perhaps the others wouldn’t react strongly enough to cause a stampede.

A wide smile slowly appeared on Raymond’s face.

Boris saw it and immediately looked tired.

Raymond finally turned toward him, pointing casually at the hundreds of Ironhorn Elk continuing across the snowy wasteland.

"Boris, hypothetically speaking... how angry would those things become if several of their friends mysteriously disappeared?"

The captain slowly turned his head and looked at him.