Chapter 69: Refugees Keep Coming

"Anyone with guard experience reports to Boris or Darric. Anyone who can read, count, heal, smith, cook, sew, build, raise animals, or do anything else useful tells Lily during registration. Children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the seriously injured are protected first if resources become strained. Those are the rules everyone already inside these walls lives under, and they’ll be your rules too."

Oren listened without interrupting, and Raymond could see some of the tension leaving the man’s shoulders as he realized there was no hidden condition coming.

Raymond looked from him toward the hundreds behind him before continuing, "I also don’t care whether someone was born in Reth, Marden, Greymill, or Althoff itself. If you enter these gates as citizens of my territory, House Althoff becomes responsible for you, and you become responsible for the people standing beside you. We already survived one Beast Tide because everyone worked together. If another one comes next week, I expect all of you to help me survive that one too, although personally I’d prefer if the mountains gave us a few days off."

That earned a larger laugh, and Raymond waited for it to fade before extending his hand toward Oren properly. "If those terms are acceptable, then welcome to Althoff."

Oren stared at the offered hand for a moment before gripping it firmly.

His eyes had become wet, although the older man seemed determined to pretend the cold was responsible.

"They’re acceptable, my Lord."

Several voices behind him answered as well, and within seconds the response spread through the group until Raymond heard people repeating their agreement from farther back where they couldn’t possibly have heard every word clearly.

He didn’t need them to kneel again or swear some elaborate oath. The fact that they had walked through a winter filled with Magic Beasts to reach his gates was enough.

Raymond released Oren’s hand and immediately turned toward Lily, who was already holding the registration ledger open.

"Three hundred and seventeen. Names, ages, families, occupations, injuries, and any livestock or tools they brought. Keep families together when assigning housing unless there’s absolutely no alternative."

Lily nodded and started to move before Raymond added, "And food first. Registration can wait if someone hasn’t eaten today."

She gave him a small smile and replied, "I already told the kitchen, my Lord."

Raymond stared at her for a second before sighing. "Of course you did. Why do I even bother giving orders anymore?"

The arrival of Reth changed something at the gates of Althoff.

Until then, the refugee system had still been treated as an emergency measure created because people kept appearing unexpectedly.

After three hundred and seventeen people deliberately swore themselves to House Althoff, Raymond stopped pretending the arrivals were temporary.

Two permanent registration tables were established beneath covered shelters near the gate, with braziers positioned nearby and signs directing newcomers toward medical assessment, food distribution, housing assignment, and occupational registration.

Marianne reorganized one repaired longhouse into an intake shelter for families arriving late in the day, while Lily began maintaining separate records for temporary refugees and those requesting permanent citizenship.

Harlan and Gideon interviewed every experienced farmer because the Tier III Land Upgrade Card sitting unused in Raymond’s inventory suddenly looked more important than ever, and the five agricultural specialists started planning how much additional farmland and livestock capacity would be needed if the population continued rising.

Boris had his own concerns, because every new group meant more people to protect, but it also meant more hunters, former guards, caravan escorts, and able-bodied adults who could eventually strengthen Althoff’s defenses.

The arrivals didn’t stop with Reth.

Sixty-four people came from two western hamlets the following day, carrying little beyond blankets, tools, and several goats they had somehow managed to keep alive throughout the journey.

Ninety-one arrived two days later from the direction of Fellcross, including a woman who had taken responsibility for six children after their parents disappeared during the evacuation.

Another forty-eight came from scattered farms along the northern road, followed by three brothers pulling their injured father across the snow on a wooden door converted into a sled.

Some people asked only for shelter until winter ended, but an increasing number arrived already knowing they wanted to stay.

They had heard about Reth.

They had heard about Marden and Greymill. More importantly, they had begun hearing from people who actually lived inside Althoff rather than relying entirely on rumors from travelers.

Raymond watched the transformation happen over the following days.

People who had themselves arrived as refugees less than two weeks earlier now stood at the gate helping newcomers through the same process.

A carpenter from Greymill supervised repairs beside men born in Althoff.

Marden womendistributed blankets from Lily’s stores. Darric trained former village guards alongside Boris’s original men, while Edran absorbed newly arrived hunters into patrol groups and taught them the routes around the territory.

Children who had once been strangers played together between the longhouses whenever the weather allowed it. The names of destroyed villages didn’t disappear, and Raymond didn’t expect them to.

People still spoke about Marden, Reth, Greymill, Fellcross, and the homes they had lost. Yet another name had begun entering those conversations more frequently, not as the place temporarily sheltering them, but as the place they now lived.

Raymond noticed it most clearly one evening while standing above the northern gate with Lily.

A small group of exhausted travelers had appeared along the road shortly before sunset, and when they reached the guards, one of the men nervously asked whether they had finally reached Lord Althoff’s territory.

Before the guard could answer, a boy carrying firewood toward the longhouses turned toward them and proudlyannounced, "You’re already in Althoff."

Raymond recognized the child after a moment. He had arrived with the first survivors from Marden.

Less than two weeks earlier, the boy had entered these same gates frightened, hungry, and clinging to his mother’s coat. Now he spoke about Althoff as though he had been born there.

Lily quietly opened the population ledger beside Raymond, but this time he didn’t immediately look down at the total.

His attention remained on the gate as the new travelers were directed toward the braziers and someone from Reth came forward to help unload their cart.

Only after several moments did Raymond finally glance at the steadily rising number written across the page. Months ago, seeing it climb would have immediately made him think about the five-thousand-person requirement attached to House Althoff’s next stage of growth.

That thought still existed, because Raymond hadn’t suddenly stopped being himself, and he certainly wasn’t going to pretend the System rewards didn’t matter. But the number meant something different now.

Every increase represented someone crossing those gates because they believed Althoff offered something the rest of northern Zulor no longer could. Safety. Food. Work. Stability. A future.

Raymond rested both hands against the cold stone of the gatehouse and looked toward the road stretching beyond the repaired defenses. Another group would probably arrive tomorrow, and another after that.

They would need more houses, more farmland, more wells, more workshops, more guards, more clothing, more livestock, and eventually more territory capable of supporting everything he was allowing Althoff to become.

For the first time, the population requirement didn’t feel like a target Raymond was chasing.

The people themselves were coming to him, bringing their families, skills, hopes, and whatever remained of their lives, then placing all of it beneath the name of House Althoff.

Raymond had spent months trying to make his family powerful enough that nobody could ignore it.

Standing above the gates as another displaced family entered the town below, he finally understood that power wasn’t only measured by how many people feared your name.

Sometimes, it was measured by how many people trusted it.