Chapter 72: Conditions

Raymond stared at the number from behind his desk while snow tapped softly against the office windows.

Less than eleven hundred remained before the population requirement was fulfilled. Months earlier, he would have immediately begun calculating how to obtain those people faster. Now he found himself calculating housing capacity first.

The Tier III Land Upgrade Card remained unused because frozen ground made large-scale agricultural expansion pointless until winter ended, but plans for spring had become enormous.

One hundred hectares of fertile land would transform Althoff’s food production, yet even that might not be enough if the population continued increasing at the current rate.

The agricultural specialists were already preparing crop rotations, irrigation layouts, livestock pastures, seed requirements, and labor assignments.

Raymond had also approved the future construction of the Tier-I Grain Processing Workshop once weather allowed proper foundations to be laid.

The fourth month changed the feeling of winter again. The cold remained brutal, but days became slightly longer, and there were afternoons when water dripped from rooftops before freezing again after sunset.

Hunting parties began traveling farther north as Magic Beast numbers decreased. Roads that had been unusable for weeks gradually reopened, and with them came more accurate information about what had happened across Zulor.

The situation was worse than Raymond expected. Entire stretches of northern territory had been depopulated.

Some minor nobles had survived inside fortified estates while surrounding villages collapsed.

Others had fled south before the worst of the migration.

Fellcross remained largely abandoned. Several settlements simply no longer existed as functioning communities.

Althoff had not merely become one safe territory among many. In this part of Zulor, it had become one of the few places actively accepting people regardless of where they came from.

That knowledge brought another surge of arrivals.

[ Population: 4,731 / 5,000 ]

Raymond nearly fell out of his chair when the notification appeared.

Lily looked up from the opposite side of the office. "Young Master?"

"Four thousand seven hundred and thirty-one."

She immediately understood. "That’s close."

"Two hundred and sixty-nine."

Raymond leaned back and looked toward the ceiling, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face.

Five thousand had once looked absurd when his entire territory contained only twelve hundred starving people. Now the requirement was close enough that a single large group could complete it.

Lily watched him suspiciously. "You’re smiling like you’ve done something."

"I have done many things."

"Usually when you smile like that, I’mabout to receive more paperwork."

Raymond’s grin disappeared slightly. "You’re becoming extremely disrespectful."

Lily looked satisfied with herself and returned to her ledger.

The group that finally pushed Althoff across the threshold arrived eleven days later.

There were more than four hundred ofthem.

They came from what remained of a small northern town whose local lord had abandoned his estate during the early Beast Tide, taking his household, personal guards, and portable wealth south while leaving the population behind.

The townspeople survived the worst of the migration by barricading themselves inside stone warehouses and a small temple, but food eventually forced them to leave.

Unlike the desperate groups that had reached Althoff earlier in winter, these survivors arrived in surprisingly organized condition.

They brought two blacksmiths, several carpenters, a brewer, three merchants, a healer, experienced hunters, dozens of farmers, former town guards, livestock, carts, tools, and even several familieswho had managed to preserve small amounts of coin and trade goods.

Raymond met their representatives at the gate, but there was no dramatic oath this time. By now, Althoff had a process.

They wanted citizenship. Raymond accepted them. Lily’s administrators began registration while Marianne’s people checked the sick and injured, Boris separated former guards and hunters for later assessment, and housing officers began the increasingly difficult process of determining where more than four hundred additional people were supposed to sleep.

Raymond spent most of the afternoon moving between stations because the sudden increase placed immediate pressure on everything from food distribution to firewood supplies.

He was standing inside the gatehouse when the final registration total arrived.

Lily walked into the room carrying the updated ledger.

Raymond looked at her face.

She was trying not to smile.

His chair scraped backward immediately. "How many?"

Lily placed the ledger on the table and turned it toward him.

Before Raymond could read the handwritten number, the System appeared.

[ Ding! ]

[ Population Increase Detected! ]

[ Total Population: 5,143 / 5,000 ]

Raymond stared at the notification.

A second message followed.

[ Family Grade Population Requirement Fulfilled! ]

His grin appeared instantly. "Finally."

He pushed himself away from the table so quickly that Lily took a step backward.

Four months of winter, refugees, housing shortages, food calculations, Beast attacks, destroyed settlements, reconstruction, and more administrative work than Raymond wanted to remember had finally pushed one of the largest visible requirements over the threshold.

His mind immediately jumped toward the Family Grade. Tier-1 Barony had remained at twelve percent progress for what felt like forever.

He had wondered repeatedly what upgrading it would unlock, how much his personal strength might increase, what new System functions could become available, and whetherthe System Shop might finally stop sitting there uselessly behind its lock.

Raymond rubbed his hands together. "All right. Show me the upgrade."

The System responded.

[ Evaluating Family Grade Advancement Conditions... ]

Raymond’s smile widened. Lily watched him from the other side of the table, completely unable to see the interface but experienced enough by now to recognize when her lord was staring at something that didn’t exist for everyone else.

The evaluation completed.

[ Family Grade Upgrade Unavailable. ]

Raymond’s smile froze.

[ Population Requirement: 5,143 / 5,000 — FULFILLED ]

[ Additional Requirements Remain Unfulfilled. ]

Raymond stared at the words for several seconds, convinced that perhaps the System would continue.

It didn’t.

His eyebrow twitched."Additional requirements?"

Lily cautiously tilted her head. "Young Master?"

Raymond ignored her and addressed the System directly. "What additional requirements?"

The panel remained exactly where it was.

[ Additional Requirements Remain Unfulfilled. ]

Raymond’s other eyebrow joined the first. "I can read. I’m asking what they are."

Nothing changed.

Lily slowly closed the ledger.

Raymond leaned toward the floating panel as though getting physically closer might intimidate it into becoming more cooperative.

"You spent months waving five thousand people in my face, I finally get five thousand people, and now you’re telling me there was a fucking terms-and-conditions page?"

The System remained completely indifferent to his suffering.

Behind him, Lily quietly turned toward the door.

Raymond noticed. "Where are you going?"

She stopped with one hand on the handle. "To get Marianne."

"Why?"

Lily looked back at him with complete seriousness. "Because you’re arguing with the air again."