Reborn As The Beggar Lord

004 Daily Duties

Kingsley woke on a cot in his father's cold manor, dirt still under his fingernails. Glowing words already waited in front of his eyes.

[Kingsley Carmine] [S-Grade Settler] [Talent: Landcraft]

[Territory: Thornmere] [Village: Tier 1]

So it wasn't a dream, he thought. I really died, crossed over, and inherited a barony of salt and mist.

He threw off the blanket and walked to the window. Below, thin smoke rose from four chimneys. A second box opened.

[Domain Status] [Population: 300, Grain Reserves: 26 Days, Water Supply: Low and impure]

Three hundred people, most of them sick and half-starved. Less than a month of food left. The water supply was low, and the well already tasted bitter.

He turned from the window. More lines opened in front of him.

[Logistics & Supply] [Economy] [Defense] [Technology] [Citizen Rating]

The numbers behind them were worse. Five gold in the treasury. No wall, no guard, no watch. And his own people trusted him one percent.

The territory information disappeared and a new box opened.

[Daily Duties unlocked]

[Work your land. Walk your land. Hear your people.]

[Complete all three for a reward.]

The system isn't handing me everything on a platter. I will have to toil at it every day. So be it. Thornmere has been neglected long enough.

His first duty was to work the land. Kingsley grabbed the old shovel from the kitchen and went out to the one green field in Thornmere. By the time the villagers found him, he had been digging for an hour.

His sleeves were rolled up, his boots were in the mud, and he was turning the black earth row by row.

Only he could see the thin bar of light above the soil.

[Reclaimed land: Level 1]

The bar filled with every row he dug, and an hour of work moved it a quarter of the way.

The villagers gathered at the field's edge. They stayed off the black soil, hands at their sides, and whispered. Kingsley heard every word.

"A baron working the land like a peasant? I never thought I'd live to see it."

"Maybe the Mist got into his head."

"But what about the green field? Nothing has grown on our cursed soil for years."

"It's some capital magic the baron brought with him. It'll wash out with the first rain."

"He's only working for himself. When the grain comes, he'll eat while we starve. That's what lords do."

"News from the Dawn Temple is that the Stone saw him fit for Landcraft. Farmhand work is the best he can do."

Kingsley kept digging and smiled at the dirt. When he finished the required hour, a line of light struck through the first duty, and he looked up at the crowd.

Faint grey numbers appeared beside the villagers' faces.

[Loyalty: 1%, Trust: 1%, Morale: 1%]

He didn't need a system to tell him that.

The moment he straightened his back, the crowd scattered.

Trust would have to be built slowly.

The second duty sent him out on foot.

He walked his land end to end, and the system drew him a map. It showed forty houses, one well, a granary, a tannery with a fallen roof, and a goat shed with no door.

Kingsley moved on, and the second line of light struck through.

The last duty was the hardest.

He went to the middle of the village and stood up on the well platform. "I'm the Baron of Thornmere," he announced. "I will be hearing your grievances until sundown."

The square emptied before he finished the sentence. Doors shut all around him. A woman shouted through one of them.

"A collector came yesterday. They'll strip our land and send us to the mines."

"Don't go out there. He'll write our names down and tax us for his father's debts."

"The Stone called him a failure. If the heavens reject him, what can he do for us?"

Kingsley sat down on the edge of the well. They won't come to me easily. Fine. I'll bribe them.

He reached into his coat for a paper bag of boiled fruit candies. He'd spent his last coppers on them at a market town. In the capital, they were the cheapest sweet. Out here, they were treasure.

Kingsley put a handful of candies on the well's rim beside him and unwrapped one for himself. He ate it, smacking his lips. "Mm... This is good stuff. Fruit candies!"

Then a boy walked out alone. He was six or seven, barefoot, and so thin his ribs showed. He grabbed one candy, put it in his mouth, and his eyes widened.

"There's more," Kingsley said. "Sit."

By noon, eleven sticky-mouthed children sat around the well, all shouting over each other.

"So the knight held the bridge alone," Kingsley said with a heroic wave. "One brave sword against sixty bandits."

Then he told them about a tower taller than the clouds, and about the day a princess threw a gold bracelet at a beggar.

The parents drifted in one by one. An old woman went first. "My roof leaks every time it rains, my lord, and there's no man left in my house to climb up there."

"Birch tar will fix that," Kingsley said. "I'll show your neighbor's boy how to patch it. It will take an afternoon."

A man pointed at the well. "The water's gone bitter, my lord. Even the goats won't drink it. We have to travel miles to the river."

Kingsley drew up the bucket, tasted the water in front of everyone, and spat it out. "The spring that feeds this well is choked with silt. I'll think of a solution by tonight."

A younger man asked the question they were all holding back. "What about the things that come out of the Mist, my lord? They're getting bolder every week."

"I'll deal with them inside a week," Kingsley said. "You have my word on that."

The villagers did not thank him. But they did not leave. A lord who listened was something Thornmere had not seen in a long time.

The small grey numbers beside their faces changed as each one spoke.

[Citizen Rating] [Loyalty: 4%, Trust: 5%, Morale: 7%]

A line of light struck through the third daily duty, and the reward arrived at once.

[Daily Duties complete]

[Reward: Reclamation tool x1]

[New skill: Appraisal]

Kingsley blinked, and letters appeared over every villager's head around him. They showed names, occupations, and talent grades.

Most of his people were E or Unawakened. The strongest talent in his whole village was one D.

So this is what the kingdom throws away. A whole village of rejects, and an F-grade lord is banished to lead them. I'll have to do something before Thornmere withers away.

A villager sprinted around the granary, shouting. "My lord! Mara collapsed near her home and she's not waking up!"

Kingsley was running before the man finished speaking.