July 5th, 8775th year of the Glorious Era, Nor Prime Plane, Griffin Kingdom, Loran City.
"My lord, the town of Knad was attacked by a group of Blood Nagas yesterday evening. All 1,300 people in the town had their hearts removed, and none survived!"
"The Falcon Knights discovered their tracks twenty miles from the town in a passage leading to the underworld. The guard legion is currently assembling, and three squadrons of Griffin Legion will participate in the extermination."
With a hooked nose, blue eyes, a balding head, and a belly larger than an eight-month pregnant woman, the Chief Administrative Officer of Loran City sat behind a desk piled high with documents, peering through the pages at his subordinate reporting to him, his tone unfriendly.
"Those damned underground bastards, we'll wipe them out one day!"
"Send twenty clerks to Knard Town to handle the aftermath, and at the same time select a new mayor to go there. Also, recruit residents from the town's vagrant population to fill the town's population."
"Yes, sir."
"Has the village destroyed by the ogres last month been rebuilt?"
"Not yet, it's expected to be at the end of the month, but the recruitment of residents is very slow. That village has been destroyed three times this year, and the refugees in the city are unwilling to go there."
The political official rubbed his temples, looking troubled.
"Find a solution to this yourself, is that all?"
"My lord, this is the list of applicants for pioneering lordships that has just been submitted."
"Wasn't the list submitted five days ago?"
"Sir, someone submitted another one the day before yesterday evening," he said, his tone hesitant.
"Perhaps you would be interested."
Hearing him say that, the political officer also became a little curious. He took the list, flipped through it a few times, and saw the names of the newly added personnel.
"Lil Els? The Els family?!"
A hint of emotion flickered across his plump face, and he finally let out a long sigh.
"Ells has been dead for ten years. Has his family really fallen so low that they have to become pioneer lords?"
"Who is this Lil Els? Where does he live?"
"Sir, the other party is the only bloodline of the Els family. Three years ago, they moved to the Ninth District."
"Ninth District?!"
"Yes."
After a long silence, he closed the file with a complicated expression.
"Send it to the Grand Duke."
After his subordinates left, he stared out the window, lost in thought.
Ninth Street, a street regarded as a sewer and garbage dump by the nobles of Loran, is a place where robberies, thefts, murders and other heinous acts break out every night.
The air was filthy, filled with the stench of urine and the acrid smell of sewers, and flies were everywhere.
This is a filthy place that outsiders don't even want to glance at, and even missionaries who are keen to convert the lost to God rarely set foot here.
But this filthy region is home to more than 100,000 poor people.
Lear walked through the winding alleys, carefully avoiding the filth on the ground, stepping over puddles of dark, foul-smelling sewage, the stench of the air making his eyes red.
The poor people who brushed past him had blank stares and pale faces. Most of them wore tattered linen clothes, and some even had more patches on their clothes than the original fabric.
Some of the older residents stepped directly into the stinking pool, letting the black water soak their trouser legs, their expressions numb, like walking corpses.
Even though he had been in this world for three days, Lear still found it hard to bear all of this.
He sped up, made a few turns, and came to a low house covered in black moss. Looking at the rusty lock, he let out a long sigh.
With a gentle twist, it opened without a key.
Push the door open and enter.
The room was about ten square meters and had no furniture.
In the corner sat a tattered bed, barely tall enough to reach the knees, covered only by two blackened blankets.
The phrase "a house with bare walls" has become the most vivid image.
Lear didn't mind and sat on the bed, but as soon as his buttocks touched it, he felt uncomfortable.
He reached under the bed and pulled out two fist-sized, black, hard loaves of bread, each with a deep ring of teeth marks on them.
Black bread!
He gave a wry smile. Even a dog would refuse to eat this stuff, but it was his food!
He put the black bread aside and stared blankly at the wall next door through the window, which was only half an arm's width wide.
Time travel.
It sounds easy, but when it actually happens to you, you realize how heavy it is.
He sacrificed himself to save people from drowning, so why was he brought to this messed-up world?
This world's level of civilization is roughly equivalent to medieval Europe, but it possesses extraordinary powers! There are even gods!
The gods who hold power are high above, and they can punish people at will, destroying cities and annihilating clans.
The sect spreads God's glory everywhere and proclaims God's love for the world.
The evil dragon dwells in the high mountains and deep valleys, often plundering treasures and destroying towns.
Demons, the undead, devils, and all sorts of evil beings perform bloody sacrifices daily to please the evil gods.
Evil beings from the underworld frequently appear on the surface to slaughter humans.
Various powerful races roam the wilderness, and may attack cities and towns at any time, slaughtering civilians.
Wars raged on, and racial conflicts raged fiercely.
Resources are scarce, means of production are backward, civilization is stagnant, the superhumans enslave the world, class stratification is severe, knowledge is monopolized by aristocratic sects, and all kinds of elements are almost gathered!
The body he occupied belonged to a descendant of a fallen noble family, possessing no awakened powers, no family wealth, no social status, and was an ordinary person with no sense of existence.
In this fantasy world where ordinary people possess extraordinary powers, they are like pigs, insignificant and at the mercy of others.
Even the desire to live a peaceful life is a luxury.
Because the family's wealth had long since been exhausted, the original owner could only survive in impoverished areas like the Ninth District.
Even more critically, three days ago, the original owner actually applied to inherit the title that her family had been stripped of.
According to the laws of the Griffin Kingdom, the descendants of nobles who have been stripped of their titles must become pioneer lords in order to inherit the title!
"Little Els, you're back? I heard you applied to inherit the title?"
A deep voice at the door interrupted his thoughts. Lear turned his head and saw a middle-aged man in his early fifties leaning half his body into the room, looking at him with slight concern.
His hair was gray, his hands were covered in calluses, and his body was thin due to long-term malnutrition.
Lear, who possessed the original owner's memories, immediately recognized the other party.
My current neighbor, Jem, works at the docks. He was once a powerful knight in his youth and knows a lot about the outside world.
He has a cheerful and generous personality. Even though they lived in a slum, he took good care of the original owner of this body. Several times when he fainted from hunger, it was he who brought out food to save him.
"Uncle Jem."
The middle-aged man looked at Lear's somewhat pale face, opened his mouth as if to say something, but finally sighed.
"Why bother with all this?"
Do you know what's out in the wilderness?
"Orcs, barbarians, scavengers, vampires, drow elves, serpent people, cultists, undead."
"There are passages connecting to a dark and dangerous underworld, spatial rifts linking to mysterious and terrifying alternate dimensions, and ancient evil spirits and demons attempting to overthrow order."
"In the wilderness, there is no such thing as safety."
"The empire has never conquered this region in its thousand-year history!"
"Life was tougher inside the city, but at least we were still alive."
"Once you're in the wilderness and become some kind of pioneer lord, everything will be out of your control!"
"I know you want to inherit the title, but this time, alas..."
Jem's tone was very complicated.
He still vividly remembered the boy's innocent face when he moved to the slum three years ago. He had watched the boy grow up and couldn't bear to see him go to his death.
Baron Els died ten years ago from an old injury, and within a few years, the family had fallen into decline.
The laws of the Griffin Kingdom stipulate that a nobleman automatically loses his title if no one inherits it within seven years of his death.
The first condition for inheriting a title is reaching adulthood at the age of 16.
This rule, upon closer examination, contains many unreasonable elements, yet it has been passed down without encountering resistance from the aristocratic class, suggesting a hidden secret behind it.
As the only descendant of the Els family, Lear had just turned 15 three years ago.
The Els family, with no one fit to inherit the title, was directly expelled from the ranks of the nobility.
Those descendants of nobles who lose their titles must become pioneering lords and conquer new lands for the kingdom if they wish to regain them!
Is being a land reclamation lord really that easy?
The Griffin Kingdom has been established for 2,200 years, yet it has only managed to encroach upon a thousand miles of wilderness!
But what was the price paid? For over two thousand years, the corpses of pioneering lords could pile up to form a magnificent mountain! They could build a grand city on the sea!
How many pioneering lords are still alive?!
Jem took a deep breath.
"The Grand Duke of Loran personally approves each pioneering lord."
"I only hope that the public will not allow it."
He stopped mid-sentence, turning his head warily toward the alley entrance.
Lear noticed something was wrong and peeked through the crack in the door.
Ta-da~
Ta-da~
A soldier with a hooked nose and blue eyes, wearing black armor with a soaring falcon pattern embroidered on his chest, strode in with a cold expression.
After approaching the house and confirming the house number, he strode past Jem and into the house, handing Lear a yellowed piece of paper.
The blood-red seal on it was particularly eye-catching—
Grand Duke Loran of the Griffin Empire
The soldier's tone was curt.
"Lil Els, your application to become a pioneer lord has been approved by the Grand Duke."
"Meet at the Grand Duke's residence at 10:00 AM tomorrow to collect the resources for expansion and choose the territory to expand into."
"This is the document for the establishment of the pioneering order and the succession of the baronial title of the Els family."
"Congratulations on reclaiming your family's title, Baron Lear Els."
After finishing his routine remarks, without waiting for Lear's response, he turned and walked out of the house with an impatient, cold face.
The stench along the way almost made him explode. If it weren't for military orders, he would never have set foot in such a horrible place in his life!
Damn it!
Giving orders to such a delusional pauper will yield no financial gain whatsoever.
There will always be ignorant people who want to get rich quick!
What kind of place is the wilderness?
Even a level 10 high-ranking knight like him wouldn't dare to venture into this area lightly.
They even want to expand their territory and build towns on it. Isn't that just courting death?
After the messenger left, Jem looked at the document in Lear's hand and fell silent.
Lear looked at the document in his hand and had no reply.
The original owner was overwhelmed by the hardship and hopelessness of life. He thought that he would die anyway if he stayed here, so he might as well take a gamble, inherit the title, and fight his way to wealth and power outside the city.
However, before he could go, he fell and broke his leg because of his weak constitution.
Now, he is going to put the other party's dream of becoming a lord into practice.
According to the laws of the Griffin Empire, anyone who voluntarily applies to become a pioneer lord but refuses to go to the wilderness, or fails to carry out orders under other pretexts, will be treated as a deserter and sentenced to hanging.
In this world where extraordinary powers exist, even escape is impossible.
Lear took a deep breath, his eyes filled with a complex expression.
Is it really that hard to even live in this world?
Just then, a blue light suddenly appeared in my mind.
The light gradually condensed and then transformed into a panel.
The screen displayed densely packed text—
"You have been detected as a lord. The intelligence system is automatically activated. This intelligence can be refreshed."
Intelligence system?!
Li Erteng immediately stood up!
My heart burst with joy.
Brothers, if you're enjoying this, smash that Power Stone for me! Let's rush the rankings together!