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Lord Loves Farming: I Can Enhance Anything

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Synopsis
Leon got handed the worst piece of land in the kingdom. Dead soil, crumbling walls, sixty starving people, and absolutely nothing else. Most men would walk away. He decided to build an empire. Because Leon has a gift—he can enhance anything he touches. A rusted sword becomes a magic blade. Dead farmland blooms overnight. Cheap beer becomes liquid gold that merchants fight over. And that's just the beginning. Every enhancement makes him stronger. Every person who believes in him fuels his power. The more his territory grows, the more unstoppable he becomes. But something ancient is draining his land from below. Monsters grow bolder at his borders. And powerful eyes are starting to notice a nobody lord turning a wasteland into something that shouldn't exist. He just wanted to farm. Now everything he builds, everything he touches, everything he creates—is becoming the foundation of something far greater than a simple territory.
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Chapter 1 - Awakened Skill, Enhancement

Ever since I was a kid, I loved making things.

That's what eventually pulled me deep into city-building simulation games.

Building houses, growing a village, turning it into a full-blown city, it felt so satisfying, so fun. I just loved it.

Man, I'd love to actually do that someday.

Looking back now, that was such a naive thought.

Because reality and games are two totally different things.

Unless I had some kind of cheat skill straight out of a manga or a novel, building up a village and turning it into a thriving city from scratch, with nothing but my bare hands, that was never going to be easy.

But then.

[The power sleeping within your soul awakens.]

[You have awakened.]

The day I became lord of a frontier territory.

That was the day I got my cheat skill.

* * * * *

I didn't used to believe in reincarnation.

But I do now.

Because I actually reincarnated.

Jeff, a 31-year-old guy, died in a terrible accident and was reborn in a completely different world, under the name Leon Bernard.

"Waaah, waaah."

I don't remember much from when I was a baby.

My memories from my past life didn't fully come back until I was around ten, so up until then, I was just a perfectly normal kid.

The new world I'd been born into was, simply put, a fantasy world.

A medieval-to-early-modern kind of era where swords and magic were the norm.

A place where beautiful, proud elves and stubborn, stiff-necked dwarves actually existed.

But at the end of the day, people were still people wherever you went.

Sure, it was less convenient and a lot rougher than where I used to live, but life itself wasn't all that different, so I adapted pretty quickly.

And honestly, my luck wasn't bad at all.

Leon Bernard.

Second son of Count Bernard's family.

They were a pretty powerful family in the region, so I never had to worry about putting food on the table.

"Leon, you already know this, but you're the second son. That means the family name and the title go to your brother."

I'd known that since I was little, so it didn't sting too much.

For second and third sons of noble families with no inheritance rights, striking out on their own was just the way of the world.

Seventeen years old.

The moment I came of age, I enlisted in the Kingdom's army.

The idea of going back to the military, having already served in my past life, was honestly rough, but the options available to second sons of noble families weren't exactly plentiful, so I didn't have much of a choice.

And so roughly six years went by.

I'd found some sort of groove in military life, turned out I wasn't terrible at it, when my brother, who had inherited the earldom, sent word for me to come home.

And then.

"A territory? You're seriously saying you'll give me a territory?"

"That's right."

Count Bernard.

My brother, who had officially inherited the title after our father, spread a map across the desk and said,

"It's not good land. It changed hands a few times over some dispute over rights before it came to us, but the owner's always been switching, and being way out on the frontier means it never really developed. Basically one village. Can't be more than a hundred people living there."

Looking at the map, the location really was rough.

Tucked away all by itself at the far northern edge, didn't look like farming would go great there either.

"Honestly, it's a pain-in-the-ass piece of land."

The biggest problem was that it wasn't even attached to the earldom's territory.

Land that was hard to manage, let alone defend.

"So that's why it came to me?"

"Seemed a waste to just throw it away."

I smirked at my brother's words.

At first glance it looked like he was just dumping a useless plot of land on me, and well, he kind of was, but still, what more could I ask for?

A piece of land where I could collect taxes and do whatever I wanted inside it.

"Thanks, bro. You know I love you, right?"

"I'm into women, personally."

Saying something ridiculous with a dead-straight face while his eyes smiled, my brother slid a certified deed stamped with his seal across the desk toward me.

"I won't bother with a formal appointment ceremony. This land is yours now."

Not land belonging to the Bernard earldom, land belonging to Leon Bernard personally.

I took the deed with what I'm sure was an overwhelmed expression, and smiled as I asked,

"So, bro, how much of a loan are you going to give me?"

I'd need a decent chunk of money if I wanted to build up the territory.

"You've got some nerve. And brothers don't do money deals."

He said that, but my brother handed over a small pouch of gold coins anyway.

"Spend it wisely."

"Seriously, thank you."

It wasn't a huge amount, honestly, but it was more than enough to cover immediate expenses.

And I'd saved up a decent bit from my time as an officer too.

And so, one week later, on a morning.

I'd left the earldom riding my brother's parting gift, a two-horse carriage, but now I was hovering somewhere between life and death inside a carriage pulled off to the side of the road.

A sudden fever and chills out of nowhere.

Thankfully, it didn't seem to be anything contagious.

I was the only one in the group running a temperature.

"This is... could this be a divine fever?"

Somewhere in the haze of the fever, I heard Regina's voice from the group.

Regina Falcon.

A mage from the White Tower.

Someone I'd met during my time in the military.

She'd discharged about six months before me, and when I found out she was just sitting around doing nothing, I'd pulled her in as short-term hired company.

"Leon, listen carefully. You're running a divine fever right now. It's not going to kill you, so don't worry. You're going to feel like garbage for about a night, but after that you'll snap back like nothing happened. You hear me?"

My head was spinning, but I managed to nod.

A divine fever.

Literally, the heat of the gods.

I felt like I'd heard about this before.

It was the phenomenon people experienced just before an awakening.

After weathering a divine fever, the dormant power of the soul awakens, and that's how someone becomes an Awakened.

My head was spinning.

It was getting hard to keep my thoughts together.

"Sleep tight, Leon. When you wake up, everything's going to be just fine."

The sound of Regina's voice fading into the distance was the last thing I heard before my consciousness cut out.

* * * * *

Leon opened his eyes.

"Ah."

Inside the carriage.

His clothes were completely soaked through with sweat and felt clammy, but he didn't find it unpleasant.

If anything, his head felt almost too clear.

It was the most refreshed he'd felt in years.

"Ugh."

But that feeling aside, the moment he tried to sit up, a groan slipped right out of him.

Every bone and muscle in his body felt like it was screaming.

'What the heck is going on with me.'

His head was crystal clear, but his body felt as heavy as if he'd pushed through a brutal workout.

Still, once he actually got himself sitting upright, the feeling faded quickly enough.

"Look at you."

Across the carriage, Regina was curled up, fast asleep.

Judging by the state of her, it looked like she'd been nursing him through the night.

'Anyway, I'm awake.'

He'd felt bad enough that he honestly thought he might die, and now he was fine just like that.

'Divine fever.'

The phenomenon people experience right before an awakening.

An Awakened, put simply, was someone with supernatural abilities.

People who had awakened to powers that even magic couldn't explain.

Leon himself had seen an Awakened while serving in the Kingdom's army.

Gerald of the Earth, one of the World's Ten Great Superhumans.

A man who could control earth and soil freely. With a single wave of his hand, he could topple mountains and trigger earthquakes.

'I hope I get something similar.'

It'd be incredibly useful for construction work.

Awakened were even rarer and more valuable than mages, but they weren't exactly nonexistent, Leon had heard the names of a few others besides Gerald.

The Assassination King, who could slip freely into the shadows. The Empire's Sword Maiden, who was simultaneously a Sword Master and a teleporter.

'Wait, now that I think about it, every single one of them is just broken, huh?'

Though, to be fair, everyone he'd just thought of was a top-tier heavy hitter among the World's Ten Great Superhumans, there were also plenty of lesser Awakened who were nothing special by comparison.

But still, an Awakened was an Awakened.

Leon's heart started pounding before he even realized it, and he turned his focus inward.

And in that moment, he felt like he understood.

What he needed to do.

"System."

He never thought he'd say something like that out loud with a straight face in his lifetime.

Well, technically he'd shouted it a bunch of times when his past-life memories first came back, but saying it as a grown adult was a first.

And this time, it was different from when he was a kid.

[Name: Leon Bernard]

[Level: 1]

"Oh."

A panel of light actually appeared right in front of him.

'Is this because of my memories from my past life?'

A game system or status window, concepts like that wouldn't even exist in the minds of people in this world.

The content was pretty bare-bones, but it was the real deal, an actual status window.

'There's even a level.'

So that means there's leveling up too, right?

A smile crept onto Leon's face before he even noticed, and he moved his hand through the air.

A new panel of light materialized.

[Awakened Skill]

[Enhancement]

Equally sparse on content.

But what it contained was anything but ordinary.

'Enhancement?'

Was this the same enhancement he was thinking of?

Leon looked at the blanket draped over him.

Not just a casual glance, he looked at it with intention.

And with that, a clear, crisp tone rang out, and a new panel of light appeared.

[Military Blanket]

[An officer-issue blanket from the Kingdom's army. Made primarily from wool.]

[Worn and frayed, and soaked through with sweat.]

"Wow."

A description of the blanket had popped up, just like an item in a game.

'This alone is already useful.'

Being able to read the information off an object, that was genuinely handy.

But the main attraction was still Enhancement.

Leon swallowed dryly and tightened his grip on the blanket.

It was his first time using the ability, but he knew instinctively how to do it.

Like how birds are just born knowing how to fly.

"Enhance."

The moment he whispered it, something inside him rushed out, and the blanket blazed with a brilliant light.

[+1 Military Blanket]

[An officer-issue blanket from the Kingdom's army. Made primarily from wool.]

[Blessed by Enhancement, its performance has improved.]

[Trait: Softness]

"There it is."

It actually worked.

The "worn and frayed" line had vanished, and the blanket looked brand new.

And a trait had been added.

'So enhancing it adds properties?'

The blanket really was soft.

In a world without fabric softener, this level of softness was something else.

He felt it right then.

This was a genuinely incredible ability.

'Let's go again.'

It wasn't "an enhanced blanket," it was a "+1 blanket."

If there was a +1, that implied.

The existence of a +2, didn't it?

So he enhanced it again.

Flash!

A slightly more dazzling light than before.

[+2 Military Blanket]

[An officer-issue blanket from the Kingdom's army. Made primarily from wool.]

[Blessed by Enhancement, its performance has greatly improved.]

[Trait: Softness]

[Trait: Sleep Aid, helps you fall asleep easily]

He did it!

+2 actually worked!

A blanket that was soft and helped you sleep.

That was pretty fantastic.

'Calm down, Leon.'

Leon took a deep breath and reined in his excitement.

He'd awakened, and he'd gotten the Enhancement ability.

So the next step was obvious, figure out what this ability could actually do.

'One more time.'

What would happen if he pushed it to +3?

But that was exactly when it happened.

Like a warning going off, a clear, crisp voice rang inside Leon's head.

[Starting from the third enhancement, there is a chance of failure. If enhancement fails, the item will be destroyed.]

[Enhancement Failure Chance: 50%]

"What?"

Already at +3 and it's already 50%?

A fifty-fifty shot at success, a fifty-fifty shot at destruction.

'Those are workable odds.'

That means there's still a fifty percent chance it works, right?

Leon grinned and channeled his power once more.