Come on, Till. My territory is not going to defend itself.
An unnamed 30-year-old salaryman learns the hard way that the more and better you work, the more responsibilities the company dumps on you, until one day, barely making the final train home, grabs a cup of hot ramen and goes to bed only to wake up reincarnated into the body of two-year old Van Nei Fertio, the fourth child, and fourth son, of a Marquis house in a world of swords and magic. He spends the next 6 years hailed as a prodigy due to mastering the way of the scholar and the sword, but on his eighth birthday, rather than get one of the Four Element magic talents Van's father was expecting, the kid ends up with the generally accepted to be useless "Production Magic" talent, and the perception is actually justified, since production magicians can only create stuff they understand, still need materials, and the stuff they create are usually inferior to stuff built by non-magical means, with having a poor mana pool to boot. Van's father considers executing him on the spot until his eldest brother instead has him Reassigned to Antarctica by having Van take over a distant, backwater village on the edge of Fertio territory that's been badly neglected due to many factors beyond the Fertio family's control. Well loved by the townspeople and family staff, Van is followed by his maid, his slave, the family's top knight, and the head butler who just happens to be a retired general and warmage. It's not long before he flips the local common sense on its head by showcasing just how mighty production magic can be with a guy who does his homework...Fun Territory Defense Tropes:
- Arranged Marriage: In order to secure his favor, at least two major powers basically force their princesses onto Van Nei Fertio; the local merfolk chieftan offers up his daughter to him in exchange for protection and being allowed to live in a lake Van prepared for them, not allowing him to say "no," and the neighboring count, fearing an invasion, tries to avoid a Pretext for War by offering up his own "worthless" daughter, who is near in age to Van. In the latter case, there is much Ship Tease and the girl is actually happy to be there as she and Van are in very, very similar circumstances and he dotes on her like crazy.
- Contrived Coincidence: The story seems to love this trope.
- Van Fertio meets Cassim because the latter's father decided to sell him into slavery just as Van arrived at the market guild for the first time in his life, at 6.
- When Van arrives at his back-water village, it was already under siege by bandits.
- The bandits that escaped Van just happened to encounter and be chased by 40 armored dragons, with the beasts supposedly being rare, because if they weren't humanity would be extinct, seeing as it takes an army of knights just to face one of them.
- The backwater village Van was assigned to is near a dungeon that nobody realized was there until the adventurers Van hired stumbled on it.
- The king brings his entourage to inspect Van's village turned fortress just before a neighboring empire launches an attack that was planned months in advance, and yet the attackers had no intel of the fortress nor the king being present, and the leader of the raid just took the outdated intel he did have as gospel contrary to what his own eyes were seeing... Yes, the king laughs at the guy's idiocy.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Jienretta Empire that starts the conflict near the start of the story is, in fact, a vassal state that was ordered to attack the Scuderia Kingdom, or face annihilation themselves.
- Happiness in Slavery: The reason Cassim wound up in Van's employ is that his own father sold him into slavery because there wasn't enough food to go around (and said father is an abusive jerk). Van buys Cassim at the market price of 5 large silver coins from his own allowance and treats the kid with decency. Cassim swears Undying Loyalty as a result.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Four Elemental Magics are favored because they're easy to learn, immediately useful in both combat and mundane life, and obviously flashy. Van's production magic is usually literally worthless, but Van's Unique Protagonist Asset of modern Earth tech and near-infinite mana allows him to convert a dilapidated village to a viable border fortress, almost overnight!
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The salaryman who would reincarnate into Van was worked to death as a result of being too competent at his job and just summarily having more and more responsibilities shoved on him.
- Quality over Quantity: Van Fertio defeats his enemies, despite being greatly outnumbered, by providing his troops, such as they are, with vastly superior equipment, weapons, bases, strategies, and tactics.
- Real Politik: The fact that Van turned the village he was assigned into a border fortress in less than a week and repelled an attack of 40 "armored dragons" gets everyone's attention and they immediately presume the worst. A neighboring Count tries to honey-trap the 8-year-old with an Arranged Marriage to his 10-year-old "useless" daugther, the king pays him a visit, a nearby tribe of merfolk move in and basically force an arranged marriage on him, and a neighboring country even tries to invade and conquer the fortress for themselves, failing only because the prince leading the charge was more ego than brains.
- Springtime for Hitler: Van tried to walk the tightrope of building up his village to become viable, prosperous, and strong enough to defend themselves from either man or beast without getting too strong too fast and getting the attention of the local powers before he was ready. This was doomed to failure from the get-go as not only was the village under bandit attack when he arrived but the bandits that were driven off came back being chased by beasts known as "armored dragons", 40 in number, one of which would require an elite adventuring party, or an army of knights, to take down, expecting heavy casualties. His fortress, armed with ballista, wiped out all the beasts without a single local casualty. This immediately made waves and it's only because the king intervened on his behalf that Van's father didn't get a chance to reverse ownership of the village back to a more "capable" brother, and put Van in an even less desirable position.
- Technologically Advanced Foe: Played with. In the most recent conflict between the Scuderia kingdom and the Jienretta Empire, the latter is wielding explosives, areal bombardment via wyvern, tamed dragons, and cannons, while the former only has knights and mages, for the most part. But Jienretta didn't actually develop any of them, and are in fact a vassal state because they were conquered by the nation that did, so don't use them as effectively as they could. Van, from the Scuderia kingdom, is a reincarnator from modern Earth, so he knows how the gunpowder based weapons and tactics work and can develop counter-measures. In fact, the early ballista and repeating crossbows he made for his soldiers and the local adventurers in his territory vastly surpass what Jienretta has to offer, and he's even able to brief King Dino how Jienretta's armaments could evolve if they knew what they were doing!
