Chapter 32

It was a warm egg with a smooth surface.

"It doesn't look like a chicken egg..."

But it was quite a bit larger than a normal egg.

Much bigger than a chicken egg, but smaller than the ostrich eggs I'd once seen on TV.

Roughly a bit smaller than my two clenched fists put together.

"But why give me something like this...?"

The description window only had the half-hearted explanation that it was unfertilized.

I sent a 1-on-1 DM to the Harpy Queen, but there was no reply.

In that case...

"When in doubt, asking the gallery is always the fastest way."

The explanation from the fixed-nick 'InterspeciesExchange', who was suspiciously knowledgeable about the various races of the Demon Realm, was incredibly useful.

"Filtering out the nonsense... basically, it's a gift to show affection, right?"

Which meant...

"She accepted the gift and calmed down? Whew."

Honestly, as selfish as I was, I wasn't such a massive piece of shit that I could sleep easily after making a cute girl cry. I felt relieved.

The population inside the fortress was quite large.

"Food, huh..."

Food supply for about 23,000 people.

The enemy had surrounded them with clear intent.

Which meant they were planning for a long-term siege.

Therefore, I also needed a way to supply the fortress with food over the long term without running out.

"Ideally, I need to provide a massive amount of support while staying within my 50,000 exchangeable points limit."

Consequently...

"Sausage bread is out of the question."

If I distributed sausage bread, which cost 1 point each, to that many people, I could only provide two meals.

Surviving a long siege on just two small pieces of bread a day? Not easy.

The condition was that they had to eat their fill and be satisfied.

"Something like human kibble... Huh?"

A great idea struck me.

I immediately went to the Crops tab in the Point Shop.

"Right, there are crops that are also used as animal feed."

Nothing beat this for eating a massive amount cheaply.

Before that, there was one thing to check.

"That settles it."

Now, let's start the mindless food dump!

I meticulously spent my 50,000 points to list them in the shop.

Since I listed 10,000 points' worth of stock per item, the allocated quantity for each item was 20,000 kg.

"This should be decent, right?"

I waited to see the reaction.

"Oh?"

The stock began to plummet instantly.

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"What? What's wrong with them?"

Did I do something wrong?

I waited to see what they would say.

"Is this really that big of a deal?"

Once new users joined, the gallery level would rise.

And with that, additional benefits would be unlocked.

"I've already bought a house and fully furnished it anyway. For now, as long as my points break even, I don't really care."

So I decided to support them generously.

I called it support, but as long as the point revenue I earned from managing the gallery was greater than the points I spent, it was never a losing business.

"How is this pushing myself?"

I still had plenty of points stacked up.

Maybe I should throw in some meat, or the fish that harpies usually love to eat, and dump a massive load on them.

It seemed they weren't lacking.

"Good, then."

But just in case, I packed a generous amount of mixed nuts and seed mixes, which harpies loved to eat, and shipped them to the Harpy Queen. I also bought a few packs of frozen bacon and sent them along.

"This is on the house."

With this, I got 25,000 points refunded.

"I was planning to reduce the sales of sausage bread and banana milk that I was distributing to the gallery users to cut down on my deficit. But with this, I don't have to."

I poured those points straight back into adding more stock to the gallery shop.

"Alright, that's done."

I calmly kept a close eye on the unfolding war situation.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Three days later.

About a week and a half since the fortress had been besieged.

The Harpy Queen, who was still in the 1-on-1 chat room, sent a message.

"To say 'absolutely' twice."

The Harpy Queen seemed extremely careful with her choice of words so as not to offend me.

"Well, potatoes do have poison."

In sprouted potatoes, that is.

But the potatoes I sent were fresh ones that only needed to be boiled and peeled to eat.

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But...

"Refusing potatoes."

Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of them either.

In my past life, the only time I ate them was when someone in my family bought butter-roasted baby potatoes at a highway rest stop, and I'd steal a bite.

"Or maybe french fries when eating a burger?"

It wasn't something I actively sought out because it was delicious, but I didn't hate it either.

After all, it tasted decent.

"Come to think of it, people in old Europe used to shun potatoes too."

When they were first brought over from South America, people avoided them because of their bizarre appearance.

The Church even branded them as the "devil's crop" because they weren't mentioned in the Bible, and because they were grown underground, much like burying corpses.

As a result, they were initially only thrown to livestock as feed.

There was also the famous anecdote of the "Potato King" of Prussia, who made great efforts to popularize this easy-to-grow, peasant-friendly crop in early modern Europe.

However, the method King Frederick the Great used took too long.

"There's a much more effective way than that."

I opened the Point Shop without hesitation.

"Let's see if you can resist once you catch a whiff of this."

I bet they couldn't.

Chuckling, I sent a generous amount of potato dishes to the Harpy Queen.

And then...

"...What?"

Something completely unbelievable and absurd happened.