Butterfly Effect
Sebastian was competent.
Not just ordinarily competent, but extremely competent.
"Fast food! Haha! Quick food!! It must be food that commoners can easily come, buy quickly, and eat on the go!"
"Customers come straight to the store, pick what they want, and we quickly assemble pre-made items at the counter for fast service. That way we cut labor costs, simplify ingredients, and streamline the cooking process!"
"That sounds like a solid choice even from an operator's perspective! Even commoners could adapt after just a little training!!"
The moment he finished speaking, Sebastian began his research, spending every day in the building frying, grilling, roasting, and deep-frying meat and vegetables.
"I need to create dishes that are easy to cook, taste great, and can be made quickly through division of labor even by cooks without professional training."
It wasn't just because I paid him. Sebastian genuinely seemed to enjoy the work.
He researched day and night, narrowing down the fast-food ideas I had suggested to those that could be commercialized and would suit commoners' tastes.
"I have some chef colleagues back in the capital. Would it be all right if I brought them here to collaborate?"
"Haha!! Of course! Bring them all! I'll hire them! Offer them twice what they're making now and bring them here!!"
"Thank you!!"
Money was no issue. I never skimped when it came to hiring talent.
Before long, professionally trained chefs arrived from the capital and joined Sebastian in developing the recipes.
"We're going to revolutionize the food commoners eat!! A revolution!!!!"
"Haha! What a fun idea! Reduce service, simplify ingredients, and create dishes that anyone can make after simple training?"
"Sounds great! Let's figure it out together!!"
With the addition of these specialists in restaurant operations, cooking, and service, the research accelerated even more.
About three months passed.
"Lord Landor. I've brought the prototypes."
"Ooh! Let's have a look!"
I rushed straight to Sebastian's workshop and stopped dead at the sight of three steaming dishes.
A hamburger.
A pizza.
And boneless fried chicken.
"Out of all the menus you mentioned, these three showed the highest feasibility, commercial potential, ease of training, and the best results in street taste tests with commoners."
"Ha, mind if I try one?"
"Of course!"
I darted over and picked up the hamburger. It had a nicely grilled patty, a fragrant bun, and a mix of vegetables. The selection wasn't as varied as on Earth, but it looked delicious enough.
I took a bite.
A pleasant flavor spread through my mouth and I couldn't help but smile.
"What meat did you use?"
"A type of lamb that's most common from the Karamba continent. We removed the gamey smell and seasoned it with spices."
"Excellent! And the vegetables?"
"From the Golden Plains."
"Pass!!!"
I burst out laughing and set the hamburger down, then headed straight for the pizza.
"This one also wouldn't have been possible without help from the western continent. It's made with goat cheese, a sauce from crushed tomatoes, and simple ham on top."
"This one too... Mmm!!!"
The pizza was delicious as well. The sauce had just the right blend of spices, and the crust, cheese, and meat were perfectly balanced.
The pizza passed too.
"Let's try the last one. How did you prepare it?"
"We took chicken from the southern imperial poultry farms, removed the bones, left only the meat, marinated it with spices and salt, then coated and fried it."
"Let's see... Ah, shit."
The moment I took a bite, a curse slipped out without thinking. The chefs simply smiled contentedly, knowing that profanity from someone eating like a starving man could only be praise.
"...It's too good."
"These three received the best reactions out of everything you suggested, so we finalized them. They also fit the fast-food concept perfectly."
"Fantastic!! Absolutely fantastic, Sebastian!!! Now let's get these out into the market!!!!"
I gathered Karl Hansen and several distribution specialists from the merchant guild for a meeting.
"We'll need enormous quantities of chicken. I'll head to the southern poultry farms and place a bulk order. I can set up new distribution routes, Lord Landor."
"Perfect. Keep the cheese and meat from the west steady. As for how the fast-food outlets will operate, here's the plan. We'll mass-produce sauces, meats, and other ingredients in advance, then ship them to each location."
The chefs burst into laughter at my words.
"If the sauces and ingredients are prepped ahead of time, cooking time will drop dramatically!! Brilliant!! Brilliant, Lord Landor!!"
"We'll have to build factories. Let's mainly hire women with cooking experience. This will create new jobs!!"
"I'll look into sites for the new factories, Lord Landor."
"Good, Karl Hansen. Handle that. And put out mass hiring notices. Got it?"
More hectic days flew by, but I didn't find them burdensome at all.
Chicken, pizza, and hamburgers in another world.
How could I possibly resist?
While establishing distribution routes and building the franchise headquarters and factories responsible for ingredient preparation, I summoned the owners of restaurants in Portu Commercial City and Elrond Barony en masse to Sebastian's building for training.
"These are new dishes called pizza, chicken, and hamburger! Lord Landor developed them himself! I'll show you how to assemble them once the ingredients are ready!!!"
The training wasn't difficult. Because the most demanding and quality-critical ingredients arrived already prepped, all the restaurant owners had to do was combine and cook them correctly. It was work even untrained commoners could handle with ease.
After tasting the finished dishes, the owners readily agreed to work under me, and I signed supply contracts with every one of them.
Another four months raced past like bullets.
And finally, as winter approached...
"Brand-new fast-food shops are open! Come try them!!!!"
The first landmark restaurants in the food-service industry began opening in Portu Commercial City and Elrond Barony.
"Fast food? What's that?"
People trudging home after another exhausting day in the city saw the clowns I had hired parading through the streets, banging drums and shouting advertisements.
A food they'd never heard of called fast food.
Word was they sold something called a hamburger—meat sandwiched between bread—along with pizza and chicken.
"A new shop in the restaurant district?"
At first, people frowned.
Even the farmers who had boiled tree roots when food ran out were growing tired of the terrible food in the existing restaurants.
But the clowns' pitch ended with one magical line.
"These are menus personally developed by Lord Landor! They're tear-jerkingly delicious! Come try them!!"
People who had been skeptical began trickling into the shops, drawn by my currently sky-high reputation.
What greeted them was a very unusual establishment.
Customers had to go up to order, carry their own food to a table, eat, and clean up after themselves.
Those accustomed only to being served found the system slightly inconvenient.
But the moment they tasted the food, every complaint vanished into the distant cosmos.
"W-what is this?"
"My god!! Food like this actually exists!!!!!!"
It was on an entirely different level from the previous restaurants that had butchered spices because their cooks had never been properly trained.
The perfectly balanced sauces, well-baked buns, and expertly aged meats developed over months by capital-trained chefs made every bite a joy.
One bite and you were hooked.
The price was shockingly low as well.
"You can eat all this for only five coppers?"
"Five coppers? That's cheap!"
Customers began flooding in.
It was only natural when the best product a restaurant could offer—delicious food—was sold at a low price.
The three items triggered an explosive reaction.
Even merchants from the western continent who could barely speak the language came in droves.
Within a single week the crowds grew so large that people started getting hurt and I had to dispatch Iron Blood Coalition soldiers to form lines.
"Lord Landor."
"What?"
"Look at this..."
The merchant guild handling distribution and operations for all these foods was raking in transcendent amounts of gold.
In just one week they had earned dozens of times their initial investment.
"Build more restaurants!!"
The number of shops grew rapidly, and with them the ingredient-preparation factories and Sebastian's headquarters building grew busier by the day.
"Let's name the chain headquarters."
Before long the building where Sebastian and the chefs worked became the headquarters of a company called Knife & Fork, overseeing every fast-food outlet in Portu Commercial City and Elrond Barony.
"We can't stop here."
And of course I had no intention of stopping.
I told Sebastian to research more varied dishes and expand the menu, and he threw himself into studying regional cuisines to develop new restaurant concepts.
By the time people grew tired of chicken, hamburgers, and pizza, new restaurants would appear to capture their appetites.
"Lord Landor."
"What?"
"The number of farmers pouring in from across the continent has doubled."
And this restaurant venture produced an unexpected butterfly effect.
Being able to eat incredibly delicious food at a low price whenever you wanted.
For the vast majority of impoverished imperial citizens, it sounded like a dream.
Once fast food became famous, word spread that this was a territory where no one went hungry, and even more farmers risked their lives to flee their homes and head for Portu Commercial City and Elrond Barony.
Portu Commercial District and Elrond Barony grew even more crowded with farmers, and the city offered more jobs than ever to welcome them.
The population began exploding, and I actively relocated them to the Golden Plains to speed up land reclamation while continuing to manage the territory.
The phenomenon of people being sucked in like a sponge was unstoppable, and even if anyone had wanted to stop it, it wasn't illegal, leaving the local lords powerless.
And naturally, the territory hit hardest by this unexpected fast-food syndrome was...
"Duke Pellings."
"..."
"We don't have enough people left to farm. Winter is coming, and... the grain stores are running low."
It was the Vineyard Party.
Duke Pellings lifted his haggard face after hearing the butler's report.
"Landor... Landor, you bastard. So you finally decided to go all out, huh?"
In every respect—power, military strength, capital, technology—Landor held the advantage over the Vineyard Party.
Farmers kept leaving, and if they couldn't reverse the situation somehow, the man who had once aimed for the throne would end up bankrupt in the most absurd way.
He couldn't allow that to happen.
If he couldn't win through open war, he would have to take a risky gamble. And he knew exactly which gamble suited the current circumstances.
"It's almost time for Seoric, leader of the rebels, to be released from San-tokki Prison, isn't it?"
Duke Pellings spoke in a chilling voice.
"Send someone to the prison. I have a request for him."
The empire's greatest rebel leader.
Those who had risen against the plundering nobles and been sentenced to ten years in San-tokki Prison for their crimes.
They were the perfect people to bring about the destruction of Portu Commercial City and Elrond Barony.