"Oh dear... oh dear..."
Baron Foreman felt as if he were sitting on a bed of thorns.
"This is bad..."
His fears had become reality.
The warp gates had completely stopped functioning.
The central region was a basin surrounded by mountains, and now monsters had begun appearing on every peak.
Even the hills marking the borders between territories were no exception.
The problem was that monsters were useless as food. Their meat wasn't edible.
With monsters roaming the mountains, people could no longer climb them safely. Even edible wild plants became poisonous if touched by a monster's saliva.
And encountering a monster itself was a life-threatening gamble.
"If only they hadn't traded all those horses for dairy cows..."
A month and a half earlier, Baron Hawin had ordered every horse in the territory taken to the western border and exchanged for dairy cattle.
At first, everyone had been delighted.
"We can make porridge with milk and churn butter! And when the cows get old, we can eat them for meat!"
But problems soon emerged.
Dairy cows consumed enormous amounts of water. Two cows drank more water than ten people.
The wells of Hawin Barony quickly began running dry.
They also ate far more hay than horses—a fact Baron Hawin had never known.
When he ordered people to fetch water from the Erenta River, the knights of Sears blocked their path.
"Your side was the one that first cut off trade through Jezel Street."
To make matters worse, dairy cows were extremely sensitive to environmental and feed changes. At first, they barely produced any milk.
"At least horses can carry things. These creatures just need more workers to clean them and milk them... and if they eat even a little less feed, milk production drops immediately."
The laborers who had previously managed horse farms were deeply dissatisfied.
The amount of hay that could feed horses for an entire month was devoured by the cows in less than half that time.
Afterward, they had no choice but to feed them food meant for humans.
"Give them dried corn! We have more of that than anything else!"
The cows eagerly ate the corn.
In fact, they ate an astonishing amount.
But before long, they collapsed, panting heavily. The sugar content in the corn had caused acidosis.
Naturally, milk production plummeted.
Meanwhile, they drank even more water.
"In the end, they'll probably slaughter those cows and be done with it."
Yet even that was wishful thinking.
The physician had warned them that eating cows that died from acidosis could cause severe food poisoning.
Now even the meat was unusable.
As someone who was still receiving regular meals in such circumstances, Baron Foreman felt deeply uncomfortable.
Though those meals were becoming more meager by the day...
"The human appetite is more frightening than I realized."
He found himself wondering.
Even he was no longer eating his fill.
"I wonder how Sears is doing. They don't even have salt over there."
The knights guarding the border prevented Hawin's men from entering, so nobody had been able to investigate.
"The potatoes probably aren't ready for harvest yet. Fishing hasn't been good either. And surely they've already run out of grain..."
Then a merchant from Jezel Street had reported:
"They bought chickens. A lot of them. Every chicken being sold on Jezel Street was purchased."
Baron Hawin had scoffed.
"A foolish choice. What exactly are they planning to feed all those chickens?"
"Well... they do lay eggs every day."
"Then give salt to the villagers and bring back their chickens. We should raise some ourselves."
"Um... every household already has plenty of salt. I'm not sure they'll trade their chickens..."
"Take them by force if necessary!"
The chickens were noisy, so they were locked away in a warehouse.
Unexpectedly, however, they stopped laying eggs.
They were fed barley husks, lost weight, and ceased producing eggs.
"Why aren't they laying?"
"I-I don't know, my lord. At home, when we fed them proper feed, they laid one egg a day."
"Then where is that feed?"
"We bought it from merchants. Now it's gone, and with the warp gates down, we can't get more..."
"Then the chickens in that territory must be in the same condition!"
Holding the invitation in his hands, Baron Foreman stared at it thoughtfully.
The date of the banquet was drawing near.
"Wouldn't my attendance simply burden them?"
Since when had he become someone who worried this much over a single meal?
My grandson is the heir of the Grand Duchy of Nozen...
The old man felt bitter as he ate humble meals and watched his status amount to nothing.
"Maybe I shouldn't go."
But declining a formal invitation would be discourteous.
Besides, he was worried about Sears and curious about their situation.
"Fine. I'll inspect the territory first and decide afterward whether I should attend."
With that, he once again began preparing a disguise.
"Only Hawin's people are being stopped. If I present forged western identification, I'll be fine."
Rolling up his sleeves, Baron Foreman quietly slipped out of Hawin Manor.
"Wow..."
Philip brushed away the soil with trembling hands.
Round potatoes emerged from the earth.
A month and a half had passed since the seed potatoes had been planted—the minimum growth period required for young potatoes.
Seeing them buried in the soil brought an involuntary smile to his face.
"Success."
Though still only finger-sized, there were many of them.
Given more time, they would undoubtedly grow plump and full.
The healthy leaves and firm tubers promised a bountiful harvest.
"Make sure you peel them and cook them thoroughly."
I emphasized the point to the head chef.
"These were harvested early. Dig up only enough for today's meals. Enough for the villagers too. Tomorrow's potatoes can wait until tomorrow."
Normally, even early-harvest potatoes required at least two months to mature fully.
But potatoes that were technically edible could already be harvested now.
A month and a half had passed since the territory became isolated.
We had possessed only one month's worth of grain.
"This has to last us another month and a half. Let's ration it carefully."
I had already given those instructions to the kitchen.
"But we'll have eggs. And before long, chicken meat too."
That was why I had purchased so many chickens.
I instructed people to mix rice bran, wheat bran, and crushed river clam shells together.
Chicken feed.
"Why add clam shells, my lady?"
"They need calcium. Once we have eggshells, we'll crush those and add them too."
I also ordered the knights to release the chickens into the potato fields and along the riverbanks during the daytime.
The chickens hunted insects and larvae on their own.
A natural source of protein.
Under normal circumstances, commercial feed would have been preferable.
But this was the best option available.
With a stable supply of nutrients, the chickens faithfully produced one egg every day.
"We'll have other food as well."
A lettuce garden had appeared on the roof of the marquis's manor.
"No piece of land should sit idle."
One household had saved lettuce seeds from early spring.
Lettuce was among the most common crops in the small riverside farms.
It grew quickly.
It was easy to cultivate.
And most importantly, it could be harvested repeatedly.
Other supplies also continued to arrive.
Specifically—
"My lady! Salt came in again today—the largest amount yet!"
"Another basket of perilla seeds has arrived!"
Food secretly flowing in from Hawin Territory.
The moment Dalia had announced that she intended to raise dairy cows, I had already foreseen this outcome.
"Dairy cows consume tremendous amounts of water."
They were also highly sensitive to environmental changes.
People with no experience raising them could never manage them successfully.
"Milk production will fall. Water shortages are inevitable."
People could not survive without water.
And just a month and a half ago, both Jezel Street and the Veron region had belonged to Sears Marquisate.
Of course they would come to the Erenta River for water.
"That's why I stationed knights there—to ensure they couldn't take water openly."
Of course, I wasn't truly denying them water.
I had merely forbidden it officially.
"Officially, no water leaves the territory. Unofficially... that's another matter. But there will be conditions."
I gathered all fifty households of the territory and addressed them.
Though divided now, they had once all lived together as neighbors.
"Tell them they must bring something to bribe the knights with. And under no circumstances can Baron Hawin learn about it."
With only around fifty households, supervision was easy.
"And find out how they're doing. No matter that we're different territories now, nobody should starve to death."
When I heard that the dairy cows had collapsed after eating corn, I deliberately sent a message through a physician in the area.
"Don't eat cattle that die from acidosis. You'll get food poisoning."
Dairy cattle had been domesticated for centuries.
There was plenty of recorded knowledge about them.
In fact, the cows in this world were even more susceptible to acidosis than those on Earth.
I wasn't kind enough to tell Dalia outright, "Dairy cows are a terrible idea."
But neither did I want innocent people to die because of her mistakes.
