Ola's jaw nearly hit the ground.
He stared at Veylin, his eyes filled with dwarven bewilderment.
"Domesticate?"
Ola repeated the word, wondering whether the sea breeze had damaged his ears.
"My lord, could you say that again? You mean... domesticate those Level-Four Magical Beasts?"
"To be precise, establish a cooperative relationship," Veylin corrected him.
Ola's thick reddish-brown beard trembled violently.
It wasn't as though he had never eaten fries.
Paired with ale, they truly were a supreme pleasure.
But was this really the time?
The construction site was a shambles. More than a dozen workers had been injured, one young man's arm had nearly been torn off, and blood had stained half a wagon wheel red.
And the first order their lord-the pioneer of the Gray Marsh Fief, the first count in a century to receive a newly created title, the founder of the Pan-Grey Sea Alliance, Weilin Klein-had issued was to order takeout?
A hundred pounds of it, no less!
"My lord! I have absolutely no idea what you're thinking anymore!" Ola roared. "Those feathered bastards just attacked us! And now you want to treat them to a meal?"
He remembered the Siege Behemoths they had faced at the sea fortress.
They, too, had been Level-Four Magical Beasts. The wall of water raised by the Deepwater Siege Crab had nearly shattered Baron Kru's bones.
How could a few strips of fried potato possibly make such creatures submit?
"Did we kill one of their flock?" Veylin asked in return.
"Uh, no..."
"Did we destroy their nests?"
"Well, no..."
"We were simply building on their feeding grounds. Then they came to steal food, and succeeded," Veylin summed up. "From their perspective, this was a successful hunt. They'll come again. We have three options."
He raised one finger.
"One, kill them all.