I Became a Food Developer in Another World

Chapter 27: Chicken (4)

The greatest creatures in the world are, without a doubt, dragons.

Long life spans, unparalleled strength, and knowledge far beyond human understanding.

The dragon was the most perfect creature created by Heaven.

And all the images of dragons that humans have came from them.

The admiration and reverence for dragons spread throughout the entire human race.

This perception of dragons extended to the lowest dragon species, the wyverns.

For humans, wyverns were not meant to be eaten.

There were also practical reasons for not eating them, such as the difficulty of hunting them.

However, the flavor of deep-fried wyverns was beyond imagination.

“Is this chicken……?”

The crispiness of the skin was confectionery at its finest, and the juicy meat was tender and chewy enough to chew without teeth.

But the best part was the wings.

“Dragon wings taste so good!”

The deep-fried wings of the wyvern were the epitome of crispy and chewy, especially the skin, the crispy, savory skin, the oily flavor that melted on the tongue, the unbeatable chewiness.

The wyvern’s wings had a texture unlike anything else in the world.

The two knights reported their findings to the rest of the Duchy.

The wyvern was insanely delicious.

“What, you ate a wyvern?”

“Have you guys been drinking while on duty?”

The Duke’s knights laughed at the idea of eating wyverns but when they saw the fried wyvern chicken, they were speechless.

The visual was surprisingly pleasing.

The Duke’s breed of chicken was a large breed, about half the size of a man, and the Wyvern was three times that size.

The wyvern chicken was just a regular chicken enlarged and to top it all off…

“……No, why is this really good?”

“See, I told you, it tastes amazing.”

“Dude, it’s so juicy.”

“Wait, I’ll get some beer.”

The knights seated around the wyvern were having a chicken party.

“Wow, is this real chicken?”

“The wings are crazy…!”

The knights realized the truth about the wyvern.

The wyvern was actually a giant flying chicken.

From that day on, “wyvern chicken” became a popular dish among the knights of the Duchy.

As the knights repeatedly caught and fried wyverns, the news reached the ears of Duke Gerz.

“……You mean to tell me that wyverns are delicious?”

“Yes, they say it’s juicier than chicken, and the wings are chewy.”

“…….”

Duke Gerz was speechless with disbelief.

What was a wyvern?

It was a ‘dragonkin’, a subspecies of dragon, albeit a subspecies, but still with some dragon blood.

How could a dragon be eaten like chicken?

“Can a dragon taste like chicken……?”

“Well, chickens can trace their roots back to dragons.”

“Hmm.”

Duke Gerz was unable to retort to his vassal’s words.

‘What on earth is this flavor……?’

Unable to contain his curiosity, Duke Gerz went outside and joined the group of knights enjoying the wyvern chicken.

“We greet your highness!”

“What brings you here…!?”

The knights greeted Duke Gerz in a panic, their mouths full of grease.

“Give me a piece, too.”

“Ah, yes, sir…!”

One of the knights quickly offered Duke Gerz a plate of chicken.

Duke Gerz looked down at the chicken on the plate and thought to himself.

‘This is chicken.’

It was a well-battered, golden chicken, a very large chicken.

Duke Gerz picked it up and took a big bite.

“!!”

His eyes widened as an explosion of juices erupted from the flesh hidden beneath the crispy batter.

‘Is this what you call a wyvern?’

The Duke of Getz’s shock at the tender flesh, more moist than chicken, was immense.

It was a deep sense of loss that the wyvern, which had been the bane of the Duchy existence for generations, was actually a flying chicken.

“Your Grace, the wings are more delicious.”

Duke Gerz picked up a wyvern wing and ate it without a word.

-Crispy!

The wyvern wing’s crispy skin, like a confection, but chewy on the inside, coated his tongue.

The chewy texture was amazing.

Having finished the wings, Duke Gerz quietly took his handkerchief and wiped his greasy mouth, then said.

“Who hunted this wyvern?”

“I, I hunted it.”

The knight who had hunted the wyvern replied with a grunt.

He had hunted it on his own initiative, for the sake of the chicken, and had expected to be scolded by the Duke but,

“It is good of you to prove your valor by hunting a wyvern.”

“…Thank you!”

The knight was both thrilled and bewildered by Duke Gerz’s unexpected praise.

He was right, wyverns were tricky monsters to hunt because they were good at running away, but they weren’t very powerful in combat.

However, for hunting such a wyvern, Duke Gerz praised him for his ‘valor’.

Every wyvern hunter was praised by the Duke for their bravery.

The Duke’s praise encouraged the knights to continue hunting wyverns, even on their days off, as they were actively hunting wyverns for chicken.

The act of hunting wyverns and eating chicken has become a ‘proof of valor’.

It was a form of gaslighting, with the duke encouraging the knights to kill the wyverns, the duke’s nemesis.

The knights, on the other hand, were fired up to hunt wyverns because they could eat chicken and earn honor at the same time.

And then there was the incident that poured oil on the fire.

“Did you hear, Sullivan, that fellow got his fourth yesterday.”

“…What?”

“He’s been eating wyverns, and he’s got a lot of energy. It’s the reason he’s been so animated lately-”

Boom!

The knight who was listening to the story slammed the door of the canteen.

─I’m coming to get you!

The knight who left the cattle station soon afterward coincidentally had a son.

The rumor that wyverns were good for virility spread throughout the duchy.

*

Wyvern chicken is all the rage in Gerz Duchy!

The news of making chicken with wyverns in Gerz Duchy reached the ears of the nobility.

The dignified nobles were quick to criticize the duke for hunting wyverns.

“How could they even think of eating wyvern meat?”

“Perhaps the Duke’s knights don’t know the honor of the dragonborn.”

To the nobility, a ‘dragonborn’ was a creature that deserved to be honored.

The knights of the Duchy, who used wyverns belonging to such species for food, seemed like barbarians in the eyes of the nobles.

But…….

“They say it’s tastier than chicken.”

“…You mean wyvern?”

“Yes. They say the flesh is softer than beef, and the wings are chewier than chicken skin.”

“Hmm.”

“They say it’s especially good for virility.”

“……!”

That was all it took.

The wyverns were soon at the table of the nobility.

***

“Is this the Wyvern Chicken……?”

“Yum, this tastes like…!”

The nobles were amazed by the wyvern’s overwhelming visuals and its outstanding flavor.

The tender meat and chewy wings were like chicken, but it was another world.

The wyvern chicken instantly captivated the nobles’ taste buds.

The fried wings were a hit.

“Freshly fried wyverns are so delicious, especially those chewy wings…”

“Young Lady, your mouth is watering.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

The Young Lady was so enthusiastic about the wings that she even started selling fried wings separately.

And this trend of wyvern chicken reached my ears.

“Senior, have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“They say the wyvern chicken is so delicious.”

“…Wyverns? Those flying reptiles?”

“Yeah, they’re really popular among the nobility these days.”

I was speechless at this completely unexpected story.

I’d heard of chicken being a dragon descendant, but I’d never imagined deep-frying a real dragon.

Of course, I thought it would be different from real chicken.

“…Delicious.”

I had to admit, after tasting the wyvern chicken Aria brought me.

The flavor of the wyvern chicken was so amazing that I couldn’t believe it was real.

I immediately realized what it was like to bite into a juicy piece of meat.

There are even rumors that wyverns are good for virility.

‘If it’s like this, isn’t it that?’

The connection between virility and chicken was a natural one.

*

As it turned out, things went exactly as I expected.

Among the nobility, the Gerz Duchy has become a tourist destination for wyvern hunting,

“My wyverns are bigger!”

“But it’s more delicious for me, isn’t it?”

The nobles would judge each other’s wyverns as casually as if they were fishing for fish.

Duke Gerz, meanwhile, pandered to their vanity with his ridiculous hyperbole about wyverns as “honorable knight’s chicken.”

Of course, I can’t say I didn’t play a part in this.

“It’s called the Wyvern Spiced Chicken, newly developed by the White Tower.”

“Alas, it’s spicy but sweet!”

“How does Mr. Yuri come up with something so delicious every time?”

Somehow, the popularity of spicy chicken and wyverns, whose release dates overlapped, created a synergistic effect.

The formula ‘wyvern = chicken’ was established, and the aristocracy overfished for a taste of wyvern.

The good news was that wyverns weren’t that easy to catch.

The wyverns, with their clever intelligence, knew how to protect themselves, and as hunting became more and more difficult, the price of wyverns skyrocketed.

Eventually, even among the nobility, wyverns became a delicacy.

It would have been nice to think that the wyvern saga would have ended there, but it didn’t.

The vanity of the nobles exceeded my expectations.

When the wyvern hunt became difficult, they argued over who had eaten more chicken this time.

“How do you mean to compare the number of chickens eaten?”

“Obviously, the bigger guy ate more.”

The argument started with this simple logic.

“My stomach is bigger than yours.”

“What do you mean, can’t you see that my stomach is bigger?”

“Fat = eat a lot of chicken = wealthy,” with the “eat a lot of chicken” in between erased.

It evolved into a perverse “fat = rich” equation.

An obesity epidemic began to sweep the empire.