Chapter 67: Chapter-67

“French fries,” Elara said.

The administrator holding the golden stick blinked at her, still chewing. His expression had gone from cautious to stunned in the span of two seconds.

“It’s just… potato,” he said slowly. “Fried potato. How is it—”

“Salt,” Elara interrupted. “Precise temperature control. Starch content. It’s not complicated.”

Another administrator reached for the layered bun—hesitant, curious. She lifted the top carefully, examining the contents like she was inspecting a suspicious contract.

“What’s inside this?”

“Meat. Cheese. Vegetables. Sauce. Bread.” Elara gestured at it. “It’s called a burger.”

The woman bit into it.

Her eyes closed. She chewed slowly, deliberately, as if trying to understand what was happening in her mouth. When she swallowed, she opened her eyes and stared at Elara.

“This is…”

“Addictive,” Elara finished. “That’s the point.”

She watched them descend on the food like starving wolves. Hands reached. Voices overlapped. Someone grabbed three pieces of pizza at once. Another tried popcorn, made a face at the first kernel, then immediately shoved a handful into his mouth.

Within five minutes, half the trays were empty.

Elara let them eat. She needed them to understand—not through explanation, but through experience. Words could be dismissed. Taste could not.

Finally, one of the older administrators—a man named Gregor who usually kept his opinions to himself—set down his fourth piece of pizza and looked at her directly.

“Your Highness,” he said, voice careful. “This is… very good. But I don’t understand. What does this have to do with the supermarket?”

Elara leaned forward slightly.

“Everything,” she said.

She gestured at the nearly empty trays. “What you just experienced? That’s what every customer will experience. They’ll come to the supermarket to buy soap, vegetables, household goods. Normal things. Expected things.”

She paused.

“And then they’ll smell this.”

Understanding flickered across a few faces. Others still looked confused.

“The food court will be at the center of the building,” Elara continued. “Visible from every section. The smell will reach every aisle. People shopping for rice will walk past fresh pizza. People buying cloth will see others eating burgers.”

Dimitri, who’d been standing quietly near the wall, spoke up. “You’re using the food to draw them in.”

“No,” Elara corrected. “I’m using the food to keep them there longer. And to make them come back.”

She stood and walked to the trays, picking up a single french fry.

“These cost almost nothing to make. Potatoes are cheap. Oil is cheap. Salt is cheap.” She held it up. “But people will pay twenty times the production cost because they’ve never tasted anything like it.”

“And the burger?” someone asked.

“Thirty times the cost. Maybe forty if we use premium beef.” Elara set the fry down. “The pizza? Fifty times. The margins are absurd.”

Mira, who’d been doing mental calculations in the corner, looked up sharply. “Your Highness, if those numbers are accurate—”

“They are.”

“—then the food court alone could generate more profit than the entire retail section.”

“Correct.”

Silence fell over the room. The administrators exchanged glances, some skeptical, others visibly reconsidering everything they’d assumed about this plan.

One woman raised her hand slightly—a nervous gesture. “But… Your Highness, won’t people just… copy this? Once they taste it, won’t other shops start making the same food?”

Elara smiled faintly.

“Let them try.”

She walked back to her seat and sat down, fingers laced together on the table.

“First, they’d need the recipes. I’m not sharing those.” She paused. “Second, they’d need the equipment. Proper ovens, fryers, storage. That takes money and space most small vendors don’t have.”

“And third?” Gregor asked.

“Third,” Elara said, “even if they figure out the recipes and buy the equipment, they’d still need one more thing.”

She let the silence stretch.

“Consistency.”

Dimitri nodded slowly, understanding. “Every burger has to taste exactly the same. Every fry has to be the same texture. Every pizza has to have the same amount of cheese.”

“Exactly,” Elara confirmed. “That requires training. Standards. Quality control. Most shops can’t maintain that. They’ll make it once, maybe twice, and then it’ll vary. Customers will notice.”

She looked around the room.

“We won’t vary. Every single item that leaves our kitchen will be identical to the last one. That’s what keeps people coming back. Not novelty. Reliability.”

Another administrator—younger, more nervous—raised a shaking hand. “Your Highness, forgive me, but… won’t the nobles be angry? If commoners are eating food this good for cheap prices?”

Elara’s expression didn’t change.

“Probably.”

“And if they complain?”

“Let them.” She leaned back slightly. “What are they going to say? ’Stop feeding the common people affordable food’? That would make them look petty. Cruel. No noble wants that reputation.”

“But they could—”

“They could try to shut us down,” Elara interrupted calmly. “They could claim health concerns. Unfair competition. Disruption of traditional markets.” She paused. “And then I’d show them the contracts, the permits, the tax payments, and the written approval from the merchant guild.”

Gregor’s eyes widened slightly. “You already have merchant guild approval?”

“Pending,” Dimitri corrected. “But Guild Master Torven has seen the preservation magic work. He’s not going to oppose something that makes him money.”

Elara nodded once. “The guild profits from increased foot traffic. The small merchants profit from stable contracts. The customers profit from convenience and new food. Everyone wins.”

“Except the nobles who wanted to control food distribution themselves,” Mira said quietly.

“Exactly.”

Another pause. Then one of the administrators—an older woman who’d been silent until now—spoke up, her voice thoughtful.

“Your Highness… you said the food pairs with the drinks.”

Elara looked at her. “Yes.”

“So someone buys a burger. They get thirsty. They buy a drink.” The woman’s eyes sharpened. “You’re not just selling food. You’re creating a cycle.”

“Correct.”

“And if they associate the taste of the burger with the taste of the drink…”

“They’ll want both every time,” Elara finished. “That’s the model. Pizza makes you thirsty. Fries make you thirsty. Popcorn makes you thirsty. Everything we sell in the food court is designed to pair with carbonated drinks.”

Understanding settled over the room like a weight.

“This isn’t just a supermarket,” Gregor said slowly. “It’s a… a system.”

“Yes.”

“And once people get used to it—”

“They won’t want to go back,” Elara said. “Why walk to five different shops when you can get everything in one place? Why eat plain bread when you can have pizza? Why drink water when you can have something that tastes better and costs the same?”

She stood.

“The drinks were the entry point. The supermarket is the foundation. The food court is the anchor.” Her voice was calm, clinical. “Together, they create dependency. Not on any single product, but on the entire experience.”

Dimitri stepped forward, pulling out a folded document. “I’ve drafted preliminary cost projections based on Her Highness’s specifications. If we assume moderate traffic—say, two hundred customers per day—the food court alone would generate approximately six hundred gold per month in profit.”

Several administrators inhaled sharply.

“And that’s conservative,” Dimitri added. “If word spreads the way the drinks did, we could see twice that within three months.”

Elara watched their faces shift from skepticism to calculation. They were beginning to see it—not as a strange foreign idea, but as a viable business model.

Good.

“One more thing,” she said.

Everyone looked up.

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