Chapter 263: When You Cover a Bird's Eyes, It Calms Down (1)
I anesthetized each harpy, tore Dane's clothes to make some simple ropes, pulled both wings of each harpy behind their back to bind them, and tied both legs tightly to make sure they couldn't fly or thrash around when they woke up.
"Phew."
Only after a while, after the emergency measures were over, did the female owner come out from inside, her outfit noticeably more disheveled than when I first saw her, giving me an idea of what had gone on with Jake.
"Jake, that bastard..."
While Dane and Levin glared at him like they wanted to kill him, Jake just brushed it off with a shameless smile. While the rest of us were meeting harpies, that guy had been rolling around with the boss lady.
I personally didn't care much, but the others—especially Levin, who despite going to the Eastern Front to lose his virginity with a group ended up backing out from embarrassment (seriously, what a stiff), or Dane who had such a fixed taste that he couldn't get turned on by harpies—were looking at Jake with a mix of envy and disgust.
"You said you wanted to buy them? Since harpies are considered monsters, we can't sell them just anywhere."
The boss lady spoke with an apologetic expression, and it occurred to me that I'd forgotten harpies were treated as monsters and couldn't be casually sold.
"And you can't just dispose of harpy eggs either. We even have to report and get approval to produce fertilized eggs for breeding."
"...I see."
So I couldn't just take this harpy for myself.
Still... even if it's in their nature to lay unfertilized eggs, I didn't want to see her clinging to some other guy like livestock, getting fucked like that.
I'd rather steal her and set her free outside... Of course, Dane and Levin seemed to be thinking the same, so if the boss lady kept running this place like a breeding egg factory, we'd just ignore her and let them go, then wait for punishment.
"Ah... I thought it was efficient... but seeing your reactions, maybe the harpies are fine being tied up like that, but it clearly doesn't sit well with the gentlemen. Is it really that off-putting?"
Nod nod.
Dane and Levin nodded silently, and the boss lady let out a sigh.
Honestly, we could try different approaches because we were a small group, but imagine if a bunch of men came here just to produce fertilized eggs.
Just picture some random guy next to me swinging his dick while fucking a harpy's cloaca... how would I even get hard like that...
"My father and brother came up with this efficient method together. People from the capital are really particular, huh."
This seemed more like a family problem than a capital city problem, but I didn't say anything.
"Then how about this?"
The boss lady picked up the harpy I'd brought in and cradled her separately.
"Since we do need to improve how capital folks perceive our harpy farm, and we should avoid anything that causes discomfort... I'll stop running the egg factory like this."
"Really?"
"I was only trying to help, but if it's not helpful, then so be it."
Well, she was the one who washed, fed, and put the harpies to sleep every day, so she probably didn't tie them up out of malice—just for efficiency during the breeding period.
"Output is important, but thinking about it... other farms will quickly restore egg supply anyway. So in the long run, it's better to focus on premium quality than quantity for harpy eggs—better profits, less labor. If we produce too many in a short time, they lack nutrients anyway."
'Wait, so it's not a matter of ethics, but economics?'
"Also, keeping them tied up can cause bedsores, not to mention hygiene issues. So instead, I'll go back to raising them normally like before..."
"Instead?"
"Could you tell the other knights something nice? Like calling them pets, or using harpy feathers for decorations."
"Uh..."
"There's a superstition somewhere that says if a man carries a woman's pubic hair, he won't fall ill. What if we used this part of a harpy's feather for that?"
Wow... I never thought of that.
"Oh, I just remembered—I plucked this one myself. But we've still got plenty of others."
Hearing that, I groaned quietly and turned to ask my friends instead of responding.
"Think it'll sell?"
I asked Dane, and he was already checking his wallet.
"What? What? I just thought it'd be a nice souvenir."
"Forget it..."
Dane always did like bushy pubes, like with the big mama before...
"If you're still worried, feel free to drop by now and then. The harpies seem to like you guys."
Even though they'd been tied up, the harpy was nuzzling the boss lady's face, like it was no big deal. Honestly, it suited her, almost like they were half-sisters sharing those eggs...
'I should talk to Seyra... ask her to help figure out what to do with the harpies.'
They definitely needed to be reevaluated.
'But... they won't be demoted to livestock like merfolk, right?'
---
Anyway, I did catch the harpy, but since we weren't authorized Rangers and only acted in an emergency response, we could be charged with illegal capture. (Regular civilians could claim self-defense, but knights are expected to protect themselves under any circumstance, so self-defense doesn't usually apply.)
So I decided to take care of her for a bit before returning her to the wild.
Because of that, I couldn't go back, and asked my friends to send a letter to Uni, saying that the female harpies here were being treated like animals, bound up and everything. That got her to rush over here.
[You tricked me!]
"I told the truth. You saw the restraints used to tie them up, didn't you?"
[I wanted to see dozens of sweaty old men raping harpies' cloacas, not sweaty guys dismantling a facility!]
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that."
I did have a mare from Eileen, but while I was gone she hooked up with a stallion and was about to give birth, so I contacted the centaur village and had Angelica come to take her back until after the foal was born.
Which meant the only mount I had now was Uni. I couldn't exactly send a horse to this farm alone, so I had no choice but to call her.
[And you put a virgin on my back! I'm dying from her innocence stench!]
"She doesn't even have a hymen, what virgin?"
[A harpy who's never laid an egg is basically a virgin!]
I really didn't want to know whether this harpy was a virgin or not, but Uni wouldn't shut up about it and kept whining, telling me all about the poor harpy's condition.
'But damn... she's so light.'
The harpy I held at the farm had soft, plump tits, a little belly fat, and thick, tender thighs—an overall soft, meaty figure. But the one sleeping in my arms now was nothing but bones.
Her chest barely had any shape, with just a slight bump at the nipple to show she was female (not that harpies can be anything but female), her stomach was sunken in, and her ribs were sticking out. This kind of body might look agile in the dark, but holding her like this, she felt unrealistically light.
'Is it because she's wild?'
In knight novels, they say wild animals are bigger and tastier, but from experience during outdoor training—where we secretly grilled a wild boar—we found that wasn't true.
Farm-raised pork from a cheap pig was way better.
Fat needs to be dripping for meat to be tender and flavorful. Livestock bred to be tasty will always taste better than animals that evolved to survive.
Some nobles might claim wild-caught is superior, but unless it's a super rare high-end delicacy, farm-raised is way tastier.
Growl...
"Hungry...?"
I'd caught her last night and kept watch until the afternoon when Uni arrived, but she hadn't regained consciousness—still asleep the whole time.
Considering tranquilizer rounds in self-defense pistols usually last about 30 minutes, this was way too long. Between the ship-horn sound she made when attacking and her skeletal frame, I wondered if she was just too malnourished to wake up.
'Well... if she dies, it'll be a pain to deal with... Since I caught her, I should help her recover and let her go.'
"Uni. Hold still."
I found a decent clearing, parked Uni there, and untied the ropes from the harpy's wings and ankles.
'Wow, she really is skinny...'
Compared to the well-fed, well-rested farm harpies, she was practically half a body.
Her wings were slightly bigger, but the humanoid torso attached to them was so frail, it made me feel bad. Her belly kept growling too, so she was clearly too hungry to wake up.
'Just in case...'
If she tried to attack me, I could dodge, but if she scratched Uni or grabbed her like a griffon and flew off, that'd be trouble. Thinking about bird behavior, I pulled out a handkerchief and blindfolded her.
[You're about to start, aren't you? Trying to take her cloacal virginity to gain power, huh?]
"Shut up, you perverted mare."
[Kyah~! I love it because it's true!]
She only got off on it when I talked like that. Maybe I should try calling it sacred virgin nectar next time to gross her out?
"With her blindfolded, she should stay calm when she wakes... Alright, let's see... will she eat jerky?"
It was rock hard, but edible. I brought it to her lips, hoping she'd eat it.
Twitch.
Maybe reacting to the scent, her lips wriggled and bit the jerky, but then there was a problem.
"...She can't chew?"
Either her jaw was too weak or the jerky too tough, she had it in her mouth but couldn't bite down.
'Maybe I should cut it up and make soup?'
[Master, this harpy clearly needs high-protein food.]
"I know. That's why I'm trying to feed her jerky... If I had cookware, I'd make her some soup."
I was wondering whether to go buy food from a farmhouse when...
[Hmph? What are you saying? Master, you already have a high-protein source ready to go.]
It was obvious what this perverted mare meant, but she wasn't wrong.
Ziiip—
In the end, I unzipped my fly.