Chapter 100: The Paradise Gallery Instigation Incident (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 100: The Paradise Gallery Instigation Incident (2)
The drugs certainly did the trick.
Well, the amount of drugs I invested was worth a whopping 1,200 Coins.
But since I already had nearly 1,000 doses from what I'd stolen and brought back from Konkuk University Station, using about four of them didn't feel like a waste.
Of course, I only felt that way after seeing the results.
The instigator certainly knew how to sway the crowd.
– My bad, I had it all wrong. I looked into it, and those drug cartel bastards are seriously vicious. They deliberately give out free samples to get people hooked, and then try to sell them for 500 Coins. Paradise confiscated all of it to sell instead. Apparently, they didn't even want to sell it for 300 Coins, but they reluctantly set it at that price for people who are already addicted and would give up on life without it, or for those who absolutely need it as mentioned in the notice. If it's too cheap, scalpers would just buy it up to resell anyway.
– I also found out that when the drug cartel tried to pay Coins to get them back, Paradise just sucked up their Coins and killed those cartel bastards.
– At this point, you've got to respect the Paradise Shop. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed when they started selling drugs, but if they had such deep intentions, it's better to sell them openly rather than hiding it and trading in the shadows.
It didn't matter what was true and what was false.
People who didn't know the facts usually believed whatever was right in front of them, and plausible-sounding information was more than enough to deceive them.
Whether it could be fact-checked or not didn't matter.
And so, the noisy commotion on the Paradise Gallery seemed to draw to a close.
Of course, it wasn't just drug buyers whining about the price on the gallery; the drug cartel itself might have planted spies in Paradise to manipulate public opinion.
But by shaking up public opinion like this and muddying the waters of truth, people would eventually stop believing anything at all, meaning I wouldn't have to worry about it.
Just to that extent.
I had resolved it exactly as much as I wanted, so that was enough.
The drugs were selling steadily. In fact, order volume had more than doubled since the notice went up.
Granted, the daily sales were still under ten units because the fixed price of 300 Coins was quite a heavy burden.
Still, now that a somewhat "legal" way to obtain drugs existed—along with a justification that only those who absolutely needed them should buy them—I figured even non-users might buy some out of curiosity.
What if they got addicted?
Do I look like I care?
It's not like they'll come to hold me responsible for their own actions.
Even if they did, it would only be because they ran out of Coins, in which case I could just put them out of their misery.
Having wrapped up the Paradise Gallery instigation incident, I focused on preparing for the move.
The drug cartel bastards had been quiet for about a week since they were stripped of their weapons and kicked out.
Unless they were complete idiots, it was about time they realized this wasn't a situation where they could just roll up with guns and wreck the place.
They were either preparing to come back with a much larger force or giving up entirely—though I highly doubted they would give up.
In this kind of faction war, the most important thing is a mind that refuses to lose.
An unbreakable mindset.
No, not that kind of cheesy crap. In a fight like this, if you lose your momentum, it's as good as losing your livelihood forever.
Besides, they didn't know if Paradise was a rival faction trying to break into the drug trade. Would they really tuck their tails and whimper just because they took a bit of a beating?
They knew that if they did, I would only push further and pressure them even more.
In the end, a faction war meant fighting until one of us died.
It was like a holy war.
One had to die for the other to live.
So it was an endless war, and I had declared it knowing full well what it entailed.
Because the rewards were massive.
A massive reward always awaited at the end of such a grand event.
Fear?
I had faced twenty armed men and prevented them from even aiming at me, let alone getting hit by a single bullet. Why on earth would I feel fear?
At the very least, this was a war heavily skewed in my favor, thanks to my insanely broken Level 10 Safe Base Cheat Mode.
The bastards had even established their faction inside my Safe Base.
To be precise, they had established their faction and its multiple branches long ago, and my Safe Base had expanded to encroach upon them.
As long as I didn't have to venture out to the branches outside my territory, this war was bound to end in my victory.
And I had absolutely no intention of going outside.
Why bother when they'd crawl right to me on their own, delivering guns, ammo, and drugs on a silver platter?
I could just sit back, comfortably suck up Points, and then go wipe them out once they were thoroughly weakened.
"I'd better finish moving quickly before they show up."
The interior design of the house was nearly finished.
The bed was in, and the furniture was set.
Kim Ji-hee had practically been living at the cafeteria lately to learn how to cook from Lee Mi-sook. She had even gone out farming to find high-quality cooking utensils, so the kitchen was now packed with culinary gear.
"You don't even have a cooking level. Does using luxury tools suddenly make the food taste better?"
"Oppa, they say cooking is all about sincerity."
"You need at least a Level 7 cooking skill for it to count as sincere."
"..."
Well, even so, Kim Ji-hee's cooking skills, which weren't terrible to begin with, were steadily improving.
Actually, while there were cooking skills that could phenomenally upgrade the taste... most of them were related to rare dishes anyway, so there was no need to stop her from wanting to cook.
If worst came to worst, I could just extract a decent cooking skill using Predation later, give it to her, and level it up.
Once the house was mostly decorated and the outer wall was connected along the perimeter of Seoul Forest to completely enclose our living space, I posted a part-time job notice.
– Whoa. A part-time job notice just went up on Paradise.
– A zombie cleanup job? 1 Coin per kill?
– Whoa. Is this a double Coin event?
– Where is it?
– Transportation is covered. It says to take the tram to Seoul Forest and enter the living space...
– First-come, first-served for 50 people. Requires Combat Mode Level 2 or higher. That's basically free money, right?
– I applied!! Hell yeah!!
– Oh yeah! But are there even many zombies over there?
There were barely any zombies around the area where I built my house.
However, since there was a forest right next to my house, there could be quite a few zombies hiding in there.
Since the perimeter was already blocked off by the outer wall, all that was left was to clear out the zombies inside, so I recruited people.
I didn't even need to offer that many Coins.
1 Point per kill.
Since killing a basic zombie normally gave 1 Point, to the people, this was literally a double Point event.
On top of that, the round-trip fare for the tram—which normally cost 3 Points per ride—was waived. The job would run for seven days, during which they would be provided with three free basic set meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) daily at the cafeteria in Seoul Forest.
Just counting the food, it was a part-time job worth 210 Coins.
Plus, bonus Coins would be paid based on their zombie kill count, so could there possibly be a better gig than this?
Right away, people roamed around my living space from dawn till late at night, hunting for zombies.
Since my house itself was enclosed by an inner wall, they couldn't get near it anyway, so there was no issue.
During the cleanup, I relocated the two warehouses next to my studio apartment building and planted them directly in Seoul Forest.
I was highly satisfied to see that the contents were transferred cleanly along with them, and I installed two more warehouses right next to them.
"Wow... Four massive 3,500-square-foot warehouses!"
Back when I lived in the studio apartment, it was convenient to have a door right next to my room to go back and forth to the warehouse. But now that I had some breathing room, separating my living space from my workspace was much better for my peace of mind.
I built the warehouses along the walking trail so they wouldn't be visible from the house, and I could just provide Kim Ji-hee with a simple vehicle to use when she needed to go back and forth.
Under Lee Mi-sook's leadership, the cafeteria and the food store were almost fully set up, and the move was progressing steadily.
So far, only the cafeteria had been established in the living space and the building across from Seoul Forest Station, and preparations were underway to move into the Trimage area. While decisions on how to use the remaining space were still pending, I figured those areas would naturally fill up once the move was complete.
I decided to prioritize surrounding the area with the outer wall and clearing out the internal zombies first.
Moving takes up an immense amount of time, even when you aren't doing much.
Checking off what was needed and going back and forth only led to remembering more things once I arrived.
Even after moving everything, I'd realize I needed something else and have to go out farming.
Sorting through the luggage made morning turn to evening in the blink of an eye.
But in a zombie apocalypse, every single one of these tasks was a precious experience and a fun event.
When else would I ever get to move like this?
Even in reality, moving is no easy feat, but in a zombie apocalypse, it truly felt like starting a whole new life.
To even build a base in the first place, one had to clear the surroundings, build infrastructure, and cultivate a living environment. But moving all of that to a brand-new location?
Only I could pull this off.
Time flew by, and just as the move was nearing completion...
– Um... Boss... I saw this while out on a delivery near Dong Seoul Terminal... I saw a little over 50 armed people packing up a ton of gear... I took a photo from a distance.
The Delivery Rider who had been kidnapped a while ago sent me a photo.
It showed several motorcycles and vans gathered in the bus garage of Dong Seoul Terminal.
Along with them was a massive pile of guns and ammunition.
"Is it finally time for them to show up?"
They had been quiet for quite a while; they must have been preparing diligently.
They might not be the drug cartel bastards I was expecting, but with an arsenal of that scale, it would be much easier to go out and greet them rather than waiting here.
"Tell Oh Yoon-seop to get over here."