Chapter 167: The God of Divide and Conquer
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 167: The God of Divide and Conquer
For any given opinion, there will always be those in favor and those against.
In reality, opposition arises even for opinions with extremely obvious, fundamental answers.
In a world where even the execution of heinous criminals sparks debates over human rights, this is perhaps only natural.
Every individual has different values, and there are times when persuasion simply does not work.
Therefore, uniting everyone under a single opinion on any matter is practically impossible.
No matter how good a policy is, there will always be negative views on it, which is why the concept of majority rule exists.
A system where what the majority agrees on is deemed correct.
Of course, this system is not without its flaws, but without it, there would be no way to reach a consensus at all. Thus, the opinion of the majority holds more power than one might think. As the dominant opinion, it usually serves as the standard for judging right from wrong.
This is why, when "ruling," one must be careful of the masses, who make up the majority.
Their collective opinion can turn into a sharp blade against the minority at any moment, and their words can always become a justification.
Public opinion after the Zombie Rush was exactly like this.
Before the Zombie Rush, basic food and meals cost 10 Coins, but the price had been raised to 15 Coins and kept there under the pretext of inflation after the rush.
The vast majority of public opinion was disgruntled.
The Paradise Gallery didn't have any particularly strict rules.
Things like degrading the quality of the Paradise Gallery or spreading false information about the Paradise system...
There was a system that automatically deleted posts or, in severe cases, issued warnings, but there was no need to interfere with the formation of public opinion through such free expression.
There had to be some outlet; if things were controlled too tightly, no one would write on a bulletin board operated under a real-name system.
And for the past few days, these complaints had been gaining traction as the mainstream opinion.
-
There were a few people speaking sense, but the opinion of the majority was hard to resist.
The majority's voice was just that powerful.
In a way, the incident in Paradise could be seen as escalating from this point.
Honestly, if I had nipped it in the bud here, perhaps the incident in Paradise would never have happened.
But I didn't.
The fact that there was no need to do so had been proven by an Event Quest worth a whopping 5 points.
Plus, it gave five Level 4 Defense Turrets, which cost 4,300 Coins each when fully upgraded.
Why pull out the seeds by the roots when they could grow into an event that showered me with such rewards?
A minor justification like this could disperse and dissolve the majority opinion currently directed at Paradise.
It was something that had to be faced sooner or later anyway.
Selling the Paradise system cheaply in the beginning was because it was still the early days of the zombie apocalypse. Although the game Zombie Apocalypse had been out for quite a while, not many users had actually played it. Since games and reality were different, I figured people would need time to adjust.
As time passes, people adapt to reality and gather Coins.
Even if it only seemed like the ratio of adapted people was rising because those who couldn't adapt were all dying, gathering Coins was undeniably becoming easier. With the zombies weakened by the Paradise debuffs and other factors, earning Coins was a breeze.
Consequently, the value of my food and meals bought with those Coins would drop.
Would people feel grateful for food bought with easily earned Coins?
What about services?
Services were more important than food and meals.
In the beginning, since Coins were precious to everyone, I had generously overlooked the fact that only one or two people would register to service an entire base. But I couldn't go on forever.
With factions gradually increasing, there were bound to be places I didn't know about where they registered only one or two Level 2 Memberships while letting their entire base leech off the benefits.
I had left them alone because it was a hassle and there was no need to hunt them down one by one, but this couldn't last forever.
This time, a perfect justification had presented itself.
It was time to make the people throw the stones they were aiming at the giant target of "Paradise" at each other instead.
Paradise is not some company you can look down on, trading services back and forth for mutual benefit.
Without Paradise, you cannot survive.
You are merely parasites clinging to Paradise, solely because you were lucky enough to be inside its Safe Base.
I would show them exactly that.
"Level 1 Membership: 1 week for 20 Coins. 5 weeks for 90 Coins. 10 weeks for 160 Coins."
"Level 2 Membership: 1 week for 70 Coins. 5 weeks for 315 Coins. 10 weeks for 560 Coins."
I raised the base membership prices.
Level 1 went from 15 to 20 Coins. 5 weeks offered a 10% discount, and 10 weeks offered a 20% discount.
Level 2 went from 50 to 70 Coins. Similarly, 5 weeks got 10% off, and 10 weeks got 20% off.
And I kept the business cards, which served as the referral system for Paradise Membership.
Originally, one Paradise Membership business card was provided per person when they purchased at least one food item, but now I raised that privilege to Level 2.
Now, a Level 2 Membership holder would receive one card whenever they had a meal.
This wasn't some referral system that gave a free week of Level 1 Membership.
It simply granted the authority to "join."
Since ordinary people absolutely needed a business card to join Paradise Membership for the first time.
The same applied to existing members if they failed to renew before their membership expired.
When a new user joined the membership using a business card, the referrer's Level 1 Membership was extended by one week for free. Up until now, it had been widely used among those purchasing food.
But from now on, I planned to change the reward to a 3-day extension of Level 2 Membership.
This way, every time a person who had a meal recruited a new user, they would essentially gain 21 Coins' worth of value for free. Since they could continuously extend their Level 2 Membership—which offered actual practical benefits—they would hustle even harder to bring in new people.
I also raised the prices of membership benefits.
Food.
Instant rice, ramen, and water (1.5L), which were currently referred to as basic food.
I raised their prices from 15 Coins to 20 Coins each.
Other items sold at the food store, such as various snacks, frozen foods, ice cream, and all sorts of food arriving through supplies, also saw a slight price increase.
The reality was that even Level 1 Members now had nothing much to buy if they didn't have Coins.
The same went for meals, the core benefit of Level 2 Membership.
I didn't raise it too much, setting it at 20 Coins.
After all, it was the biggest reason people signed up for Level 2 Membership, and due to mass production, it was virtually the item that yielded the highest profit margin in Coins.
In any case, the core of the Level 2 price adjustment lay in the service fees.
Electricity, water, heating, the hospital, and the bathhouse.
Although the bathhouse service wasn't active yet since the relocation, the weekly fees for electricity, water, and heating—previously 10, 10, and 15 Coins respectively—were raised to 20, 20, and 30 Coins.
Kim Ji-hee's treatment fee was also doubled from 150 Coins to 300 Coins. Other minor medical fees were raised from a base of 10 Coins to 20 Coins, with prescription costs charged separately.
Not many people would want to read through such a long, detailed list, but they would have to read it carefully.
Even if they just shrugged it off, thinking, Well, everything went up, since prices had risen across the board.
Unless they planned to cut ties with Paradise, these were the prices they had to live with from now on.
In truth, those hit hardest by this were the factions.
"The key change is to the service usage system, as it has been detected that certain factions have only registered a few individuals—one or two people—for Level 2 Membership while consuming massive amounts of electricity, heating, and water for an absurdly low amount of Coins."
Leaving this notice, I changed the payment method for services.
Honestly, this was something I had wanted to do for a long time, but I had let it slide under the excuse of it being too much hassle, comforting myself with the thought that I was still making a profit anyway.
In the very beginning, since I received massive discounts, activating the electricity and water for the entire Safe Base still left me with a profit from the Coins collected back then. Even then, I had wondered if I could squeeze out more Coins by making the system more granular, but I had put it off simply because configuring it manually was too difficult.
Now, I could do it.
It wasn't that I had suddenly gained some new ability.
Upgrading to a Level 11 Safe Base had enabled the modified system to handle it.
– You can create a "system" for operating the Safe Base. The "system" will be more sophisticated and will be calibrated and applied according to the Host's wishes.
I had briefly agonized over whether I should spend expensive Coins to use a single slot on the "Server System Administrator," but the god-tier Cheat Mode had solved that dilemma for me.
"Areas exceeding a certain size will only be activated when a corresponding quota of Level 2 Membership holders is met."
The system automatically calculated the required number of Level 2 Membership holders proportional to the area, making it incredibly convenient.
The changes spread rapidly.
And the effects immediately manifested in the Paradise Gallery.
– Because of these fucking beggars, only the innocent people who were using it normally are getting screwed over.