Chapter 99: The Paradise Gallery Instigation Incident
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 99: The Paradise Gallery Instigation Incident
Santa in April.
That's what I decided to call this incident.
"It snowed in April, and now Santa's here too."
"Mmm... Oppa, where did you go last night?"
Kim Ji-hee had been sleeping like a baby, so she missed out on all the fun.
Ever since she spent all day running around farming interior furniture before we went to the Konkuk University Station Branch, she must have been exhausted. She had been going to bed early and sleeping like a log both last night and the night before.
I hadn't bothered to wake her up, either.
"Yeah. Santa came. He brought a shitload of drugs and guns."
"Oh my god, really? That's awesome!"
"I put them in the warehouse, so go organize them."
"Got it!!"
Kim Ji-hee loved drugs.
On the other hand, she didn't have much interest in guns, saying she had no reason to shoot them anyway. Instead, she loved drugs because they sold so well in the Paradise Shop.
She didn't actually get any Coins from the items sold in the Paradise Shop through the Paradise Membership system.
But as a core member of sorts, she was the one organizing the warehouse inventory and checking the shop's stock. Because of that, she could see exactly how many Coins we were making, and when things sold well, she got as excited as if she had earned the money herself.
Well, I suppose it was because she was so dependent on me that she loved seeing me earn Coins.
In any case, thanks to our April Santa, I had acquired not just drugs, but also enough firearms that I wouldn't need to buy any from the Visiting Black Market Merchant for a while.
If the time came when I needed more, I could always just raid a military base.
On top of that, the rewards for the chain of Faction Quests, starting from Faction Quest 4 all the way to 4-1, were so sweet my teeth felt like they were rotting.
Three points for one, four points for 4-1, and five points each for the Normal Mode levels.
I didn't know how far this chain would go, but I had a feeling that once I cleared them all, I'd be able to level up my hunting-type cheat mode quite a bit.
No wonder I was in such a good mood.
"The drugs are selling surprisingly well, too. This is great."
Drugs were the kind of product that practically yielded pure profit—like scooping up water from the Han River and selling it.
They were so highly addictive that once people got a taste, they would sell their houses and cars just to chase the high. They'd happily buy it no matter how much you charged.
In my case, my cost of goods sold was literally zero. Since they had already manufactured everything and even packaged them into individual doses, all I had to do was sell them. The profit margins were bound to be astronomical.
If there was one thing I was curious about, it was how much the local junkies used to pay for this stuff.
Not that I planned to match their old prices, but if they used to buy it for more, it meant I was losing out on potential profit, in which case I was fully prepared to sneakily raise the price.
But since I couldn't just go up and ask them directly, I was planning to just keep selling it at the current price, treating it as my baseline. But then...
"Oppa, there are some weird posts going around the Gallery."
Over the past few days, ever since the incident with the Seongsu Apartment Autonomous Organization, strange instigative posts had begun popping up on the Gallery one by one.
It started off light. Utterly moronic conspiracy theories claiming that the drugs currently sold in the Paradise Shop were being distributed by Paradise to tame the Membership members and turn them into lifelong slaves.
I didn't even need to step in for those; the Paradise Membership system automatically filtered and deleted such posts. So, I didn't pay them any mind.
After all, having survived the zombie apocalypse for 100,000 hours, I was practically a ghost of the online community myself.
I knew exactly how much garbage got posted on the Gallery daily, and having the ability to filter out the noise was an essential survival skill.
However, whether they had figured out the deletion algorithm or were acting as an organized group, they stopped outright bashing and started posting subtly manipulative threads.
While the occasional brain-dead troll posts mixed in were deleted, the steady stream of these rumors began to capture people's attention.
To begin with, there had already been plenty of speculation and inquiries about the drugs in the Paradise Shop. People asking if it was real, why it was so expensive, and so on.
I hadn't released an official statement yet, but I figured leaving this unchecked would be troublesome. So, I published an official statement from Paradise.
[Notice: It is true that the drugs (suspected powder) currently sold in the Paradise Shop were confiscated from a drug cartel operating illegally within our Paradise territory. Thanks to the brave efforts of the Seongsu Apartment Autonomous Organization, we were able to drive out the scoundrels who had set up a drug manufacturing factory at Konkuk University Station to produce and distribute drugs, as well as repel the retaliatory force that attacked us. Consequently, Paradise has listed the entire confiscated supply on the Paradise Shop to make it available to those who need it.]
At first, I used to write notices however the hell I wanted, but as the user base grew, I figured it was better to use polite language. I've been making an effort to write formally.
It's not like I have some terminal illness that prevents me from being polite. I just didn't use it before because there was no real reason or need to. But formal language suits a system like this much better, and it makes it easier to sound like an automated system.
[Notice: There is no reason to assume drugs can only be used for negative purposes. They can be utilized for pain relief, medical treatments, or various other applications. We have set the price with the hope that only those who truly need them will purchase them without prejudice. If you have any complaints, we would appreciate it if you came directly to Paradise to make an inquiry.]
Honestly, there was absolutely nothing wrong with selling drugs in the Paradise Shop. The world had ended and the law was gone, so who cared who sold what?
Sure, some people babbled about how the nation hadn't completely collapsed yet and humanity would overcome this, but at least within this Paradise, my power was far greater than any government's.
I told them to come find me because I was genuinely curious if those whiny bastards would dare say that to my face. Besides, I had a few things I wanted to ask them too.
– Sigh. Fuck. 300 Coins is way too expensive, I can't even afford drugs anymore. Paradise is just a price-gouging cartel, smh.
Even after posting the notice, the instigative posts didn't stop. But fortunately, I stumbled upon a post like this.
I immediately tracked the location of the guy who wrote it. To post on the Paradise Gallery, you had to be registered for the Paradise Membership, and if you were registered, tracking your location was incredibly easy. I headed over right away.
He was living in a collapsed building in a deserted alley, much like the studio apartment building I lived in. He didn't even have what you'd call a proper shelter, barely surviving under a few draped sheets of fabric.
He looked to be in his mid-30s. His eyes were completely unfocused, and his entire body was emaciated, clearly ravaged by drug addiction.
He must have spent all his food money on drugs, and with his body ruined, there was no way he could hunt zombies to earn Coins. All that was left for him was to wait for death. The guy stared up at me.
"...Who... are you..."
To him, I was a savior.
"Looking for this?"
"Ah...!"
"Got any Coins?"
"...Please... I'll pay you back..."
For a guy who looked like he could drop dead any second, he sure was active on the Paradise Gallery.
Dangling the drugs just out of his reach, I asked what I wanted to know.
"This stuff. How much did you buy it from those guys for before it was sold in the Paradise Shop?"
"Please... I feel like I'm going to die. Just one hit... I'll tell you after I take a hit."
"No can do, buddy."
"Ah..."
He lunged desperately to grab the drugs, but there was no way he could take them from me. I kicked him in the head, and he rolled away like a piece of crumpled paper.
Realizing brute force wouldn't work, the junkie meekly answered my question, his eyes still glued to the drugs.
"100 Coins..."
"100 Coins? Those motherfuckers charged 100 Coins for this tiny amount? What a bunch of thieves."
"...And now it's 300 Coins. You guys are total scammers..."
"...Fair point."
Well, I didn't really care if it sold or not, which is why I priced it at 300 Coins.
"How many hits do you get out of one bag?"
"Just one... If you snort it, the high lasts about fifteen minutes."
"Then how many times a day do you have to do it?"
"The more, the better... but even doing it once a day is hard..."
"Holy shit."
I knew drugs triggered an intense rush of endorphins for a short period, but I hadn't realized it was this extreme.
Burning 100 Coins just for a fifteen-minute high? And on top of that, once the high wore off, extreme lethargy would take over the entire body. Junkies really couldn't get their heads straight, even in the middle of an apocalypse.
"Hey. Those instigative posts you've been putting up on the Gallery. Want to keep doing that for a few more days?"
I had a specific reason for choosing this guy. While there were plenty of others posting troll threads, none of them did it all day long with a "live like there's no tomorrow" attitude like him.
Plus, he was actually pretty good at it. His posts weren't the type to get instantly flagged and deleted by the algorithm. He knew exactly how to bypass the filters and write attention-grabbing bait to hook people.
If I could bring a guy like this over to my side, I wouldn't have to keep posting official notices on the chaotic Gallery and feeding the trolls.
"...Huh?"
"Here. Let's have a hit first, then we'll talk."
"Oh, oh! Thank you so much!!"
I tossed him a bag of drugs, and he snorted it instantly, as if he had found an oasis in the middle of a desert. His body shuddered and convulsed before he drifted into a daze, lost in his own world for a long while.
Fascinating. It was my first time seeing a real junkie take drugs. Color began to return to his deathly pale face.
I tossed him three more bags.
"What should I do first?" the guy asked, his eyes burning with newfound motivation.