Chapter 183: Culture Shock
“Ohhh!”
Tadallo let out an exclamation when he opened one of the identical boxes piled inside the container and saw the MTC cards inside. It was the excitement of finally receiving the items he had been waiting for, as well as the emotion of having successfully opened business dealings with Meta Soft.
Pippin watched him with a grin, then went to one side of the container and picked up a small box.
“Do you know what this is?”
“...What is it?”
Tadallo stared silently at Pippin and the box for a moment before asking back. Pippin was not originally the type of person who grinned like that, so Tadallo could tell that it was something unusual, but he could not guess what it was at all.
That was how unimaginable it was.
“This is called an MTC Player. Do you know it?”
Pippin opened the box, took out the box-shaped object inside, and showed it to him as he spoke. Tadallo’s already large eyes grew as wide as lanterns.
He had heard of it through Gamers, which he had worked hard to obtain and read.
“No, how did you get this?”
He had never seen one in person, but Tadallo had seen photos of the crowds gathered at MTC Game Halls, articles and manga about what kind of object the MTC Player was, and the impressions of those who had experienced it.
“Hahaha.”
Pippin considered bluffing and pretending that he had negotiated well, but that was not his personality, and he himself did not know why the other side had given them something like this. So he simply laughed it off.
The two took the goods out, loaded them onto a cart, and headed to Tadallo’s warehouse.
Then they immediately opened the MTC Player first. The excuse was testing it, but the truth was that both Pippin and Tadallo wanted to play with it.
They placed the Player on an old table in the corner, though it was hard to call that “installation,” and began the game. The instructions in the manual were extremely simple. All they had to do was check the top and bottom of the device and turn on the power on the side.
“Ohhh!”
Although it was a new item, Tadallo had still worried just in case. When the card pack he carefully placed on it smoothly disappeared and then automatically arranged itself on the table, he unconsciously let out an exclamation.
The Orc Empire could be called something of a magical power, since it relied on magic for a large part of its national defense. However, it focused heavily on combat magic and was far removed from the modern magic commonly used in industry. Furthermore, magic was fundamentally more expensive than ordinary technology.
Electricity itself was rare, so there were even fewer chances to see magical devices. In that sense, Tadallo’s dramatic reaction was only natural.
But this was only the beginning.
Since Tadallo had already seen and heard things about it, he took out a Creature card with half anticipation and half nervousness. Then a rat-headed monster with three arms appeared on the table and roared.
At that, he rose from his seat without realizing it and stared at it with wide eyes, unable to even make a sound. Pippin had a hard time holding back his laughter at the sight of Tadallo.
Well, I was incredibly shocked the first time too.
Then he recalled the shock and emotion he had felt the first time he went to an MTC Game Hall.
After that, Tadallo was greatly startled whenever Creatures fought or when he saw magic effects.
“You said this was magic, right?”
“Yeah.”
Pippin quietly smiled at the trembling in Tadallo’s voice as he asked and answered him. He understood the shock Tadallo must have received, but his reaction was truly unusually intense.
However, Tadallo was not particularly strange.
As mentioned before, the Orc Empire had few opportunities to encounter magic. At the same time, since magic had played a major role in past wars against foreign powers and internal wars, they tended to hold magic and mages in extremely high regard.
Yet this device gave the sensation of using magic oneself. Moreover, the fact that it was actually implemented through real magic delivered an intense emotional impact.
This is seriously spine-chillingly fun.
That was what Tadallo thought after he recovered somewhat from the shock. He had already felt that MTC was a fairly fun game, but playing it with the MTC Player was on a completely different level.
Summoning Creatures and fighting with magic made him feel as if he had become a hero. The Orcs of the Orc Empire, who had gone through a long period of chaos, had a strong yearning for heroes. Of course, since they too understood reality, they knew heroes were rare and that the possibility of becoming one themselves was even slimmer.
But no matter how harsh reality was, imagination was free. One of the stereotypes people commonly had about Orcs of the Orc Empire was that of warriors, but the heroic ideal the Orc Empire actually admired was usually a mage.
So there was no way this game would not excite them.
Not long after, Tadallo rented a building, hung up a sign reading MTC Match Hall, and began selling cards.
Perhaps it was only natural, but there were no customers at first.
So Tadallo put some thought into it and promoted it near the Fighters’ Club machines. He did not even need to do it himself. After all, the cheapest thing in the Orc Empire was manpower.
Sometimes he entrusted it to the attendants who guarded the arcade machines, and at other times he hired separate people to solicit customers.
“Try this once! It’s a new game! It was made by the same place that made Fighters’ Club!”
“It’s a card game! Just buy the cards and you can enjoy a game even more fun than Fighters’ Club!”
The solicitors used their creativity and shouted catchphrases they came up with on their own. Since selling more meant they received a larger share, they were quite desperate in their own way.
Kazabar had more money circulating than rural areas, but there were also just as many people flocking there. There were plenty of people who would get heated over even a small commission like this.
And the Orcs who came to enjoy Fighters’ Club had already experienced the new civilization known as electronic entertainment. Rather than being wary of unfamiliar things, they knew the enjoyment that new things could bring, so the solicitors’ stimulating promotional lines strongly stirred their curiosity.
“How do you play this?”
“Ah. It’s similar to other card games. Each person takes one pack and plays according to the rules. You’ll understand if you look at this.”
The solicitor welcomed the curious person who approached and showed him the rule sheet. This rule sheet had not been provided by Meta Corporation. They had not made a separate Orc Empire edition in the first place, but had shipped the Republic of Smite version as it was, so even the simple rule sheets included in the basic decks were all written in Aran Language.
All of this had been newly made here by Tadallo. The paper was poor quality and the printing was not particularly good either, but it was still the best they could manage here.
<You can become a mage too!>
The rule sheet did not contain only simple explanations. It also included lines like these and illustrations to attract the viewer’s interest as much as possible.
“Cool, right?”
“Oh...”
The solicitor also held up an opened pack and showed him the actual cards. In the Orc Empire, where the technological and cultural level was low, the refined form and impressive illustrations alone were enough to draw a certain degree of interest.
“It’s on a completely different level from outdated card games!”
And since Orcs of the Orc Empire had also commonly played and enjoyed card games, the claim that this card game was as fun as Fighters’ Club sounded quite tempting.
Fighters’ Club was fun, but it cost a lot of money, and there were so many people that it was not easy to play. Watching had its own enjoyment, though.
Of course, the price was not low. Tadallo knew this was only the beginning, so he did not add much of a margin, but even that was not an easy amount for the Orcs of the Orc Empire.
Nevertheless, people began buying it. Once something attracted interest and people gathered, it was bound to sell somehow.
And Tadallo had a finishing move.
“Ohhhhh!!!”
That was the exclamation of the Orcs surrounding the large table in the MTC Match Hall as they watched the effect produced by the Firestorm card one player presented.
In truth, making such sounds during a game could be called a breach of manners. But this was far better than before. At first, there had been a huge uproar because people mistook the illusion magic for something real, fell over, and ran away.
Only after they learned that it had no actual physical effect, and after that information spread through rumors, did people stop causing major commotions, though they were still startled and flinched.
Tadallo used the MTC Player quite cleverly. He charged a game fee for people to use it, but he also issued one viewing ticket to those who bought a basic deck. He also distributed viewing tickets to a limited number of people on a first-come, first-served basis.
The MTC Player had caused an almost social-phenomenon-level reaction even in the Republic of Smite, one of the advanced countries of this world. For Orcs who were far behind culturally and technologically and strongly admired magic, it was more than a shock.
The game fee was extremely expensive by local standards. It cost a full 200 Kro per hour. That was equivalent to one day’s wage for a worker in Kazabar.
But Tadallo had not set that price because he was obsessed with money. Game halls in the Republic of Smite had several tables, but here, he could only operate one table. He had to maintain the building and pay wages with that alone, so there was no helping it.
Furthermore, if it was too cheap, too many customers would swarm in. After several rounds of trial and error, he had set a price that allowed him to maintain a suitable number of customers.
In any case, the Match Hall was immensely popular. It was so popular that even wealthy people and famous figures known throughout the city, as well as those who could be called power holders, had come to play at least once.
If the mayor had not said not to touch Tadallo, there would definitely have been people who grew greedy for the MTC Player. Tadallo had been lucky in ways he did not know.
In any case, those who saw the MTC Player could not help becoming interested in the card game.
Thanks to that, he was able to sell out all the basic decks he had brought in almost instantly.
After that, because of the sunk cost from the not-insignificant price and their interest in the game itself, people began playing with the cards. Not every Orc did, but quite a lot of them began finding it fun.
It was not as stimulating as Fighters’ Club, but MTC was a game that had achieved sales in the tens of millions in the Republic of Smite. Its fun was the type that could appeal sufficiently to Orcs as well.
As the number of Orcs enjoying the card game at home, at work, and on the streets increased, other Orcs once again grew interested in it. Board games like this were originally heavily affected by trends. After all, they could only be played if there were people to play with.
It worked!
At the point when the cards began selling to some extent, Tadallo realized early on that his attempt had succeeded. Honestly, he could easily tell just by looking at the Orcs going wild in the Match Hall.
While he was delighted, he also grew anxious. The cards he had already purchased were rapidly dwindling. He needed to secure more goods. The excitement was hot right now, but if he kept turning customers away because he had nothing to sell, that enthusiasm could quickly cool down.
That was why he used an expensive magical communication device to place an additional order.
In truth, he had considered copying and selling MTC. But after looking into it, he found that the printing technology here was far too poor. Above all, after experiencing the MTC Player, he immediately abandoned that idea.
No matter how he thought about it, a card game that could not use the MTC Player would inevitably lose a great deal of its appeal. Most users would not be able to experience this Player for quite a long time, but something being impossible and something maybe becoming possible someday were completely different things.