Premium (2)
For merchants peddling their wares, promotion was not an option—it was an absolute necessity. Only by informing the public of what a product was could one ever hope to entice buyers.
And this world possessed the Gallery: a community spanning not merely individual nations, but entire realms. While not every living soul used it, the fact that countless multitudes did was undeniable. As such, merchants worked tirelessly to advertise their goods not only in the physical realm, but across the boards of the Gallery as well.
Yet what kind of place was the Gallery? It was an arena where one could observe the entire spectrum of mortal nature—a space where pure, unadulterated human malice ran rampant. One miscalculated promotional push could easily get caught in a web of slander and fabrication, dealing a devastating blow to business. Occasionally, a product of genuinely extraordinary quality emerged, but in nearly every such case, the item had already been selling well on its own merits.
Consequently, anyone hoping to market goods through the Gallery had to prepare meticulously. They hired renowned adventurers to endorse them or invested heavily in professional sports franchises.
In this manner, the Gallery had developed its own standard framework for official promotions over time. But if one were to ask about the actual return on investment... frankly, the ceiling was rarely high.
Instances where a product spread through quiet word of mouth, proved its efficacy over time, and exploded into immense popularity? Such occurrences were practically non-existent. Because the Gallery was open to all walks of life across myriad realms, any product gaining traction immediately attracted malicious actors weaponizing anonymity to sow doubt. Rumors spread like wildfire: claims that the product damaged health, proved lethal to specific races, caused severe dependency, and so forth. All manner of baseless gossip frequently rendered expensive advertising campaigns completely worthless.
Thus, ordinary users were forced to scrutinize whether a thread was malicious propaganda or genuine advertising, a legitimate grievance or a retaliatory smear campaign. That was precisely why Grylls's review sent such enormous shockwaves across the entire community.
"I used it, and it was great."
From Grylls's perspective, he had merely stated the simple truth. But in the eyes of the public, it was ironclad proof that the item functioned effectively even within the hellish confines of the Forest of the Four Seasons. It was an unimpeachable seal of supreme quality that no competitor could ever challenge.
For these reasons, the repellent sold out in the blink of an eye. The frenzy did not stop at the Gallery; in the physical world, the Icon Merchant Guild's warehouses were picked clean of every remaining crate. In truth, a similar phenomenon had unfolded once before—during the incident with the sabertooth tiger attack.
Because the Chae-yu Uniform centered primarily on aesthetics rather than combat performance, the promotional spillover had not reached astronomical heights. Even so, sales figures had surged, meaning it had hardly been ineffective. More importantly, Grylls's public recognition had expanded exponentially ever since his exposure of the Undying King. The impact he commanded now compared to then was leagues apart.
With a mere casual review yielding such terrifying commercial influence, merchants across dimensions could only drool at the prospect.
Do you want to die? Did you smear f**king honey on this?
Naturally, rigorous conditions were required. First and foremost was actual performance. If someone offered a recommendation and it proved useless, they risked facing a torrent of venomous curses from Grylls himself.
Yet what was the crucial takeaway? Even if a product proved utterly ineffective, sellers could simply brush it off by pointing out that the test had occurred in the Forest of the Four Seasons. Working in such an environment was miraculous; failing to work was only natural. From an advertiser's perspective, it was practically a low-risk, high-reward gamble. For creators who possessed supreme confidence in their goods but had never found the limelight, it represented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Performance is pretty solid? I could probably set up a mosquito net with this too lol.
From Grylls's vantage point, receiving diverse functional goods free of charge made this an ideal win-win arrangement. Of course, oddities arrived from time to time, but he simply laughed them off as typical Gallery antics. Yet while countless individuals rejoiced over sending these unofficial sponsorships, others found themselves in a state of absolute distress.
"We cannot simply stand by and watch this happen! If this continues, the sales of our flagship line are going to take a catastrophic hit!"
"......"
Such was the plight of merchant guilds locked in bitter competition with the Icon Merchant Guild. Commerce was inherently a game of chicken where total victory was seized only when rivals were driven into ruin. In an era where the modern regulatory concept of anti-monopoly scarcely existed, the victor took all. Therefore, a rival guild could not help but view the Icon Merchant Guild's skyrocketing competitive edge with acute terror.
"Fortunately, the repellent is not their primary product line! Their warehouses are empty right now, leaving them unable to fulfill orders properly!" the secretary pressed frantically. "Which means we must seize this fleeting window to devise a strategy—"
"Allow me to ask you a single question."
The guild master's quiet voice abruptly cut through the secretary's impassioned briefing. The secretary promptly shut his mouth, waiting for his superior to continue. After a heavy silence settled across the opulent chamber, the guild master spoke.
"What, exactly, can we do?"
"...Pardon?"
"I asked what you believe we are capable of doing."
The words spilling from the guild master's lips were not a call to arms, but an admission of defeat. As the sovereign ruler charting the guild's destiny, such resignation was the last thing the secretary expected to hear, leaving him thoroughly bewildered.
Yet the guild master was no fool. If anything, he grasped reality faster than anyone else in the room.
"Do you propose dragging that man out of the Forest of the Four Seasons by force? Or will you launch an agitation campaign claiming the repellent's efficacy is fraudulent?"
"Can we be certain he shares no prior ties with the Icon Merchant Guild? No, even if he doesn't, if we somehow—"
"A man capable of harvesting adult mandrake roots like ears of corn would stoop to petty corporate collusion? Fat chance."
"......"
"There is nothing we can do. Go grab some popcorn and enjoy the spectacle."
Unable to find a single flaw in the master's logic, the secretary had no choice but to bow and withdraw. Yet the guild master had not abandoned his wits entirely. He silently weighed the broader landscape.
'Could our goods ever function within the Forest of the Four Seasons?'
That was the crux of the matter. Did their own inventory possess the overwhelming performance required to survive such a brutal proving ground? He could answer that with absolute certainty: no. Had it possessed such miraculous properties, they would have declared it their flagship item long ago. The present crisis was nothing more than an improbable cascade of coincidences compounding into an unstoppable tidal wave.
'Unless the Icon guild master is an utter idiot, he'll rebrand that repellent as their primary line. The moment that happens, our offerings will instantly be branded inferior by comparison.'
It was already far too late to solicit Grylls. Public perception had already cemented the belief that Icon's repellent reigned supreme. The Gallery's unprecedented advertising peak had laid bare its raw power—a force far beyond what an ordinary guild could ever hope to suppress. Ultimately, a different avenue had to be pursued. The master deliberated intently.
'I'll have to negotiate a compromise with the Icon Merchant Guild.'
The outcome of this skirmish had already been settled. The guild master exhaled a weary sigh. Swallowing his pride galled him, but profits had to be secured. A merchant guild existed solely to generate wealth, not to wage fruitless battles of ego.
Yet while one guild master gracefully accepted his loss, chaos of a very different sort erupted elsewhere.
"G-Guild Master! Order inquiries are continuing to surge out of control!"
"Dammit all! I specifically told them to wait! That batch was produced using botanical ingredients grown exclusively on my father's private estate!"
"They're demanding delivery regardless of the cost! Rumors have even begun circulating that the ointment improves skin health...!"
"Improves skin health?! How in the hell does a monster repellent improving one's complexion make any shred of sense?!"
The Icon Merchant Guild was spiraling into utter pandemonium beneath an avalanche of unfulfillable orders. They had anticipated a modest spike in sales following the video, but this bordered on madness.
"Why on earth is it selling this ferociously?!" the master roared in sheer bewilderment. It wasn't as if the entire world was stranded inside the Forest of the Four Seasons like Grylls!
Having inadvertently unleashed a commercial hurricane upon distant worlds, Grylls remained confined to his cave, hemmed in by the relentless swarms of insects thrashing outside. He passed the time organizing the assortment of promotional items sent his way.
"Seriously... why the hell did someone send me women's underwear?"
While bizarre parcels appeared from time to time, many proved genuinely practical. Though he had resolved to stop writing formal reviews to prevent wild price gouging, he couldn't simply take the items and vanish like a thief. He figured he would test their basic utility and offer brief, unvarnished feedback when prompted. It was just as he was sorting through the bundles that it happened.
Buoooooo—
An unfamiliar resonance drifted in from beyond the cave entrance. It was a deep, reverberating tone that cut effortlessly through the ambient buzzing of millions of wings, filling his ears with vast, heavy reverberations. Setting his gear aside, Grylls stepped cautiously toward the threshold. Thanks to the thick layer of repellent paste he had applied around the entryway, the swarming pests gave the cave a wide berth.
Buoooooo—
"...What in the world is that?"
Grylls stared upward in sheer disbelief. There, swimming unconstrained through the open sky rather than the ocean depths, was a whale. It looked identical in every respect to a blue whale—the largest living mammal on Earth.
While the Forest of the Four Seasons was notorious for casually trampling common sense, this was simply... beyond comprehension. Common sense or logic didn't even enter the equation.
Buoooooo—
Gliding gracefully through the atmosphere, the leviathan came to a steady halt directly above Grylls's head. It turned its ancient gaze toward the dense cloud of insects before parting its colossal jaws—a maw of terrifying proportions fitting its staggering bulk.
SSSHHHUUUUUUU!
Moments later, that cavernous mouth began drawing in the swarm like an industrial vacuum cleaner. The suction force itself wasn't overwhelmingly violent, but against the fragile insects, it proved inescapable. Incalculable multitudes of pests were sucked wholesale into the whale's belly. Within seconds, the dense cloud that had darkened the sky vanished entirely down its gullet.
Buoooooo—
As if thoroughly content with its meal, the Sky Whale glided through the air and drifted leisurely into the distance.
"......"
Left entirely speechless, Grylls blinked into the empty sky. 'Well... it's a fantasy realm. I guess flying whales aren't that weird.' If unicorns existed, a sky whale wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Shrugging, he pulled up his interface and created a new thread.
'Hmm. Guess not.'
Evidently, Sky Whales occupied the same mythical status across the realms as unicorns did on Earth.