What on Earth Did Ayla Do?
What on earth did she do?
At Ayla’s words I sank into thought with a blank expression on my face.
Five hundred thousand won…
If I raised the current price of the apples fivefold, just how much would I be earning in a month?
Of course that assumed every last apple sold, but if I made two and a half million won a day, wouldn’t that come out to well over seventy million won a month?
Whoa…
If that really happened, I might become ridiculously rich. Wouldn’t my entire quality of life just change overnight?
“Ah, right. Ayla.”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“There are so many people who want to buy my apples. What should I do about them?”
“Please do not reply to them, and simply list about five in the shop as usual.”
“Uh… why? If there are so many people who want to buy, wouldn’t it be better to sell a lot right now and make money?”
“If you sell them that way, the apples will lose their scarcity.”
Ah. That made perfect sense.
If my apples lost their scarcity, the whole plan to raise the price would fall apart. My apples only had a harvest of five a day, so I needed to create the impression that they were expensive precisely because of that limited supply.
Yes—for now it was time to plan for the future, just as Ayla said. If I were given the choice between taking a hundred million won right now and being done with it, or waiting a month and receiving a billion, I would of course choose the latter.
So I followed Ayla’s advice and listed five apples in the shop again this time. The price was the same as yesterday: one hundred thousand won each.
Oh.
They sold out almost the instant I posted them. Well, my apples were currently a massive topic of discussion in the community. It was only natural.
“Ah, um. Ayla.”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“Would it be all right if I sold about three more apples as a sort of event? With a request for reviews, you know…”
“As expected of my Queen. That seems like an excellent idea.”
“I-is it?”
Getting praised so highly made me feel good, yet somehow embarrassed at the same time. It was just a method anyone could have thought of, wasn’t it?
Anyway, since I had Ayla’s permission, I immediately made a post.
“…Huh?”
I had already sold every apple and was casually checking whether the buyers had written decent reviews when I stumbled across this astonishing revelation.
Eating my apples permanently raises your mana?
I turned to Ayla with a trembling voice.
“A-Ayla.”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“They say eating our apples permanently increases your mana.”
“Oh my, that was rather quick. I expected that fact to surface about a week from now… In that case, we may as well move the plan forward a little.”
So Ayla had known all along? She had even prepared a plan in advance…
“What’s the plan?”
“We will sell the apples by auction.”
“Auction?”
“Yes. Of course, we will need to spread word of the apples a little more widely before we put them up for auction.”
I see.
If we sold them by auction, how high would the bids go? Hunters were loaded with money, and this was a community that gathered top hunters from every country in the world. Wouldn’t the price just shoot through the roof?
But what was the original value of these apples, anyway?
Honestly, when I first thought about selling one for a hundred thousand won—and later for five hundred thousand—I had felt it was way too expensive. Now that I knew they permanently raised mana, that price no longer seemed expensive at all.
I immediately asked Ayla.
“Ayla. Listen.”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“We’ve been selling the apples cheap right now as a kind of advertisement, right?”
“That is correct.”
“Then what would these apples originally sell for?”
At my question Ayla crossed her arms, rested her chin on one hand, and sank into deep thought. It seemed to be the first question she couldn’t answer right away.
After a moment of consideration she spoke.
“Originally, the value of these apples cannot be converted into money.”
“Th-that much?”
“Yes. However, there was a case where an item of similar effect appeared at auction. If memory serves, it sold for seven million dollars.”
“Um… how much is seven million dollars?”
“Approximately ten billion won in Korean currency.”
“Whoa.”
T-ten billion…?
My jaw dropped open of its own accord.
Ten billion? Doesn’t that mean I could live the rest of my life without ever working again?
And I had been selling these things for a hundred thousand won this whole time without even knowing?
I snuck a glance at Ayla’s face, then carefully opened my mouth.
“Sh-should we… raise the price?”
“If that is what my Queen desires, then by all means.”
“Then I’ll raise it starting tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
Ding—
Right then a notification chimed. Judging by the sound, it was a private message.
I checked the sender and froze.
Huh?
za002.
A private message from none other than the administrator—the very owner of the World Hunter Community.
I sat there with my mouth hanging open, then hurriedly called for Ayla.
“Ayla! Ayla!”
“Yes?”
“The admin just sent me a private chat!”
“……That is truly unexpected. The administrator almost never makes a personal move.”
“They want to buy an apple. Should I sell one?”
“This time it would be better to simply give it to them. Maintaining friendly relations with the administrator will grant my Queen a great many conveniences.”
I-I see?
Ah, right—getting on good terms with a gallery admin does make life easier in all sorts of ways. Even if you stir up a little chaos, they might look the other way once or twice, right?
Of course, with Dreamy King’s Dignity active I couldn’t actually do anything like that. The skill seemed to trigger only when the other party recognized me as the Fairy King. After all, it never activated when I was being undignified over in the other gallery.
Ah—I should reply first.
Ding—
A trade window popped up and I handed over one apple. The admin must have eaten it the moment they received it, because a reply came almost instantly.
The admin’s reaction made the corners of my mouth lift with pride before I even realized it.
Even the administrator was shocked and amazed by my apples… yeah, they really were something special.
Something I want…
But what could the administrator even do for me?
Ah!
A sudden idea struck me and I snuck a glance at Ayla. She was simply kneeling beside me with that gentle smile of hers, waiting quietly.
All right. I didn’t know if it would work, but I might as well try.
I sent the reply at once.
At the admin’s words I immediately asked Ayla.
“Ayla, what was your nickname in the community?”
“Forest Spirit.”
I typed the name straight into the chat window.
……?
The reaction was somehow…
I snuck a glance at Ayla after reading the admin’s reply.
Completely oblivious, Ayla simply looked back at me with her usual gentle smile and tilted her head in mild curiosity.
Faced with the admin’s violent reaction, I could only think one thing.
Ayla…
What on earth did you do in the community?