Too Busy to Notice the Dawn
On the first floor, people had already been spending like there was no tomorrow.
"If you would kindly give me your name, sir, we will have everything assembled and delivered to you all at once upon your departure."
Being nobles, they had brought servants along, but with the risk of breakage and the sheer awkwardness of hauling purchases around, that hardly helped.
So the staff took orders from each customer individually, sending one slip to the warehouse and handing another to the noble as a claim ticket for later.
"I am from Spain—"
"I am from England—"
"France, for me—"
Dozens of claim slips were already flowing into the warehouse from the first floor, where staff members were busy sorting each noble's goods into separate boxes—boxes padded with cotton and wrapped in cloth so nothing would break in transit.
"Whew. Have I really spent this much already?"
"Same here, my friend. But the second floor is what truly matters, no?"
"Onward, then!"
Nobles who had already burned through small fortunes on the first floor now made their way toward the day's true destination: the second floor, home of the stocking—the bait that had drawn them all here.
"Ooh..."
"What is all this?"
The second floor was lined with all manner of goods for men.
"Oh! That must be the stocking display over there! Come on!"
"Hahaha."
The crowd gravitated toward the stockings at once—but along the way, Daehan's clothing kept catching their eyes.
"Hm? What is this?"
One man stopped in his tracks and reached out to touch a garment draped over a wooden mannequin carved in the shape of a person.
Pure, simple curiosity.
Sliiiide.
"Huh?"
It was so soft it startled him—smooth beyond anything he had ever felt.
"Is this silk?"
"Eh? Why are you standing over there?"
"Come feel this. Is this silk or not?"
"Hmm..."
Swoosh, swoosh.
Behind the bewildered men, more and more people began to gather.
"What is it over there?"
"Did you find something good?"
"Touch it for yourselves."
One by one they came, running their fingers over the fabric—and every single one of them marveled. In terms of softness alone, there was little to distinguish silk from synthetic fiber.
Natural silk was admittedly the finer of the two, but these men had no way of knowing that yet.
"Ah~ my dear customers, welcome! Is something catching your interest?"
In truth, the clerk had been hiding to one side, watching the crowd the whole time. It was his own cunning sales strategy: if you shout "Come look!" when peddling your wares, men will simply walk on past.
No—the trick was to let curiosity do the work and wait patiently for the moment to strike.
"Is this silk?"
"Yes. It's a new silk made in Daehan. But please, don't be alarmed by what I'm about to show you."
"What do you mean?"
"Watch."
The clerk pushed his way into the crowd, shoving the onlookers aside to clear a stage, and the show began.
Crunch, scrunch.
"Good heavens—no!"
"He'll ruin the fabric!"
He began crumpling the garment mercilessly, so violently that the watching nobles flinched in horror.
Fabrics like silk, crushed that way, could easily come away covered in wrinkles—marks that lingered for ages. They had always believed such garments demanded the utmost care, so watching him maul it like this felt like watching money being destroyed.
Flutter—whip, whip!
Then, with a flourish for the assembled nobles, the clerk shook the crumpled garment out and snapped it hard, twice.
"Look. Not a wrinkle, you see?"
"Eh?"
"What? He crumpled it half to death, surely?"
Granted, he hadn't actually trampled or crushed it underfoot, but to them it had been abuse enough.
Yet the fabric the clerk shook out bore not a single crease.
This was the crowning virtue of synthetic fibers.
For men accustomed to wearing fine silk—which meant being unable to sit anywhere, standing primly all day long—it was as though a ray of light had broken through the clouds.
With fabric like this, they could flop down wherever they pleased, couldn't they?
"How much is this going to cost me?"
"There's a price tag right here."
"Good lord!"
"What—!"
"Is this price correct?"
When the nobles looked down at the tag, their jaws dropped. They had assumed it would cost more than silk—and it was half the price.
What possible reason was there not to buy it?
Less prone to wrinkles, soft as anything, good in every way. Would they figure out that the fabric's durability had been deliberately shaved down a notch to push volume? Probably not.
Besides, it was sturdier than silk, so it would hardly earn their scorn.
The real issue—one they'd never suspect—was that this fabric actually cost less to produce than the cotton their commoners wore every day.
"How does one wear these clothes?"
"They're ready-made, sir. You simply find a size close to your measurements."
"May we try them on?"
"Of course. Right this way..."
Letting these filthy nobles try on clothes was as good as throwing the garments away. So in the fitting room, one set in each size hung on display—placed there with the cheerful thought that, rather than waste fresh clothes, these filthy men could share among themselves. They would probably just be thrown out afterward anyway.
The stockings—the day's true objective—were far off in the distance, yet the nobles were already hopelessly snagged by the clothing shop at the entrance.
"Hm, I'll take number three for the top and number two for the trousers."
"Very good, sir. And how many sets shall I bring you?"
"How many do you have?"
He was clearly worried there wouldn't be enough—understandable, given the mountains of clothing he'd already watched people carry off.
"As many as you need, sir."
The audacity of asking about the supply of synthetic fabric. The clerk's smile deepened by several degrees.
And so the men's corner began racking up enormous sales from the very first hour.
As for the stockings—everyone already knew that product. It sold like wildfire. From knee-highs to thigh-highs to full-length stocking trousers, half of the entire stock vanished in a single day.
The shoppers wandered about wearing deeply satisfied expressions.
"Hm? What's this, then?"
"Ah~ these are shoes, sir. Fine leather footwear befitting gentlemen of your standing."
"Oh ho."
Now a crowd gathered around the shoe display on the other side.
The soles were rubber, the uppers wrapped in polished leather with a handsome shine.
"Still, they're a bit dear, aren't they?"
"Haha. Shall we have you try a pair on?"
"Why not."
And the moment he slipped them on, he got another shock.
The shoes were lighter than expected—and above all, the soles didn't slip at all.
"Eh? My shoes aren't sliding?"
"No, sir. We poured our hearts into making sure they grip well even in the rain."
Once the manufacturing process had been cracked, the factory churned them out by the thousand—though the research itself had demanded real devotion, so credit where it was due.
Tap, tap, tap.
"Ho? The soles feel rather springy too. Quite nice, actually?"
"Yes, sir. All of us wear them. They really are wonderful."
"Right, I'll take these as well."
"Thank you kindly, sir."
And so the shoes sold too.
"Are they really that good?"
"Wonderful. Try a pair yourself—truly excellent."
One sale begat another, each new buyer vouching for the product to the next man. Word of mouth, as ever, was king.
The shoes did draw a modest crowd, but their numbers were unmistakably thin compared to everything else. Perhaps Europe simply had plenty of its own shoemakers.
Had they brought sneakers instead, who knows—those might have been a sensation.
"Hm. Have we seen it all, then?"
"Heheh. I've bought enough stockings to wear for the rest of my days."
Shoppers who had finished the second floor and were drifting toward the exit began to appear, one after another.
"Hm? What's that gleaming thing over there?"
"What do you mean?"
"There, hanging on the wall at the far end."
"Let's go see!"
A glint of polished metal near the entrance to the third floor began drawing people toward it. Where they congregated hung a signboard with elegant lettering.
PISTOLS
"What is that?"
"It says 'pistols,' apparently?"
Not everyone read the Daehan language, so some had to ask their interpreters.
"Guns? Guns, you say?"
"And it seems this passage leads outside, doesn't it?"
"Well then—open the door and let's have a look!"
BANG!
The men threw the door open boldly and stepped outside—and there before them, countless pistols glittered, waiting for new masters.
"What is all this?"
"I couldn't say?"
"They look something like cavalry carbines?"
The crowd had not yet grasped any need for a personal, portable firearm. It was their first time seeing one, and it was Daehan-made, so curiosity was there—but it had failed to truly spark their interest.
Then the clerk who had been observing stepped forward.
"Welcome to our firearms shop, gentlemen."
"Ahem. A pleasure. But tell me—what use could such a weapon possibly have?"
The pistols were engraved with silver scrollwork and quite handsome in their own right, but the nobles doubted their practicality all the same.
"You can see from the size—doesn't it hang beautifully at your hip? And just look how elegant it is."
It wasn't the revolver style used in Daehan, but a pistol loaded one round at a time.
"Now then—watch closely. I shall demonstrate a firing."
"Do go ahead."
Click. Clack.
The clerk flipped open the rear of the pistol, pushed a cartridge in, and snapped it shut. The crowd watched blankly, not grasping what he was doing—until he drew back the hammer.
To fire a gun, one had to pour in powder and ram it down. There had been no such step.
Tick—BANG!
"Good heavens!"
"What was that?!"
"Where did he put the powder?!"
The trigger pulled, the bullet flew—and the men nearly lost their minds.
The pistol in the clerk's hand was a single-shot cartridge pistol. The bullets themselves were nothing but lead balls packed with black powder—rusting relics hauled out of a Daehan warehouse, obsolete junk even Qajar wouldn't touch anymore.
"What in the world is this!"
"But—but how did you load the powder?"
"Did you load it in advance?"
They were on the verge of losing their sanity. They had seen it with their own eyes: the chamber had been empty until he'd opened the back end and pushed in something yellow. Could that yellow thing really have been the powder? They couldn't be sure.
"You see this yellow cartridge? It contains both the powder and the bullet."
"Incredible!"
"Good grief!"
The men felt faint. If this was real, it was nothing less than a revolution in weaponry.
"How much for it?"
"Well, sir—surely you can see how marvelously convenient it is to fire?"
The clerk paused deliberately. It felt for all the world like this fellow was about to run a swindle too.
"How much? Out with it!"
"Manufacturing these cartridges is extraordinarily difficult, you understand."
Black powder was made from saltpeter. It had been hard to produce in the old days, but nowadays—well.
The plant was actually on the verge of closing for lack of demand. Barely a tenth of the warehouse stock had even shipped out to Qajar and Ethiopia.
"No—HOW MUCH?"
"Hoo... it is very expensive indeed."
"I'll pay anything! Name it!"
"Me too!"
"Take every coin I have!"
And so the bullets that Daehan had pondered simply melting down or setting alight, so vast was the surplus, began selling at prices above their weight in gold.
The nobles would no doubt take them home and attempt to reverse-engineer them.
But who knows? Did they realize that saltpeter was hardly the sort of substance you could figure out just by tearing a cartridge apart?
Click.
"Heh heh heh. Quickly now, let's take ours back and—"
"Hehehe."
"Fools. Cracking the secrets of a weapon like this..."
By Daehan's standards, they had just paid a fortune for perfectly obsolete hardware that couldn't even be given away. And so, chasing their empty dreams, the nobles filed back out through the door of the pistol shop.
Every one of them had a faintly glazed look in his eyes—quite out of his senses, it seemed.
"Eh?"
"Oh..."
"Wait—yes!"
What caught their gazes was the garment draped over a female mannequin standing at the entrance to the third floor.
Gulp.
Looking at the mannequin, the men found themselves recalling a certain glimpse of Haneul they'd caught when they first arrived.
For a long moment, everyone stood there swallowing hard, letting their imaginations run wild.
"Ahem. Hmm."
"Well—we've come this far. We really ought to see it through to the very top, shouldn't we?"
"Quite right! It would be poor manners not to!"
And so the men set their feet toward the third floor—and the women's clothing shop that awaited there.