Let's Make a Deal (1)

Life in another world wasn't half bad.

Even if it meant holing up inside an abandoned bunker, completely oblivious to whether it was day or night outside.

"...Tsk, way too expensive."

Still, I couldn't help coveting it.

I had set my sights on getting a proper bed to elevate my gallery browsing experience, but ten thousand points was an absurd sum. That translated directly into ten thousand cans of tuna—enough to eat tuna every single day for roughly nine straight years and still have a surplus left over.

"Oh!"

Discovering the barter feature at this exact moment felt like mana falling from heaven. I navigated immediately over to the Market tab, where hordes of Gallums had already converged the second the update went live.

Naturally. Even if you don't have a copper to your name, you can never resist window shopping.

"Well, what I need most right now is a bed."

"That ought to do it, right?"

As I pondered what I could possibly offer, a single item caught my eye.

"A can of tuna?"

My absolute staple. A one-point superfood that let me browse the boards indefinitely without breaking my stride, all while keeping my stomach completely full! Of course, I didn't actually believe anyone would trade a whole bed for a single can of tuna, but I registered it just to test out the interface.

"Oh, so that's how you put up an offer."

Having gotten the gist of the trade window, I was just about to close the screen when it happened.

"Huh?"

Tuna was justice, and canned tuna was God.

"Still, making a trade like this is a bit much."

As a Head Moderator blessed with at least an ounce of conscience, I knew the realistic value of a single tin of tuna. It had no business buying a medieval noble's luxury canopy bed, regardless of the quantity. So, without overthinking it, I cancelled the listing.

And all hell broke loose.

Ten browser tabs wouldn't have been enough to hold the outrage flooding the gallery.

"Hmm, is it really ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that serious...?"

I propped my chin on one hand, thoroughly puzzled. The rate of new threads was accelerating so wildly that even if I rolled up my sleeves and started purging posts in earnest, I wouldn't stand a chance of keeping up. Before the community dissolved into utter pandemonium, I hammered out an official post.

My heartfelt clarification did nothing to quench their rage. To be fair, I wasn't entirely oblivious; I knew what a volatile frenzy canned tuna had sparked across the forum over the past few days. It had all started with the dwarves' brazen gloating.

"Wait, wasn't all of this just banter?"

When I first dropped into this world, the forum was practically drowning in threads begging for bread. So, in response, I had simply put plain baguettes up on the market. With canned tuna, I figured they wouldn't understand how to pull the ring tab, and there was always a chance someone might slice their fingers open on the sharp tin edges. Yet somehow, that caution had snowballed into an angry mob dragging me straight toward the guillotine.

Left with no choice, I reopened the Market's barter tab. The moment I registered a can of tuna just as before, the number of interested traders exploded with even greater violence, as if hundreds had been hovering over their screens in anticipation.

I clicked on the one that caught my eye first.

Wait, was the status of canned tuna really that astronomical? The longer I stayed here, the more thoroughly my foundational grasp of economics was shattered to pieces. Not that there was much of a functioning economy left in this broken world anyway.

Then, a sudden thought gave me pause. If it was a bed used by an elf... wouldn't it be ancient? Looking closer at the image, its physical condition seemed a bit suspect.

After quietly saving the pictures to my folder, I was just about to click the trade confirmation button as if entranced.

"Wait a second... is that a spider?"

Something bizarre was creeping along the grain of the wood. No, a spider would have been mercy. From colonies of ants to writhing, mutated insects I had never seen in my life, the entire wooden frame was teeming with pests.

Don't tell me... that was what she meant by 'eco-friendly'?!

I cancelled the exchange without looking back and retreated to the main barter directory.

In that short span of time, the requests had multiplied again. But I felt none of the earlier excitement. What if the next person's goods were defective unless examined under a microscope, or worse, arrived with some biohazard attached?

"I mean, this is literally the Otherworld Destruction Gallery... what was I even expecting?"

Perhaps I had asked for far too much from an apocalyptic wasteland. Feeling let down, I considered checking just one or two more before closing the market for good.

"Hmm."

Now that was a name that caught my eye.

The world had fallen to ruin.

To Evelin, that reality was indistinguishable from being left utterly alone.

"There is no one. Everyone has vanished."

The Ophelia Ducal Mansion stood proudly on the distant boundary of an abandoned estate. In that sprawling fortress of solitude, the young ducal lady remained curled up in her third-floor room, hidden from the horrors outside. When the Great War broke out, every able body had been conscripted: her father, the lord of the house, alongside her younger brothers, the second and third sons.

"Where did everyone go...?"

Naturally, all of them had gone missing. The instant demonic beasts surged over the kingdom's outer walls, every servant had fled in panic, leaving behind a cavernous ghost house. Now, only the occasional lost beast prowled the empty corridors below.

Grumble.

"...I am so hungry."

She had managed to slip past the monsters roaming the halls to sneak scraps from the kitchen, but even those meager provisions were now completely exhausted. Evelin's once-brilliant dress was marred by streaks of black soot, and a thick, sorrowful blanket of dust smothered the room. She had been starving for nearly a week. She no longer possessed the strength to steal down to the kitchens even if she dared.

Only two choices remained.

Perish of starvation in this room.

Or flee beyond the estate borders on the miraculous gamble of stumbling into a group of survivors.

'Even so... how could I possibly know where they are?'

When her own kin—seasoned warriors who had scaled the heights of martial prowess—had vanished without a trace, what were the chances of a sheltered girl like Evelin surviving out there? Less than one percent. Yet, unlike other nobles who chose suicide to safeguard their family's dignity, Evelin lacked the cold courage to end her own life.

She had believed her only recourse was to wither away day by day, awaiting starvation's quiet arrival.

"...?"

Until the Head Moderator presented her with a fourth choice.