A Chilling Otherworldly Cure (Part 4)
Dwarves were a race of master artisans.
When it came to weapons, armor, and stonework architecture, no race under heaven could match their craft. Perhaps because of that unparalleled mastery, dwarves harbored a legendary stubbornness. Their pride in themselves was sky-high, completely unyielding, and they seldom bothered mingling with other races.
Granted, their stubbornness was still nothing compared to the elves.
As the dwarven users inside the Gallery hesitated and beat around the bush, Thaldru finally gave it to me straight.
Thaldru was an acquaintance I had grown close to among the dwarves, and he candidly spilled the beans on their internal circumstances without holding back.
So you're telling me those stubborn bastards were gritting their teeth and suffering purely out of machismo?
To make matters more ridiculous, the product had taken off in an entirely unintended demographic.
Other forum users were snapping it up like hotcakes, singing its praises from the rooftops. Even so, I didn't panic.
When dealing with stubbornness like this, the internet already had a tried-and-true playbook.
"Hmm. I really didn't want to stoop to this method."
It was a technique favored since my previous life, practiced since the very dawn of online forums whenever consensus needed a little nudging.
Good old-fashioned viral marketing—an unashamed astroturfing campaign.
"The reaction is still lukewarm."
Naturally, the first wave of astroturfing always encountered skepticism. But what was the true essence of traditional viral marketing? Sheer, relentless repetition.
"Bingo."
Deep within my dim bunker, watching the gallery screen glow in the darkness, a sinister smirk stretched across my lips. Posts that would have been instantly flagged and ridiculed as blatant astroturfing in my former life worked like a charm on these naive otherworlders. After all, nobody had ever weaponized internet viral marketing against them before.
Seeing a high upvote count made them subconsciously trust it, and sprinkling in fabricated positive reviews swept public opinion along like a tidal wave. When dealing with obstinate people, you didn't try to shatter their stubbornness by force; you simply gently redirected that very stubbornness in the direction you wanted.
"Now for the grand finale."
A true viral campaign required one final, irrefutable stamp of authority.
Through Thaldru, I had forged a new connection. And this dwarf named Taldain was undeniably the golden key that would complete our Gallery's time-honored marketing operation.
All that remained was an official endorsement from the King of the Dwarves himself, Taldain.
Dwarves valued machismo and physical might far more than mere bloodline heritage. Hence, the sheer cultural clout of Taldain, who had clawed his way to the throne through raw martial supremacy, went without saying.
Judddak's Marketplace: Tylenol has sold out.
The resulting aftermath blew past my wildest projections. Despite listing what I considered an excessively generous inventory, the entire stock was swept clean in mere minutes.
The raw power of astroturfed viral marketing was genuinely terrifying.
"With this, they won't be suffering from constant headaches anymore, right?"
Between the masterpiece sword they had crafted for me and the ambient sleeping nightlight, I felt I had repaid their favor in full. Ready to call it a night and turn off the Holy Sword's radiant glow, I noticed a fresh question pop up on the board.
Far more dwarves than I expected were intensely curious about the pharmacological active ingredient. Pausing on my way to bed, I dashed off a casual reply.
"Oh, right. I forgot to mention the warnings."
Handing over pills wasn't the end of the responsibility. Shoveling down a handful wouldn't amplify the cure, and Tylenol in particular carried one critical, non-negotiable medical warning.
I typed it out without giving it a second thought. It wasn't like a normal human being drank alcohol every single day from dusk till dawn.
However, I had catastrophically overlooked one immutable fact of this world.
Dwarves drank when conducting arcane research. They drank when hammering glowing ingots at the forge. They drank while excavating deep inside the mine shafts. To a dwarf, alcohol was not a luxury beverage; it was literally drinking water.
Blissfully ignorant of the dwarven species' fanatic, cellular obsession with booze, I had dropped that warning with utter nonchalance. And the reaction was instantaneous.
Given the choice between health and alcohol, the dwarves chose alcohol without a microsecond of hesitation.
The posts on the board were a carbon copy of where we had started.
Shockingly, these messages were posted several days later. Now that they had seen through the Red Pill of pharmaceutical reality, not a single dwarf would touch the medication with a ten-foot pole. The mere instruction that they couldn't drink alcohol threw them into full-blown existential convulsions, landing us right back at square one.
The only ones reaping the benefits were the ordinary human users plagued by chronic migraines. Not a single dwarf bought so much as a single blister pack. Their headache dilemma remained entirely unsolved.
"Lately, that rift feels like it's getting bigger..."
Tucked away in the corner of my storage chamber, my pet lava—the dimensional Rift—had visibly swollen in diameter. The uptick in wailing across the Gallery board was likely tied to that spatial distortion. Had my viral campaign hit its absolute limit?
"I really need to figure out a permanent countermeasure against the Rifts."
I possessed a superb negotiating partner in my trusty shotgun, plus a robust mental immunity built from endless years of forum browsing, but the other races possessed no such resilience. To put it bluntly, it wouldn't surprise anyone if an eldritch nightmare crawled out of that dimensional tear tomorrow. We weren't living in a comfortable post-war peace; we were trapped in a tense, precarious stalemate following total defeat.
The forum users had to stay intact for the Gallery to stay alive. At the very least, I needed a remedy for the spatial motion sickness they were suffering. Right as I was agonizing over the problem alone...
A message arrived from the popular named user, WholesomeModest.
Ever since an alternative sustenance method had solved her succubus hunger, the ban on lewd selfies had been enforced for nearly a full month. I wondered if she had finally broken under withdrawal, but she hadn't reached out to talk about fan service.
Her topic was squarely aimed at the headache conundrum currently eating at my peace of mind.
Piqued by her confident assurance, I leaned in to listen to what she had in mind.
It was, without a shadow of a doubt, an extraordinarily tempting proposal.
The very next day.
⚠️ WARNING — ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER RACE BESIDES DWARVES MAY PURCHASE THIS ITEM.
We accept zero liability if you perish after consumption.
Clocking in at an astronomical 96% alcohol by volume.
I unleashed the world's most lethal, merciless rectified spirit directly onto the marketplace.