The Marketplace Upgrade (Part 3)
There were three kinds of people on the forum: trolls, lurkers, and absolute morons.
To post a warning placard of such minuscule dimensions... Their intentions are thoroughly foul.
Furthermore, dare they attempt refinement while reeking of alcohol? This is nothing short of a direct mockery against me.
Any Dukecels who clicked thinking this was a real apology, hit that upvote lol
Not sorry in the slightest, lmao.
It always begins with two total idiots laying the groundwork. From there, the silent lurkers swarm in from the sidelines, raining down an avalanche of upvotes.
And finally, right on cue, the trolls make their grand entrance.
• Why Dwarves Are Complete Clowns...jpg
• [Dwarf] Humans are literally no better than hairless apes
• The REASON (EU) war is inevitable
• Humans ← these motherfuckers are always the problem lol
Feigning allegiance to either side, the trolls poked and prodded at every raw nerve, stoking the embers until the flames raged completely out of control. Within mere hours, the whole spectacle had spiraled past the point of no return.
Naturally, whenever fresh lewd art or beastfolk selfies dropped onto the board, the fiery conflict ground to a brief, appreciative halt. But it never lasted long.
“At this rate, they're never going to stop, are they?”
The forum was on the verge of collapsing into pure anarchy. General, Free Talk, Hot Posts, Questions & Help—every single board had been completely overrun by warmongering garbage. Not that I had any real intention of policing them, of course. Instead, I pinned an official notice and opened a brand-new sub-forum.
Sup.
Created a new board.
If you're going to fight, take your asses over to the Fight / IRL Duel category. Gogo.
The Imperial Army needs YOU!
Enlist now and wage an honorable war!
* Must procure own arms and armor prior to deployment.
* Rations may contain trace amounts of sand.
The atmosphere was turning white-hot by the minute. Not that I cared in the slightest. Lying in bed all day lately had been boring as hell anyway, and right when I needed some fresh entertainment, drama like this was music to my ears.
Tuck your tails between your legs and cower inside your mountain hole, dwarf scum. I shall come to you in person.
What do you expect to achieve wearing tin cans like that? Stay right where you are; we will crush you into paste.
Letting such things run their course unchecked invariably led to one outcome: two fully equipped armies were genuinely preparing to march onto the field of battle.
“What is the state of our equipment?”
“Impeccable, Your Majesty! Everything has recently been swapped for brand-new gear. Defeat is impossible!”
“Bwahaha! Excellent!”
Taldain, King of the Dwarves, stood at the vanguard of the host with a deeply satisfied grin. Though their numbers were few compared to human legions, every single dwarf under his command was a walking engine of destruction. Leading his mighty steel army, the concept of fear did not exist in his heart.
“It has been far too long since I had a proper brawl like this.”
In truth, Taldain bore no genuine malice toward humans. That held true for nearly everyone gathered in the square. But by their very dwarven nature, the fiery blood surging through their veins simply demanded release. Ever since the reclamation campaigns wound down, combat had been reduced to smacking the occasional demonic beast wandering into their borders. Their muscles had been itching for an old-fashioned brawl against armed men, so this turn of events suited them just fine.
“To uphold the sacred honor of all dwarvenkind, I shall fight with head held high!”
“We shall follow you to the end!”
“For the glory of the dwarves!”
A deafening cheer like rolling thunder shook the mountain cavern. Behind all the grandiose speeches, they really just wanted an excuse to beat the hell out of someone.
“Come, brothers! To war!” Taldain roared with hearty bravado.
His steel legion finished adjusting their armor, tightening straps and hoisting warhammers to march behind their king. But just as Taldain took his first stride forward, a sudden thought struck him.
“Ah, right. You made sure to pack the liquor, didn't you?”
“Of course, Your Majesty! Hundreds of bottles are listed on the Marketplace daily, so we can simply procure our provisions as we advance.”
Even in the midst of blood and iron, alcohol was an absolute necessity. And since the dwarves had yet to rebuild their industrial breweries, they relied entirely upon Judddak's Marketplace to keep their tankards full.
“Hahaha, splendid, splendid! Let us depart at once!”
Taldain slammed a fist against his breastplate with a booming clang. But the very instant his boots prepared to cross the threshold—
The Marketplace feature has been temporarily disabled across the forum.
[Reason: Concerns over wartime military supply procurement]
Seeing as a full-blown race war has broken out across the forum, the Marketplace is temporarily shut down due to concerns over wartime supply procurement.
“...What?”
Taldain's boisterous expression froze solid.
Clang. Clatter!
At the sudden metallic crash, Taldain whipped his head around. Behind him, a seasoned warrior had dropped his warhammer to the stone floor, slumping down with completely hollow, dead eyes.
“...No booze?”
“N-no... Not that! Anything but that!”
“Brother, WHYYYYYY?!”
The wails of despair echoed endlessly through the mountain halls. And across the continent, matters inside the human empire were hardly any better.
“M-My Lord Duke! The Marketplace has been closed!”
“What did you say?!”
In order to sustain a long expedition into the mountains, Duke Isaac had intended to purchase massive stockpiles of canned tuna, whose absurdly long shelf life was practically miraculous. Yet without a whisper of warning, the Marketplace had slammed shut, rendering every single commodity completely unobtainable.
The Duke was momentarily taken aback, but his aristocratic arrogance swiftly twisted the disaster into an opportunity.
“No... In fact, this works in our favor!”
“Pardon, My Lord?”
“If the Marketplace is closed, it means those stunted vermin can no longer procure alcohol! The moment they sober up, they will collapse into useless wrecks! This victory is already ours!”
Humans loved alcohol too, of course, but deprivation did not reduce them to weepy, nonfunctional husks the way it did dwarves. Striding out onto the palace balcony overlooking the muster square to deliver an inspiring martial speech, Isaac felt victory within his grasp.
“Wait, what the hell? The Marketplace is shut down?”
“Fuck! They're saying instead of canned tuna, our field rations are back to moldy hardtack!”
“Ah... the imperial military's legendary treatment of its soldiers strikes again, huh?”
The mood permeating the square was disastrous. A chaotic, sullen murmur rippled through the ranks, utterly devoid of cohesion or martial pride.
“Soldiers of Adrian, hear me!” the Duke thundered, seeking to command their rapt attention.
The soldiers merely offered him a fleeting, bored glance before immediately turning their heads back down toward their forum windows. They looked precisely like modern youths forced to listen to a headmaster's droning assembly speech on a scorching afternoon. And in that very moment, a tidal wave of anonymous posts began flooding the boards.
“Y-You insolent dogs!”
Duke Isaac had failed to comprehend the reality unfolding beneath his nose. Ever since the Head Mod appeared and flooded the ruined world with modern commodities, and ever since the populace began absorbing his casual, cynical remarks, the mindset of the younger generation had been completely upended.
The vast majority of the youth had been thoroughly infected by the Head Mod and the intoxicating modern culture he dispensed. Unlike the older generation, who marched unquestioningly whenever the drums of war sounded, these men now reflexively asked a single, fatal question: Why?
“Shut down that cursed forum this instant!” the Duke roared at the top of his lungs.
And right on cue, new posts began springing up like mushrooms, quoting his exact words back at him.
In the wake of the Great War, the imperial family's absolute authority was no longer what it once was. Their sheer incompetence during the cataclysm had cost them dearly; for every soldier slaughtered by demonic beasts, just as many had perished due to nonexistent medical facilities, botched tactical leadership, and abysmal logistical preparation. A new era had arrived—one where a single casual reply from the Head Mod was far more precious and honorable than the imperial crest itself.
The Adrian Empire was fracturing at its very roots.
“An omen of ruin has cast its shadow over our Empire.”
Beneath the grim blanket of a desolate night, Crown Prince Frederick spoke in a subdued, grave murmur. Gathered in secret around him were roughly half the realm's high nobility, listening intently in the gloom. The suffocating air within the chamber was far removed from any ordinary political assembly.
“It is not the Great War, nor is it famine.”
“Your Highness, what do you mean...?”
“Ruin has arrived wearing the skin of a man. Judddak... That Head Mod is the ruin of this Empire.”
Frederick and the aristocratic houses closest to the throne felt the earth slipping beneath their feet. Whether Judddak actively harbored revolutionary ambitions or not was utterly beside the point; the corrosive egalitarian notions he casually tossed out, coupled with the modern goods he dispensed, were planting treasonous thoughts deep into the hearts of imperial subjects.
“We must eliminate the Head Mod.”
“Indeed! He is an existential threat to the Empire!”
“Yet by what means could we possibly strike him down?”
At some point, the Head Mod had acquired the terrifying ability to conceal his coordinates entirely. Every imperial tracing artifact had shattered into useless slag, and if matters continued on this trajectory, it felt as though they would be forced to sit idly by while their dynasty crumbled to dust.
It was then that Duke Isaac slowly rose from his seat.
“He can be killed.”
“What? How?”
“I have stepped upon his tail.”
The Duke, renowned since his youth as a peerless prodigy of the blade, let his gauntleted hand rest heavily upon his sword's pommel as a chilling smile cut across his face.