Mercury Cosmetics (2)

Bathing was culture. What had once been a passion of dwarves alone had, before anyone noticed, spread to every race under the sun. A soak after a hard day's work. A soak to unwind, or simply as a pastime. Above all, there was nothing that topped a bath after picking up something tasty at the market — that was leisure perfected.

But this newfound culture had bred problems of its own. Skin cracking, to be precise. With people luxuriating in two, even three baths a day, not a speck of grime remained on anyone's hide — but with no lotion to replenish the moisture, their skin began splitting open instead. Driven to desperation, people started experimenting with every remedy they could dream up.

Folk remedies ruled the day, of course. One rumor here, a half-baked there — and soon every conceivable method of skin hydration had crawled out of the woodwork, most of them bizarre. The most widely adopted among them was the mercury cosmetic: a thin film of liquid quicksilver, spread over the hands like salve.

Needless to say, the side effects crept in all too quietly. But nothing could substitute for mercury. Its price climbed ever higher, and its demand showed no sign of ever drying up.

And then, at that very moment — the Head Mod appeared...

Still, handing everyone the red pill without offering any real alternative was hardly the move.

"So I put one out on the shelf."

None other than Deukdo Lotion — the legendary cost-performance king, the jackpot item no military PX run was ever complete without. Wow! You know Deukdo Lotion?! This stuff is un. real. ly good.

But when I registered it, I explained not a single effect. I never said what lotion was, let alone what it was supposed to do. The price, on top of that, was 100 dumplings apiece — a product you could pick up back home for around 15,000 won, listed at a value of 100,000. But I was confident.

Because there existed gallum who would buy any new product sight unseen, no questions asked. The Head Mod's Market had, somewhere along the way, cultivated an absolutely sterling reputation for its goods. Compared to the early days, the prevailing wisdom now held that buying first and asking questions later was a guaranteed win, every single time.

The opening stock of roughly a hundred units sold out in under a minute, announcement or no announcement. There were thousands of gallum alone who drifted in and out of the market whenever boredom struck.

"Well, by the time I nap and wake back up, the reaction threads should be rolling in."

Reading the reviews and reaction posts to my wares had long since become one of my modest little hobbies. And who knew — maybe this lotion revenue could bankroll a serious upgrade for my bunker.

"Lotion... is taking off...!"

With nothing grander than the hope of luxury-branding it and selling it at a comfortable clip, I dozed off for a little while.

The first reactions came in, and they were pure wonderment.

The wonderment, of course, was aimed squarely at the lotion container itself. The humble plastic tub, the sticker slathered with product text — nothing about the thing failed to fascinate. But once enough varied market goods had shipped and the gallum grown accustomed to such novelties, their curiosity soon drifted to the contents within.

They'd squeeze out a dab after their bath and smooth it over their skin. Their whole body then carried a pleasant fragrance as a matter of course — but above all, the skin simply stopped drying out. It turned supple and moist. No tightness, no cracking — and no harmful ingredients either, for that matter. The more they applied, the more gorgeously hydrated their skin became. That was all.

"There we go — the lotion sellers have arrived."

Inside a certain noble's mansion in Adrian, the lady of the house sat across from a merchant who bowed at the waist, smiling.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"How many can you sell me?"

"Three at the very most, my lady."

The so-called market merchants. The Head Mod had banned reselling, yet back-alley deals like this one still cropped up with regularity. Market goods typically commanded a minimum of one and a half times their original price on resale — and as much as dozens of times over, depending on the item's worth and rarity.

"Show me the goods, then. Quickly."

The noblewoman feigned indifference, but the glitter in her eyes was impossible to hide as she hurried the merchant along. He slowly opened his bag, and there, sure enough, sat lotion. And not just any lotion — the new product the Head Mod had released in his second sales round: the bathhouse lotion!

"Ahh, so this is..."

The lady admired it with luminous eyes, then turned back to the merchant. "So. What price are you asking?"

"Well, you see... acquiring these took me trudging clear across distant lands, and the purchasing process involved... considerable difficulty..."

"Enough stalling. Out with it."

"I was thinking 2,500 dumplings."

2,500 dumplings. Compared to the 200 it had debuted at, the price was nothing short of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ruinous. But the noblewoman's deliberation was brief.

"I'll take all three."

"Bless you, my lady!"

"And I'll throw in another 2,000 as a bonus — you'll bring your next shipment straight to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me to sell, yes?"

"Haha, would I dare refuse?"

Smoothed onto the skin, it smelled lovely, and the fresh-from-the-bath feeling lasted so long there wasn't a hint of skin trouble. Best of all, there were no side effects whatsoever. In a world like this, pinching pennies over an item that could only do you good had become the truly strange choice.

"More popular than I imagined."

The supply was infinite, and the sole right to sell it belonged to me and me alone. Textbook abuse of power, you might say — but I'd been selling with a clean conscience all this while. "No, wait. It was the opposite, actually." My first priority had always been the gallum's survival, which was precisely why daily necessities had gone the other way — sold dirt cheap. No gallum, no gallery, after all.

But lotion is no necessity. It's a cosmetic, plain and simple; life goes on just fine without it. So for items in that category, hoping to pad the margins, I'd piloted the idea of pricing high — and then:

"When exactly am I supposed to eat all this?"

It sold — far, far too well. These days the dumplings flowing in outpaced the ones flowing out by a staggering margin. My storage had already blown past capacity and was close to bursting; there was barely anywhere left to stash the things. Forget the gallery — I'd become a dango tycoon in the real world too.

"And yet something feels off."

Still, I couldn't quite shake the dissatisfaction. For one thing, the black marketeers were raking in more per unit than I was. And judged purely by total sales volume, business felt a touch anemic. With only a scattering of deep-pocketed gallum and nobles buying at the steep price, it had quietly become their own private league — and the feeling niggled at me.

"Is there anything that could hook the ordinary gallum too?"

I had no intention of dropping the price anytime soon. Some gallum had already paid full freight, after all. And back on Earth, hadn't there been luxury goods — priced like sin — that still captured the hearts and wallets of the masses all the same?

"Mmm..."

I lay sprawled on my bed, turning the problem over and over for a good few minutes.

"Malphite, want me to make lunch today?"

Something abruptly popped into my room. Penny, her head poking coyly around the edge of the door. The moment our eyes met, I realized she'd grown up quite a bit since before. She didn't have that mesmerizing, rabbit-tribe allure — set against the "Lust" she claimed as her namesake, the cuteness won by a landslide...

"Found it."

"Huh?"

Snow-white skin, a flawless face without a single blemish, and a grin stretched wide open — those were Penny's trademarks, all right. She just so happened to be the one living closest to me, and a devoted lotion user since day one.

"How about you shoot a commercial with me?"

A fresh EXP farm, all in service of a better bunker. And just like that, I had found myself a fraudulently persuasive advertising model.