The Emperor's Shopping Spree
Kim Hwang-je descended to the shopping mall while observing the royal castle through World Observation.
The king and the archmage accompanied the Park family on an inspection of the castle walls.
Park Jo-woon stared at the walls with a grave expression, thick layers of something smeared across their surface.
While they were busy with their work, Kim Hwang-je finally arrived at the shopping mall.
Gaya Hotel stood inside Gaya Tower.
The lower floors housed the shopping mall, the middle floors a department store, the upper floors residences, and the hotel occupied the floors above that in the towering skyscraper.
Kim Hwang-je immediately headed toward the area with the mini excavators.
“Hello~ Sir. We’re currently running a sale. Zero interest for twelve months, 2.8% for twenty-four months, and 3.5% for thirty-six months!”
The employee flashed a sales smile.
Kim Hwang-je did not smile back.
“I’ll take them all.”
“Of course, sir. The per-unit price is listed below… Pardon?”
“Understood.”
The reply came from the employee standing behind him.
Whenever a suite resident came down to shop on the lower floors, two dedicated staff members were assigned to provide support.
Kim Hwang-je had to admit he wouldn’t have understood the arrangement without an explanation.
Of course, the cost would be billed later.
Having employees follow you around even for simple shopping was a luxury he still wasn’t used to.
“Where would you like them delivered?”
“I’ll handle the transfer with magic. Six mini excavators and six mini bulldozers. Do you have any more?”
“Ah, no. That’s all we have in stock at the moment.”
Kim Hwang-je glanced around.
Twelve units of “real mini heavy equipment” were on display—machines wealthy families bought so their children could play in the dirt in their backyards.
Each one weighed at least 2.5 tons and carried a price tag of 35 million won.
“Are they fueled?”
“Yes, all tanks are full.”
“Prepare extra fuel as well.”
“Understood.”
“Whew. I wish there were more…”
Even the employee who had been advertising the excavators blinked in surprise.
Kim Hwang-je was the type of person who considered asking “how much per unit” a waste of time.
‘What is he, a chaebol?’
Well, he was essentially shopping right next door.
It felt like popping into a convenience store for snacks when hungry.
He hadn’t even begun his real shopping yet.
“Good. I’ll send them now.”
6 Excavators. 6 Bulldozers
Castle Development Begins!
📍 Location: Adel Kingdom
🎁 Reward: Arbocil (External Potion)
Your Majesty!
Can you hear the thunderous roar of the golems?
That is the sound of my heart pounding!
We are endlessly grateful for such magnificent equipment.
In gratitude, the kingdom has prepared a three-piece set of red medicine.
Apply it to any wounds!
Reward: External Potion ‘Arbocil’
Plop. Roll roll roll.
Three red vials appeared in front of Kim Hwang-je and fell to the floor.
They looked like something that would be good for wounds, but Kim Hwang-je picked them up and tossed them straight into the trash can.
‘That eunuch bastard really does give you the disease and then the cure, doesn’t he?’
Fine. I’ll just refuse it.
If it hurts and stings, he’ll probably just laugh at me again.
Meanwhile, inside the video feed, Park Jo-woon and Su-ah were demonstrating how to operate the heavy equipment to the king and the archmage.
With a rumbling sound, the tracked excavator raced along the top of the castle walls.
Park Su-ah’s bulldozer rolled out through the castle gate, scraping up ogres the way one might gather coal.
Ah, what a shame. It would have been better if these were proper, full-sized heavy machines.
The ones in the store were simply too small.
While Kim Hwang-je watched through World Observation, whispers from the surrounding crowd never stopped.
“Whoa… he’s insane…”
“Did you see that? Did you see?”
People murmured around him.
“That mage just teleported twelve pieces of heavy equipment in one go.”
“No way. I thought it was just a rumor when I saw it online. Holy crap, that’s actually insane… That’s Kim Hwang-je, right?”
“Did he change clothes?”
“Kim Hwang-je?”
“Isn’t he unofficially the strongest mage in Korea right now?”
“What kind of nonsense is that? Are you in middle school?”
“No, that’s what people are saying, you idiot.”
“Wait, didn’t that guy just throw away a potion?”
People began whispering and rummaging through the trash can.
Young men rushed over first, and a competition broke out so quickly that the trash can tipped over.
Tissues and all sorts of garbage spilled out, and at the same time the crystal vials rolled free.
“Give it here!”
“I knocked it over first, you bastard!”
Kim Hwang-je sighed.
Poor mortals…
How on earth were these rumors spreading?
Kim Hwang-je didn’t even have the courage to type his own name into a search bar.
Seeing everyone else scrambling for it made him wonder why he didn’t want it himself.
‘I really have become less human.’
Now that he thought about it, the rude guy’s wound treatment was perfect for them.
As Kim Hwang-je walked over, the crowd parted like the Red Sea, fights forgotten.
He picked up the potions that had fallen between them and placed them into the trade window.
The three vials vanished from his hand.
◈ Do not ingest. Apply to wounds.
People drew in sharp breaths at the sight of the potions disappearing into thin air.
“Whew, my apologies. I must have dropped them.”
“You didn’t throw them, you—”
“I dropped them.”
Kim Hwang-je turned to the employee.
“Let’s head back up.”
A halo of light shone behind Kim Hwang-je’s body, and people stepped aside to make way.
For some reason, the atmosphere made them feel they ought to bow their heads.
Kim Hwang-je left the area and stopped in front of the fresh produce section.
The cabbages looked crisp and fresh.
Now that he thought about it, the castle he had seen through World Observation was completely out of vegetables.
Anything even remotely tender had long since been devoured.
If Gemini’s magic had arrived even a little later, the city would have descended into cannibalism, just like the besieged cities of history.
“…”
So the starving nobles who had gone mad from lack of rice would probably commit murder at the sight of these fresh vegetables.
“Vegetable prices have gone up quite a bit lately, haven’t they?”
“Yes, they have. Farmland losses have been severe.”
The employee nodded.
At least they were still in Korea.
Korea might be at the bottom of the list, but it was still one of the developed nations.
Historically, Joseon had always educated its poor and pitiful with firepower.
Its military strength was decent as well.
Its food self-sufficiency rate was low, but it possessed relatively modernized agricultural technology.
Of course, it still paid enormous royalties to international food companies.
“Are they still decreasing?”
“Yes. New technologies are being tested, and the tower plant technology is nearly complete, but…”
The employee trailed off.
The world was losing farmland at an alarming rate.
Especially countries like the United States, which could no longer spray pesticides from airplanes over their vast lands.
There were no people, yet the land was absurdly wide, so monsters had no reason to leave the overflowing food untouched.
Goblins and orcs turned into soggy meat after a single blast from a double-barrel shotgun, but even that only lasted a day or two.
In the end, governments around the world, including the U.S., withdrew from difficult farmland and banned “modern agriculture.”
They couldn’t afford to keep feeding orcs, after all.
Experiments were underway to turn entire skyscrapers inside cities—where safety was guaranteed—into “vertical farming plants,” but the work was proving far more difficult than expected.
In the end, the issue came down to whether it was profitable.
But just as the U.S. had extracted oil from oil sands because it was profitable, vertical farming in buildings was somehow still running because it remained profitable.
And thanks to that, Kim Hwang-je could so easily obtain expensive cabbage.
Kim Hwang-je set the cabbage down and spoke.
“What time do you do clearance sales here?”
Clearance.
It was a word that didn’t suit a suite resident, yet Kim Hwang-je’s eyes were deadly serious.
The shopping assistant who had been following him responded with a smile.
“The lower-floor shopping center clears inventory at midnight. What kind of service are you looking for?”
“I want all the remaining stock. You’re just going to throw it away anyway, right?”
“Ah, would you like us to offer an additional discount on top of the sale price at that time? There’s quite a lot. If you’re planning a house party, we can recommend a professional chef.”
Haha. He wasn’t falling for that anymore.
“Discount, my ass. You’re just saving on disposal costs by having me take what you’d throw out anyway. A suite resident isn’t even allowed that much?”
This place had 10-billion-won apartments, after all.
When a customer of this caliber made a request, making the impossible possible was part of the job.
The profit from selling a few cabbages was on an entirely different level.
“Well, sir, this isn’t simple disposal. It gets sent to feed manufacturers and such.”
“Hmm, feed, you say. Then sell it to me at that price.”
A sudden halo shone behind Kim Hwang-je’s back.
How many seconds did it take for this passive to activate?
The employee’s gaze changed.
“We’ll make it happen somehow!”
“Can you do it every day?”
His demands were escalating by the minute.
Every day?
Was this guy addicted to cabbage? Or was he using cabbage for magic?
Did he have the [Druid] class or something?
But Kim Hwang-je’s class was [Emperor], and of course he wasn’t raising any [Bophal Rabbits] by feeding them cabbage like the employee imagined.
“Of course, sir. We’ll do exactly as you wish. Shall we deliver the cabbage at midnight?”
“No. I want everything left in the grocery section. No, actually, everything left in the entire shopping mall center.”
“…?”
The employee’s face twitched.
He wanted all the discarded goods from this massive center?
Of course, inventory wasn’t overflowing in these times, but it was still a considerable volume.
“Um, sir, if I may, our remaining stock ranges from expired cornflakes to steak sauce… You want all of it?”
“Yes. All of it.”
All of this was a thousand—no, ten thousand—times better than tree bark and grass roots.
Cornflakes? The best.
In the castle, sugared grain flakes were the kind of resource people would kill for.
Steak sauce? Incredible.
The pinnacle of luxury.
If you mixed hardtack porridge with steak sauce and cornflakes, everyone would praise the reign of Kim Emperor.
Kim Hwang-je had once dug up and eaten mugwort from the streets.
He had also suffered after eating what was supposedly either azalea or rhododendron—he couldn’t remember which—because someone said one of them was edible.
Those who wanted to survive had no room for hesitation.
But the employee still looked uncertain and asked again.
“Sir, our store has an average of 5,500 daily customers. Will that be all right?”
“Fewer than I expected.”
Strange.
Was the floating population in Gaya Tower really only that small?
Anyway, Kim Hwang-je nodded once more.
This was the dignity of a ruler.
It was the perspective of someone who looked down on five thousand people, someone who had already surpassed the average person.
The employee snapped to attention.
This was no joke.
“I’m so sorry! I’ll bring the manager right away!”
When the employee contacted him, the manager came running.
“Ah, hello. You want us to clear out all our remaining stock?”
“Yes.”
His castle had ten thousand mouths to feed every day, and the lands it still needed to reclaim were filled with suffering citizens.
The manager agreed with Kim Hwang-je’s words.
This was creative economy in action.
Now food was no longer a concern.
Continuous Food Supply Quest Completed!
★ Hungry refugees have begun arriving.
★ City growth rate has increased!
Kim Hwang-je read the inscription several times but couldn’t understand it.
However, the next line sank into his head so fast it almost hurt.
Reward: A note containing comments from castle residents
Kim Hwang-je picked up the paper that fluttered down from the sky and read it.
It was a map torn into three pieces.
A map that continued eastward from the castle.
Treasure Map Set Item Acquired! (1/3)
“Aigoo. Mister Vincent, look at those golems piled up on the walls. They’re something else. But that foreign gentleman told me those golems move by refining black liquid that comes out of the ground. I heard there’s black liquid where I used to live too…”
A map like this…
A map? A treasure map?
Oil!
“Hurk!”
Startled, Kim Hwang-je sucked in a breath.
“Yes?”
“N-no, it’s nothing. Please send over whatever stock you can right away.”
“Understood. I’ll prepare it immediately.”
The excavators he had just sent were worth well over 200,000 won each when fully fueled.
Never mind putting fuel in heavy equipment like that right now—what if there really was an oil field near the castle…?
‘Am I going to become an oil king?’
His mouth watered.
What about that Mansour guy who supposedly worried when his bank account dropped below 10 billion won?
“Haha!”
He laughed heartily, but worry crept in again.
Who knew what tricks that eunuch bastard had prepared?
***
That night,
An enormous amount of remaining stock poured into the suite where Kim Hwang-je was staying alone.
The manager came up in person, bowed his head, and delivered the goods.
Kim Hwang-je even gave him the warehouse location just in case and said he would cover the transportation costs.
If the apartment filled up, they would naturally move everything into the warehouse.
If he couldn’t hoard food, he could simply buy up everything that was about to become garbage.
Now it wasn’t food anymore—it was inventory.
And Kim Hwang-je transferred every bit of food that arrived that night through Tribute Trade.
Resources: 17/100 → 25/100
In the center of the castle, the plaza where the king once waved to his people,
a mountain of grocery stock suddenly rained down.
“—!”
The situation had been dire—hardtack porridge had run out.
Dave collapsed on the second-floor terrace and began to cry.
Hot tears streamed down the scar on his face, soaking the royal terrace.
Gemini placed a hand on the crying king’s shoulder.
Her eyes were red as well.
Kim Hwang-je watched them and picked up his phone.
Then he called Jung Da-yeon.