The Dimensional Store (2)
A Dimensional Store?
A store, by definition, was a place that sold things. Which begged the question—what exactly was it selling?
Everyone had the same doubts, whether they'd been picked as an open beta tester or not. But the wait wasn't long. Reviews began scrolling in almost immediately.
Anyone who paid attention to the community already knew what the Juddak was capable of. His drive and execution were the stuff of legend. So it was only natural that expectations took root—expectations that, update by update, the store would grow into something they couldn't even imagine.
A brief riot broke out. It was—
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—snuffed out only thanks to the grandmaster-grade reaction speed of the Patdaks.
The open beta's general store sold simple rations and water, plus sundries and daily necessities. But one loaf of bread and a flask of water—what was the big deal? The bread wasn't even anything special to taste, and neither was the water. Some people simply couldn't understand what all the fuss over bread and water was about.
And yet.
The response was overwhelmingly positive. One user even felt moved to write a lengthy post.
Listen up, everyone. This is a genuinely earth-shattering innovation. From what I can see, unlike the other products, bread, water, and daily necessities have no purchase limits.
Do you understand what that means? As long as we have Karma, we have just won our freedom from hunger. We no longer have to be bound by eating and drinking. Still don't get it? Do you not see what this means?
"Idiots, the lot of them."
Viscount Stephen, General of the Mile Kingdom, seethed as he read through the community posts. With enough Karma Points, food and water could be procured in any quantity whatsoever—unbound by time, unbound by distance. Could they truly not grasp the meaning of this?
Ever since the store had opened, a shiver of awe had run through him without pause.
"I suppose it's hard to feel, at the level of an individual."
What counted among the most vital elements of war? Surely no one would dispute that logistics stood among them.
Supply. War was inseparable from supply. Someone had once said that the outcome of a war was decided by munitions and logistics above all else.
In other words, used well, the store promised tremendous strategic value—at the very least on the supply front.
"General! The Veltis army has encircled the fortress and severed every supply route! They appear to have no intention of withdrawing until we surrender! What are your orders?"
Yes—precisely like his own situation at this very moment.
"Even a Veltis could not breach our iron fortress. How much food remains?"
"It is a border fortress, my lord. We have only one month's rations left."
"Hmph. No doubt they chose this strategy knowing that full well."
"My lord! Thanks to your foresight we laid in an extra month's stock, but once that month is gone…!"
Just yesterday, he had been grappling with the exact same worry as the aide standing before him. But not anymore.
His balance stood at forty-seven million Karma Points.
Used wisely, that was enough to procure food that would hold him steady for a year, two years, without so much as a wobble.
"As if I wouldn't know that Veltis is bleeding far worse than we are on logistics. Haha. They must be stretching themselves quite thin by now."
"B-but, General!"
The aide shot him a look laced with the fear that his general had perhaps lost his mind.
"General, it will take at least three months for reinforcements to arrive. Even if we cut rations to the bone…."
Viscount Stephen smirked. In his heart of hearts, he was genuinely grateful to the Juddak.
"Worry yourself with nothing. We need only hold. Holding is our victory."
He possessed the wisdom to turn this very siege into an opportunity.
"I will handle the food problem myself. However—spread word among the soldiers that rations are running short. The enemy must not suspect, not for a moment, that our supplies are plentiful."
The aide found the general's brazen claim of having solved the supply problem out of thin air baffling, but he held his tongue. Such was his absolute faith in the peerless commander—the Iron Wall Stephen.
"The reception isn't bad."
—Food and water are essential to human beings, after all.
"Even so, the profits aren't as good as I expected relative to sales volume."
—Plain bread and drinking water were never anything more than loss leaders to begin with.
"Fair point."
A loss leader: a product priced to lure in customers for the purpose of selling or promoting the main lineup—sometimes priced below cost, sometimes given away free, all to drive additional spending.
In other words, goods meant to advertise the Dimensional Store and get users comfortable with it. Besides, Karlstein had no desire to charge dearly for the very items survival depended on. It wasn't out of any professed "love for humanity," nor out of sentiment.
More customers. More Karma.
Every customer lost, every user who died, was a loss to him—cutting into the Karma they had earned, and the Karma they would earn in the future.
Karlstein scrolled through the product list, keeping one eye on the community's reactions. The store hardly stocked nothing but plain flour bread.
Perhaps because the Juddak himself had once been a possessor—one of the transmigrated—the store understood, down to the finest detail, what users needed and what they desperately longed for.
For reincarnators still young enough that growth mattered, it was nothing short of a godsend. Murim or fantasy world alike, no human in their growing years was ignorant of the importance of protein.
As for the daily necessities—the women, in particular, went absolutely wild.
No—in truth, the daily necessities shelf carried something even greater than sanitary pads. And at a special discount, no less.
'This One and You're Done!' Perfect Hair-Loss Cure
Price:100P | Remaining stock:9,982
In under thirty minutes, all ten thousand units of the hair-loss cure were gone.
Astonishingly, every last unit had sold out with zero duplicate purchases.
But the item that drew the greatest acclaim of all was—
Price:200P | Remaining stock:4,325
Chicken.
The ten thousand units of stock vanished in the blink of an eye.