Chapter 227: Selling Like Wildfire
Once Rinea had finished explaining the merch, a few adjustments were made, and just two days later it went on sale across the entire elven nation. The speed at which tens of thousands of elven artisans turned out figurines and every other kind of goods was nothing short of astonishing.
It was a power Hana herself had brought into being. Ever since the World Tree's radiance, the affinity dwelling in the elves had surged to its peak, and the chance to capture their god's likeness and set it down in the real world only drove production faster still.
The workers' tremendous zeal, joined to every combination of magic and spirits they could muster, let them scatter the merch across the whole country. In a way, it outpaced even modern logistics. However advanced science and technology might be, they could not beat magic—magic was an immense skill that simply ignored the laws of physics.
From the day before Hana's merch went on sale, long lines had already formed outside the shops. Any human who saw it would have been stunned. Proud, haughty elves, waiting so meekly? It was a sight no one would have believed.
By the usual stock phrase, the queues were long enough to circle a playing field several times over and still have people left. And given how many shops there were in every corner of the country, it was fair to say nearly every elf had lined up. This was no so-called limited release, with only a handful of stores allowed to sell. There were a decent number of shops—not quite as many as neighborhood convenience stores, but plenty—and even so, the lines stretched this far.
The elves were burning with anticipation, because they could see Hana's merch on display inside. Staff were already bustling about, setting the goods out, and the one mercy was that they were using spirits, so the work went quickly.
At last the sun climbed higher, and opening time arrived. The elves who had been waiting in line since the day before began to file inside. Fortunately, they did not come pouring in the way a crowd does when an amusement park throws open its gates. Staff at the doors were holding the flood back.
It was set up much like a military post exchange: baskets waited outside, and only elves holding one were allowed into the shop. If everyone rushed in at once and the World Tree's merch was so much as damaged, it would be a disaster. Taking in too many customers at once could be dangerous to begin with.
Pack a crowd that tightly, and one surge, one fall, becomes a catastrophe. Crushing accidents do not happen for no reason. Fortunately, the Church of the World Tree had warned the faithful beforehand, and the believers waited calmly.
The elf who stepped inside with a basket gazed at the merchandise with a swelling heart. The goods were not simply lined up on shelves the way they would be in an ordinary convenience store.
In front of the clerks, sample pieces sat behind glass, much as they would in a phone shop, and customers chose what they wanted from there. Only the World Tree's merch was displayed that way, of course. The less important items made by the church sat out on the counters like ordinary convenience-store stock.
"Which item would you like?"
The clerk asked the customer, who answered with a polite gesture, indicating several pieces at once.
"One each of God's statues, please, from number one through number eight!"
The statues, numbered one through eight, each struck a different pose. When Hana had asked Rinea whether they couldn't simply sell a single pose, Rinea had answered like this.
"I made a variety of poses, to stir the urge to collect them. Selling only one pose would be a little dull, don't you think?"
Hana let it go. She only meant to stay a month before she left, after all. If the elves were happy because she was here, that alone was enough. In fact, after Hana showed herself at the church festival, word was that the elves' happiness had hit ninety-nine percent.
"I'm truly sorry, but today each customer may purchase only two statues. We're short on stock, so it can't be helped."
The clerk said it with a regretful look. Without a limit per person, most of the elves lined up today would have trudged home empty-handed.
"Is that so...? It can't be helped, then. In that case, statue number one and statue number two, please!"
"Yes, of course. One number one, and one number two."
At the clerk's word, a staff member waiting behind packed the statues into a box with practiced hands, not forgetting a generous layer of padding in case they were dropped.
"If you'll offer a bow here, you may take the statues with you."
After paying the clerk, the customer stood with a devout heart before the place where the statues had been brought out, then bowed reverently upon a cushion the shopkeeper had laid down so no one's knees would be scraped.
Only then did the customer carry the statues home, a bright, blooming smile on their face. The elves still waiting outside watched the one walking off with the box, envy plain in their eyes.
"Next, please!"
Like a factory line in motion, one elf went in, bought the merch, and came back out, the whole thing turning with mechanical precision. And every last one of them wore a look of complete satisfaction.
"Mom... how much longer do we have to wait?"
A little child looked up at their parents, unable to hide their restless longing, stamping their feet as they peered into the shop. With no way to know exactly how much stock remained, they couldn't shake the miserable thought that everything might sell out in the very spot ahead of them.
"Wait just a little longer, dear. To look upon the World Tree, one must have patience as well."
"Hnnn..."
The child sucked on an innocent finger and waited for the line to shrink. The same scene was playing out all across the country.
The elven woman who brought Hana's statues home received a fervent welcome from her family. Lining up a full twenty-four hours before the shop opened had been worth it.
What gave her chills was that some elves had lined up far earlier than she had.
When she got home, her family welcomed her with thumbs-ups all around.
"Well done, truly, my daughter!"
"Sis is the best!!!"
"To bring home God's statues so quickly!"
The elven woman wore a regretful look as she spoke.
"Mom, there was a limit per person today, so I couldn't buy many statues."
"That's all right, dear! The whole family is going tomorrow!"
They hadn't been able to line up today because of work, but they were so determined to stand in line and buy tomorrow that they had even put in for annual leave. The urge to rush to a shop and queue right this moment welled up to their throats, but the nearby stores were already sold out, so lining up would have done no good. The merch would not come in again until morning, at the earliest.
A statue of the World Tree, carved in the shape of a tree, already sat on the shelf in the elven family's home. Visit an elf's house, and you were almost certain to see one.
"How I long to behold the likeness of God at once!"
The elven man, head of the household, was so worked up that he tried to tear open the box his daughter had brought home. She stopped him.
"Dad, I bought this, so I'll open it."
"Oh?"
He clicked his tongue and stared at the box in his daughter's hands, disappointment dripping from his eyes. But she was the one who had bought the statue, and he could not bring himself to touch it.
So the daughter opened the box with careful hands. Inside was a statue of Hana striking a V-sign pose, carved so finely that you could almost feel each strand of her hair. With trembling hands, the daughter set it up on the shelf.
Once Hana's statue decorated the shelf, the whole atmosphere seemed to spring to life. A single tree-shaped statue of the World Tree had always felt a little plain on its own.
"Posters bearing the likeness of God, for sale!"
"Sacred images of God, for sale!"
Three days after Hana's merch launched nationwide, the fervor still had not cooled. If anything, it seemed to have caught fire all the more.
Stock forever converged on zero. The Church of the World Tree smiled with satisfaction at the pace of the sales, for they had carried the World Tree's love to the public so quickly and so thoroughly. The money they happened to make along the way was enormous as well.
Perhaps because this was the first time the World Tree's incarnate form had ever appeared, the response was tremendous. The volume of merch sold already exceeded everything the World Tree's goods had ever sold before.