Chapter 112
[Title: The Story of My Girlfriend Meeting My Ex-Girlfriend...jpg]
(Meme of a one-eyed frog monster in the forest)
Ah lol, a monster got into the forest behind my house
It happens to be a variant, so I can't even catch it
Where am I supposed to get food now?
[Upvotes 2] [Downvotes 12]
- Fucking bait
- (Meme of an elf looking stone-faced)
- (Elf emote saying “So what?!”)
Variant monsters could be broadly divided into two types.
The ones that crawl out of waves.
And the ones hiding somewhere in nature.
If you asked which was more troublesome, it was number two.
“If they build up their forces, doesn't that mean they'll trigger a wave?”
Unlike the waves triggered by rifts, number two literally built up its forces and attacked.
The more troublesome thing was that they blended into the ecosystem.
A volcano or underground lair would be one thing, but if they made their home in a forest like the one in that post, it was a problem.
It dealt a blow to the lives of people who sourced their food from the forest.
[Title: Posting Lewd Pics at Dawn! ><...jpg]
(Meme of a village burning in the middle of the night)
(Depressed frog emote)
Ah lol, it finally happened
We left the monster in the forest behind the village alone, and now it finally came crashing down on the village, fuck
Can't be helped, I guess
I'm going with the slash-and-burn settler meta
[Upvotes 10] [Downvotes 5]
- Lol, that fucking bastard from last time
- Fuck, why is he so positive? lol
- Why use clickbait for the title on this?
ㄴ Author) (Thumbs-up frog emote)
And if you left them alone, eventually they would erupt.
“So this is our chance.”
The monsters had fled because of the nuke, and now that they were returning, this was our chance.
They should be at their weakest right now.
- AK47 ← If this bastard is just a pipe dream, upvote
ㄴ Upvote lol
ㄴ Starting with me
ㄴ Seriously, how is anyone supposed to get first place? lol
“Hmm...”
The problem was that many people gave up before even starting, no matter what reward was offered.
Then all I had to do was increase the bounty's reward itself.
“The problem is how to get people to participate without consuming too many points...”
I couldn't hand everyone a gun as a reward.
Instead, what I came up with was...
- Fuck, why isn't spicy tuna available?
- Day 132 of praying for a spicy tuna re-release
- Ah lol, the Head Mod is pretending not to see it
- Please release some spicy tuna... It's been a long-standing wish...
“That's it.”
It was spicy tuna.
*
[Title: Breaking) Head Mod, You Really Need to See This]
(Meme of a bathroom at home)
Yeah, Head Mod, Head Mod, you here?
I'm giving you exactly three days
I'm not holding it in anymore, yeah
If you don't put spicy tuna on the market by then, you'll witness my feces
[Upvotes 1] [Downvotes 42]
- Lol, the deputy mods are in total crisis
- Post-viewing prohibited in three days
- No lie, guys who threaten to kill you are less scary than this guy
ㄴ For real, this guy looks like he'd actually do it
What is spicy tuna?
An intensely stimulating, spicy food.
A perfect upgrade over canned tuna.
- Why won't you release it!!!
- Seriously, release it now, or you're all doomed!
The problem was that he didn't sell it.
No matter how much people clamored for him to sell it, the Head Mod refused to release it.
[1. One-Eyed Frog (Variant)]
(Meme of a one-eyed frog sighting)
Location – southwest of Adrian, in the swamps
Reward – 5 cans of spicy tuna
And in the middle of all this, a post appeared.
It said that catching that monster would earn no less than five cans of spicy tuna.
“I have to catch it.”
Jade the monster hunter came to Adrian with a determined look on his face.
He made monster hunting his profession, an unaffiliated hunter.
The reason he had become a monster hunter was simple.
“I don't care anymore.”
He was tired of the world.
The Great War had broken out, and he had lost everything.
He had no home, family, or friends.
The only goal left in life for him, with nothing else remaining, was one thing.
To eat market food—to try new products.
“I will eat spicy tuna.”
He would carve that taste into his mind.
Even if he died tomorrow, if he could get spicy tuna today, that was enough.
- Rustle
The grass nearby moved.
“Who's there!”
Jade immediately drew his bowstring taut.
A knight in armor came out with both hands raised, flinching at his shout.
“Calm down. I'm a hunter too.”
“Hmm.”
He was one of his own kind, sharing the same profession.
When Jade relaxed his guard a little, the knight made a proposal.
“Since we're here, why don't we form a party? I came to get spicy tuna too.”
“Hmm... sure.”
Two were better than one.
Even if they were caught by the frog monster, they would have a chance to escape.
It was at the moment they shook hands and formed a party.
- Rustle
The grass nearby moved again.
“Who's there this time!”
Jade and the knight aimed their weapons simultaneously.
Then a blond-haired elf with perked-up long ears cautiously poked their head out of the grass.
“...Pointy-ear?”
“Long-eared vermin?”
Why was an elf from Elrad, way off to the northwest, in Adrian?
“What? How rude!”
“What brings an elf here?”
“...I was curious what spicy tuna tastes like.”
Jade had heard about it.
That self-proclaimed young-blooded elves left Elrad to travel the world.
The elf fiddled with their ear and carefully asked,
“Since fate brought us together, would you like to form a party with us?”
“Hmm.”
“Wouldn't that be good?”
Yeah, well... three were better than two.
It was a shame to split the cans of spicy tuna, but it was better than dying without tasting them and becoming a ghost.
“Sure, let's do that.”
And so a temporary party was formed.
-BOOM!
Then the sound of bombardment that shook the land and sky rang out.
Apparently, a fierce battle with a variant monster was taking place nearby.
“We'll miss it at this rate!”
“Let's join in quickly.”
A mage might be hunting the variant monster.
The three of them immediately pushed their way through the forest.
-BOOM!
-Slash, thud!
The more they advanced, the more fighting sounds they heard.
‘Were there always this many people ahead of us in this forest?’
They had heard it was a place with little human presence because it was the territory of a variant monster.
“!”
And the three of them were greatly surprised.
Before their eyes was the one-eyed frog variant monster they had only heard about...!
Several brawlers
A party made up of knights
An archer who appeared to be an elf in a tree
“No, why are there so damn many?”
A close-range hunter wearing gauntlets
And various others—in any case, there were a lot of them.
And every one of those parties locked eyes with Jade's newly arrived party.
-GURRRR!!!
At the center of it all, the one-eyed frog, which was being bombarded with attacks without pause, let out a scream-like sound.
Fuck, stop coming
It seemed to be saying exactly that.
*
Spicy tuna didn't cost much.
“Affordable, right?”
Judging by the price alone, it wasn't much different from canned tuna.
In the first place, the market tended to discount its canned tuna varieties below cost.
So even buying it in bulk didn't cause much of a dent.
But despite that, I still didn't sell spicy tuna. Why?
[Title: One-Eyed Frog Monster Hunt Successful.jpg]
(Meme of the hunted monster and countless hunters)
But why did so many people gather?
Fuck, this is dizzying lol
[Upvotes 1312] [Downvotes 52]
- Wow lol, are you running some kind of club?
- But they give you five cans of spicy tuna, you know
ㄴ Kill each other from here on out
ㄴ Lol, how many people have to die?
“The results speak for themselves.”
It was because of its rarity.
[1 Can of Spicy Tuna] - 2p
By the market's standards, it was only worth 2p.
But because I stubbornly refused to sell it, its market price became whatever people were willing to pay.
- Selling) One can of spicy tuna
ㄴ Name your price
ㄴ Starting at 1,000 dango
ㄴ ? Fucking crazy bastard, then who would buy it? Are you an idiot? lol
ㄴ Buying
ㄴ Buying at 1,200
ㄴ Buying for 100 more than the guy above
ㄴ ?
I deliberately didn't stop people from scalping this particular item to excess within the gallery.
Because the more they did so, the more useful it became.
As food for survival, there was ordinary canned tuna, so spicy tuna was purely a luxury item.
When it came to luxuries rather than survival goods, I had no intention of selling cheaply.
No, if anything, I expanded that market even further.
ㄴ juddakimzz) Buying at 3,000
ㄴ Author) Sale complete
ㄴ Ah, fuck
ㄴ juddakimzz ← This guy keeps participating only in spicy tuna auctions, fuck
After inflating the item's value as much as possible.
I released it in a way that made it obtainable only through the bounty system.
[Notice: Spicy Tuna Scalping Warning ㅇㅇ]
Author: Head Mod*
The title says it all, yeah
Looking at it, the price has gotten too ridiculous
I saw someone buy it for 3,000 last time
It's gotten too absurd, so I'm shutting it down
[Upvotes 5512] [Downvotes 121]
- Ah!!! Fuck!!!
ㄴ What's wrong with this guy?
ㄴ Judging by his recent posts, he apparently posted that he wanted to buy some, then got penalized immediately lol
ㄴ Idiot lol
At the same time, writing an announcement with grounds for penalizing scalpers made it perfect.
Now all that remained was to watch the activated bounty system.
[Notice: For Compiling the Hunting List]
1. Bone Dragon (details)
2. Giant Killer Centipede (details)
.
.
- Looking for a party to subjugate number 1
- Reporting an additional variant monster
- Looking for a mage to go subjugate number 2
ㄴ 11
ㄴ Tell me your class/main skill
ㄴ Earth / throwing rocks quickly
ㄴ Fuck off
- Jade) Variant monster/one-eyed frog/subjugation verification meme. Reporting hunt verification
ㄴ Head Mod*) Confirmed
ㄴ But I caught one too
ㄴ I did too, why don't I get one?
Of course, there could be an issue with distributing rewards when multiple people hunted at the same time.
But the system's search function could solve that too.
[Hunted One-Eyed Frog Variant Monster]
There are 24 wounds in total.
Stab wounds – 21
Burn wounds – 3
Contribution 1st – Jade and 2 others' party
Contribution 2nd
.
.
“It's definitive.”
[5 cans of spicy tuna have been delivered!]
I gave that party the promised reward.
[10p has been deducted.]
“This is a little disappointing, though...”
Of course, my points had been consumed.
The bounty system had the advantage of increasing people's participation in monster hunting.
But its greatest drawback was the consumption of points.
It was even worse than the shop function that converted points into mana dango.
“Well, it's for the gallery.”
I thought of it as an investment in the gallery's future, but it was still a little disappointing.
It was 10p right now, and the amount of rewards I had to pay would keep growing over time.
But I had anticipated this level of loss.
Just as I was thinking that I should account for the points that would be spent each month in advance,
[The one-eyed frog monster has been subjugated.]
[Issuing reward.]
“What?”
An unexpected notification from the gallery came flying in.