Chapter 3
Title: Check Out the Red Boom Elixir Before You Go~[13]
(A chibi sticker of a knight waving his hand around)
Hello~ This is Puha!
The wind has been chilly lately too~
Have you all been taking good care of your health~~?
Today, I’m going to take a look at Red Boom (apparently it’s also known as Red Explosion! I’m really looking forward to the taste!).
(A picture of Red Boom held in one hand)
It’s a thin iron object like this~ but the real star is what’s inside this iron shell!
When you drink it, your strength comes surging out, right?! (That strange feeling when an unbelievable amount of strength suddenly wells up?)
They say that even when you think it’s the end, drinking this can give you a chance at a dramatic comeback like this!
(A picture of a mountain made of magical-beast corpses)
That concludes our look at what the Red Boom elixir is.
(A chibi sticker of a greasy-looking knight giving a thumbs-up)
ㄴ What the fuck is this?
ㄴ I thought this was an information post, but did you seriously just write a diary entry?
ㄴ I’m just scared of this bastard...
ㄴ Slap that weird writing style onto photos dripping with the smell of blood and you’ve got Jason, basically;
ㄴ So what the hell is that thing, exactly??
ㄴ [OP] Neighbor~ You were curious about my nickname, huh? My nickname is Blue Sky!Fresh Air. Isn’t it cute?
ㄴ I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m scared, so please don’t reply to me.
ㄴ Mom, I’m scared
I can’t tell whether a day has passed or two days have passed.
The one thing I do know for sure is that I’ve continued diligently browsing the gallery even after the transfer.
“...Is this a side effect of Red Boom too?”
While looking through posts about Red Boom’s effects, I happened to find one that revealed a faint hint of madness.
“Anyway, the response is explosive.”
Contrary to my fear that it might not be popular, the response was undeniable.
-Please sell more please please
-What’s this “original” underneath? Seems like there are more flavors too, and it’s tasty!
-Head Mod, listen carefully. If you don’t sell another thousand Red Booms, I’m going to shit right here
ㄴ Why are you going to shit, you crazy bitch
I’d already sold at least another hundred cans, but that wasn’t enough, and posts asking me to sell more flooded the gallery.
But there was one major problem.
[Mana Dumplings Owned: 500]
“So how am I supposed to deal with these?”
The profits that came back to me from selling them weren’t particularly useful.
They might have been useful if I were immersed in civilization, but while isolated like this, I had no way of knowing whether mana dumplings would be of any use.
Even from lurking in the gallery, all I knew was that they were used roughly as currency.
“...I’m sure they’ll be useful someday.”
It wasn’t as though I was losing anything, since points were easy enough to obtain, so I wasn’t particularly bothered by it.
As I was about to look at a new post, thinking I’d find a use for them someday, a strange topic began circulating in the gallery.
-So what race is the Head Mod?[5]
-Why the Head Mod Is an Elf...jpg[3]
-Putting race aside, is the Head Mod a woman?
At first, I thought it was just another ordinary topic.
It wasn’t as though strange topics only circulated through the gallery once or twice.
★ -Reasons the Head Mod Has to Be an Elf Woman[75]
“What the hell is this?”
But this topic was more serious than I’d expected.
(A picture proving the Head Mod bought bottled water)
First, look closely at this picture.
The image quality is garbage, but if you look here, you can see the ring and pinky fingers, right?
Even accounting for the blur, you can tell that the fingers are slender.
If you roughly trace the outline of the picture and remove the shaking, it comes out about this size.
(A conceptual illustration of the Head Mod’s finger)
If you look closely here, the skin is extremely pale, right?
That wouldn’t be possible unless someone stayed shut inside their house all day or it was genetic.
But in a world that’s been destroyed, staying cooped up at home means death.
That means the person was born with pale, beautiful fingers, and there’s only one race like that.
Elves.
Therefore, the Head Mod is definitely a pretty elf woman, yep.
“What the hell is this?”
In an instant, I found myself faced with a choice between being a lunatic and being a pretty elf woman, and I was left dumbfounded.
Would anyone really believe this?
But this was a gallery.
A world where normal was abnormal.
ㄴ Oh, that sounds pretty plausible
ㄴ What is this, what is this? Is the Head Mod an elf woman?
ㄴ Wasn’t the Head Mod a half-elf beauty?
ㄴ Fine, let’s say the Head Mod is a woman
ㄴ [OP] It’s not “let’s say.” It’s true. Definitely.
ㄴ Yeah, sure, whatever. But there’s no evidence the Head Mod is an elf, is there? Why are you so sure?
ㄴ [OP] Because that’s what I want.
ㄴ ??
ㄴ [OP] I can’t resist a pretty, beautiful, snow-white elf woman Head Mod.
ㄴ I thought you were the daughter of a fallen noble family, but you’re not? What a disappointment, Head Mod.
ㄴ [Head Mod☆] Want to experience a real fall from grace?
ㄴ Sorry;
I had my hand poised over the 999-day ban, but they sure were quick on the uptake.
And the speculation didn’t stop there.
The gallery was filled with nonsense about me being an elf, or secretly a dragon polymorphed into a beautiful girl.
I ignored most of the posts and was searching for something else to serve as my dopamine hit.
-(Help Request) Magical-Beast Wave Spotted in the Antares Mountains
A serious post had gone up.
*
Dwarves were the continent’s master smiths.
The weapons and armor of most heroes came from their hands, and even unbelievable structures were created by dwarves.
After the Great War, however, the dwarves also fled underground to defend themselves from the magical beasts, and that defense had reached its limit.
...or so an information post explained.
Title: Antares Mountains / Iron City Killgrot / Request for Aid in the Recapture of Area 1
Category: Help Request
(A picture of dwarves defending Killgrot Kingdom’s second wall against magical beasts)
The first wall fell yesterday.
The second wall won’t last much longer.
If we fall, you will fall too.
The magical beasts are also targeting Killgrot and relentlessly tearing into it, so we’re asking for help.
We ran out of food during the defense.
Our brothers can no longer find the strength to fight, so if you can supply food, we will not forget to repay you.
“Seeing it like this, it really hits home.”
The world in the picture was despair itself.
Thousands of magical beasts were surging over a wall as huge as a mountain.
And dwarves armed in iron were knocking magical beasts down with hammers and spears as large as themselves.
Even so, the dwarves were slowly being pushed back.
“Is it a food problem after all?”
The dwarves I saw in the picture also looked terribly thin and haggard at a glance.
They were a far cry from the dwarves I knew.
ㄴ Wow ㄷㄷ; How long has it been since we’ve seen a help request post?
ㄴ Wait, the dwarves are asking for help?
ㄴ ㄷㄷ; Look how thin those dwarves have gotten
ㄴ If they’re having trouble, what are we supposed to do?
ㄴ Fuck, I want to kill every one of those disgusting magical-beast bastards
It was only natural for the gallery’s reaction to burn hot after seeing that scene.
More than anything, it was the first help request post I had ever seen, too.
“There was a category, but no posts at all.”
I’d heard that there had been many help request posts when the Great War was raging.
But one by one, people had died or lost the war, and now all that remained was for each group to hold out in its own desperate corner.
Nobody had enough strength left to give or receive help, so they said posts in this category no longer went up.
Naturally, unlike the gallery’s anger, there was no way to help them.
-It fucking sucks having to just watch something like that
-It really is the end. We humans aren’t far behind either
-They’re enemies of us elves, but I didn’t want to see them perish like that
-I feel so powerless. This is infuriating
Even the other races were struggling at the brink of extinction.
I, too, felt powerless, as if I’d been infected by the scene, until the system window snapped me back to reality.
“No, wait. I have plenty I can do.”
The shop, and the marketplace.
I possessed a power beyond comparison with anything in this otherworld.
[Welcome to the Shop.]
[What item would you like to purchase?]
*
[Points Held: 525]
“Fortunately, I have plenty of points.”
All this time, I had been trapped in the underground storage room.
Naturally, all I could do was browse the gallery, and I had accumulated plenty of points.
The system hadn’t handed out points as generously as when I banned that first user, but 525 was more than enough for what I needed to do.
“But how do I send them?”
[Help Request category posts can receive item deliveries once per month.]
“Oh.”
Fortunately, there was nothing the system couldn’t do.
*Food
[Canned tuna] - 1 point
[Canned vegetable tuna] - 1 point
[Canned chili tuna] - 2 points
[Water 250 ml] - 1 point
.
.
.
[Canned tuna] 250 purchased!
[Water 250 ml] 250 purchased!
Remaining points: 25
“Should I send all the rest as canned tuna too?”
But I stopped myself.
Instead, remembering how everyone in the gallery had been yearning for alcohol, I entered the alcohol section.
*By country
ㄴBy brand/regular
ㄴAle/lager/other alcoholic beverages
“What the hell? When people say beer, isn’t it just draft beer, stout, and stuff like that?”
I had no idea what any of this meant.
The deeper I went into the categories, the more esoteric they became, so I grew afraid to click any further.
In the middle of that, I found one label that was easy to understand.
Discount![Draft beer 500 cc] - 3 points→1 point
“This is it.”
I ordered twenty-five 500 cc glasses of draft beer.
*
“So no help is coming after all.”
The dwarf warrior Taldru gazed at the gallery and sighed.
Half a day had already passed, yet nobody had responded to the help post he’d written.
In truth, he knew that himself.
That secretly supplying food to these rugged, winding mountains was impossible in the first place.
He had merely struggled at the final crossroads of survival.
“There sure are a disgusting number of those vile bugs.”
Despite the snow and rugged terrain of the mountain region, there were still countless magical beasts.
They had entered a brief lull, but if they attacked again, there was no way to win.
Even dwarf warriors who could each take on a hundred wouldn’t survive without sufficient food and a place to rest.
He was tightening his grip on his hammer and preparing for an honorable battle when—
[‘Head Mod’ responded to the help request post.]
“Huh?”
A gallery message appeared along with a sudden fanfare.
The dwarves who had been resting wherever they pleased around him began turning their gazes toward it.
[Taldru: What is it, Head Mod?]
[I saw you wrote a help request, yep]
[Taldru: ??]
[Anyway, I thought this might help, so I sent some. Try accepting it.]
Thud!
[The items have been safely delivered!]
Delivery boxes appeared along with a lively voice.
“What?”
“Where did these come from?”
“Is this paper? You use paper for packaging things in such large quantities?”
The dwarves, instantly piqued by curiosity, all began opening the boxes at once.
And then something caught their eyes.
“It’s booze?”
“What?”
Beautiful brown beer contained in glass—very perfectly crafted glass, at that.
At the surprised dwarf’s voice, the other dwarves craned their heads out like meerkats.
“Alcohol?”
“A lifeline?”
“Everything in my life?”
Rumble!
After several seconds of silence, countless dwarves began rushing toward the top of the wall where Taldru stood.