Chapter 64
“Oh dear, that's a serious headache.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“It's nothing to worry about. Once we drill a small hole in your head to give it some room, you'll recover in no time.”
One of Adrian's households.
The doctor examined the patient with a grave expression after hearing that he had a headache.
In truth, even if this treatment wasn't common, it wasn't exactly strange.
There were occasional cases of people being treated this way, after all.
But that no longer worked.
“What are you planning to do by opening my head?”
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“We ought to open your head first. One Tylenol tablet is all you need, and you're talking about what?”
As people's understanding of medicine advanced, nonsense no longer got anyone anywhere.
Even without knowing how it worked, one pill from Head Mod's Marketplace solved everything.
But Head Mod's Marketplace didn't always bring benefits to medieval society.
[Featured Post: Hungry.jpg]
(Meme of someone slumped over a desk with their chin propped up)
I have no strengthㅠㅠ
[Recommendations9999+] [Dislikes50]
- Lol
- May I treat you to a meal?
- (Meme of a cat with its mouth open)
- Holy shit, look how white her skin is
- She's really clean; you can see how spotless she is even through the picture
- Sisㅠㅠㅠ How are your teeth so whiiite???
A heartwarming image that warmed everyone's hearts had been uploaded as a featured post.
As always, the Gallery swarmed around the post, cheering and buzzing with excitement.
In particular, interest in beauty had exploded compared to the Gallery's early days.
Partly because most people had become able to make a decent living thanks to the Marketplace, but...
- She's really white...
- My idealㅠㅠ I want to become like that tooㅠㅠㅠ
- Wait, is that really the same person?
- Seriously, how is she that white?
Most people focused on her fair appearance.
The bathing culture spread by the Head Mod had a major influence.
Especially after the Black Death, people paid much more attention to cleanliness, and this soon led to a change in preferences.
Unlike in the past, when people thought they could simply cover themselves with strong perfume and dresses without washing,
cleanliness had become the standard of beauty.
The formula cleanliness = white = beauty had been established.
- Fuck, why does my skin look like this?
- Ah, I have so many fucking wrinkles; they're awful to look at;
- I seriously want to rip off all these age spots lol
Taking care of one's appearance had been a luxury reserved for the middle class and above before the bathing culture took hold.
Thanks to that, cleanliness had become something of a measure of wealth.
And the problem began when the author of the featured post started sharing the secret behind her appearance.
- Author) Hehe, curious?
ㄴ Yessssss
ㄴ Please tell me, please tell me
ㄴ How is your skin so white without a single wrinkle??
ㄴ Author) I've applied this every day hehe
ㄴ Author) (Meme of mercury flowing)
ㄴ Author) The effects show up quickly, too!
- But it's mercury. Is that okay?
ㄴ Author) It looks exactly like silver, but it flows, right? ^^
ㄴ Author) Since it's called flowing silver, mercury, surely it must be good for your skin, right?
ㄴ !
ㄴ It sounds plausible...!
Silver, along with gold, was the most highly prized material.
It drove away demons, was clean, didn't rust easily, and was sacred.
And as it happened, mercury was beautiful and mysterious, looking like silver in liquid form.
‘What? Mercury-kyat-hoo!’
Mercury, which had been sitting quietly, quickly rose in value until it equaled or even surpassed silver.
- Ddya! Ddyu-ddyai!
ㄴ (I'm going to become a beauty master with mercury!)
And interest in beauty soon became the catalyst for a mercury craze within the Gallery.
*
[Title: Sharing a Great Tip^^]
(Meme of pouring a little mercury into a cup)
(Meme of drinking it all in one go, with pauses at regular intervals)
You might feel repulsed at first.
But if you drink it all, ta-da
(Meme comparing skin before and after)
You can see that the wrinkles have completely disappeared!
Drink mercury and be happy ^^
- Wow, it really works. Thanks.
- Amazing tip, heavily recommended
- Mercury actually looks like a fairly high-end ingredient; it's good drizzled over fish too
ㄴ Really? It is pretty, though.
ㄴ Try spooning a little onto canned tuna and eating it. Seems okay?
It didn't take long for the mercury craze to spread.
While I was recruiting people to dispose of the chemical weapons and cleaning up the area around the rift, the craze had spread like wildfire.
The chat that came to me as soon as I had put the chemical weapons worries behind me explained everything.
[Admin Chatroom]
Full-HP Elf: Head Mod, Head Mod, come out.
Head Mod*: Yeah?
Full-HP Elf: (Meme of mercury in a bottle)
Full-HP Elf: Ta-da, I finally bought some mercury too.
Full-HP Elf: It was really hard to get, but I can share some if you want.
Head Mod*: .
Head Mod*: What the fuck?
The sub-mod attempted to make a momentous decision right in front of me.
After all the long-running gross images and tactical nukes, I wondered if their head had finally been fried.
I only realized what was going on after hurriedly catching up on the Gallery, which I had put off for several days.
People who had taken an interest in their looks had been applying mercury, eating it, and generally causing chaos.
“The dwarves are making money off this.”
In particular, mercury was being produced by the technologically skilled dwarves.
They sold the mercury they obtained in bulk to Adrian and made enormous profits.
And every bit of that income was being funneled into alcohol purchases from the Marketplace.
[Marketplace ‘Alcohol’ category temporarily closed.]
- What?
- What in the world is going on?!
- Head Mod! There's a problem here!
- Bring us some booze!
I immediately shut down alcohol sales.
I had run the Marketplace so the Gallery users wouldn't starve and could keep the Gallery active.
I wasn't some syndicate boss handling dirty money by selling a poison that slowly killed people.
[Announcement: Stop!!!]
Author: Head Mod*
(Meme of a raccoon holding out a hand decisively)
Stop.
- Ah! Why can't I move my body?
- Damn it, Head Mod, what kind of attack is this?!
- Ah lol, you can't argue with “Stop.”
- For real lol, this is one time we have to stop.
ㄴ But what are we supposed to stop?
ㄴ Head Mod*) Stop eating mercury.
I decided to go even further and ban posts in the Gallery reviewing mercury use or discussing mercury's supposed effects and efficacy.
“But I don't think words alone will accomplish anything.”
People always want to do something more when they're told not to.
I racked my brain for an effective method, but nothing came to mind.
“A way to warn them about the danger and ban mercury at the same time... Ah.”
I went into the Gallery management tab.
The Gallery doctors were still working there, receiving the salaries I paid them.
They were essentially Gallery civil servants.
[Gallery Doctors' Chatroom]
Head Mod*: I have a job related to extra pay. I'm accepting one volunteer.
I wrote up a simple post and uploaded it.
- Oh, fuck, me!
- Me me me me me111111
- Please let me do it... It's been a long-standing wish of mine...
- Actually, I'm someone who gets an incredible sense of pride and pleasure from working.
- Actually, I love working.
It wasn't difficult to find a volunteer.
*
[Announcement: Mercury-Related Announcement]
Author: Gallery Plague Doctor
(Meme of a plague doctor waving hello)
Hello, everyone.
The weather is lovely, and the birds are singing.
But I am very sad.
Why does everyone eat mercury?
Oh, what an incredible idiot.
(Video of mercury vapor being exposed to a lab rat)
(Meme of a rat slowly stiffening before dying in agony)
Look. This is extremely dangerous.
Eating mercury = death
Getting shot = death
What is the difference between eating mercury and getting shot?
Stop immediately, misguided children.
[Recommendations9999+] [Dislikes142]
- Fuck, what the—wait, the rat died?
- Huh? That's the method I usually use.
- Wait, wasn't mercury supposed to be good?
- Ah lol, do you idiots still believe this third-rate tabloid post lol? The level of propaganda you're falling for...
ㄴ He's a Gallery doctor?
ㄴ Fuck, mercury really is insane.
ㄴ Lololol, the sudden change of stance is classic.
The public trusted Gallery doctors far more than ordinary doctors.
Among them, the effect was especially great because Kellearton's celebrity, the Plague Doctor, had personally appeared and shown the results.
One experiment had more impact than explaining it a hundred or thousand times.
- Fuck, I'm going to get a refund right now.
- Ah; I've been making my skin commit suicide this whole time.
- It's a Gallery doctor, so there must be a reason.
People were disillusioned in an instant, to the point that the mercury craze seemed like it had never happened.
It was only natural, seeing as the rat had died.
The Gallery doctor had proven it personally.
Continuing to use it after that would be no different from asking to die.
- Hold on. Are rats and humans the same?
- How can you prove that was mercury vapor?
- How are you going to refute the effects on skin and beauty we've seen until now?
But as always, there were people who opposed it.
Flat Earthers and Apollo moon-landing conspiracy theorists.
Opposition for the sake of opposition.
The dwarves profiting from mercury and the religious figures taking a cut in the middle rose up in protest.
Unfortunately, their opponent was a Gallery doctor, so they couldn't silence him by force, but they still vehemently objected.
- Um, about that...
Of course, the Gallery doctor couldn't explain the reason.
They still didn't properly know what side effects mercury caused in humans.
“But what if I approached this as a 21st-century person?”
In particular, I had been a home security guard who spent twenty-four hours searching through the waves of information or killing time.
I immediately mounted a rebuttal.
[Title: Facts]
Author: Head Mod*
The fact is, your skin is getting healthier.
Normalization of the skin.
All your skin is necrosing, and the white skin is what comes out.
The wrinkles smoothing out is a temporary phenomenon caused by poor blood circulation.
- Hmm... So that's what it was?
- We sold it well because people said they'd buy anything, but we didn't know it had side effects like that.
- I feel bad about this; I had no idea it would turn out this way.
And the dwarves immediately seemed to understand and agree.
I had expected them to become stubborn once their source of income was threatened, so this was surprising.
[Title: We Will Ban Mercury Sales]
(Meme of a dwarf giving a thumbs-up)
We dwarves will no longer mine and sell mercury for cosmetic purposes.
To prevent people from using it as a superficial cover-up, we'll stop selling it for the rest of this year as well.
And they even went so far as to clean up the aftermath.
“Kya, the Dwarves really are based.”
Even when drunk, the Dwarves don't cause trouble.
The problem was the people who had swallowed the red pill.
- So what are we supposed to use to beautify ourselves now?
- ㅠㅠㅠㅠ I didn't want to know...
- Not mercury too...
- Yeah, it was nice while it lasted... What business did I have with beauty treatments?
Now that they knew the truth about mercury and no effective beauty or makeup methods remained,
the Gallery users had become as listless as zombies who had lost their way.
Some Gallery users even continued taking small amounts, saying it was okay despite knowing the side effects.
“Hmm, is it really that serious?”
Their interest in beauty was higher than I had expected.
I turned my gaze away from the system and looked at the lotion on the shelf beside my bed.
Something that belonged among the most basic necessities.
“Should I try selling that first?”
[A new item has been added to the Marketplace!]
I registered an item in the Marketplace to serve as a substitute for mercury.