Chapter 70
[Title: I Was Wrong]
Author: Duke's Proxy
I prided myself on being an intellectual.
Because I knew everything, I thought what I was doing was right.
But I was wrong,
and Head Mod was right.
As a person of principle, I couldn't change the world.
So what should I do?
[Recommendations15] [Dislikes5]
- Hmm, I'll give it three points.
- Is this just another late-night sentimental post?
- I'm getting the urge to say something harsh...
ㄴ Lol, I'll hold back because it's Duke's Proxy.
ㄴ At least he's not the kind of noble who preaches one thing and does another.
“What the hell is this now...”
A post went up in the middle of the night.
Its author was Duke's Proxy Mark.
Put charitably, it was full of anguish and introspection; less charitably, it was a late-night emotional crap post.
Had he been drinking?
I turned my attention to the popular posts.
The Gallery—a cradle of pleasure where every provocative and horrifying chimera in the world, and countless other aberrations, ran rampant.
- I Own 100 of Every Type of Canned Tuna.jpg[47]
- Jealous Jealous, Calculating the Gallery Doctor's Hourly Wage[102]
- Taking Lunch Recommendations Today[57]
- When Are You Posting Another Wholesome Chaste Post!!!!![422]
“It's just everyday life.”
But that was precisely what made it fun.
It had already been five hours since I started reading through the popular posts.
- Bought Storybooks and Wrote a Review...jpg [97]
- Fuck, What Is Life? [102]
- I Wonder If I've Really Lived Properly [53]
“Wha?”
The popular posts began to get strange.
*
I released storybooks on the Marketplace.
Everything started from there.
[Title: Bought the New Marketplace Product!!!]
(Picture verifying two storybooks)
I even managed to buy both of them lol
Wooooo!
I'll read them and leave a review.
- When will I ever get to own one?
- (Screaming elf emote)
- You bastard, I'm so fucking jealous
- The Marketplace is an investment. No matter what you buy, you come out ahead, whether you sell it or use it yourself.
ㄴ Jealous youth.
A new product was posted on the Marketplace.
Naturally, it sold out within minutes of being listed.
Was it because the storybooks were priced at around ten mana dumplings per volume?
Even an ordinary commoner could afford one if they wanted to indulge a little.
And about two hours after they sold out, strange posts began to take over the popular posts.
[Title: I Was Too Stiff a Person]
(Picture of the final scene of The Little Match Girl)
This wasn't an ordinary story; this was reality.
Somewhere in the world, as the Little Match Girl was dying while thinking of her grandmother,
I was a piece of trash like the girl's uncle, too busy hiding a can of tuna and eating it by myself.
I was trash.
- Lol, Stiff Young Man.
ㄴ Author) Fuck you, get into the mood.
- No, what the fuck is this?
- No, why the hell are all the latest popular posts like this?
- Head Mod has unleashed poison!
ㄴ No. Head Mod merely showed me that I was the poison. Perhaps I was no different from the Little Match Girl's cruel uncle.
ㄴ Aaagh, fuck, stop the text gore!
ㄴ Please, stop using periods!
ㄴ Fuuuck aaaagh!!!
“No.”
My head began to throb.
How long had it been since I had seen a tactical nuke made of text instead of a picture?
I felt equal parts wonder, admiration, and disgust at the fact that someone could take a shit in writing.
- Next chapter... next chapter...
- Head Mod really is a god.
- Grand Mage literary half-elf pretty-girl Head Mod
- But seriously, setting aside the Gallery, this is making me tear up...
The Gallery knew nothing of literature.
They were too preoccupied with survival, worrying about what to eat for lunch today and tomorrow.
A classic masterpiece dropped into a place like that was nothing short of a literary nuclear bomb.
[Admin Chat]
Die-Standing-After-All: Head Mod, wake up. Wake up!
Die-Standing-After-All: (Vampire emote clutching fist and sobbing)
Die-Standing-After-All: Poor Anna... Bring Anna back to life.
Full-Health-Elf: That's right, you bad Head Mod.
Full-Health-Elf: Bring Anna back to life!!
Head Mod*: .
It wasn't even a fairy tale I'd written.
And I had no intention of adapting it for no reason, either.
Who was I to tamper with a classic work of literature?
Instead, I left a little note of my own in response to the Gallery's torrent of complaints.
- Head Mod*) T-To be honest, I think the fairy tale was completed by its tragic ending...
The Little Match Girl ended with a tragic conclusion.
But I thought that was precisely why it had been etched more deeply into people's hearts and moved them to change.
Could it really have become a masterpiece with a happily-ever-after ending?
- Head Mod, Head Mod, what the fuck are you talking about?
- What? You little...
- As expected of Head Mod.
- Anna is like my little sister.
ㄴ Fuck, bring her back to life!!!
Of course, whether the Gallery users accepted that was another matter.
I released two fairy tales on the Marketplace in total.
One was The Little Match Girl.
The other was A Dog of Flanders.
Their one thing in common was that both were indisputable masterpieces still discussed in the modern era.
The other was...
- Bring Patrash back to life!
ㄴ I won't say it twice.
- I'm genuinely curious.
ㄴ Head Mod, can you handle this?
ㄴ Is this because you can handle my shit?
ㄴ Why are you handling shit in the first place?
ㄴ Why the fuck would Head Mod handle your shit?
ㄴ The captain can't contain his rage...
Both ended with death.
With their fluffy art styles and cheerful atmospheres, everyone expected happy endings.
But what they got was a death ending.
The Gallery couldn't withstand the emotional damage.
The next step was posts trying to threaten me, and even negotiate with me.
- Head Mod oppa ㅠㅠ Are you really going to do this?
- What do you want! What do you want, ㅠㅠ? Should I post a picture or something?
- Wholesome Chaste) Hear, hear! That's too cruel! ㅠ3ㅠ
ㄴ Busted.
ㄴ When are you posting!!!
ㄴ Head Mod*) You're being even more unreasonable.
ㄴ Head Mod*) Are you really going to hurt my feelings like this?
ㄴ Wholesome Chaste) ^u^;
The primary party to the negotiations, however, was nowhere near the table.
“This is working better than I expected.”
It wasn't purely a bad influence, either.
If anything, the positive effects stood out more.
The first of those was that Gallery users began doing good deeds after reading the storybooks.
[Popular Post: Found a Beggar on the Street lol]
(Picture of a hungry, shivering girl)
(Picture of taking her to a restaurant and treating her to a full-course meal)
(Picture of a little girl smiling happily)
Ah lol, how dare you go hungry in front of me?
And you even look exactly like Anna from The Little Match Girl lol
I asked around, and apparently she has neither parents nor a name.
So I gave her a name myself lol
From today on, her name is Anna.
I'll make sure she doesn't even dream of going hungry or suffering until the day I die. Yep.
[Recommendations7531] [Dislikes12]
- His way of talking is that of an absolute scumbag, but his actions are angelic?
- You'll go to heaven even after you die, you fucking bastard.
ㄴ Author) Thanks, you fucking bastard.
ㄴ What the hell kind of conversation is this?
ㄴ Such heartwarming words from the Gallery's real men.
They had begun helping other people.
Although the food problem had been greatly alleviated thanks to the Marketplace, it still had limits.
Literally, if you didn't have mana dumplings, you couldn't buy anything, no matter how cheap it was.
But Gallery users who had been emotionally scarred by the tragic endings in the fairy tales wanted to create happy endings in the real world.
The result soon led to fewer deaths per day.
“No way, did the death toll really drop this much?”
Gallery statistics: Several last words and lamentation posts used to go up every day.
The frequency of such posts had dropped to almost nothing.
Deaths at the hands of monsters couldn't be helped, but
at least people were no longer starving to death inside the city at the hands of other people.
“This is incredibly effective.”
Should I release another book?
This time, there was a fairy tale I had already been thinking of.
If the previous books had been easy, light fairy tales, this time I planned to release a novel.
Its title was Les Misérables.
I finished bulk-buying the novel better known as Jean Valjean so I could register it on the Marketplace.
All I had to do now was list it.
- Commoners, unite!
- An end to aristocratic society!
- Has Head Mod ever been wrong? There must be a good reason behind this ideology.
“What the—”
Even stranger Gallery users began to appear.
“Is this a new meme?”
I wondered if it was some new trend I didn't know about.
But it wasn't. The Gallery users were serious.
- All people are equal.
- Stand up—you too!
Even the slogans were ominous.
Getting a bad feeling, I checked the items listed on the Marketplace and found a strange one mixed in.
[Collection of 3 Books] - 30 mana dumplings
1. Fairy Tale ‘The Little Match Girl’
2. Fairy Tale ‘A Dog of Flanders’
3. Bestseller ‘Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism’
“What the fuck is this?”
It was supposed to be three random books from the Fairy Tales/Bestsellers category.
[Category – Fairy Tales/Bestsellers]
[3 Random Books] - 30P
But it was only after checking again that I realized what it meant.
Fairy tales and bestsellers.
“S-System, what are you trying to say?”
Just then, something flashed through my mind.
The random three-book bulk order I had placed this time had given me two fairy tales and Imperialism.
But perhaps that had been a good thing.
On a hunch, I entered the Fairy Tales/Bestsellers category on the Marketplace,
and ended up spotting that ‘book’ fairly high up on the list.
[Mein Kampf] - 25P
First published on July 18, 1925
Early 1900s bestseller
“Oh...”
Did this mean that, depending on the odds, this could have been distributed too?
Looking back, Imperialism was a saint by comparison.
*
“Hmm... Hmmm...”
Duke's Proxy Mark.
He was deep in thought in his office, brow furrowed.
“It is an extremely progressive idea. But its flaws are equally clear.”
Adrian's failure.
The emperor's madness and Duke Isaac's involvement.
The resulting devastation of Phron as well.
If a small number of people held decision-making power, the country would eventually decline.
Who could have guessed that the great empire would collapse under the joint efforts of two men?
“But in the end, this would probably be similar.”
Everyone strives toward a common goal under the belief that all are equal.
But who sets the goal?
Who decides how it should be set, to what extent, and whether the goal decided upon is correct?
Duke's Proxy Mark had been influenced by this red book, but he couldn't put it into practice recklessly.
But then the answer suddenly occurred to him.
Who was the person who had released this book on the Marketplace?
“Wait!”
-Bang!
Two questions arose in Mark's mind as he sprang abruptly to his feet.
What if Head Mod wasn't merely one of the few people holding decision-making power?
What if, as the book said, Head Mod considered himself both the representative of the collective and a member of it?
“The Marketplace...”
Moreover, Head Mod possessed a magical ability through the Marketplace to turn any product or mana dumpling into something else.
The answer to the problem was Head Mod.
And there was only one thing Mark could say after finding the answer.
“An end to this system!”
The Phron region began to turn red.