Season 4: Chapter 87. Paprika vs Almond (3)
The viewers couldn’t believe their eyes when the dragon’s shadow first loomed over the sky.
— ??
— Why is there a dragon all of a sudden??
— Wait... is that the dragon...?
A creature like that shouldn’t have existed at this stage, and yet, it was there. Then, the chat began to remember.
— Didn’t RubySword summon that earlier? lol
That same dragon had been summoned earlier through a viewer donation. It had followed Almond all the way here. In Survival Craft, monsters could remember getting hit, especially high-level ones. The stronger they were, the more obsessive they became.
The dragon hadn’t forgotten. Even if the blow it received from Almond came from a toothpick or a sword, that was an unforgivable humiliation. It had chased him down and unleashed its fire.
“KRAAAAAAAAAH!!!”
Fortunately, it only unleashed a single blast of flames before flying off as if to say, “We’re even now.” Of course, that was the dragon’s standard of getting even.
— Holy crap
— Bro
— It’s over
— Help
— Please save us
“UAAAAAAAHHHH!!”
For humans, that fire was anything but fair. It didn’t just target Almond. It swept through the entire plaza and incinerated the Paprika villagers, most of whom had nothing to do with the dragon at all. By a stroke of luck, only Almond survived.
[Frozen status removed]
Because of the frozen debuff, he had been immune to the fire damage.
— ?
— Wait, he survived??
— HOW is he still alive?
— Was that really the dragon?
— LMAOOOOO
— Unbelievable
EggPlant had tried to kill Almond with a status effect. Ironically, that very debuff saved Almond’s life. Meanwhile, everyone else was reduced to ashes.
— Did EggPlant just save him?
— EggPlant is a god!
— Gospel of EggPlant, chapter 1 verse 3: Even in trials, thou shalt not doubt...
Viewers began calling him EggPlant the Divine and praised his perfectly timed chaos. Even EggPlant himself seemed shocked. He followed up with another donation.
[EggPlant has donated 3,000 won.]
[Let there be light.]
— LOL
— EggPlant is our savior!
— EGGPLANT SAMA
— Lmao more like Ruby cleaned up EggPlant’s mess
— Superstar EggPlant incoming!!
EggPlant’s ego soared.
“Wow.” Almond took a deep breath and declared, “EggPlant. Banned.”
He didn’t acknowledge the miracle.
— LOLOLOLOLOL
— DEAD!!
— A man of principle
— EggPlant... stand down!
— He really banned him lmaoo
— Cold-blooded king
— He thought the dragon saved him? LMAO
— Nietzsche said, “God is dead.” Yes. And he died single.
***
Backstage, the sudden flood of messages startled even the game moderators.
[js002 has been reduced to ashes.]
[oto8 has been reduced to ashes.]
[38837 has been reduced to ashes.]
[9993hj has been reduced to ashes.]
[aimjh221 has been reduced to ashes.]
...
“W-What is this kill log?”
“Huh?”
“What the hell just happened?”
The in-game moderators, Game Masters (GMs), managed the village server from the inside. They didn’t oversee everything like the dev team did. In fact, they didn’t even know about Paprika Village’s existence.
“Did they all just die at once?”
The kill feed made no sense.
“Was it that thing? Someone pulled a random monster and got a dragon?”
“Maybe... but where? I didn’t see one. And who are these usernames?”
The developers had intentionally kept Paprika Village completely secret even from the mods.
“Maybe it’s a hidden feature? Or a bug?”
“Should we ask the Village Chief?”
Surely Choi Da-Hee, a Cheese executive also roleplaying as the village chief, would know what was going on. However, she was currently logged out.
“She’s out right now.”
“Hmm...”
“Guess she didn’t tell us on purpose.”
“Yeah. Looks like nobody here was in on it.”
No one among the mods knew what had happened. That was almost the case. In a quiet corner of the map, someone noticed the kill feed and froze in place.
‘No way...’
Only one other person knew about Paprika’s existence. Even though he technically wasn’t a real GM, he acted as one for the opening day.
[Walnut]
A giant walnut-headed avatar, Kim Ju-Hyeok, also knew about the hidden village.
‘Those are the Paprika players.’
Ju-Hyeok was closer to the devs than the mods, but knowing about the village didn’t help him make sense of the kill log.
‘This shouldn’t be possible.’
The more he knew about Paprika, the more he found it preposterous. Everyone in Paprika had just burned to death?
‘What in the world is going on...?’
The Paprika villagers didn’t have access to donation services like buffs or the monster summoning. How did a dragon that only appeared in dungeons show up there and kill everyone at once?
“Oh? Mr. Walnut!”
A familiar voice approached him.
[Miho]
“Ah, Miho.”
“Kyaa! It’s really Walnut! How did you make this avatar?” She tapped his oversized walnut head playfully.
“Ahaha... Cheese made it for me.”
“Ohh, I see! I’m working on my farm right now, but I’m stuck. Can you help me?” She gestured toward her lot.
“Sure, of course.”
Miho had set up a small patch of farmland, choosing to farm first before building a house. It was a solid early-game strategy. At this stage of the server, she was only planting potatoes.
“I got the seeds from the village NPC, but like... they’re barely growing. One out of three won’t even sprout.”
Walnut didn’t know much about Survival Craft, but he was an expert on the Cheese Village’s custom systems. After all, he had helped design them.
“Got it. Give me a second.”
Thunk.
He dug up a tile of dirt, which turned into a block in his inventory.
[Dirt]
Everything in the game could be harvested into cube items, typical Survival Craft mechanics.
‘Just by the color, I can already guess...’
The soil looked nearly white like pale sand. He brought it close and checked the details.
==== ====
[Detailed Info]
Contains 50% sand
Low nutrients
Low crop yield
==== ====
“Ah, thought so. It’s the soil.”
“The soil?”
“To farm properly, you need to replace this dirt with proper soil. This stuff barely has any nutrients, and it’s mixed with sand. No wonder your crops won’t grow.”
“Whaaaat...?” Miho looked devastated. “I already planted everything...”
Walnut waved reassuringly. “It’s fine. It’s still early. Just harvest what you can from these and replace the soil.”
“What kind of soil is best?”
He opened the admin guidebook. “Let’s see... the best one...”
He scrolled for a while before answering.
‘Can’t tell her about hidden content. Better stick to what's available.’
“There’s something called fertile soil. It has a three-hundred percent success rate.”
“Three hundred percent?!”
“Yep, that means up to three times the harvest from one tile.”
Miho’s eyes went wide. “Th-Three times... from one square?”
Right now, she would be lucky if even one sprout grew per tile.
“How does it look?”
“It’s jet black like completely dark, but it’s still soil if you dig it up.”
Miho had never seen soil like that before. In fact, nothing even remotely looked like that in the entire village.
“Um... that kind of soil isn’t found in the village, right?”
“No, definitely not. It doesn’t spawn naturally. There’s a rumor that fire can create it, but...”
“Fire, you say?”
Whoosh!
A torch appeared in Miho’s hand.
“So if I just burn everything down, problem solved?!” Her eyes practically lit up with flames of their own. Clearly, the stress from farming had been weighing heavily on her.
Walnut quickly waved in alarm. “N-No! It’s not just about lighting fires. Once a fire starts, you can’t control it! It’s not safe inside the village. And besides, fertile soil is endgame material. For now, try creating agricultural soil first.”
Agricultural soil could be made by digging deep or mixing fertilizer. It required effort, but it was doable.
“Wow! Thank you! You really know your stuff!”
“Well, I helped design this system. Hahaha!” Walnut beamed at her praise.
Then, Miho leaned in with a little grin. “Um, Mr. Walnut... do you happen to know where Almond is? Hehe.”
Walnut snapped back to full alert. “Ahem!”
Miho jumped at the sudden sternness in his voice, and so did the viewers in her chat.
— ?
— What was that? lol
— That caught me off guard
— AHEM in medieval Korean vibes lmao
— Why’s he suddenly acting like a drama character
“No mixing real life with the game!” Walnut raised a flat palm like a judge slamming a gavel.
“Gasp! Th-That’s not what I meant...”
“No excuses.”
“R-Right. Got it...”
“Please follow the rules.”
“Y-Yes...”
“If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.”
“O-Okay... I’m sorry!”
Head bowed in shame, Miho waddled back to her plot and resumed planting potatoes.
— LMAO
— Is this what being a GM looks like?
— Miho getting scolded is too cute
— She really got told off LOL
Snap!
Walnut spun around and strode off confidently.
‘What the heck just happened?’
He felt a little shocked at himself too.
‘Did I just tell Miho off?’
He usually found it hard to say no to her, but he’d done it without hesitation this time. He looked back and saw her tiny chibi character clumsily struggling to plant potatoes.
‘Ah, that’s why. No seduction effect!’
She wasn’t a sleek and tall supermodel character. Just an adorable, squishy cartoon avatar in Survival Craft with no room for charm or bias. Without her beauty clouding his judgment, Walnut’s real personality had surfaced.
‘I can’t believe it. Damn that Yu Sang-Hyeon.’
Just how much had that guy gotten away with using his looks alone?! Walnut clenched his cotton candy-like fist.
‘I hope he gets stuck farming in nothing but sand soil forever.’
***
Farming had become the go-to first job for most players in Cheese Village. Now, thanks to Walnut’s offhanded tip, rumors of fertile soil spread like wildfire.
[Bubblegum: Anyone know anything about the fertile soil?]
Players now asked about it in the server chat.
[Takoyaki: Bro, I’m telling you, it doesn’t exist yet.]
[CutiePie: If you keep chasing freebies, you’ll turn into Takoyaki yourself, Bubblegum~]
[Miho: You’ve gotta earn it, oppa.]
[Zelo: Just let it be, man.]
[BlackTea: Let’s not rely on luck. Only hard work and dedication!]
Opinions on the fertile soil were split. Some saw it as a lottery ticket for the lazy. Others believed it already existed, buried somewhere in a hidden patch of land and just waiting to be harvested.
[AcornJelly: Fertile soil is real. You won’t find it just grinding randomly.]
[BlackTea: Ugh. The fertile truthers are back.]
A myth had formed around a place called All Black[1], a mysterious patch of jet-black soil, said to hold the answer to all farming woes. Acorn Jelly and Bubblegum were its biggest evangelists.
[WhiteChicken: Here we go again. Acorn and his perfect shot lol]
[AcornJelly: Don’t act like it didn’t happen! You saw that shot!]
[Bubblegum: My boy Acorn gets it. All Black is real, okay? Farming wouldn’t be this hard otherwise.]
[AcornJelly: Exactly, hyung.]
[Bubblegum: I’m telling you, they have to include it. There’s no way farming was meant to be this painful.]
[PickledRadish: Why is it always the bad farmers hunting for fertile soil? LMAO]
Honestly, farming wasn’t that difficult. Bubblegum was just bad at it.
[Miho: LOL oppa just keep farming! You’ll hit Agricultural Soil in no time.]
However, even the skeptics kept a tiny seed of hope in their hearts because they wanted that perfect plot of soil too.
***
Meanwhile, back in Paprika Village, Almond looted the gear left behind by the deceased. The mountain of iron equipment was way beyond what anyone in Cheese Village could dream of having at this point.
“Wow. How many is this... huh?”
Squish.
Something felt off underneath him. His boot sank deeper than expected. The ground felt strangely soft, almost cushioned.
‘What the...?’
The soil had clearly changed. What had once been hard-packed stone and iron ore had transformed.
“Hang on...”
He took a pickaxe and struck the ground.
Thunk.
A dark cube popped out, and he tilted his head at it.
[Fertile Soil]
It was the soil born from fire and corpses, a dark harvest born of ashes and death.
— ?
— Wait, it changed?
— Yo is that a good thing??
— LMAOOOOOO did he just compost people with dragon fire
— So the corpses made the soil fertile??
— ??? “It’s rich soil. Don’t ask where the nutrients came from.”
1. A One Piece reference to All Blue, a rumored legendary sea where all other seas meet. ☜