Season 4: Chapter 91. Giant Merchant (1)
Ji-Ah’s eyes went wide during Almond’s attack on Paprika Village.
“How much is that even?”
Donations kept pouring in. Not by the second, but every 0.1 seconds. Ji-Ah had edited Almond’s videos for a long time, but she’d never seen anything like this. An endless stream of donations and spirit bomb emotes flooded the screen without pause.
“Insane.”
She had to upload this scene to YouTube. Sure, she could wait for the VOD and cut it later, but sometimes it was better to push it on the spot to boost live viewership. Like during the Ghostwo Busters event, uploading shorts mid-stream had brought a huge surge of new viewers.
“How many are watching live right now...?”
[Current Viewers: 137,000]
Hovering just below 140K, it was still lower than during Ghostwo Busters. This was likely because the Cheese Village event had its own main broadcast channel, and casual fans of Almond had migrated there instead.
‘So the real core fanbase is around 100K...’
In Ji-Ah’s eyes, that was Almond’s current steady viewership, maybe even less. Compared to Zelo, whose core fanbase sat at a massive 200K, and who was currently streaming Survival Craft with those numbers, the gap was undeniable even with Almond pulling this much hype.
‘Yeah... Zelo really is on another level.’
Still, Zelo had carved his own place in Cheese Village. He created buzz his way and kept viewers entertained.
‘Gotta boost Almond’s momentum.’
To be clear, Ji-Ah didn’t make any profit from real-time editing. Almond’s rising live numbers didn’t mean more income for her, but she had started as a fan. For her, this was about more than just revenue.
‘All these comparisons are getting on my nerves.’
[Nuts gang is just loud. Zelo is crushing him in viewership LOL]
[Zelo’s viewers are cracked]
[LOL Zelo farming arc, this is what GOAT content looks like]
[Zelo grabbing NPCs by the collar in real time LMAO]
Events like Cheese Village looked like festivals on the surface, but they were battlegrounds behind the scenes.
[You still watch that washed-up fake Zelo?]
[Almond should beat Bubblegum before dreaming about Zelo LOL]
[All Zelo has is numbers. No substance.]
[Nut Gang vs. Zelo Stans? Let’s go full chaos!]
The rise of Almond’s toxic fanbase, the Nut Gang, clashed head-on with Zelo’s dominant fanbase, the Zellys.
[Lore collision unlocked LOL]
[Never thought I’d see them actually go at it]
Until now, their paths hadn’t crossed. All eyes were on which streamer would grab the most attention and rise to the top of this jungle-like collaborative event. Even if the streamers themselves weren’t gunning for it, the fans sure were. Ji-Ah was no exception.
‘All we gotta do... is match Zelo’s live numbers.’
She threw herself into editing with desperate focus.
‘Done.’
Within an hour, she had cut the clip and uploaded it.
[Short: Even the Constellations Are Obsessed With Me (no Face ID used)]
She added a pinned comment.
— He’s still live right now! Come watch Cheese Village’s chaotic king Almond in action! (link) <<< Click now!
└ Wait, chaotic king?? What content is this??
└ Yu Sang-Hyeon is a chaotic king now?? I’m IN.
└ It says chaotic king, not king of chaos, you filthy-minded people LOL
Other comments began to trickle in.
— The constellations are obsessed with him... is he secretly related to Yu Joong-Hyuk?
└ LOL good one
└ Wait, same surname now that you mention it
— Insane, that edit was nuts
— I wanna throw my own spirit bomb now!
Satisfied, Ji-Ah lay back down to watch Almond’s stream.
‘I’m getting sleepy... Wonder how much that boosted his view count.’
Back in Ghostwo Busters, this strategy had worked great. She was hopeful.
“Eh!?”
Then, Ji-Ah sprang up from her bed like a compressed spring.
“What the hell is this?!”
***
“What the hell is this?!”
That very same scream echoed across Paprika Village.
“Are we seriously not able to farm?!”
The land was so packed with iron ore that crops refused to grow.
“This is way too inefficient. I’d rather just pay an NPC for food or hunt monsters.”
Bringing in soil from outside the village would be useless. All nearby land was equally barren. Someone would have to go much farther out.
“Hey! Over here!”
A voice called for the villagers.
[Parsley]
A streamer who specialized in Survival Craft stood in the center of what had become known as the Plaza of Mourning. Named by the villagers themselves, countless players had fallen at this site. Parsley began to dig there.
Thud.
“Look at this soil.”
She held up black soil unlike anything they’d ever seen.
[Fertile Soil]
Everyone gathered around and stared at the label in shock.
“Wh-What the...?”
“No wonder our farming was complete garbage...”
“This exists? Are you serious?”
Most of the Paprika residents had never even seen standard soil. This felt beyond shocking and deeply demoralizing.
“This came from the ground here? Let’s dig up more and share it for village farming!”
Parsley shook her head. “No.”
“Why? Is it because this is a sacred spot or something...?”
“No, it’s not that. There’s just... not enough.”
“Not enough?”
“There are only about twelve blocks left.”
“What? But you just dug up that whole patch!”
A wide crater stretched behind her, clear evidence that a massive quantity of soil had been excavated.
“That’s how it was when I got here.”
“It was him.” She lowered her head. “That unknown guy took it all.”
Every villager’s eyes darkened.
“Th-That shameless bastard! He even took the land nourished by our blood?!”
“Wait... were we used as fertilizer?”
Parsley sighed. “Let’s at least use what’s left. This soil... It’s literally our blood and sweat. Treat it with respect.”
“Y-You’re right. Literally.”
The metaphor had never been more literal. The villagers bowed their heads in a moment of mourning.
Parsley looked around at them and made another suggestion. “We won’t be able to farm beyond these twelve blocks. Let’s all become miners instead.”
“M-Miners?”
“Yeah. That way, we can rebuild our gear. With just a little Survival Craft skill, miners are better off than farmers. It’s high risk, high reward. You just have to dodge the monsters while digging.”
“B-But Parsley, we lost everything! Our gear is gone!” Black Pepper chimed in from the side, clearly frustrated.
“Mining without gear means you’ll start from scratch all over again if you die!”
They all knew that miners who died would lose everything. They had no gear, no backup, no mercy, and no solution.
“Then just don’t die.”
Everyone’s eyes shook.
“Is there any other option?”
No one answered. This was their reality now, dark as a mine tunnel.
“Dammit.”
“All because of that damn Dragon Knight...”
“Attention! Hey! Everyone look here!” Orange ran up, breathless.
He’d just come from a meeting with Shrimp, the village’s new de facto leader.
“The council agrees. Mining is the way to go. We’ve got enough iron in the local mines to rebuild gear fast. According to our scouts, Cheese Village still uses wooden tools. We can still win if we widen that gap now.”
It echoed what Parsley had already said, but Orange and Shrimp had a bigger plan.
“We probably can’t beat the Dragon Knight directly.”
“Yeah...”
“So we hit Cheese Village first.”
“Wait, what?”
“That’s right. We use them to build our foundation...” Orange laid out the strategy.
“Ooooh...”
“Oh?”
“Now that you say it... yeah. We can’t just brute force the Dragon Knight.”
Step one: they would trample Cheese. Step two: they would dethrone the Dragon Knight. That was their new master plan.
“To do that, we all need to become miners.”
Thunk.
Orange dropped a pile of pickaxes that Shrimp had prepared.
“W-Wait. These...”
“Did you guys... make all these?”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa.”
[Iron Pickaxe]
Even in the early game, just making one mining-grade pickaxe from iron ore took serious effort. Now they were being handed out for free.
“We’re all in this together now.” Orange solemnly said with conviction.
“Kuh... This is it.”
“Pure loyalty!”
Clack!
They all raised their pickaxes together.
Orange shouted thunderously, “Though we were born on different days, we shall die as one!!”
“As one!!”
“UAAAAHHH!!”
Clang!
Countless pickaxes shot toward the sky. Paprika had united around one shared enemy: Almond.
PD Jang, watching the feed, scratched his head. “This is... the exact opposite of what we planned, isn’t it?”
“Right? We wanted Cheese Village to unite in the face of Paprika’s aggression...”
“Ahem. Well, it’s still organic. Let’s roll with it.”
“We don’t have much of a choice, do we?”
The production team had laid out Cheese Village’s setting, but the streamers controlled the storytelling. Any attempt to intervene would break immersion for both viewers and streamers alike. At most, they could gently nudge things behind the scenes, but never directly.
***
Meanwhile, everyone in Cheese Village also shouted the same thing.
“Fertile Soil?”
“Wait, that was real?”
“The legendary soil?!”
“A divine land exists?!”
“Did he just find One Piece before Luffy did?!”
The story grew more and more distorted, but the news began spreading throughout the village.
“Perfect Farm is real!!!” Acorn Jelly, ecstatic that his theory had been validated, screamed it at the top of his lungs.
At this point, not knowing about it was impossible.
“Whoa. Where did you get that?”
“Oppa, really? Just let us see it once, please.”
“Wow. Can I just take a look?”
The other villagers began swarming Almond, begging for a peek at the soil. He instinctively took a step back.
‘They’re this obsessed...’
The thirst for Fertile Soil was far more intense than he expected.
“O-Oppa? Why are you backing away?”
— Miho is scary LOL
— Farming has gotten way too serious
— What are they growing? Seriously, this isn’t about crops anymore
— Their eyes are wild LOL
Human nature was like that. Once people started something, they didn’t just want to do it. They wanted to win at it. At the very least, they wanted to beat the person farming next door. It had turned into a low-key competition like college entrance exams, but for agriculture.
— Black Tea has like 2 boxes now. Miho’s kinda slow~
— Bubblegum is practically a potato, just go bury yourself in the field.
— Sweet Radish’s crop yield is insane right now. Three whole boxes of sweet potatoes.
With this kind of commentary floating through the chat, it was hard not to feel the pressure.
“If... if I just had Fertile Soil...!”
“Fertiiiile... huuurgh...”
— Zombies LOL
— Fertile zombies, I'm crying
— They’ve lost their minds LOL
— Everyone’s gone mad
In an insane world, anyone not equally unhinged would be dead. Almond came to that conclusion.
“Just a moment. I’ll take it out.”
“Ooh!”
Shwing.
Instead of soil, Almond drew his sword.
“Eek!”
Their eyes widened at seeing an iron sword for the first time. A few shrieked in surprise.
“Step back. Everyone back.”
“Whoa there, whoa!”
— LMAOOOO
— Didn’t he say soil??
— Every word out of his mouth is a lie LOL
— Even I got jump-scared LOL
The crowd backed off a little.
“Here you go.”
Plop.
Almond placed the Fertile Soil cube in his hand. Gasps erupted around him.
“Ooooooh!”
“Wow. Unreal...”
“Holy, what is that? It’s like five times better than normal?”
They opened the item info and couldn’t believe the stats.
“I-I’ll buy it! How much?”
“Sell it to me! Please!”
Rush!
Despite his sword, they charged at him all over again.
“Oppa! Sell it to me! I almost fainted cheering for you during the world championship!”
“Don’t bring real life into this, sis!”
“Put it up for auction! Auction it!!”
It was total chaos.
‘What price should I even ask for?’
Almond had no idea about its local market rate.
The server was only on Day 1. No economy had settled in yet.
“For now...” He put the soil back into his inventory and raised his hand. “I’m logging off.”
“Huh?”
Boop.
[Logged Out]
Almond suddenly vanished from the village without warning.
“WHAT?!”
“NOOOOOO!!!”
“You’re leaving now?!”
“WHERE DOES HE LIVE?!”
“Just tell us where you dug it up!!!”
— ?
— I’m losing it LOL
— Wait what
— We got played
— You’re ending it now?!
— I just joined from the shorts T_T