Season 4: Chapter 92. Giant Merchant (2)
“People have been looking for Fertile Soil.”
Two moderators, Camembert and Mozzarella, strolled through the village.
“Yeah, I heard Walnut might’ve tipped them off.”
“Hm. Not that they’ll find any. It’s not out there.”
“Right, you have to make it. Some of them seem to think it’s just hidden somewhere, especially Bubblegum and Acorn Jelly.”
Camembert scoffed and chuckled. “Of course, it’s them. Those two are the laziest ones here.”
Mozzarella giggled. “Exactly. They just don’t want to go through the hassle of crafting it. They think they can just stumble on it somewhere. Ugh. Even if someone started working on it now, it wouldn’t show up until at least Day 5.”
“And that’s the fastest case. We tuned the balance so it wouldn’t appear too early. It’d be totally busted. Just one block of that stuff is basically useless.”
“Right, you’d need at least forty to fifty blocks before you can call it a proper farm.”
“Even with that much... you’d instantly become the richest farmer in the village.”
Forty to fifty blocks of Fertile Soil yielded the same as nearly five hundred blocks of regular soil. Plus, with all that saved land cost, the economic value was off the charts. No way they’d let something like that appear on Day 1. From the moderators’ perspective, Bubblegum and Acorn Jelly were being completely delusional.
“Maybe they’re just putting on a show for the viewers.”
It felt like some kind of roleplay adventure with the theme of searching for the mythical Fertile Soil.
“Yeah, it’s just a running joke...”
Then, it happened.
“I TOLD YOUUUUUU!!” Acorn Jelly’s shout echoed throughout the village.
The two moderators quickened their pace. Had a fight broken out?
“FERTILE SOIL EXISTS!! PERFECT FARM IS REAAAL!!”
They exchanged wide-eyed looks.
“W-What’s he talking about...?”
“Maybe it’s just a heated argument?”
Maybe Acorn Jelly just yelled that during a debate over whether Fertile Soil existed or not?
Ding!
[Bubblegum: Almond has Fertile Soil!!]
A message appeared in the server-wide chat.
The two mods broke into a sprint toward the source of the noise.
Thud thud thud!
A massive crowd had gathered, chattering like something had exploded.
“A-Anyone care to explain what’s going on?!”
“Where did this ridiculous rumor even come from?!”
Whip!
Acorn Jelly turned around with blazing eyes. “Ridiculous? Did you just say ridiculous, Mr. Moderator?”
“W-What?”
“This is exactly why kids stop dreaming! In this country! In our Cheese Village!!”
— Are there even kids in Cheese Village LOL
— Dude what
— Fact: Acorn Jelly has the mental age of a child
— This guy is being unhinged again LOL
— Look at those tense shoulders LMAO
“I knew, okay?” Acorn Jelly stepped in close to the mods, his face filled with certainty.
“M-Mr. Acorn... you’re kind of scaring me...” Mozzarella instinctively took a step back.
“I trusted you people! You used your moderator status to lie to me! And to sweet, innocent Bubblegum here!”
— Sweet and innocent LOL
— Bubblegum’s face right now is killing me
— What is even happening right now?
— I’m losing it!
“W-What are you even saying?!” Camembert cut in, flustered. “What did we lie about?!”
“THIS!!”
Boom!
Lightning crackled dramatically around Acorn Jelly. Was he seriously that angry?
“Wait, what? Oh! Thanks for the donation. Nice buff.”
The lightning turned out to be just a well-timed donation effect.
— I’m dying LOL
— This dude looks possessed now that lightning is involved
— He’s gone off the rails
“Anyway! We saw it with our own eyes! Almond held out a cube of pitch-black soil in one hand. Are you still saying Fertile Soil doesn’t exist?!”
“Almond... had it?”
“Yes!”
“That’s impossible.” Camembert shook his head. “There’s no way it’s that easy to make.”
“But we saw it. All of us.”
“Me too!”
Other streamers eagerly raised their hands like students in class. The two mods froze in shock. How could that be? Unless they saw it with their own eyes, they couldn’t believe it.
“Where is Almond now?”
At that, the crowd fell silent.
“Camb, he’s really gone.” Mozzarella checked the user list from behind and confirmed it.
“G-Gone?”
“He logged off. Just now.”
Almond had brought Fertile Soil into the village, shown it off, and just logged out?
“Then... where did he plant it?”
“He didn’t. He didn’t even use it. He just held the soil in one hand, a sword in the other, and told us all to stay back...”
Acorn Jelly mimed the scene.
— LMAO the sword
— I still can’t believe that actually happened
“He told us to check it from a distance. And when we did, one block gave three hundred percent yield!!”
“He’s right.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
The mods became speechless.
‘No way... It’s real?’
The stats matched Fertile Soil.
“And after showing it off, he just... left.”
“He didn’t even use it?”
“Nope.”
***
“What is this?!”
Flop.
Ji-Ah collapsed onto her bed in frustration. She had gone through the trouble of editing and uploading her shorts, only for Almond to log out right after. With a disappointed sigh, she stared at the chat window.
[Current Viewers: 149,000]
If the momentum from the shorts had held, she could’ve easily pushed for one hundred seventy thousand. Still, it wasn’t all bad. Almond, showing off the Fertile Soil and logging out immediately, had completely turned Cheese Village upside down.
[AcornJelly: It’s out there somewhere... Perfect Farm! All Black!!]
— All Black LOL
— Acorn probably believes the Earth is flat too
— The logout escape is legendary LOL
The streamers went into a frenzy to desperately uncover the source of Almond’s Fertile Soil. If it weren’t for the anti-stream-sniping system in place, some of them would’ve broken the rules to find it.
[MiddleAgedDetective: Anyone logging out right now is a criminal! Sit your butts down!]
MiddleAgedDetective jumped in to stop people from logging out to rewatch Almond’s stream.
— LOL
— Everyone has gone nuts
— Let’s not be rude though
— MiddleAgedDetective MVP
The online communities were no different.
[#1. Fertile Soil? Good luck finding it. I left everything there.]
==== ====
The photo showed Almond in a one vs twenty standoff.
— LMAOOO this image is epic
— Where’s that childhood innocence quote now?
— This photo though LOL
— Is he trying to be Pirate King or something?
— “Mon D. Roger” vibes fr
Almond wasn’t even on the server anymore, yet everyone continued talking about him.
“Was what Almond had real?”
“Yeah, they say it can triple the harvest per block.”
“Whoa... that’s insane.”
“Triple? I heard it was five times.”
“Huh? I heard ten. People said it was ten times better!”
The rumors only grew wilder. Thanks to Bubblegum posting it in the chat, it even reached Zelo and Choco Shroom, who went off digging for soil.
“What? Fertile Soil? Almond?”
At first, they didn’t believe it.
“It’s probably just another bluff.”
“Right?”
Then, an herb gatherer passing by the mine chimed in. “No, seriously. I saw it too. It was jet black... and shimmering...”
“Holy...”
Zelo and Choco Shroom exchanged weary looks. After all, they had met Almond first.
“Screw it. Let’s just keep digging.”
“Yeah...”
Clank!
The sound of their pickaxes rang hollow, tinged with regret.
— LOL
— This is tragic
— They saw him first and missed out
— Doesn’t matter if Almond dipped, he still dropped a bomb
— Wait, Fertile Soil is actually real??
— Where did Almond even find that?
— So he was carrying it in the beginning?!
“We’re done with soil. We’re miners now, people. Time to dig.” Zelo forced himself to focus and hacked away at the dirt.
Maybe the world hadn’t completely abandoned them.
Clank!
“Whoa. Iron! It’s an iron vein, Zelo!”
A dark ore shimmered on Choco Shroom’s side. As they dug deeper, a black line stretched downward. They had found an entire iron vein.
“Whoa!”
“We, we’re rich now, right?!”
“The heavens help those who help themselves! This is our All Black!”
“Exactly!!”
— Let’s gooo
— Now that’s lucky
— This might actually keep them going
— LOL love this for them
“Hehe! Keep digging!”
“No stream shutdowns today~”
“Let’s get it!”
Even in the dark depths of the mine, sunlight had finally broken through. Their hopeful pickaxes now rang with a lighter rhythm.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
They didn’t know that Almond hadn’t only brought Fertile Soil.
***
Ssshhhh.
The capsule hissed open as Sang-Hyeon sat up with a long exhale. “Whew.”
He had assumed it would be a chill healing game, but it ended up more intense than expected.
‘This isn’t easy.’
He stepped out of the capsule and opened the fridge, fully stocked with Monster drinks. Technically, sports drinks weren’t ideal before bed, but there were sparkling water versions too. The company’s popularity had skyrocketed after the international tournament, and they came out with tons of new flavors. One of them used his name.
[Honey Almond Flavor]
The can had his face printed on it as he aimed a bow.
Click.
He popped the top and took a swig. “Kyaah.”
It tasted sweet, crisp, and nutty. He carried the can over and sat in front of the computer that Ju-Hyeok usually used.
‘Hmm?’
His eyes widened at the day’s donation total. Not much surprised him anymore, but the Cheese Village revenue was something else.
“Whoa...” With a soft gasp, he minimized the window.
Click.
He opened the calculator app.
“Fertile Soil... triple the yield...”
Tap tap tap. Click.
He calculated the exact value of Fertile Soil.
“Let’s say regular soil is t. Fertile Soil becomes nt.”
Since prices constantly changed, he avoided assigning a fixed value and used a relative scale instead. X times better than that was the more stable metric.
Tap tap.
“So if the yield is triple... That makes t equal to 0.3?”
He cross-checked the data against community posts and confirmed the quality of the commonly used Rough Soil in the village.
“It’s ten times the difference in yield alone.”
Compared to Fertile Soil, Rough Soil was nearly worthless. Sang-Hyeon wasn’t done yet.
“It also saves land cost and cuts down labor time...”
Tap tap tap.
He planned to quantify every single benefit of Fertile Soil and convert it into raw numbers. A rare grin tugged at his lips.
‘Cheese Village isn’t such a bad place after all.’
Apparently, the math checked out.