I kinda understood what Bora was saying.
Since I still don’t have an official status and am classified as a dangerous—well, not really dangerous—monster, the goal is to win the public’s affection through broadcasts and exhibitions. The most important thing is to prove that I’m harmless.
But what I’m doing now feels a bit excessive…
“Okay, look at the camera and speak.”
“Uh… hello, everyone. My name is Hana.”
I had to introduce myself to the camera, like something I’d seen somewhere famous. I politely placed my hands on my stomach and bowed, and Bora’s reaction was explosively positive. Then, she started filming my daily routine.
“This is it!!!”
It seemed like she’d reached some kind of work-life balance, but I didn’t say much. She just kept shoving the camera in my face and filming. Apparently, the daily life of a child is already in high demand.
Back in the day, life wasn’t so hard, so people were indifferent to bad endings or plots like feeding sweet potatoes. But nowadays, life is tough, so while not everyone, most people want happy endings or satisfying plot twists. If a show had a bad ending or a heavy sweet potato plot, people would foam at the mouth and rage.
People also found healing in videos of animals or cute kids. Even without a clear purpose or theme, something cute alone could grab people’s attention.
So, I was filming extremely mundane things like eating rice or watching TV. Shouldn’t broadcasts have scripts or content? Filming without any of that made me feel like it was going to flop.
But from Bora’s perspective, it didn’t seem that way. Watching her chase me around all day with the camera, I wondered if it wasn’t exhausting, but Bora powered through with sheer determination.
We took breaks during filming, but it felt like we were shooting almost full-time until evening. When the final shoot ended, I finally let out a sigh and collapsed onto the bed.
“I’m so tired, Bora.”
“You did great, Hana. Even though it was your first time filming, you did really well.”
“Hehe…”
I smiled at Bora’s compliment, feeling pleased. To me, it felt like a disaster, but Bora didn’t seem to think so. Even though it didn’t feel like I did much today, my body was completely drained from exhaustion.
—————————————-
The Starlight Research Institute had its own YouTube channel. The channel name was the full name of the Starlight Lifeform Research Institute, slapped right on there. Not many people searched for it, but they managed to secure some subscribers by uploading rare monster videos.
Even so, they only had about 30,000 subscribers, but considering they just posted raw, unedited footage of people observing monsters, the views were surprisingly high. Videos of flashy monsters even hit hundreds of thousands of views.
However, since no monsters had been caught in the Gate for almost half a year, the channel had been dormant. Then, a new video was uploaded.
The video title was *Hana’s Day*, with a thumbnail of a cute little girl with green hair and green eyes. For Koreans with black hair and black eyes, her appearance was attention-grabbing enough. Even though you could achieve those colors with dye or contacts, it was rare to see them look so natural.
Bora, probably because it was just the beginning, uploaded the first video with minimal editing and subtitles, then clocked out. But a few hours later, the algorithm picked it up, and the views started skyrocketing. And it was in the middle of the night.
—————————————-
Starlight Green Tea was being sold in stores, but the number of buyers was significantly low, so online trading sites went wild. Even if you found it in a supermarket, it was limited to one box per person, and by the time you went to another store, the green tea was already sold out.
– Buying Starlight Green Tea!!! Paying 30,000 won per box!
– Anyone in Mapo-gu, Seoul for in-person trade? Selling 2 boxes. Of course, first come, first served.
└Are you a kid? Talking nonsense about first come, first served.
└If you’re not buying, leave.
– Urgently buying Starlight Green Tea. Only those available for in-person trade.
Of course, selling at prices higher than retail is illegal, but there were so many people doing it that no one cared. In fact, there were far more buyers than sellers.
It was to the point where strange phenomena were occurring.
Thanks to the explosive purchasing desires of consumers, distributors who weren’t Starlight Food were having a field day.
“Can’t we skim a little off the top without anyone noticing?”
“If we receive a thousand boxes, wouldn’t it be fine to set aside about a hundred separately?”
Just like when the famous honey-glazed snack chips were sold, the demand far exceeded the supply, leading to frequent instances where distributors would skim off some before delivering to supermarkets or convenience stores.
“No! There’s no Starlight Green Tea in the market!”
“We were supposed to receive 100 boxes, but the distributor suddenly changed their mind and only delivered 70.”
Those receiving deliveries at supermarkets and convenience stores were in a tough spot. Consumers were desperately searching for Starlight Green Tea, and with distributors skimming off some, they ended up receiving much less than the stated quantity on the invoice.
But the ones taking the heat were themselves. Complaining to the distributors didn’t help much.
Starlight Food was also feeling the seriousness. There were too many consumers protesting on the company’s website. Of course, Starlight Food had clearly stated that they couldn’t meet the demand due to limited quantities, but the furious consumers didn’t care.
“Manager, there are too many distributors playing around with prices.”
“Let’s keep releasing the stock and track the distribution process. We need to catch all the hoarding distributors at once.”
When Starlight Food released the green tea stock into the market, distributors swooped in like baby birds being fed by their mother. They scooped up all the green tea as soon as it was released, storing it in warehouses and selling it at much higher prices than Starlight Food’s stated price.
They made so much profit from the price difference that they could buy a house in the countryside every day. But that golden time didn’t last long.
After the appearance of the Gate, monsters destroyed human settlements and set back their progress, but with the emergence of hunters, the Gate was suppressed, and technological advancement accelerated rapidly. The byproducts of monsters led to the discovery of effects never seen before, sparking innovative technological advancements in IT.
So, the AI in Starlight Green Tea, with its accumulated big data, could distinguish between distributors who played around and those who didn’t. It wasn’t a fully autonomous AI like in a certain movie with suits, but it was innovative enough.
Thus, Starlight Food stopped supplying Starlight Green Tea to the mischievous distributors and increased the supply to the normal distributors who didn’t hoard.
Only the normal distributors, who didn’t play around with prices, unknowingly survived, while the illegal sellers ended up cutting open the goose that laid the golden egg.
[It’s unfair! We didn’t play around! It’s just a small mistake in the distribution process that caused the stock to disappear…]
[Do you need to be reported for hoarding to wake up?]
[Gulp…]
A few shameless distributors protested to Starlight Food, claiming their hoarding was justified, but thanks to a politely worded threatening letter, they were successfully silenced.
With the implementation of a one-box-per-person limit and the resolution of irrationalities in Starlight Food’s distribution process, the market began to stabilize. However, the stock was still too low, and Starlight Food’s website was flooded with pleas to produce more.
But unless one becomes two, Starlight Food didn’t have a clear solution.
