Read Novel Full Chapter 618: Why speak of the bad when you can just speak of the good?
Chapter 618: Why speak of the bad when you can just speak of the good?
"This is our underground warehouse!"
Walking both Lillian and Millis through the curtains, the Salesman introduced them to a massive area underground - filled with large cargo containers and crowded with employees moving boxes of product.
Every now and then, Lillian would see a forklift drive by.
The Salesman turned around to them and opened his hands.
Summoning two clipboards from thin air, each with an identical copy of a paper menu attached to it, he handed them over to his female customers.
"These are what we are offering and what we have in stock, as well as the prices. By the end of this tour throughout our warehouse, I hoped you two would’ve found something that would suit y’all’s interests."
Afterwards, he turned around and led the two throughout the warehouse - guiding them around what they had to offer.
"Over there, we have our Brainjuice, which we have ensured to be of extremely high quality, allowing you to double your original cognitive functions.
"This is our steroids that have been both tested and reviewed to help mages take on monsters, usually a single Mana Shell above their own.
"And that over there..."
He continued to show them around.
Lillian read through what the stocked items were on the clipboard, humming to herself at their uses - but also grimacing at the prices.
The prices here were all over a hundred Semis; even the more common and normal stuff on the menu was over a hundred.
To say Lillian wasn’t the least bit interested in what they had to sell would be a complete lie.
In her previous and newbie runs, the sort of consumables she was able to buy here were extraordinarily helpful.
Acting like temporary buffs upon use, Lillian was able to defeat enemies that she had heavily struggled with, although they usually come at a cost.
’The more negative the drawbacks, the better the effects.’
Take the Affinity Pills, for example.
Upon consumption, the pill would forcefully expand the consumer’s Mana Core and inflict a pain of soreness or burning; the level of pain increases with the grade of Affinity Pills.
And the benefits for enduring the pain would be in the form of a larger mana reserve, more affinity with mana, and also the purification of a lot of impurities that could be found inside the Mana Core; this purification effect would lead to the consumer’s talent in magic to grow drastically.
’With my intake of Affinity Pills in the past, I have at least more than double the mana reserve of an average Tier 3 - enabling me to last a lot longer in fights.’
If she were still roughly around the strength of her Tier 2 self, Lillian would no doubt have bought herself one of these drugs on sale.
Well, any drug besides the syringe.
"And here we have our latest and our most hottest-selling item!"
Walking over to an area, the Salesman gestured towards a syringe that was being heavily scrutinised and examined by a line of workers; this was the zone for quality control.
"Chrysalis Serum, a mystical and highly effective steroid and our most recently stocked item!" The Salesman walked over and grabbed a syringe off the line, holding it up for the two ladies to see.
"Now, don’t be put off by its suspicious grey, this little guy is actually your best friend!" The Salesman wrapped his fingers around the syringe’s plunger. "It acts similarly to Affinity Pills - another drug that can rarely be found across Hearth. These syringes, with just a single injection, can widen your Mana Core and even improve how much power you can output - pretty much every aspect a mage would want to be stronger by upto one fold!
"And because just these syringes can be made, you could even say they’re better than Affinity Pills! Which have been speculated to only be made by the Gods themselves~!"
The Salesman then sighed, his sunglasses drooping a bit as he began to juggle the syringe, "But unfortunately, these guys’ effect only lasts for about a day or a few hours - depending on how sparingly you use them. They were also stated to take a while to manufacture. But luckily, we - the Black Distributor - are always going to be in stock! Because of our high reputation, they reached out to us."
He then grinned toothily, revealing his singular golden tooth.
"And oh boy! I’m glad that they reached out to us, because this singular product is our most hottest-selling item here! Everyone wants a piece of it; everyone in the world wants a piece of it!
"In the last two weeks, it has made over double what our other items have made in total! Did you know that we supply the lords of this territory the Chysalis Serum too? They even approved it!"
Millis tilted her head a bit, staring at the syringe with a curious thought.
"But surely, a drug like this hurts the body, right? There’s no way it’s just some mythical elixer, ya get what I mean?"
The Salesman nodded, then shook his head vigorously, "I get what you mean, even I was sceptical at first. But besides some level of heavy withdrawal, you should be perfectly fine!"
As he continued to rant on and on about the syringe, Lillian slowly turned her head to catch a glimpse of a man injecting an amount of the Chrysalis Serum into a much smaller syringe.
This caused Lillian to narrow her eyes before turning back to the Salesman, who didn’t seem a bit concerned or curious about this.
She sighed internally.
’A true salesman...’
The man had yet to speak about how the current Chrysalis Serum was just a prototype that was yet to be perfected, and that it had averse effect upon injection.
The effects that Lillian was referring to were the risk of transforming into a hideous abomination.
However, that wasn’t what Lillian meant when she thought of him as a ’true salesman’.
In her mind, a true salesman was someone who did nothing but try to sell you things.
The Salesman knew only of the positives and little of the negatives; he didn’t know a single other negative outside of the Chrysalis Serum’s duration of effect and how long it took to create. And if he did, it would’ve been through a review back to him from a buyer.
He was but a puppet to his organisation... actually... it would be more accurate to call him an instrument.
To an organisation that markets to its consumers directly, it would need some form of communication.
This could be in the form of advertisements, marketing, sponsorship, and so on. But at the end of the day, the organisation would still place responsibilities on individuals.
Salesmen, just like any employee of a company, were merely instruments for the organisation to use.
Just like how a flute sings when blown into, a salesman will pitch his sale when ordered to; the flute does not think or act in any other way, just like a salesman.
After all, if the idea that you can get by without having to spend any effort to think more than needed, why bother thinking more at all?
As long as some were given clear and simple instructions, they should be able to follow them perfectly, just like how, if guided well, an instrument would sound out beautifully.
Sure, from time to time, faulty instruments may appear, which would either resist the urge to sing or perhaps even sing horribly just for the betterment of those listening to it.
But these instruments would soon be faced with correction, in the form of threats of being fired, and would soon become like every other instrument around them.
Lillian was similar in this regard, as well. In her past life, she used to work for the marketing and sales department of a company.
Back then, she was hesitant to sell a product she knew would be faulty with time. But after being faced with correction, she had learned to abide by the company’s rule - no longer showing signs of being faulty, but instead sang beautifully in the ears of consumers wanting to buy.
Why speak of the bad when you can just speak of the good? These were the words that indoctrinated her, and with incentives, too.
The more she sold, the bigger the pay; that was how it worked in her company.
And the bigger the pay, the more likely she would be to pay off her rent.
And the more likely she could pay off her rent, the more likely she would be able to get by.
No one wanted to hear negatives in life; they only wanted to hear the good. And in turn, if she spoke of the positives, while keeping the negatives secret, wouldn’t that be a win-win?
This was the mentality she built while being in the company. And it would’ve been for the rest of her life, if it wasn’t for a major lawsuit that got everyone laid off.
’Maybe, it was a good thing I got laid off...’ Lillian placed a hand over her mask.
Despite the job paying a lot of money, it was a heavy weight on her mind and shoulders... not like those weights wouldn’t return the moment she found a new job.
After a while, Lillian blinked out of it, returning to reality.
’Did I just go through a whole philosphical moment?’
Shaking her head rapidly, Lillian lowered her hand away from her mask, which was slightly dusted with mana. Then, she glanced at the Salesman, who was about to put down the syringe.
"This is now the end of the tour. Would any of you two like to request anything before we move on to the purchasing proces—?"
"Yeah, I have one."
Within a second, Lillian swung her arm out horizontally like a sword - summoning a curved blade of water to soar towards the Salesman.
SWISH.
The arching blade was a metre long and a quarter of a metre wide, and flew with unprecedented speed that caused the Salesman’s pupils to constrict.
With the help of his Tier 3 physique, he was able to dodge out of the way, but was unable to protect the Chrysalis Serum he was holding from being—
SHATTER.
—Destroyed.
The moment the contents of the serum fell to the ground, everyone in the warehouse instantly stopped what they were doing - turning their gaze to the cause of the noise.
The Salesman, who was just a fraction of a second away from being sliced in two, was shocked beyond belief.
He was just attacked!
Staring at the destroyed remains of the Chrysalis Serum, the Salesman’s eyes burned with deep resentment and anger; he had just lost out on a lot of money!
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THA—!?"
"Everything."
The Salesman paused, his resentful glare blinking with confusion at Lillian’s singular word.
As he was about to demand clarification...
"I want everything inside this warehouse to be handed over to us!"
The Salesman froze in shock and also... disbelief.
Was he hearing this correctly?
Lillian’s words echoed across the entire warehouse, attracting more and more attention and even... hostility.
The Rabbit, sensing she had now gained the ire of every employee within the underground, continued her earlier words:
"This is a robbery. Hand over everything you have, or else."