Chapter 547: The Idea King in the Forest (2)

to save him from the misery of his studies.

“Our Magic Vision Device isn’t as big as yours,” his friends said, stating the obvious. “Here, have your favorite cucumber-flavored potato chips.”

Aside from the elder, Little Deer was the wealthiest person in the village. After all, he was a moderately famous former child star.

Whenever the village needed any online promotion, he was always the star of the shoot.

Munching on chips, Little Deer asked, “Is your brother coming back soon?”

His buddy’s older brother, Igor, was Little Deer’s idol—the village’s one and only university student.

An official student at Hogwarts.

He was studying Magic Guide Chains.

Little Deer didn’t really know what Magic Guide Chains were, but they sounded impressive.

Igor was originally groomed to be an elder-in-training, having studied Magic of the Prophetic School. But when it came time to choose his major, he made the bold decision to change course and dive into the deep pit of Magic Engineering.

“He should be arriving today,” his friend replied. “His break started a while ago, but he said something about finding an internship at some Factory, so he’s a bit late.”

“An internship?”

“It’s just a job. I think they’re pretty much the same, anyway. They pay even less than the regular workers, so what’s the point? But my brother said he came up with an invention and is bringing it back to show us.”

“What kind of invention?”

Hearing this, Little Deer’s interest was piqued.

“Ah, I have no idea. He mentioned it on a call once, but I didn’t understand a single word. Who cares? He’s bringing it back today anyway, so we can just see it then. The cartoon’s about to start.”

…

“Thanks, mister.”

Igor thanked the driver, hopped off the carriage, and then retrieved a package half his height from the cart.

It was the fruit of his entire school year’s labor.

He rubbed his sore butt. To save money, he hadn’t hired a proper carriage, instead bumming a ride from an older man he knew.

He hadn’t always been this broke. But alas, once you fall into the Magical Device rabbit hole, there’s no climbing out.

All of his living expenses went to buying Magic Guide Components. Every cent he earned from his internship was thrown in as well, leaving him with just enough money for food to maintain his vital signs.

But he believed it was all worth it.

‘What future is there in working for others? I should start my own business, be my own boss.’

‘But for a guy from a family without much money, starting a business with capital investment is a long shot. I have to rely on a brilliant idea.’

His brilliant idea was inside this large package.

A brilliant Magical Device—er, a Magical Device he himself considered brilliant.

This was one of the first batch of samples he had made.

The reason it was a “batch” was because he couldn’t build the design by hand. It required a Factory, and factories don’t accept orders for a single unit.

To make these samples, he had even taken out a loan for over ten Gold Coins from the bank.

If this didn’t succeed, he’d be slaving away for the next few years to pay it back.

‘Failure is not an option.’

He had an agreement with the Factory boss from his internship: if he could sell the first batch of samples, the boss would invest in him.

Originally, he thought this would be a simple matter.

After all, his idea was so brilliant.

Unfortunately, to this day, he’d made zero sales.

After some reflection, he concluded that he had done zero market research. Selling refrigerators in the Northern Domain was a hopeless endeavor.

Yes, his brilliant invention was a refrigerator.

It really did look like a chest, not an upright cabinet.

His inspiration came from a documentary he had watched about the extravagant lives of top-tier nobles and Mages.

It featured a refrigerator—a pure Magic refrigerator—that was incredibly expensive, used just so they could eat frozen desserts in the summer.

And what Igor set out to do was to make a refrigerator affordable for the common person.

This had become a popular trend recently. After the advent of the Magic Energy Machine, everyone realized that devices powered by Magic Energy would become mainstream in the future.

Many private groups and individuals had started to experiment.

And one major avenue of experimentation was converting purely magical devices—which only nobles and Mages could afford—into mass-market industrial magical products.

Igor set his sights on the refrigerator.

He did a pretty good job, too.

It was energy-efficient, had a large capacity, and was low-cost. Plus, in a stroke of creativity, he had divided the box into two compartments, each with its own adjustable temperature, allowing them to be set differently.

It could store items that required different temperatures.

The idea was great, the execution was great; the problem was trying to sell the thing in the Northern Domain.

The Northern Domain, a land renowned across the Continent for its bitter cold.

It was the sort of godforsaken place where temperatures dropped below freezing at the start of autumn and didn’t climb back up until late spring.

In other words, for nearly three-quarters of the year, the temperature was below freezing point.

A refrigerator?

‘Just leave it outside.’

In poorer households with inadequate heating, it was already below freezing indoors.

Who would spend money on a Magical Device that was useless for most of the year, and it wasn’t exactly cheap, either?

As for those who didn’t care about cost-effectiveness, they already had Magic refrigerators!

And just like that, Igor’s design was dead in the water.

Just as he was about to give up and resign himself to a life of hard labor to pay off his debts, a lifeline appeared.

Online shopping!

Igor could almost see a ray of hope.

The delivery routes connecting the Northern Domain, Deepwater City, the Royal City, and Twin Tower City.

‘Even if the Northern Domain doesn’t need refrigerators, surely other places do. Especially Twin Tower City! I’ve heard the people there are rich and the weather is hot. Wouldn’t that be the perfect place for a refrigerator?’

‘They say leftovers in Twin Tower City go sour by the end of the day. I can’t even imagine.’

Summer in the Northern Domain is only just over 20 degrees Celsius. Leftovers can sit out for a day and a night with no problem.

As for the coldest part of winter…

Let’s just say, you cook a huge feast for the holidays, and for the next two weeks, you’re eating leftovers from that one meal.

To seize this lifeline, Igor quickly registered an online store using a template provided by the Zog Group, selling only one item: the refrigerator.

He sold it at cost and even paid for shipping out of pocket. The losses for now were small change. If he succeeded and the investment came through, he’d earn it all back several times over.

A great idea, in theory. But then he ran into a completely new problem.

No promotion, no customers.

Looking at the single-digit daily views on his online store and the still-zero sales, he couldn’t even lose money on shipping if he wanted to.

No customers, no sales.

To tackle this problem, he opted for the cheapest method: online promotion. To be precise, advertising on YouTube. All he had to do was shoot a video himself.

The village had a camera he could borrow.

But who would be on camera?

It had to be the person with the most clout in the village: Little Deer.

‘Little Deer is a great kid, so easygoing. Getting him to shoot a video just takes a bag of cucumber-flavored potato chips.’ To better “buy off” Little Deer, Igor had brought back two whole cases of them.

One case of cucumber, and one of lime. He couldn’t for the life of him understand the appeal of such weird flavors. He was an original-flavor guy himself.

Lugging the heavy refrigerator on his back, he walked for five hours to get back to the village.

The driver wasn’t going his way for the last leg of the journey, and Igor felt too bad to ask him to take a long detour, so he decided to walk the rest of the way.

Luckily, he had done plenty of farm work as a child—crossing mountains, chopping wood, and harvesting ice were all common occurrences. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made it back.

For a Mage, his physical conditioning was practically superhuman.

When he finally made it home, he greeted his parents and went directly to find Little Deer.

He hadn’t dared to tell them about the loan. He just kept telling them school was great, afraid the truth would make them faint.

Arriving at Little Deer’s house, he heard an ear-splitting racket coming from inside.

The sound of several children sobbing their hearts out.

One of them sounded quite familiar, probably his own little brother. The last time he’d heard him cry like that was when his pet rabbit died.

That was one unlucky rabbit. It had literally been scared to death by the thunder during a storm.

Igor knocked on the door.

People in the village didn’t have the habit of locking their doors. Back when they lived in tents, they didn’t even have proper doors. Now, everyone knew everyone, so there was still no need.

Plus, ever since the village became a tourist destination, it was covered in security cameras.

“It’s Igor. I’m coming in.”

No one answered. There was only the sound of crying: “WAAAH… SOB… The Snow Child… he melted…”

‘Wait, what child melted?’

Although Igor wasn’t sure what that was about, another “brilliant” promotional idea suddenly popped into his head.