In the days after the meeting with Soron, things at Zog's Toy Store quieted down.
Of course, the employee was the one swamped with work, while Zog, the dragon, was the one enjoying the peace.
His venture into self-made mini-games had hit a major bottleneck.
'With my limited intellect, I can't create overly complex Magic models. I should just stick to writing the proposals and let the professionals handle the professional work.'
'It's time to find some workhorses... no, I mean, some talent.'
'Where to recruit, though?'
"This is absolutely impossible to solve!" Elsa's voice, filled with helpless rage, echoed from inside the store.
As a toy store, they couldn't just sell Yo-Yos. They had to expand their product line.
As it happened, the new products shipped from Dragon Island had arrived today.
They were a batch of puzzle toys, which had actually been planned even before the Yo-Yo, but they weren't suitable to spearhead their entry into the market.
They were easy to imitate. Only after Zog's Toy Store had established some brand influence could they ensure customers would be more inclined to buy from them.
This was the same reason many brands on Earth liked to cultivate a fanbase. When there's no significant difference in product quality, it all comes down to marketing.
Once the brand's halo reaches a certain level in the fans' minds, they'll convince themselves to accept any problems with the product, even if it's flawed.
SUCH! LOYALTY!
Elsa stomped over to Zog, fuming, and in her hand was one of the new toys that had arrived today: the Magic Cube.
"You liar! This thing is impossible to solve!"
Zog shot Elsa a sidelong, contemptuous glance. "And what if I do solve it?"
Elsa was a child who had never been baptized by the fires of internet flame wars. Her mental fortitude was paper-thin, and she fell for taunts one hundred percent of the time.
"Then... then I'll wear that mascot costume and hand out flyers on the street."
Along with the puzzle toys, an outlandish mascot costume had also arrived. It was the store's mascot: a dopey, chubby, cute version of Zog. When someone wore it, their face would be perfectly framed within the dragon's mouth.
The original plan was for one employee a day to wear it out on the street to hand out flyers, promoting the 'Great Puzzle-Solving Bounty'.
For example, the first person to solve the Magic Cube on the spot within ten minutes would win a prize of One Gold Coin. The first to solve Lonely Mountain Road—the Otherworld's version of the Huarong Road puzzle—in 120 moves or less would also win One Gold Coin, and so on.
As the shop manager, Elsa was not one to lead by example. She vehemently refused to wear the mascot costume, protesting that it would damage her image as a brilliant young Illusionist.
"Are you sure? If you're too scared..."
"What-what's there to be scared of! I'm losing face here in Twin Tower City! No one will recognize me when I go back home anyway!"
Zog took the Magic Cube and pretended to study its faces with great concentration.
'In truth, it wouldn't have mattered if I'd studied it or not. I can't really 'solve' a Magic Cube; I just brute-force memorized the universal algorithms back in the day to look cool in front of my classmates.'
To an expert, his method was probably slow and clumsy, but to Elsa, who took over ten minutes just to solve a single face, it was nothing short of incredible.
She watched as the Magic Cube spun rapidly in Zog's claws, the colors falling into place layer by layer, until all six faces were complete.
Total time: 4 minutes and 53 seconds.
'Not fast, but it did the job.'
"How?!" Elsa grabbed her face with both hands, shocked. "You must have used Magic, didn't you!"
"Then what kind of Magic did I use?"
'Yeah, what kind of Magic?'
Elsa still couldn't accept it. "But whenever I finish one side and try to work on the others, it just gets all messed up again!"
Zog refused to answer, simply holding out the mascot costume.
Elsa's protests were futile. She had become the first person in this world's history to cosplay as Zog.
"Remember to smile for the customers!" Zog called out to her retreating back as she stomped away.
Elsa changed into the mascot costume and reluctantly headed out to the street. Handing each flyer to a passerby was an immense psychological battle.
'Please, please, let no one recognize me today.'
"Sister Elsa! Is that a new toy from the toy store you're wearing? Mommy, I want that one!"
"Oh, it's you, Little Jenny." Adhering to a sense of professionalism, Elsa put on a high-pitched voice to greet the little girl.
It was just that the corners of her mouth drooped, her cheeks sagged, and her eyebrows knitted together into a frown—a face that just screamed 'joyful'.
'Expectations lowered. Please, let no one other than the toy store's customers recognize me today.'
"Elsa?"
'The voice was uncertain. There was still a chance to salvage this.'
Elsa immediately buried her face in the costume's head, her voice muffled as she said, "I am not! I am the Evil Dragon Zog! The most evil, petty, unsympathetic, bullying Evil Dragon!"
"Uh, didn't you say in your letter that you were the manager at Zog's Toy Store?"
"In a letter?" Elsa pulled the dragon's maw apart to get a clearer look. When she finally made out the person's face, she asked, "Brother?"
Yuno Stone, eldest son of the Stone family and Elsa's older brother. He was twenty-five years old and worked as a Laboratory Assistant in the Fico Research Institute's Optics Department.
It sounded very professional, but his actual day-to-day duties consisted of serving tea, wiping down equipment, being a gofer for data recording during experiments, and acting as a human notepad during seminars.
It was worth mentioning that his monthly salary was only Sixty Copper Coins—nominally called a 'stipend.' If he couldn't live in the dorms, he'd have a hard time surviving in Twin Tower City.
He had once been the brightest kid in all the surrounding villages, the hope of his hometown. It wasn't until he tested into the big city that he discovered he wasn't some prodigy after all. Unwilling to return home in disgrace, he could only lie to himself, believing an opportunity would eventually come if he just stayed.
The two went to a nearby café and sat in the outdoor seating area.
Elsa discovered the one and only benefit of the mascot costume: it made for a surprisingly comfortable seat cushion.
"So, this is what you do as a shop manager?"
"Of course not! I'm in charge of creating the special effects for the Yo-Yos—you know what those are, right? I'm also responsible for teaching some blockhead about Illusion Runes. I make a lot of money..."
"Never mind. It can't be easy working odd jobs. The cost of living in Twin Tower City is so high. You take this money. My job is relatively stable."
As he spoke, he took a tightly wrapped pouch from an inner pocket of his clothes. He unwrapped several layers before revealing the Silver Coins inside. He first counted out five, then hesitated for a moment before taking out two more.
"What are you doing? I told you, I'm the manager," Elsa said, quickly stuffing the money back into her brother's hands. "If you don't believe me, fine. Anyway, what brings you to Chrysanthemum Street today?"
The prices here were far beyond what Yuno could afford.
"I saw the promotion for the prize money at Zog's Toy Store for solving puzzles, so I thought I'd come and give it a try."
"That prize money isn't easy to win," Elsa said, still thinking there was something fishy about how Zog had solved the Magic Cube. "Do you really need money right now?"
"*Sigh*..." Yuno was clearly in low spirits. "The research project I applied for was rejected. The institute won't provide funding, so I want to try and continue the research on my own."
"What kind of project?" Elsa asked. She figured if it wasn't too expensive, she might be able to help.
"To put it simply, it's about projecting an optical image through a filter onto a primary-color Magic Crystal Plane. The colors are then converted by the Magic Crystal Plane into Magic Power oscillations, and the oscillation value is run through an amplification Magic Array..."
"Whoa, whoa, stop!" Elsa quickly cut Yuno off.
Never mind whether she could understand it or not; the sheer number of technical terms was already giving her a headache.
"How about you just tell me what it's for?"
"It records scenes as they happen and stores them in a Magic Crystal Stone."
"Okay, I get it. So what's the difference between that and recording Magic?"
"Theoretically, it should be simpler to use, be able to store much longer recordings, and not require Magic Power for playback. It's just that it can't do any of that right now. It's actually less practical than standard recording Magic, which is why the project wasn't approved..."
Yuno's tone grew increasingly plaintive.
"So in short, once you get it working, it'll be way better than recording Magic." Elsa couldn't stand her brother's whining anymore.
"It should be, yes. But scientific research must be rigorous. Before conducting sufficient experimentation..."
"Say no more," Elsa interrupted. "Come with me. I know who can fund your project."