Would you like to perform the final hidden mission?
“Huh? So the last mission isn’t about finding something. Does that mean I can take off the glasses?”
“That should be fine? Come to think of it, they wouldn’t let you use the time machine device, but the glasses I gave you seem okay. From what I can tell, they’re cutting you some slack because you’re F-rank.”
Hyejin felt oddly annoyed by Asha’s words.
She knew being F-rank was pitiful, but this wasn’t really helping nor not helping.
It felt like she was being toyed with by the system window somehow.
But it didn’t matter.
If she just completed the fourth mission, the hidden missions would be over.
Completing that would bring in 70 million gold.
That much gold would definitely be a huge help in running the convenience store.
Final hidden mission ‘Create your own promotion’
Bundle the products you want and create promotional items to sell to customers. Make a total of four bundled products.
“A convenience store’s own promotion?”
Hyejin was flustered by the system’s words.
Then, the mechanical sound rang out again.
4 minutes 40 seconds…….
Time was still flowing.
“Calm down, whew. What should I bundle and sell?”
Hyejin recalled the products from the convenience stores she’d worked at before.
Usually, convenience stores had promotional products that changed every month.
Among them, triangle gimbap had the most promotions.
Buying a triangle gimbap would get you a small can of drink cheaply or a bottled water thrown in.
And common event products were 2+1 or 1+1 deals.
For 2+1, there were snacks, jellies, chocolate bars, protein drinks, and such.
If customers who didn’t know about the promotion or event forgot to take their share, the head office would impose penalties.
Well, anyway, back then there was a head office, so she just did as they said.
She never imagined a day would come when she’d have to create them herself.
“Ah, nothing’s coming to mind. What do I do?”
Hyejin scanned every nook and cranny of the roughly 30-pyeong convenience store interior.
She checked the best-selling products on the shelves and those that lingered like ghosts, stuck in place for ages.
Over the past two weeks, the best sellers in this convenience store were definitely the food items.
It was a natural result.
Convenience stores were places people came to for a quick meal, after all.
Things like gimbap, cup rice, cup ramen sold steadily.
It would be great to sell those as 1+1.
But selling popular products that way would lead to quick sell-outs, and then hunters who wanted them couldn’t buy them.
It wasn’t like outside the dungeon where goods came in every day.
The biggest problem was that method wouldn’t help the store’s sales.
1+1 meant giving two for the price of one, and when Hyejin punched it into the calculator, the loss was huge.
It’ll go bankrupt. Thoroughly bankrupt.
“No way. Uncle Seungseok will be here soon, but still, I have to protect the food and the sales.”
Hyejin passed the food corner and walked to the display shelf with miscellaneous goods.
Bandages for treatment and recovery tailored for hunters, powder laundry detergent that could be used without water, moisturizer for soft skin, noise-making toys to lure monsters, and more caught her eye.
There were also whetstones to sharpen dulled weapon blades, security mirrors to see all directions even in blocked areas, masks for sandy, dusty places like deserts, portable lanterns to light up dark dungeons, raincoats to wear in tropical rainforest hidden dungeons where rain poured endlessly, toothbrushes and toothpaste, non-wetting paper cups, and so on.
“If I’m making one, this is the only place.”
Hyejin decided to create promotions from here.
Promotions that wouldn’t cause losses but could tempt the hunters alluringly.
2 minutes 58 seconds…….
Now less than 3 minutes remained.
Hyejin recalled the words of the hunters who’d used the convenience store so far and started picking products one by one.
With so little time left, she had to act swiftly.
Moreover, to sell the products that were stocked but not selling well, she had to think smart.
First, bundle popular miscellaneous goods with unpopular ones.
And select only items that seemed most necessary for hunters.
Hyejin grabbed items frantically.
With her arms full, Hyejin came to the counter and set them down, and the status window popped up again.
Please explain the promotion you will proceed with.
“First, I’ll bundle the treatment bandages and disinfectant hydrogen peroxide to sell together.”
The products Hyejin first pulled out from the pile were the treatment bandages for hunters and disinfectant hydrogen peroxide.
Generally, hunters had their own markets in their status windows, so they could buy from there, but that was when they had enough gold.
She’d once heard that for hunters below C-rank, gold was insufficient, making the hunter market absurdly expensive for them.
Such hunters would buy regular bandages and disinfectants from pharmacies or convenience stores.
The ones sold in the hunter market had higher recovery power, but the basic effects were similar, so they saved gold that way.
These two are things they’d buy together anyway, so bundling them in advance would be even better.
Please explain the next promotion.
At the system’s words, Hyejin picked the second product to propose from the items she’d brought and said.
“The second product is the monster-luring toy and the box of chocolate pies that eliminate hunger.”
The toy was 4,000 gold, not too expensive.
But the problem was that no one bought this toy.
It succeeded in drawing hunters’ interest, but they ultimately didn’t purchase it, reasoning they didn’t want to spend money relying on a toy.
Hyejin decided to use that mindset in reverse.
If they didn’t want to spend money unnecessarily, it would be good if they could buy it while getting something necessary.
The chocolate pie box was popular because it had the advantage of providing a simple snack inside the dungeon.
So, the second promotion using these two.
Buy a chocolate pie box and get the toy.
“I’ll sell the chocolate pies at 1.5 times the price. The toy is half the price of the chocolate pies anyway, so it’s like selling both, but since it’s not a usually popular product, there won’t be hunters who know the toy’s price well. Not a bad strategy, right?”
Hyejin shrugged.
She was confident it was a product that would tempt hunters.
Please explain the next promotion.
“The third product is……. the portable lantern and umbrella.”
“Umbrella and lantern? They don’t seem to have anything in common?”
Asha, who had been silent until then, spoke as if surprised.
And understandably so.
The previous two products either matched well or at least one was an attractively popular item, but the two products Hyejin presented this time were both unpopular and not typically used together.
The convenience store she’d worked at before was in a financial district full of tall buildings, and on rainy days, office workers passing by would often buy disposable umbrellas.
On days when rain or snow suddenly poured heavily, umbrellas sold like hotcakes, to the point where stock ran out.
But this was a dungeon.
Especially, it had never rained in the area around the convenience store so far.
That meant it was highly unlikely in the future too.
She couldn’t just throw away the surplus umbrellas, so Hyejin decided to think differently.
“The umbrella is for avoiding rain, but it can also be used as a cane if you injure your leg or ankle. Our convenience store umbrellas are especially folding ones, so they’re portable. It’ll definitely help. In a dungeon where injuries are common, an umbrella will be useful. Like crutches.”
“Ah, crutches.”
“We can’t sell crutches at a convenience store. They’re heavy to carry around. But umbrellas are light, so you can stick them in your bag.”
“But will other hunters think like you? That an umbrella can be used like a cane or crutches?”
“Right. I’m worried about that too. So I need to name the promotion. Survival essentials, the all-purpose umbrella and the lantern that lights the way!”
At Hyejin’s bright voice, Asha smiled faintly.
Please explain the next promotion.
Time remaining until hidden mission end: 1 minute 50 seconds
This was truly the last one.
It wasn’t like impressing the system would bring good things.
Still, Hyejin decided to unwaveringly show the heart of a convenience store manager for the hunters.
“I’ll show you the next product. The last product is…….”