MTC 05

Chapter : 5

Monster Company Tycoon

I felt a deep sense of empathy and sorrow for the strange monsters inhabiting this unfamiliar world.

But wait a minute.

If I had to hire monsters as employees, that meant I would have to keep working alongside those monsters from now on, right!?

…Would I even be able to handle that?

“Are you a monster too, by any chance?”

“How rude! I’m on an entirely different level from those lowly beings. I’m a fairy! A pure life-form born from the concentrated energy of nature!”

Brownie stuck out his round belly.

He explained that he was a being born from the gathering of the earth’s energy.

He also told me that fairies couldn’t travel far from the natural environment in which they were born. Since they had emerged from the earth, they couldn’t leave the land they originated from. He was referring to the land on which the dungeon had been built.

That was why they were called earthbound fairies.

When the Demon King purchased the dungeon, the fairy had come along with it, so to speak.

“I’ll introduce you to the dungeon where you’ll be working from now on. Looking at your appearance, you don’t seem suited for fieldwork, so I suppose you’ll have to stick to management and supervision. Do you happen to have any hidden powers? Magic, perhaps?”

“N-No, nothing like that.”

“Then you’re an office worker. That settles it.”

The fairy gave me a brief tour of the dungeon’s interior.

The dungeon consisted of four floors in total: three above ground and one underground.

It was shaped more like a wide, low-rise tower than a tall building. Although its structure was as neat and orderly as a modern building, certain areas were strangely distorted, giving it an uncanny atmosphere.

“Successful dungeons sometimes have a hundred floors above and below ground. Once you make some money, you should invest in expanding the dungeon, too. If you pay me an appropriate fee, I can use my powers to expand the space.”

“How much does it cost to build one floor?”

“One million Eon. But the more floors you have, the more energy it takes to maintain them, so the cost will keep increasing.”

“I’ll keep that in mind…”

As one might expect, the dungeon was completely empty.

There wasn’t even a single trap to hinder the challengers.

So, when they said the Demon King had gone bankrupt buying the dungeon, they really meant he had purchased nothing but the dungeon itself.

“Wouldn’t we need… traps or something?”

“Oh, so you’re that type? The type who torments challengers with elaborate designs! It would certainly be nice to have some. But if you want to install traps, you’ll need an employee with a trap design certification. There’s a high demand for those workers, so you’ll have to pay a pretty hefty salary to recruit one.”

Why was a dungeon so organized and bureaucratic?

And what was a trap design certification supposed to be? Why would a monster even have a professional certification?!

The more I heard, the more absurd this world seemed.

In any case, Brownie continued speaking in an excited voice, apparently delighted to be showing me around his home.

“You’re going to use the above-ground floors as the combat zones, right? If we use the underground floor, it’ll be conquered too quickly since there’s only one level down there.”

I didn’t really know anything about dungeon management, but I nodded, assuming the fairy knew what he was talking about.

“Then let’s put your private office underground.”

The fairy clapped his stubby hands together. A wall opened up in the space where nothing but endless corridors had stretched out, and a cozy room appeared.

“Adding another floor requires payment, but creating or removing spaces like this can be done without any compensation.”

“Wow…”

The fairy spoke in a casual tone, but to me, it felt like I was witnessing an incredible magic trick.

A room had suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a poof! How could I not find that amazing?

“If you show me a proper blueprint, I can rearrange each floor however you want.”

“That’s amazing!”

At my praise, the fairy squirmed bashfully.

I sat down at the desk and chair the fairy had made out of earth. They were terribly uncomfortable to use, but I figured having even these was better than having nothing at all.

“So, what are you going to do now? Hiring field staff should come first, right? Or are you going to change the layout of the floors?”

The fairy urged me on in an increasingly excited voice.

I was starting work immediately, without even having time to adjust to the situation…

I would have been grateful if there had at least been a handover document.

“Um… Did the Demon King not own any other dungeons before this one? Were there any employees who worked with him back then…?”

“This is the first time our Demon King has ever owned a dungeon. Before this, he would shut himself away in his room to conduct research or sleep all day. He’s practically mastered the art of living as a recluse.”

I suddenly remembered that this dungeon was called the Hermit’s Dungeon.

Apparently, there was a reason it had been given that name.

“Don’t tell me that’s why…”

“That’s why he has the lowest rank among all the Demon Kings. It seems he received a final warning from the God of Demons that he’d be stripped of his position as a Demon King if he kept neglecting his duties. In the end, he had no choice but to purchase a dungeon.”

“So even being a Demon King isn’t a lifetime job.”

“At first, I was incredibly happy when I learned that a Demon King had purchased my dungeon, you know? But then I found out he was the lowest-ranked Demon King of them all, and I was a little disappointed. This is a secret!”

“I understand. I can see why you’d feel that way.”

“You really are very empathetic. I’m so happy that you’ve become the manager of our dungeon!”

For a while, Brownie rubbed his rough, grainy, dirt-covered head against my cheek, acting affectionately.

Thanks to that, I had to quickly brush the dirt off my cheek whenever Brownie wasn’t looking.

“I think we should hire employees first.”

“I agree! We never know when adventurers might come storming in, right? Let’s get started right away!”

Brownie exclaimed in a voice brimming with enthusiasm.

And so, we headed toward the dungeon entrance.

The very place I had rushed out of earlier, only to end up fleeing back inside as though running for my life.

Perhaps it was because I felt a little more at ease now. As I admired the strange yet beautiful scenery of the forest, I began to realize that this place was a world where people lived, too.

“How far away are the residential areas?”

“If you keep going in that direction, you can reach one before it gets dark. This dungeon has a good location, too. If it were too remote, people wouldn’t come looking for it.”

For a moment, I imagined what would happen if I simply ran away into the forest.

I couldn’t picture anything particularly hopeful.

I suppose… until I came up with a clear plan, it would be better to stay in the dungeon for the time being.

Besides, even if I went to a residential area, there was no one there who could help me anyway.

I was a stranger with no connections whatsoever, wandering into an unfamiliar village. It didn’t seem like a particularly good choice.

I wasn’t even sure whether I could communicate with the people there.

‘But how is Brownie and I able to understand each other? Is it the Demon King’s power?’

While I tilted my head in confusion, the fairy suddenly fluttered off toward something.

“Aw, not even a single Eon, as expected. Well, I suppose that was only natural.”

Brownie peered inside a stone box placed in front of the dungeon and spoke in a dissatisfied tone.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a prayer box. Pretty shabby, isn’t it? Once we become an infamous dungeon, we’ll be able to use a much bigger donation box.”

“Why do you call it a prayer box?”

“Before adventurers challenge a dungeon, they put money in here and pray to the God of Fortune. They might ask for a safe conquest or for lots of rewards. There are all sorts of reasons.”

“Oh, I see…”

Brownie chattered away in a cheerful voice.

“The God of Fortune is also known as the God of Windfalls. He really loves money. The more money you put in and the more earnestly you pray, the greater the fortune he bestows upon you.”

I approached the prayer box and examined it from every angle. The inside of the box was filled with nothing but dust.

“That’s why people pay a lot of money to pray when they’re challenging a difficult dungeon. I hear that adventurers pay one million Eon every time they pray at the Dungeon of the World, which is run by the number-one-ranked Demon King! Aren’t you jealous? If we manage our dungeon well, we’ll be able to make a fortune someday, too!”

“Make a fortune?”

“We have to run the dungeon using the money collected in this prayer box.”

I let out an awkward laugh. I had been wondering how we were supposed to earn money to run the dungeon, and it turned out this was how it worked…

“But isn’t that money offered to the God of Fortune? Is it really okay for us to just take it and spend it?”

“The God of Fortune doesn’t need physical offerings. What matters is how desperately someone wants something—enough to offer a large sum of money. Besides, the God of Fortune has a partnership with the Demon Kings, so it’s fine. After all, adventurers will keep coming to pray and pay money only as long as the dungeons continue operating, right?”

I was impressed by how well-established this capitalist system was.

“That’s true. You explain things really well. It’s so easy to understand when you put it that way.”

“Hehe… The Demon King used to dislike me because he thought I talked too much… But you like listening to me, so I’m really happy. To tell you the truth, I’ve been terribly lonely all this time. I had no one to talk to.”

Once again, the fairy scratched his head shyly after receiving a compliment.

It seemed he really loved being praised.

Anyway…

“How do we hire employees?”