Chapter 10: At Last, Daybreak
Monster Company Tycoon
The day had finally dawned.
The new employees who had recently joined the dungeon had spent the entire night practicing combat, and they were now fully prepared to welcome the challengers.
Their enthusiasm was impressive, considering they weren’t even being paid overtime.
I suddenly realized that we needed a training facility inside the dungeon.
Of course, there were still plenty of other facilities we needed to build before that…
For now, I made up my mind that once we dealt with this first challenger successfully, I would immediately set up spaces for the new employees.
“I’m so nervous.”
I hadn’t been able to sleep much that night either.
If things went wrong, our dungeon could be conquered by the very first challenger, bringing everything to an end.
Brownie and I hid together near the entrance, waiting for the challenger to appear.
Please, let it be someone incredibly weak. Let it be a beginner adventurer who has only just started their journey!
How much time had passed?
Just as I was growing tired of waiting, I began to hear the sound of people chatting in the distance.
“This time, I’m definitely going to get my parents’ permission!”
“Are you sure we’ll be okay? We haven’t even finished our basic swordsmanship training yet.”
Two different voices!
The moment I realized there were two challengers instead of one, my head started spinning. But there was still hope.
They just had to be weak!
As the two drew closer, their figures gradually became clearer.
And when I got a good look at them…
“What the heck? They’re just kids!”
I had a complex about my own small stature, so I tried not to judge people based on their appearance. But no matter how I looked at them, they were definitely children.
How old were they? Middle school age at most?
“Humans can work as adventurers once they’ve lived for thirteen years.”
Brownie said it as if it were no big deal.
“Thirteen? They’re way too young! Kids that age… They actually go around fighting monsters and stuff?”
In our world, thirteen-year-olds were supposed to be going to cram school and playing games at PC cafés…
“There are adventurers who have made a name for themselves in high-level dungeons at sixteen. Give kids like those three years, and they’ll be shaking down passing monsters for money.”
“Even so…”
“Isn’t this actually a good thing? No matter how weak our new recruits are, do you really think they’ll lose to kids like those? Just look at how they’re holding their swords. Their technique is absolutely terrible.”
Brownie chattered excitedly.
But my conscience wouldn’t let me simply ignore the situation.
What if the children got seriously injured in the dungeon? What if they even lost their lives…?
No matter how desperate my situation was, I didn’t want to do anything cruel to children.
“Brownie, I don’t think we should do this.”
“What? Are you seriously worried that the monsters in the dungeon might take an adventurer’s life?”
“Of course! I’m human too. How could I just stand by and let something happen to children who are the same species as me?”
“You have a serious misunderstanding about dungeons!”
Brownie scolded me in an incredulous voice.
“Th-Then that’s not how it works?”
“Of course not! If adventurers die, the dungeon loses money! We need them to challenge the dungeon again and again if we want to make a profit.”
Now that I thought about it, that made sense. If the number of adventurers decreased, the dungeon would have fewer opportunities to earn money.
The Demon King gained power by extracting fear from adventurers, while the dungeon operated using the money they deposited into the prayer box.
“Then… what exactly causes a challenger to fail to conquer a dungeon?”
“When a challenger experiences extreme fear, to the point where they think they might die. At that point, the holy relic can place a curse on them, causing them to lose consciousness and become incapable of moving. That’s the signal telling us that we’ve extracted all the fear we can from them and should kick them out.”
No matter what happened, we had to prevent challengers from reaching the deepest part of the dungeon.
The reason was simple: we had to protect the holy relic.
On the first day of my contract, Brownie had explained the ‘holy relic’ kept deep inside the dungeon.
“The holy relic is the very core that keeps the dungeon running! It’s an incredibly, incredibly important object that extracts fear from adventurers and grants the dungeon the blessings of the Demon God.”
To completely ‘conquer’ a dungeon meant having the holy relic taken away by an adventurer, leaving the dungeon unable to function as a dungeon anymore.
Normally, to prevent this, dungeons built a reward room right in front of the room where the holy relic was kept. The reward room served as a decoy, encouraging adventurers to collect a suitable reward and return home satisfied.
But we hadn’t even built a reward room yet… So we had no choice but to stop our first challengers somehow.
“Of course, getting injured during combat is unavoidable. But a dungeon never lets things go so far that someone suffers an irrecoverable injury or dies. We need them to recover and come back for another challenge!”
In other words, injuries were only allowed if the adventurers could fully recover with proper treatment.
Even so, I still wasn’t comfortable with the idea…
“Ooh! They’re coming, they’re coming!”
Brownie bounced up and down on top of my head, pointing outside.
While we had been talking, the children had already reached the dungeon entrance.
“I had no idea there was a dungeon near our village.”
“I discovered it by accident when I came here to gather herbs. Maybe I’m the first person to discover it!”
“Whoa… But doesn’t it feel a little… creepy? Can we really do this?”
“How long are we going to keep practicing vertical slashes until our arms cramp up? If we clear the dungeon and return home with our heads held high, our master will have no choice but to acknowledge us. Then he’ll give us permission to go on an adventure!”
“Wait! Aren’t we supposed to pray before challenging the dungeon?”
“I did that yesterday in advance. If I kept the money in my pocket, someone might catch me skimming the money I earned running errands. So I just put it all into the prayer box.”
It seemed the children had made quite a few preparations for their dungeon challenge. They had brought well-worn wooden swords and were wearing what they called armor: leather plates fastened together with straps over the front and back of their bodies.
They were exactly the kind of beginner adventurers I had been desperately hoping for.
And yet, I still couldn’t shake my uneasiness.
“Where are you going?”
“To tell the monsters to go easy on them.”
“Is that really necessary? We should show them the harsh realities of life!”
“Like you said, we need to go easy on them so they don’t get discouraged and give up after their first challenge.”
“Oh! So you’ve actually thought this through.”
I hurried toward the first floor, where the monsters were waiting.
I sat in my private office and monitored the dungeon through the status screen.
It was a kind of administrator-only privilege that allowed me to inspect every single corner of the dungeon. This power came from the holy relic.
A short while later, I saw the little challengers enter the first floor, their legs trembling.
“I can see the children’s attack and defense stats.”
Strangely enough, the challengers’ combat statistics were displayed on the monitor.
Both were Level 2, with an attack power of 50 and a defense of 10. Their combat abilities were nowhere near those of the monsters.
There’s absolutely no chance they’ll win.
Brownie, who was watching alongside me, spoke up.
“At its current level, the holy relic can only display information about challengers below Level 10. We’ll have to strengthen the holy relic if we want to see information about anyone stronger than that.”
“If a high-level adventurer ever visits, we’re going to be in serious trouble…”
After passing through the entrance, adventurers were provided with a lobby where they could make their final preparations for battle.
The lobby was considered a safe point, governed by an unwritten rule that monsters were not allowed to enter it.
“When we open that door, a monster will come out.”
“I’m scared…”
At last, the first challengers opened the door, and a Lesser Goblin sprang out, letting out a roar to intimidate them, just as it had practiced.
“Aaaah! It’s a goblin!”
“Kiheheh! Tender, soft-skinned humans have come here without even knowing their place!”
Despite saying something so sinister… that goblin was actually a vegetarian.
“Um, does the dungeon happen to provide lunch?”
“Uh… no. Our dungeon is still severely lacking in employee benefits…”
“Oh, I see. I’m a vegetarian, so I thought I’d ask just in case. O-Of course! I can work hard even without meals being provided!”
To draw out the challengers’ fear, the monsters needed to behave as cruelly as possible.
One of the children who had come along fell backward onto his bottom, but the other immediately raised his wooden sword and stepped in front of his friend.
“I’ll take you on!”
His hands were trembling, but he was quite brave.
“Hyah!”
The little adventurer’s movements looked clumsy, but he managed to deliver a fairly proper attack.
“Theon!”
So that brave child’s name is Theon.
The goblin still hadn’t received any equipment, so it had to take the attack with its bare body. Fortunately, the children’s attack power was so weak that the damage was almost nonexistent.
The goblin merely made a face as if it had felt a slight sting.
Even so, the monsters were faithfully following my request to put up a reasonable fight.
“Not bad for a little brat! But can you block this attack too!? Rattle, rattle.”
“Gasp! It looks like he’s about to use an incredible technique! Theon, dodge!”
“I won’t run away!”
“Take this! My ultimate technique: The Really Hard Swing!”
As the children were pushed further into a corner, a red aura-like substance began to rise from their bodies. That was probably what the fear absorbed by the dungeon looked like when visualized.
After being tossed around by the monsters like that, the children’s fear eventually reached its maximum threshold, and they both collapsed unconscious.
