Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 29

Chapter 29

 

Since I’d brought up the grave, it was time to move on to the really important subject.

However, the words I wanted to say kept circling around inside my mouth, and all I could do was repeatedly part my lips without actually speaking.

This is too difficult. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until Ruadis gets here? Maybe she’ll step in and stop things from going too far? Or… will the two of them each grab one of my wrists and drag me off to the temple together…?

As the silence dragged on, it was unexpectedly Ragner who spoke first.

“Sabira.”

“Pardon?”

“That was his name.”

Sabira. It was quite an unusual name.

Ragner’s eyes sank as he spoke his friend’s name, clouded by memories. I got the feeling that they hadn’t been ordinary friends.

“You must have been very close.”

“He was from this village, too. We were the same age, and our houses were close to each other, so we played together every day.”

A childhood friend from his hometown, practically inseparable. They’d even spent their childhood together…!

In a calm voice, Ragner began sharing his memories of Sabira.

‘Yes. The story behind the grave…’

Thanks to that, I had no choice but to listen to his story while adding one stack after another of guilt to my conscience.

‘I should’ve just come clean first! At least my crime would’ve been lighter than it is now, before I knew the story behind it!’

…But it was too late for regrets like that. In the end, I couldn’t help being curious about the story of the person buried in the grave, so I listened attentively.

Sabira. According to Ragner, if he’d still been alive, he would have been righteous and skilled enough to earn the title of Hero even before Ragner himself.

The two had dreamed of becoming adventurers together and enrolled in the training center side by side. Just like Theon now, they’d swung their swords every day, nurturing their dreams.

“We graduated on the same day, too. We’d completed every part of the training course prepared for us, and we were overjoyed that we were finally ready to venture out into the world. There was nothing we were afraid of.”

“……”

“But that was a misconception. We were eighteen years old. I suppose that’s where his time stopped.”

Sabira lost his life before even making it past the first demon realm outside the village.

An adventurer had died the very moment he took his first step into an adventure.

Their first misfortune was encountering a powerful monster that had been wandering unusually far in the direction they were supposed to travel. Their second misfortune was that the monster belonged to a type they’d never faced before.

The two rookies who had just graduated from the training center lacked the experience to skillfully navigate the accident brought about by such misfortune.

They’d spent all their time beating up wooden training dummies, and even when they were assigned missions to eliminate monsters, they’d probably only dealt with weak enemies that had broken through the barrier… They wouldn’t have had any idea how to handle a powerful monster they’d encountered for the first time.

“Sabira ended up like that because of me.”

At the critical moment, Ragner’s body had frozen with fear.

It was surprising to think that there had once been a time when Ragner had been so frightened of a monster that he couldn’t move.

“To save me… he gave up his own life.”

The righteous death of a promising young adventurer.

Back then, all Ragner could manage was to flee desperately in order to survive. It was only after the monster had left that he was able to retrieve his friend’s body and give him a grave.

And then I learned another surprising fact.

The place where we’d found the grave in the eastern forest of the village had once been part of a demon realm.

As time passed and the power of the Holy Stones grew stronger, the barrier’s range expanded, eventually turning even the area where the grave stood into a safe place.

Was it because the grave had originally been built in a demon realm that a powerful monster like a Dullahan could be born there?

After finishing his story about the past, a faint sadness lingered on Ragner’s face.

He did look a little melancholy, but since all I could sense was the sorrow of someone mourning a friend’s death, it seemed that the passage of time had dulled his grief considerably.

“He sounds like he was a wonderful friend. I never imagined there was such a story behind that grave.”

“After that, I devoted myself to adventuring so I could fulfill the dreams Sabira had left unfinished. If he’d been alive, he would have accomplished far greater things than I have. But I suppose this is as far as I can go.”

“……”

But I was supposed to tell him that I wanted to turn that precious friend of his into an employee at our dungeon.

“I no longer have the energy to keep going. For now, I simply want to spend the rest of my life in my hometown.”

As Ragner said those words, he looked like someone who’d fallen into such prolonged ennui that he’d lost even the will to live.

If Brownie were here, he might have pointed at him and shouted, Dead-fish eyes…

But as I listened to his story, something suddenly came to mind.

On the day I first met Ruadis at the training center, there had been something she’d said to Ragner when he supported my opinion.

“Don’t tell me you’re still holding on to what happened back then?”

“…Master, out of the ten adventurers who leave the training center and embark on their first journey, five lose their lives.”

Could the ‘what happened back then’ she’d mentioned have been referring to Sabira’s death?

So that’s why Ragner had agreed with my opinion that adventurers needed to gain more practical experience. It wasn’t simply because he wanted to take my side.

He’d genuinely believed in it.

‘Oh, no. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else now!’

“If Miss Choi’s dungeon can become a proper place of learning, then the number of novice adventurers who tragically lose their lives like Sabira could be greatly reduced.”

“Haha…”

“I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea at first, but now I’m looking forward to it quite a bit. Please guide them well.”

I was a shameless person who wanted to take a monster, presumably Sabira, who had died, and bring him into my dungeon.

‘Help me, my lucky talisman, peacefully sleeping inside the safe! What am I supposed to do now!?’

“It’s been a very long time since I’ve brought up Sabira’s story to anyone else. You seem to have a special quality that makes me want to open up and share my innermost thoughts with you, Miss Choi.”

“Ugh…”

Ragner’s compliment became an arrow, stabbing mercilessly into my conscience.

…In the end, I decided that even if I informed him of the Dullahan’s identity, it would be better to give up on recruiting it to the dungeon, if only for the sake of my future relationship with Ragner.

“Mr. Ragner, first of all, I’d like to say that I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t dwell too much on Sabira’s story. I simply wanted to let you know that a wonderful adventurer who saved his friend’s life is resting in that grave.”

“That’s not it… Sigh. Well… I think I have some bad news to share with you.”

Right. After all, wasn’t it always my job to deliver unpleasant news to people?

Things like how holiday leave would be forcibly deducted from annual leave, how attendance at company dinners was mandatory but everyone had to split the bill, or how employees were expected to participate in weekend mountain hikes disguised as company workshops…

Wasn’t it practically a daily occurrence for me to relay things that came straight from the boss’s mouth, only to get cursed at by the employees?

I just had to think of this one more time.

“Bad news…?”

I squeezed my eyes shut and, with great difficulty, finally managed to speak.

“Um… I think your friend may have become a monster… A monster called a Dullahan…”

I’d finally done it.

“Still, I never would have imagined it was Sabira.”

“Since it was him, it makes sense that a high-ranking monster like a Dullahan could have appeared.”

“Indeed. It would have to be someone like Sabira.”

I’d been dragged along.

Against my will, I’d ended up heading to the eastern forest with Ragner and Ruadis.

“Now I finally understand why that monster kept avoiding me whenever I showed up.”

“Even after becoming a monster, his lingering thoughts would remain. He must have been instinctively aware of your presence.”

I followed behind the two of them, feeling as though I were sitting on a bed of thorns.

“I should have paid more attention to the grave.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The moment he died in a demon realm, demonic energy must already have seeped into him. There’s no way to completely prevent someone from becoming an undead monster unless a high-ranking priest performs a consecration. This isn’t anyone’s fault.”

When I’d delivered the bad news about his deceased friend, Ragner’s reaction had been completely unexpected.

So unexpected that all the effort I’d put into planning an escape route in preparation for the worst possible scenario now seemed utterly pointless.

He hadn’t gotten angry at me or given me a cold look.

It wasn’t simply that he was good at controlling his expressions. There wasn’t even the slightest trace of resentment toward me in his eyes.

After a long silence, he’d only said one thing.

“I see.”

That was it…

He’d been so calm that it was almost as if he’d expected this to happen.

All the worrying I’d done by myself felt utterly pointless.

After that, Ruadis joined us when she finished work, and by the time I came to my senses, I’d somehow been dragged all the way to the eastern forest of the village.

The two of them were going to look for a former childhood friend who’d become a monster, and a disciple.

And standing between them was one scout.

Was it really okay for me to be part of a gathering like this…?