Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 31

Chapter 31

 

Thud, thud.

For a while, the only sound echoing through the forest was the noise of them digging up the soil.

Neither of them had any proper tools, so they were digging with their swords still inside their scabbards.

I even wondered if I should have brought Brownie along instead. Wasn’t she an Earth Fairy? Couldn’t she have dug everything up in an instant?

“It seems this place has been dug up once before. The soil isn’t very firm.”

“The monster must have forced its way out, so that’s probably why.”

Come to think of it, if a corpse had turned into a monster, it couldn’t have stayed buried underground forever. It must have found some way to get out.

But considering that, the grave was in surprisingly good condition. Even Ragner, who had visited it before, hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

Could it have emerged through a slightly different route?

Just in case, I looked around, but there weren’t any particularly suspicious traces.

By the time the two of them had been digging for quite a while…

“Ah, it’s Sabira’s armor.”

“It seems the remains left the grave while the armor stayed behind.”

“The head… is still here.”

“Poor thing.”

‘I’m sorry, but… could you perhaps refrain from describing it in such detail…? I’m terrified I’ll end up imagining it.’

I could see Ragner approaching from a distance, cradling a round helmet in his arms.

“Miss Choi, we’ve found Sabira’s head. This should be the head the Dullahan is searching for.”

“Gasp! You really don’t have to show it to me! Stop! Don’t take the helmet off!”

He looked as though he were about to open the helmet to show me, so I hurriedly shouted at him.

I quickly took off my glasses.

Perhaps my desperate plea had gotten through to him, because Ragner simply stood there for a while, looking at me.

“Young lady, you really seem to be quite timid. How on earth do you manage to run a dungeon? Don’t you spend every day surrounded by monsters?”

At Ruadis’s scolding, I nodded while swallowing back tears inside. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying.

Wouldn’t it have been better if the Demon King had recruited someone with a little more courage?

‘I can’t even watch horror movies!’

“But Miss Choi, you’ll have to use this head yourself to summon the Dullahan.”

“Ah… That’s true. You’re right. Is there… anything we could use to cover it…?”

Through my blurred vision, I saw Ruadis take off her coat and wrap it around the head.

Only then was I able to put my glasses back on.

As my vision cleared, my eyes met Ragner’s, who had been staring intently at me.

“……?”

He suddenly nodded as though he’d realized something, then gestured toward me.

“Are you all right now? Can you come closer?”

“Yes.”

The rounded shape beneath the fabric was bothering me terribly. There was… a human head inside that, wasn’t there?

“Well, what will you do now?”

Ruadis asked, looking at me with interest.

“I’ll do my best to call it out.”

“Do you have some special trick?”

“Right now, I’m not just an ordinary human. I’ve come here as a fully-fledged scout for the dungeon.”

“A scout?”

I was so nervous that I couldn’t even answer Ruadis’s question. I simply nodded.

“But it might hide again, so Mr. Ragner, could you please stay a little… farther away?”

“Understood.”

Ruadis remained behind while Ragner slowly walked away in the direction of the village.

“Huuuu…”

I took a long, deep breath to steady myself.

I couldn’t believe I had to do something so far beyond my abilities all over again.

‘Demon King, who’s currently traveling through dreamland, are you watching? I’m going this far for your sake!’

Just as I’d switched into presentation mode in front of Ruadis before, this time I switched into recruitment mode.

‘I was now a proud dungeon administrator!’

“Lord Dullahan!”

I tightened my stomach and shouted at the top of my lungs.

At my sudden outburst, Ruadis looked utterly dumbfounded.

‘Please don’t look at me like that. This is so embarrassing.’

“I’m from the Hermit’s Dungeon! I’m the dungeon administrator, and I’d like to recruit you, Lord Dullahan! Could we have a little chat?”

“Is that what you call a special trick?”

“At least I’m trying my best.”

To be honest, I’d never actually seen a professional recruiter at work, so I had no idea whether this was the right way to go about it.

Since this is a company, I suppose it would be more appropriate to call myself a headhunter.

I hadn’t written a new résumé since joining the company, so I’d never had any reason to be contacted by a headhunter. However, I’d often heard stories about them from employees who’d left the company.

Most of the employees who quit had naturally left after receiving offers from other companies with much better conditions. About half of them had received those offers through headhunters.

At one point, I even suspected there was someone specifically targeting employees who had worked at our company. Looking back now, that was a rather ridiculous suspicion.

The CEO used to complain that the employees I’d hired were particularly prone to quitting.

But we needed to examine the cause-and-effect relationship properly.

I didn’t particularly want to brag about my eye for talent, but the employees I’d hired were genuinely good at their jobs. Every single one of them was an excellent talent.

Our company was so stingy that applicants with impressive résumés weren’t even offered interviews in the first place. There was no way our company could properly compensate someone with that level of talent.

We had to hire applicants with reasonably modest résumés after considering what we could realistically offer them.

But even those employees, once we started working together, gradually revealed their potential. They were shining pearls hidden inside shells, talents that could never have been discovered from a few lines on a résumé.

Our company had always had a high turnover rate, but every time one of those aces passed through, the company steadily grew.

Of course, there weren’t many people capable of filling the vacancies they left behind, so we were always forced to walk a precarious tightrope.

But if they were that good at their jobs, wasn’t it only natural that other companies would want them?

And yet the CEO had never offered them good enough conditions to make them stay. He had no right to complain about the high turnover rate.

I’d heard plenty about how headhunters approached our employees.

Things like how they described the positions they were offering, what advantages they emphasized when recommending a job change, and how much they offered in terms of salary and benefits.

And there was one thing every employee who’d changed jobs had in common.

At first, they hadn’t given it much thought, but as they listened to the offer, they gradually found themselves wavering.

In that case, my job as a headhunter was clear.

First, I had to pique their interest and give them confidence that things could be better than they were now.

“Lord Dullahan! Would you perhaps be interested in working in an environment that’s better than your current one? We guarantee that you’ll receive compensation appropriate for your abilities!”

“Young lady, surely you don’t mean…”

At Ruadis’s urgent interruption, I lowered my voice and whispered quietly.

“He wouldn’t come if I just called him out of the blue and said his friend wanted to see him, would he? It’s bait. Bait.”

“Is that so…?”

No. I’m one hundred percent sincere.

“How long are you going to keep wandering around this forest, living in such uncomfortable conditions? At the Hermit’s Dungeon, we can provide you with a stable place to stay!”

I’d heard that headhunters took on requests from companies, found suitable candidates, and received a commission once the recruitment was successful.

I’d also heard that, in some cases, the commission was determined based on the hired person’s annual salary.

So a headhunter couldn’t simply grab anyone and recommend that they change jobs.

They had to identify talented people whom companies would want and properly showcase the advantages of the new workplace so that those people would feel inclined to leave their current positions.

Of course, they couldn’t just make up conditions that didn’t exist. There were limits to what a company could offer its employees.

In that case, what mattered was how attractively they presented those limited conditions.

‘Our dungeon might still be nothing more than a dilapidated thatched hut, but we’ll do our very best!’

All right. I think I’ve got the general idea.

The eye of a professional recruiter, capable of recognizing someone’s value.

The eloquence of a headhunter, able to make a new position sound appealing.

And finally…

The spirit of a merchant, who knows how to sway a customer’s heart just to sell one more item!

In any case, I needed to make this high-ranking monster interested in our dungeon, didn’t I?

I just had to mix those three things together appropriately.

“When are you planning to bring up the head?”

“Wouldn’t that make it look too obvious? I’ve got everything thought out.”

“Interesting. Go on, then.”

Ruadis stepped back and watched with an intrigued expression, as though she wanted to see just how far I would take this.

I felt like a grandchild putting on a performance for their grandparents, but I had to overcome this embarrassment.

“We can match your salary! Although we can only go up to 1,500 eon per week. Of course, if you work hard, we can raise it further!”

“Young lady… I didn’t think you were that kind of person, but isn’t that a little too exploitative?”

Ruadis looked at me as though she’d completely changed her opinion of me.

“I know! But our other employees only receive 500 eon a week. That’s three times as much!”

I know, I know. It’s a garbage salary.

But this is all I can afford to pay…

“And just so there’s no misunderstanding, the 500 eon weekly wage… was something the employees themselves proposed.”

The monsters who’ve been around the block a few times are the ones proposing 500 eon…

Since the Dullahan had only just become a monster and didn’t know much about the world yet, perhaps three times that amount would be enough to win it over?