Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 34

Chapter 34

 

The first memory was of a forest in the rain.

Whoooosh.

The deafening sound of rain.

Cold raindrops pounded against my armor, falling endlessly onto the dark, wet earth.

I did not know how long that sound had continued.

Even the concept of time had grown faint.

That day, the sound of rain incessantly pounding against my armor briefly awakened my consciousness, which had sunk into a deep abyss.

I was standing in a forest.

‘Why was I here? Where was I supposed to go? Who was I?’

I knew nothing.

I tried to think of something, but my mind was filled with nothing but thick darkness.

There was only one sensation that felt particularly out of place within that darkness.

An intense aversion to encountering something.

Soon, even the consciousness I had barely managed to awaken sank back into the darkness.

The second memory was also of a forest.

This time, the weather was clear.

Sunlight streamed through the leaves.

“KYAAAA! A monster!”

A loud scream rang out.

That sound had awakened my consciousness once again.

I didn’t want to hear it.

So I swung the sword in my hand, and soon, everything fell silent.

Then I, too, sank back into the darkness.

The third memory was…

“Lord Dullahan!”

Someone’s shout.

But this time, it was different.

The moment I heard that voice…

Shwaaa!

It was as though someone had grabbed my consciousness, which had been buried deep in a swamp, and yanked it up in one swift motion.

The world became clear.

The leaves swaying in the wind, the scent of earth and grass, the weight of the armor pressing down on my body.

And even the existence of myself, which I had forgotten for an incredibly long time.

Only then did I realize.

That my consciousness had been in a deep slumber all this time.

It was not simply a shout.

It was a call.

A command and an imprint that burrowed deep into the very core of one’s existence.

A powerful connection that could neither be rejected nor escaped.

It was a form of dominion granted only to the twenty-one highest authorities who ruled over demonic power.

Beings who had received their authority directly from the Demon God and were permitted to command countless monsters and reign above them.

Lower-ranked monsters were required to answer their call.

It was an instinct engraved into their very existence from the moment they were born as monsters.

An Authority had called me. Therefore, I had no choice but to hear it.

Because that call had dragged me out of the deep darkness in which I had been submerged.

I was able to become myself wholly once more.

This was my second life. I had originally been human, but after dying, I was reborn as a monster.

However, my memories from when I was alive were as sparse as a cloth riddled with holes. There was far more I couldn’t remember than I could.

I thought I had once had a very close friend. I also seemed to have harbored an ambitious dream. But no matter how hard I tried to hold on to them, my memories scattered like water slipping through my fingers.

It was surely because I had lost my head. My memories were inside it, and that was why I was incomplete now.

So I had to find my head. If only I could get it back…

‘But why was it so noisy? What on earth had that person been babbling about all this time?’

“Lord Dullahan!”

A voice calling me once again.

“Have you ever considered working in an even better environment than your current one? We guarantee that you’ll receive treatment befitting your abilities!”

‘Work? Ah, that’s right.’

Monsters were naturally supposed to come under the rule of a ruler.

It was the safest way of life for us, as well as the natural order that beings born from demonic power were meant to follow.

But I was so listless that even that no longer mattered. Everything was bothersome, and I was indifferent to everything.

I didn’t want to do anything except find my head.

“How long are you going to keep wandering around the forest like this, living so uncomfortably? At the Hermit’s Dungeon, we provide a stable place where you can stay!”

Not interested. My head was somewhere around here.

I could definitely feel it, but no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find it.

Without my head, neither a good place to stay nor favorable treatment meant anything.

But something was strange.

The voice was undoubtedly bothersome and noisy, yet for some reason, I wanted to keep listening to it.

Because every time I heard that voice, the jumbled memories scattered throughout my mind gradually fell back into place.

A rural village. Yes, I had grown up in a small village.

I wanted to become an adventurer. So I learned swordsmanship under my master, and…

And… there was someone else. Someone very close to me.

As my memories gradually returned, I became a little more complete.

“Ah… Has the Demon King himself come looking for me?”

I spoke for the first time.

My voice was rougher and more damaged than I remembered.

And yet, strangely, I felt good.

The fact that I could make a sound. That I could put my thoughts into words.

Even that small realization made me feel as though I was gradually returning to myself.

“You could have simply given me an order instead of going through all these strange antics.”

If the Demon King ordered me to come to him at once, I would gladly prostrate myself at his feet.

I drew up my energy and spread it throughout the forest.

My energy extended like a spiderweb, and at last, it found the Authority who had called me.

Something was strange.

An energy that felt both familiar and unfamiliar.

It possessed the authority of demonic power, yet its appearance was close to that of a human.

At the very least, none of the twenty-one Demon Kings engraved in my instincts had a presence like that.

A new Demon King? …No. There were no vacant seats among the twenty-one.

Then what on earth was that?

For the first time, I became interested in something other than my head.

Without revealing myself, I observed that being.

“If you come to our dungeon, there’s one more employee benefit! And that is… we’ll find your lost belongings for you right away!”

My attention immediately snapped toward them.

‘They would find lost belongings?’

I nearly took a step forward without realizing it.

But I stopped myself. Not yet.

Just a little longer. I wanted to hear this voice a little longer.

Because the more I listened, the more of my lost memories returned.

I had to know.

Who I had been, and what I had lost.

And, most importantly… How on earth I had died.

According to my incomplete memories… I had been murdered by someone. My neck had been ruthlessly severed.

Considering how painfully my heart had ached just before I died, perhaps I had been murdered by someone very close to me.

Now that I had been given a second life, wouldn’t it be possible to find the bastard who killed me and take revenge?

 

***

 

“Lord Dullahan, while you’re waiting, could you fill out this application form? I’ll be right back.”

“Why do you have to make such a long speech? It would be easier if you just gave me an order.”

After handing Dullahan a pen and a sheet of paper with the application form printed on it, I hurriedly left the office.

The moment the door closed, I leaned my back against the wall and slid all the way down.

“What… What did I just hear?”

It happened while I was still sulking over the remark that I resembled the dog Ragner used to raise.

Dullahan had suddenly dropped a bombshell.

“I’m starting to think my childhood friend was the one who killed me. Fluffy, have you ever heard the name Ragner?”

What kind of misunderstanding could possibly lead someone to arrive at such an absurd conclusion?

Was it because it still didn’t have its head that it wasn’t in its right mind?

Now that I’d somehow managed to make contact with Dullahan, the next step was to arrange a meeting so that Ragner and Ruadis could see Sabira.

But Sabira firmly believed that Ragner had killed her.

She believed it so wholeheartedly that no matter how hard I tried to clear up the misunderstanding, it was no use.

When I asked why she thought that, the answer I received was even more ridiculous.

The last thing she had seen before dying was Ragner’s face, and at that moment, her heart had hurt so much with sorrow that it felt as though it were being squeezed.

Therefore, she was certain that she had been betrayed and killed by the friend she trusted most.

‘No, that’s not it… You were killed by a powerful monster, and you actually sacrificed yourself to protect your precious friend, Ragner.’

I explained it over and over again like a broken record, but she wouldn’t listen at all.

It was obvious that her intelligence stat had dropped because she didn’t have her head.

At this point, I started to have some doubts.

Should I really let the two of them meet Sabira when her memories were still incomplete…?

“Would it be better to find her head first?”

If I brought her head before she met the two of them, perhaps her memories would return properly.

But there was one fatal problem with that plan.

That meant I would have to personally carry a severed human head in my own hands.

“Urgh…”

‘Absolutely not!’

“Stop groaning and just discuss it with them. What’s the point of worrying about it alone? It’d be faster and easier to ask the people involved directly for their opinions.”

After all, humans are social animals, and conversation is the most proper and wonderful means of resolving conflicts!