Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 

I desperately tried to regain my composure.

“W-Wait a moment! How can I be sure that’s really true? You could promise to give me one billion won and then not pay me.”

This was supposedly a different dimension from the one I lived in. And yet, it claimed it could give me the currency of my original world?

And even if it actually created real money right here and now, what if the bills were counterfeit?

The Demon King silently watched me panting with excitement, then slowly waved one of its wings. A small white light gathered at the tip.

The ball of light soon fluttered over as if it were alive and landed at my feet. The moment it touched the ground, it began to change shape.

“Huff…!”

It was a bundle of 50,000-won bills.

Even at a glance, it looked like there was at least twenty million won there.

“An advance payment.”

The Demon King spoke in a languid voice.

“Instead of bringing currency of that value from your dimension, I exchanged it for another object of equal value, leaving that object behind. So you needn’t doubt it. The money is genuine.”

“A-An advance payment? This money really belongs to me…?”

“Correct.”

With trembling hands, I picked up the bundle of bills and cradled it against my chest.

The weighty sensation filling my hands made my head spin.

The countless things I could do with twenty million won came to mind, paralyzing my thoughts.

I barely managed to stop myself from blurting out that I wanted to sign the contract immediately.

Now isn’t the time to get distracted by money!

“You said this currency was brought over from the dimension I used to live in. Does that mean I can go back there?”

Even if I obtained a fortune, it would be useless if I couldn’t return to a place where I could actually spend it!

At my question, the Demon King let out a soft sigh.

“I cannot send you back just yet. I expended a tremendous amount of causality to bring you here. Furthermore…”

The Demon King pointed the tip of its wing at the bundle of bills I was carefully holding against my chest.

“Bringing that here completely depleted my power. Therefore, I cannot return you to your original dimension in my current state.”

I froze on the spot.

I hadn’t anticipated that the Demon King’s power would be completely depleted.

And it had even used up almost all its remaining power because of this twenty million won?

An ominous feeling washed over me. The dreadful suspicion that I might not be able to return home right away.

“T-Then, perhaps the other Demon Kings… could they send me back to my original world…?”

“You would be wise to abandon the idea of leaving this place and finding employment at another dungeon. No Demon King would hire someone without experience, and a human would never even have the opportunity to meet a Demon King alone. To us, humans are nothing more than livestock from which we extract fear.”

Brownie, who had been floating beside us, also began shrieking.

“Absolutely not! You can’t leave!”

“N-No, of course not. I would never think such a thing! Not even a little!”

I hurriedly shook my head, then let my shoulders droop.

What was I supposed to do now? Was I going to have to live in this strange world forever?

I’d never see my family or friends again.

The thought of never returning, of leaving behind all the money I’d painstakingly saved, all the years I’d lived, and all my memories, made my head spin.

Just then, the Demon King spoke slowly.

“To regain my power, I must extract fear from a great many people. Once my rank rises to around eleventh place, I should be able to return you to your original world.”

The moment I heard those words, hope blossomed within me.

I could go home!

If I raised the Demon King before me to eleventh place, I could return home! And I’d get ten billion won along with it!

…Now that I thought about it, the terms weren’t all that bad.

After all, the only person I could rely on right now was this owl Demon King standing before me, wasn’t it?

Under these circumstances, it would be a much bigger problem if the Demon King refused to hire me.

I had no idea how difficult it would be to raise its rank, but with my return home and ten billion won at stake, wouldn’t it be better to give it my best shot?

“I-I’ll give it a try!”

I clenched my fist tightly and held it up.

Even if I ultimately couldn’t pull it off, I figured I could hire a capable new employee later and leave the task to them.

The ten billion won was a secondary objective. Getting home was the most important thing.

“Then the contract is concluded.”

“Great!”

The Demon King’s voice grew noticeably brighter. The fairy Brownie also cheered and flew around in a frantic, distracting frenzy.

My résumé appeared before me once again.

Before long, the bottom of the paper began to burn away, and something resembling a bright red seal appeared.

The characters didn’t look like Hangul at all, yet, strangely enough, I could read them.

The words written on the seal were [Hiring Complete].

And just like that, I’d successfully changed jobs to a new company (or rather, a dungeon).

And then…

“Your Majesty the Demon King…?”

Once the entire process was over, the Demon King flopped straight down onto the floor.

Within just a few seconds, it had fallen asleep, snoring loudly.

I’d only just joined the company, and the boss had already gone off to dreamland.

My bewilderment lasted only a moment before the dirt doll, which had been naturally ignoring the Demon King, fluttered over to me.

“Hello! Let me introduce myself again. I’m Brownie, the resident fairy who’ll help you manage the dungeon.”

“Hello……”

Brownie seemed to be in an extremely good mood.

Its thin mouth, as though carved into clay with a sculpting knife, curved into a crescent moon.

It flew in circles around me at waist height, chattering away in a very high-pitched, slightly abrasive voice. It seemed to have a rather cheerful and lively personality.

“I have very high hopes for you! The more you revive this dungeon, the stronger I’ll become, too! My dream is to become a top-tier fairy. Please make this place an incredibly, incredibly notorious dungeon.”

“I-I’ll try. I really don’t know much about this, though……”

If I wanted to return home, I’d have to do my best for now.

It only seemed difficult because I was thinking of it as a dungeon. Couldn’t I just treat it as joining a disorganized company and get to work?

I was a capable employee who’d endured four years at a notorious black company for a meager salary, after all!

“Anyway, it’s such a relief. I was really worried that we wouldn’t be able to hire a single employee because His Majesty the Demon King went bankrupt buying the dungeon.”

Just as I was reassuring myself, I heard another statement that nearly made me clutch the back of my neck.

“Wait! Hold on! What do you mean, bankrupt?!”

“Oh, His Majesty didn’t tell you? Well, the truth is, he spent his entire fortune buying this enormous dungeon. He said that a small dungeon just wouldn’t look impressive for someone who was a Demon King. He probably has some debts now, too.”

I frantically looked around the empty space where I was standing.

So he’d gone bankrupt buying the company building?

Suddenly, I realized that the fat owl Demon King really was the sort of person who would do something like that.

I’d thought he was merely unmotivated and lazy, but it seemed he also had no sense of financial responsibility and was completely incompetent.

No wonder he was ranked last.

Suddenly, the president of my former company came to mind. That man had been the very embodiment of incompetence, too, and an overwhelming sense of anxiety washed over me.

Why was I so unlucky when it came to employers? Mr. Face Reader, you said I had great luck with people!

“Then if he doesn’t have any money at all, how are we supposed to run the company… I mean, the dungeon?”

“Fortunately, I have some initial capital. It’s the money I’ve saved up over my entire life. I hid it from His Majesty the Demon King, so this is a secret between the two of us, okay?”

The fairy opened its mouth wide over my hand and poured out a heap of rusty, dirt-covered coins.

The weight of the coins in my palm made me feel as though my mind had gone completely blank.

“I worked hard to pick up all the coins people dropped. I even resisted the temptation to buy candy so I could save them, so please use them wisely. This is my investment in the dungeon! The dungeon needs to grow so that I can grow, too!”

“How much is all this…?”

Naturally, the money looked somewhat different from the currency used in my world.

Each coin was a little less than half the size of my palm and quite thin.

“About 100,000 eon. That should be enough to hire one or two field workers, as long as they’re pretty incompetent.”

“The unit is won?”

I was startled by the familiar-sounding unit.

“No, eon. Eon, the currency used in the Anais Empire.”

“Ah… eon.”

At least it’ll be easy to get used to, I thought idly.

“Can we really hire employees with this much…?”

I was still too unfamiliar with the value of the currency to properly process the situation.

“It’s a tough job market these days. There are tons of monsters begging to be given work as long as they’ll get paid. Of course, since the wages are low, only the lousy ones will be attracted to us.”

As Brownie spoke, it casually pointed at the monster’s business card I was holding. So that terrifying green monster I’d encountered was considered a lousy one by fairy standards.

“Even monsters… are struggling to find jobs.”