Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 41

Chapter 41

 

I barely managed to calm my wildly pounding heart as I stared at the box full of money.

Since this world didn’t use paper bills, the box was filled to the brim with colorful coins, making it look just like a treasure chest from a game.

“Wow… How much is all this?”

Was it really normal for a representative to receive an employee’s entire life savings? Shouldn’t I return it, even now?

Brownie hadn’t seen it yet, so maybe I still had a chance to…

“Chihuahua, what are you doing? The skeleton guys said you went to the office grinning from ear to ear…”

‘I’ve been caught!’

“Money!?”

Brownie immediately flew toward the box and dove straight into the mountain of coins. Then, as if they belonged to her, she happily flailed around in them.

“Where’d you get all this? Did you rob some monster passing by?”

Her voice was more excited than I’d ever heard it before.

“No, well…”

“Since it’s in a chest, did you raid a dungeon? Which dungeon was it? Chihuahua’s weak, so you must’ve stolen it secretly, right? We need to get our stories straight before anyone catches on, so tell me right away if you need an alibi.”

“I just received it.”

“You received it? That’s impossible!”

Brownie suddenly sprang up and frantically rummaged through my clothes before pulling out my square-shaped pendant.

“Good grief. I thought you’d sold the dungeon rights or something.”

“I didn’t sell them. I really did receive it.”

Even if I was desperate for money, would I really sell off the dungeon? What does she take me for, anyway?

“Then who on earth gave you all this money?”

“Um… Ms. Sabira…”

“Sabira?”

“The Dullahan.”

Brownie froze like a stone for a moment before breaking into a huge grin.

“That’s right! She used to be human, didn’t she? If she was human, she must’ve saved up some money before she died!”

“Exactly. But shouldn’t we give it back? It’s not just humans who use money. Monsters use it too…”

“Are you crazy!?”

“Argh!”

Brownie suddenly launched herself at my head and yanked at my hair as if she were pulling weeds.

“Why would you give away something this precious? She gave it to you, didn’t she!?”

“Wait, let’s talk about this. Use your words!”

After finally letting go of my hair with an irritated huff, she sprawled herself across the box as if staging a sit-in.

“No way! Once you give it away, it’s gone forever!”

“……”

“Chihuahua, think wisely. Are we in any position to be picky right now? We’re practically at the point where we’d have to steal the snot-nosed pocket money of little kids!”

Even if I returned the money to Sabira, Brownie was the type to sneak back and steal it all over again.

“…All right. We’ll use it for the dungeon funds.”

Still seeming unconvinced, she hugged the coins tightly and let out a threatening growl like an excited dog.

“I mean it. Now get out so I can count it.”

“Do it in front of me.”

“I said I’m not giving it back!”

I took the coins out of the box one by one, sorting them into piles by denomination as I counted. Once I finished, I discovered that the amount Sabira had given me was a whopping 200,000 eon.

“Wow…”

The amount was suspiciously exact. It was almost as if she’d been saving up coins in a piggy bank until she reached a specific target. For example, perhaps there was something she’d really wanted to buy that cost exactly 200,000 eon. Judging by the relatively high proportion of smaller-denomination coins, such as 1-eon and 10-eon coins, she’d probably been quite frugal with her savings.

‘And she didn’t bring it along on her adventures, but deliberately hid it under the floor of her house. Was it an emergency fund?’

Of course, if she’d brought the money with her on her adventures, it would probably be buried somewhere in the Demon Realm by now.

“We’re rich now!”

“I’m not sure I’d call us rich with just 200,000 eon…”

“With this money, we can recruit more monsters, right?”

“That’s true, but we can’t just spend it all at once. I think we should be a little more careful with our investments.”

Brownie was already completely absorbed in imagining what she could do with our newfound wealth.

‘This really will give us some much-needed breathing room in terms of operations…’

The uneasiness hadn’t quite gone away, but just as Brownie had said, we weren’t in a position to be choosy right now.

I steeled myself and decided to swallow my doubts along with the money.

“Now they’re starting to look decent.”

After today’s training session, Ruadis gave her assessment while looking at the employees sprawled out on the ground.

“Oh, really? Ms. Sabira has also been helping the team members with their training ever since she joined us. I guess that’s why their skills have been improving so quickly.”

“You lot, don’t go around telling people you’re under my command. It’s embarrassing.”

The employees had been worked relentlessly until they reached Sabira’s standards.

They could no longer afford to sit around on the dungeon floor chatting just because no challengers were showing up.

Thanks to that, for the past few days, I’d been nervously worrying that the employees might file a workplace harassment complaint against me.

“Are the conditions we agreed upon coming along nicely?”

There were two conditions Ruadis had set before agreeing to cooperate with me.

The monsters had to possess sufficient combat abilities, and we had to prepare special rewards for novice adventurers.

“Yes! Now that Ms. Sabira has transferred to our dungeon, that problem has been resolved. The items should also be delivered without a hitch soon.”

The monster that had been terrorizing the Eastern Forest was gone. As a result, the craftsmen could now gather materials without fear.

On top of that, we’d somehow ended up completing the hidden quest the craftsmen had set, allowing us to sign an exclusive supply contract with them.

Now, whenever we placed an order for sacred stone compasses and healing potions, we could receive them directly from the craftsmen without going through the general store, which had previously served as our middleman.

With the distribution margin eliminated, our purchasing costs had dropped considerably.

“We should be able to stock the reward rooms by next week!”

I’d received information from Ruadis about how many adventurers were nearing graduation, and based on the expected demand, I’d placed an order for slightly more than the required quantity in advance.

A comfortable twenty sets or so.

Each treasure chest in the reward room would contain one sacred stone compass, two healing potions, and six purification stones.

A sacred stone compass cost 800 eon each.

Healing potions cost 300 eon per bottle.

Purification stones cost 100 eon each.

That meant filling a single treasure chest would cost a total of 1,700 eon.

Assuming each challenger put 100 eon into the prayer box before attempting the dungeon, they’d need to challenge it at least seventeen times before we broke even…

The cost was quite a burden, but reducing the number of items any further would make it difficult to call them rewards. Besides, that would go against our original intention of providing at least a little ‘help’ to the graduates so they could safely make their way through the Demon Realm.

At my explanation, Ruadis smiled in satisfaction and nodded.

However, that expression didn’t last long.

“Hmm…”

“Is there another problem?”

“It’s good. Very good, actually.”

She looked around the dungeon with an expression that suggested something still wasn’t quite to her liking.

“Don’t you think it’s a little too bare?”

“Pardon?”

“Practical experience doesn’t necessarily mean combat alone. They also need to develop the ability to handle various dangerous situations.”

Suddenly, I started sweating as if I were standing in front of a particularly demanding VIP customer.

“Y-yes. For example?”

“I was thinking we could give our students a little more to worry about. It’s all too straightforward right now.”

I immediately understood what she was getting at.

“The Demon Realm is such an unpredictable environment. Wouldn’t it be helpful for them to experience somewhat similar situations in advance, even if only a little? Well, I’m not saying it’s absolutely necessary. It’s just a suggestion. I think it would be nice.”

She wanted me to add things like traps to the dungeon to make it more dynamic.

That way, the students could develop the ability to respond to various unexpected situations.

Apparently, her reunion with Sabira had stirred something inside Ruadis.

“Y-yes, that’s true. Compared to the Demon Realm, our dungeon is rather simple. It really is…”

I thought of the box of coins worth 200,000 eon that I’d carefully tucked away in my office.

“Of course, you’ve already met all the conditions I set. You’re under no obligation to go any further, but wouldn’t investing more into the dungeon benefit you as well?”

Is it really appropriate for someone who used to be an adventurer to tell me to expand my dungeon like this…?

Anyway.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve actually been feeling that we were lacking in certain areas too. If our finances allow it, I was planning to invest more in the dungeon.”

Only then did Ruadis seem satisfied, and she finally left.

“Hmm…”

Including the money Sabira had given us, the dungeon currently had a total of 348,800 eon in assets.

Tomorrow, I’d receive 30,000 eon from my part-time job, but 20,000 eon would immediately go toward the monsters’ weekly wages. Another 34,000 eon would also be spent on purchasing items.

That meant our total assets as of tomorrow would be 324,800 eon!

“So she wants me to use this money to spruce up the dungeon a little more…”

After thinking it over for a long time, I finally made my decision.

‘We would recruit more employees.’

This time, however, instead of field personnel, we’d be hiring employees responsible for facility maintenance.

Apparently, if I wanted to install traps, I needed employees with trap design certifications. Why was managing a single dungeon so complicated?

“Brownie! We need to put out a recruitment notice!”