Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 56

Chapter 56

 

When I opened my eyes, I was still in my bedroom.

The blanket covering my body, the slightly damp air peculiar to the dungeon, and the torchlight flickering vividly against the walls.

It was a familiar sight, but I immediately knew I was dreaming.

The reason was…

“Eek…!”

Serio, whom I’d met earlier that day, was sitting on one side of my bed.

‘There’s no way this is real!’

But strangely, I couldn’t wake up right away. Didn’t you normally wake up as soon as you realized you were dreaming?

To make matters worse, Serio even spoke to me.

“Hello?”

“I’m not having a good day! Why on earth are you appearing in my dream?”

The sensations were far too vivid for a dream. It felt just like reality.

If I had been alone, the scenery would have been so lifelike that I might have simply thought I’d woken up in my bedroom. But seeing someone who absolutely shouldn’t have been there sitting right in front of me gave me the creeps.

“Was meeting him earlier today really that memorable? But still, how does someone you’ve only just met end up in your dream…?”

I muttered to myself, utterly baffled, when he opened his mouth as if responding to me.

“That’s because you thought this was the most handsome face you’d ever seen in your life.”

“What?”

He was speaking through Serio’s face, but his words were completely unlike anything Serio would say.

Of course, our meeting had been incredibly brief, but even from that short conversation, I’d been able to figure out what kind of person Serio was.

He spoke in a dry, robotic manner, with stiff, mechanical movements. He was excessively principled and somewhat lacking in flexibility, giving the impression of someone with poor social skills.

He also seemed to have been raised in an extremely strict household.

But the man in front of me was speaking casually, without the slightest hesitation.

“What? I don’t seem like the Serio you know?”

“……”

“Then should I adjust my personality to match Serio’s, too?”

“That’s strange. You’re Serio, so why are you talking like someone else?”

“Ah, this is why I hate perceptive humans.”

When I became even more wary, the man clicked his tongue and twisted his upper body.

Suddenly, a bizarre cracking sound rang out, and a pair of black membranous wings burst out of Serio’s back.

“Argh! What is that? What are you doing!?”

A moment later, Serio’s appearance was nowhere to be seen. In his place, an unfamiliar man was staring at me.

He wore an excessively provocative outfit that showed absolutely no intention of concealing anything. His skin was ashen, his eyes were bright red, and he even had a beauty mark beneath one eye.

Short horns protruded above his jet-black hair, which swayed along his jawline. The tips of the horns curved slightly, like hearts.

He even had a long tail attached to his backside.

Although he still retained a somewhat human appearance, there could be no doubt about what he was.

“A monster?”

“Peekaboo. You have such delicious-looking life force. Your soul is so pure and sparkling.”

He whispered as though confirming my guess, then suddenly crawled across the bed toward me with slow, suggestive movements.

“Don’t come any closer!”

“I’ll show you a wonderful dream. In exchange, could I take just a little of your life force? I’ll only give your soul a little lick. Please?”

At that moment, a memory suddenly flashed through my mind.

Once, I’d been so stressed about being called by the nickname Chihuahua that I’d gone to my grandmother for advice.

But my grandmother had said something incomprehensible to me.

“My puppy was born with such a blessed fate that even wicked things would covet her, and her soul is so pure that the more people call her by her real name, the more dangerous it becomes. Her energy is wonderful, too. So don’t be sad whenever someone calls you by your nickname. Just think, ‘I’ll live a long life,’ and let it go.”

Since then, this was the first being that had ever brought up my soul.

‘No way… Could it really be that because I’d been called by my real name so often, one of those wicked and filthy–’

“I’m hurt when you think of me that way. Calling me dirty…”

Had some hideous, horrifying monster appeared because it was after my soul?

“You’re really ruthless. I was simply born to stimulate human instincts.”

“Get lost!”

I kicked at it as hard as I could, but the monster continued approaching without hesitation.

“Should I change my face again? If you liked that face, how about this one? What about this?”

The monster’s face rapidly changed from Serio’s to Ragner’s, then to Sabira’s.

‘Hmm, they really are handsome faces. No, that’s not the point…!’

“I still don’t like it!”

“Why? What exactly are you dissatisfied with? This is just a dream. All you have to do is enjoy yourself!”

With Sabira’s face saying something like that, it really did look like Sabira.

There wasn’t even the slightest sense of incongruity.

“You just have to stay still. Then I’ll take your life force and…”

The creature had approached so closely that its face was practically right in front of mine. It gave me a seductive smile.

“Y-you… you shameless…!”

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, the space around us began to ripple violently.

“W-what is this?”

The monster in front of me seemed just as bewildered as I was, as though it hadn’t intended for this to happen.

After the space continued shaking violently for quite some time, a moment later…

Craaaack.

With a tremendous roar, it split apart as though being torn open.

Then a huge, pitch-black gauntlet suddenly thrust through the gap and grabbed both the monster and me by the collars.

“Ghk! W-what…?”

And with tremendous force, it dragged us away.

My memory cut out for a moment, then immediately resumed.

Thud!

“Ghk! Cough! Cough! Cough!”

When I came to my senses, I was still on my bed. My head felt numb, as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over me.

The sensation of my clothes being pulled tight and choking me made me cough hoarsely for quite a while before I finally lifted my head.

“Huh? Why is everyone here?”

Brownie was one thing, but even Sabira was in my bedroom.

Still without her head, as usual.

“You insolent bastard! How dare you come here, of all places!”

“Have you no fear? Who do you think you’re messing with?!”

Brownie and Sabira were directing their furious outbursts toward the space beneath my bed, rather than at me.

Come to think of it, I noticed that Sabira was holding something in her hand.

‘…A tail?’

It looked familiar somehow…

Suddenly, I remembered the black gauntlet I’d seen at the very end of my dream.

It was exactly the same as the one Sabira was wearing on her arm right now.

‘Then… was Sabira the one who dragged that monster and me out?’

I quickly peered beneath the bed.

The wicked, hideous, shameless monster was no longer in a dream. It was sprawled flat on the floor beneath my bed in reality, rubbing its hands together and begging for forgiveness.

“I was wrong! I truly deserve to die for what I’ve done!”

“You should be buried underground with nothing but your head sticking out, and then have a carriage run over it!”

“I really didn’t know! I had absolutely no idea I’d entered the Administrator’s dream! If I’d known, I never would have done it! I truly didn’t even know I was inside a dungeon!”

“A bastard as shameless as you should be chopped into tiny pieces from head to toe and thrown in as fertilizer for the Plants!”

“Please forgive me just this once! I was reckless because I failed to recognize someone so great! I’m sorry!”

“Huh?”

But that thing had definitely appeared in my dream. How was it here in reality?

While I blinked in confusion, unable to make sense of the situation, the shameless monster suddenly jerked its head up and looked at me with a face drenched in tears.

Then it grabbed my leg and begged me to spare it just this once.

“I truly didn’t know! I only recently reached adulthood, so I failed to recognize you! I was so distracted by your delicious-looking soul that I didn’t notice the Demon King’s aura! Please, I’ll do anything, just spare my life…”

“Don’t touch our Chihuahua with those filthy hands!”

Brownie furiously smacked the monster’s hand away from my leg.

“Do you have any idea how important our Chihuahua is to this dungeon? How dare you try to hurt her? You’re dead. Do you know how many underlings Chihuahua has directly under her command? You underestimated our dungeon. You need to get beaten to a pulp by everyone here!”

“Waaah! I’m sorry!”

“Whoa, Sabira, wait a moment. This is my bedroom. I don’t want blood splattering everywhere.”

Sabira, who had been watching the whole time, looked ready to bring her sword down on the monster at any moment, so I raised a hand to stop her.

With everyone around me getting angry on my behalf, my own anger was actually fading, and I felt myself becoming calmer instead.

“Phew… Everyone, calm down for a moment. What exactly are you?”

“Sniff… sob…”

“Has this bastard still not come to his senses!? Do you think our dungeon is a joke!? The highest authority in our dungeon is asking what the hell you are!”

“Eek! No! I-I am an incubus.”

I pressed a hand to my forehead.

“Ah, I see… I thought that might be the case.”

In fact, there had already been plenty of clues that it was an incubus. Just the fact that it had appeared in my dream, freely changed its appearance, and tried to do all sorts of strange things was enough to give it away.

A dream demon.

The female version was a succubus, and the male version was an incubus.

They were shameless monsters that appeared in the dreams of the opposite sex, seduced them by taking on an appearance they would find attractive, made them have erotic dreams, and then drained their life force.

They were familiar to me because they frequently appeared in various games.

“Enough. Go get your guardian.”

Brownie said this after smacking the incubus on the head with a sharp thwack.

“…Pardon?”

“Don’t your kind have guardians who educate you until you reach adulthood? Go bring yours here.”

Were we suddenly summoning the parents of a monster to the dungeon?

But at Brownie’s words, the incubus turned deathly pale, as though he’d just been struck by a bolt of lightning.

It seemed the prospect of being told to bring his guardian was even more frightening to him than death threats.