Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 57

Chapter 57

 

“Guardian?”

“P-please, anything but that…”

The incubus trembled so violently that he looked like he might stop breathing at any moment.

I knew from their resumes that monsters had families, too.

Our dungeon already had two goblins who were heads of their households and had families to support.

But apparently, to the incubus, a guardian wasn’t a warm and loving family member. They were someone to be feared. He looked ready to burst into tears all over again.

“You little bastard! You said you didn’t know any better because you only recently reached adulthood! Then we should take it up with the guardian who taught you!”

“Waaah…”

“Do we really need to go that far? We could just kill him right here…”

“Haah, enough. Let’s all move somewhere else for now. I’d rather my bedroom not be invaded any further.”

And so, we moved to the conference room. There was one more person joining the meeting, too. Alraune, the head of the Facilities Team, came along as well.

“I heard there was some good fertilizer for the Plants, so I came.”

Judging by the chilling smile she gave the incubus, it seemed she’d already heard the entire story.

When I gave Alraune an awkward smile, she smiled back and said,

“I barely managed to stop the entire Facilities Team from hanging him up in the Swing Attack Trap right away.”

“I only had a dream. How does everyone know about it?”

“Chihuahua, if something happens to you, we can all find out. That’s what a contract is.”

It wasn’t exactly a sufficient answer, but for some reason, I felt a wave of emotion wash over me.

‘Everyone… had been worried about me…. But this felt a little like an invasion of privacy, too…’

While I was still unsure how to feel about it, Sabira stepped right behind my seat as though she were standing guard.

Then she placed both hands on my shoulders and kept talking to me nonstop.

“My fluffy little one, what did that bastard do to you? Did he seduce you? Were you perhaps bewitched by him and cheating on me behind my back? I can make things even more fun than a dream, you know.”

“Right now, I think you’re more like an incubus than he is.”

See? When the incubus had taken Sabira’s face in my dream, there hadn’t been much difference between that and the real Sabira right now!

“So. When are you going to call your guardian?”

The incubus lowered his head and began a silent protest.

“This won’t do. Facilities Team, assemble. Bring your tools.”

“I-I’ll call them! I’ll call them!”

In the end, the incubus waved his hand in the air, and something appeared.

It was a small hand mirror.

He then clutched the mirror tightly in both hands, looked into its reflective surface, and spoke in a tearful voice.

“Big sis… They said to bring our guardian.”

Soon, black smoke began to rise from the mirror. The smoke flowed out into the air, gathered in one place, and slowly began to take shape.

The mass of smoke gradually grew larger, forming the shape of a curvaceous body.

Eventually, the summoned being appeared.

She had an appearance similar to a human, but the wings sprouting from her back, her long trailing tail, and the horns protruding from her head made it unmistakably clear that she was a monster.

A female dream demon: a succubus.

Her appearance was far more mature than the incubus’s, and her outfit was considerably more modest. Yet, perhaps because of the atmosphere she exuded, she somehow seemed even more dangerous.

At a glance, I could tell that she was a monster of a rank equal to or higher than a Dullahan.

However, as soon as she was summoned, she knelt on one knee before me.

“I greet the representative of the great wielder of divine authority.”

I was startled by her impeccable courtesy.

“You’re here. Just how did you raise this kid for him to turn out so brazen, with no sense of his place, and dare to come after someone like that!?”

Brownie immediately rushed over and began shouting at the succubus.

“It was my fault. I apologize for failing to educate him properly.”

Suddenly, the succubus’s fingernails grew long, and she thrust them straight through the shoulder of the incubus, who was sitting there trembling.

Thud!

The incubus couldn’t even put up a fight. The force sent him flying all the way into the wall, where he was pinned as though nailed in place.

“I will take responsibility and make sure to educate him properly so that this never happens again. Please, I beg you to put aside your anger.”

Watching the incubus tremble with his shoulder impaled, I got the distinct impression of a younger brother who’d been beaten to a pulp by his older sister ever since childhood.

“Hmm… Since you say you’ll teach him again, should we leave it at that?”

Honestly, after seeing the incubus get thoroughly chewed out by our employees and then receive the finishing blow from his older sister, my anger had completely subsided. I even felt a little sorry for him.

He had tried to steal my life force, but hadn’t succeeded. And now his guardian had been summoned, too. I felt that he’d been punished enough.

“Thank you for your generous mercy.”

The succubus carefully rose to her feet and glared at her younger brother as though she were about to kill him.

Even if he’d escaped death in our dungeon, wouldn’t he just end up dying once he got home?

“You hopeless fool! You never stop giving me trouble!”

“…I’m sorry.”

With that, the succubus grabbed her younger brother by the hair and immediately vanished in a cloud of black smoke.

It was an uproar I wouldn’t forget for a long time.

And a few days later, I found myself facing the two dream demon siblings again.

“Why are you here again? Did you come because you really want to get beaten?”

“……”

Apparently, he’d been scolded so thoroughly that his shoulders were drooping. He didn’t even dare make a peep in response to Brownie’s reprimand.

‘Well, at least he was still alive.’

Somehow, I ended up inviting the two of them into my office.

“I thought we’d settled everything that happened back then. You don’t need to apologize any further.”

“Nevertheless, the crime of daring to offend the representative of His Majesty the Demon King, the Hermit, was far too great. I believed an appropriate punishment was necessary.”

The succubus sat calmly in the chair beside the incubus, speaking in a composed manner, just like a parent who’d come in for a school consultation.

Why did this suddenly feel like an academic guidance meeting…?

“I believe he must personally pay for his crimes through labor.”

I stared at the single sheet of paper casually placed on my desk.

It was the incubus’s resume.

“So… you want us to hire him at our dungeon?”

“Hey! Do you think our dungeon is some place that just picks up anyone and puts them to work!? Why are you trying to dump some half-baked guy like him on us?”

“Of course, no salary will be necessary. It will be unpaid labor.”

“Chihuahua, let’s hear her out first.”

At the mention of unpaid, Brownie’s attitude changed immediately.

“I would be grateful if you would take him in and put him to work wherever you see fit.”

“Even so…”

The resume was stained and blotchy from tears. It was the saddest-looking resume I’d ever seen in my life.

“I don’t expect him to become a full-time employee. A contract position would be fine. Or even an internship…”

‘No, why go that far?’

At first, I wondered if this whole situation was some kind of performance orchestrated by the succubus.

Sometimes, when children misbehaved, their parents would take them to the police station. Not because they actually intended to report them, but to scare them a little by letting them see the police.

But by this point, I was beginning to wonder whether she’d really brought him here just to punish him.

Did she genuinely want us to give him work? And unpaid work, at that?

“Our dungeon treats all monsters as valued employees. So… I don’t think we can just make him work like a slave without paying him…”

No matter how desperately we needed more staff, that was going too far.

Besides, we hadn’t even confirmed whether he himself wanted to work here.

Looking at his resume, all wrinkled from being soaked with tears, it seemed like he’d written it against his will while crying.

“Chihuahua! I told you, let’s hear her out first!”

‘Ah, that fairy who’d drink lye if it were free!’

I decided to look over the incubus’s resume first. Then my eyes landed squarely on the section for certifications.

“Are these certifications genuine?”

“Ah, yes. They are. Since he wasn’t able to perform his main job properly, I instructed him to study a wide range of other fields.”

I guess she’d been thinking, maybe he’ll get good at at least one of them.

But the certifications he’d earned that way… the more I looked at them, the harder they were to believe.

The incubus had a total of four certifications.

 

– Monster Healer License

– Looting Certification, Grade 3

– Item Appraisal Certification, Grade 3

– Dream Maker Certification, Grade 3

 

How could he possibly have every single certification we’d needed?

Are you going to put your major to use? You’ve got so many other things you’re good at!

The incubus was definitely a promising candidate. If he were assigned to a support role like the Facilities Team, he’d be a great help.

But as an adult, I had a conscience. I couldn’t just accept a young kid into the workplace without paying him.

“Hmm… I still don’t quite understand. From your perspective as his guardian, he might seem lacking, but his qualifications are actually quite good.”

Before I knew it, I’d slipped into homeroom-teacher mode and was continuing the consultation seriously.

“Looking at his current abilities and certifications, I don’t think he needs to lower his expectations. He seems capable of aiming for a much higher-ranked dungeon. Have you ever tried applying to any of the higher-ranked dungeons?”

“What are you doing right now? Are you seriously going to let a competitor snatch away free labor?”

“I’m grateful that the Administrator thinks so highly of him, but the truth is that this child is a defective product as a dream demon.”

At those words, the incubus’s shoulders trembled.

“Dream demons are monsters who lure members of the opposite sex into their dreams and take their life force. It is the source of all our power, as well as an essential resource for using our abilities.”

Right. Their main job. It was important, after all.

“Normally, our dream demons are excellent combatants. In fact, they should be able to join any dungeon even without qualifications like these.”

Looking at the succubus in front of me, I couldn’t help but agree.

When her fingernails grew long earlier, her combat power had looked ridiculously high.