Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 61

Chapter 61

 

These days, I’ve been visiting the Sacred Relic Room almost every day.

Sacred relics are the most important things in a dungeon. More than anything else. They are the core of a dungeon, treasures personally bestowed by the Demon God when granting someone the position of Demon King.

According to Brownie, if a Demon King is stripped of their title, the first thing that gets taken away is their sacred relic. The relic is then bestowed upon the new Demon King.

In other words, there are a total of twenty-one sacred relics in this world, each representing the authority of a Demon King.

I still remember the first time I’d laid eyes on our sacred relic.

‘It was a truly unimpressive wooden staff.’

It looked like an ordinary twig, the kind so common in the forest that you could easily kick one aside with your foot.

‘If I hadn’t known it was a sacred relic… I might have thrown it away.’

At the very least, it had absorbed a tiny amount of fear, allowing a small red sprout to emerge from its head.

The Demon King had been so lazy that the sacred relic had lost most of its power and ended up in such a sorry state.

So, what did the sacred relic look like now?

“It’s grown quite a bit.”

It had fully sprouted. The little shoot had grown tremendously.

The tiny red sprout, which had once been smaller than my fingernail, was now large enough to cover half my palm.

“Such a strange energy… Should I call this vitality?”

It was a little strange to describe it that way, considering it had grown by feeding on fear, but regardless, I could sense a peculiar, fresh vitality emanating from it.

And that wasn’t the only change. Thin red roots, resembling tiny cracks, had spread across the entire staff. Judging by their appearance, they seemed to have grown out from the sprout itself. Those roots were throbbing like blood vessels, pulsing rhythmically.

‘This was what a sacred relic looked like after its first enhancement! A visual indicator, plain and simple, that our dungeon was growing!’

Honestly, it was a rather disgusting sight to look at too often. Even so, there was something oddly satisfying about observing how it grew a little more every time I visited.

As the sacred relic gradually regained some of its power, several of the dungeon’s functions had also become unlocked.

‘You could say our dungeon had just received its first update patch.’

First, there were several improvements in the minor patch, particularly to the monitoring function.

Now, I could review everything that happened inside the dungeon by playing it back on a screen, just like watching a recorded video. The restrictions on the challenger information I could access had also been loosened somewhat. I could now check the information of challengers below level 30 as well. On top of that, I could summon a screen anywhere inside the dungeon, not just in my private office.

‘It makes me feel like a game character opening up their status window. I can’t help getting excited.’

The recovery speed of injured monsters had also increased, and even without a Looting License, the maximum number of basic looting attempts had increased to two.

‘And now, for the major patches worth paying attention to!’

First, all monsters residing in the dungeon had received a permanent buff.

A 10% increase to both attack and defense.

It was an extremely beneficial perk for our dungeon, which was populated entirely by low-ranking monsters.

Second, it had now become possible to imbue each floor of our dungeon with an ‘attribute.’

At first, I didn’t really understand just how important attributes were.

According to Brownie, it was only because our dungeon was still weak that I couldn’t appreciate their significance. The higher the dungeon’s rank, the more important attributes became.

The reason was simple. For now, we could stop challengers using nothing more than the individual levels and combat abilities of our monsters.

If that wasn’t enough, we could make up for the difference by providing better equipment or improving our facilities.

“But even that will eventually reach its limits…”

The higher a monster’s level became, the more experience it needed to grow, making further development increasingly difficult. And unfortunately, each monster species also had its own innate limitations.

Challengers, on the other hand, continued to grow stronger as they went on adventures. They fought various enemies in all sorts of places, acquired new skills and equipment, and kept getting stronger.

‘We’re stuck in one place, sitting around and waiting for those challengers to come to us. Naturally, there’s bound to be a difference in the direction and quality of our growth.’

Eventually, there would come a point when even challengers of the same level became difficult to handle. Later on, there might even be situations where our monsters couldn’t stop challengers despite having considerably higher levels.

“I heard that once adventurers reach high levels, they start using attribute-based attacks in earnest.”

To put it simply, attributes provided additional damage.

While an ordinary attack only dealt its base damage, an attack imbued with an attribute dealt additional damage of that particular type on top of it.

There were six attributes derived from nature in this world, along with two attributes derived from the gods.

Fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, and metal. The six natural attributes. And darkness and light. The two divine attributes.

The darkness attribute, governed by the Demon God, was also known as demonic energy. Meanwhile, the light attribute, governed by the Holy God Leta, was also called purification power. It was the very same power contained in the Purification Stones.

In any case, all monsters were practically creations of the Demon God, so it was safe to assume that they inherently possessed the darkness attribute.

Each attribute had its own web of elemental advantages and disadvantages, but there was no need to memorize all of them at this stage, so I’d skip that for now…

“The important thing is that darkness loses to light…”

The darkness attribute had an advantage over all six natural attributes, but light was the one and only exception.

Conversely, the light attribute was at a disadvantage against the natural attributes, but it held an overwhelming advantage over darkness.

And that was the problem. Monsters possessed a certain degree of natural resistance to the other natural attributes, but they were exceptionally vulnerable to purification power.

What if challengers came after receiving even a single purification-type buff from a temple? Or what if an adventurer whose class was based on a temple came to challenge our dungeon?

Our monsters wouldn’t simply take additional elemental damage. Due to the attribute disadvantage, they’d receive at least twice as much damage.

“Just thinking about it is terrifying…”

In any case, by strategically using the sacred relic’s power to assign attributes to each floor, we could gain an advantage.

The basic principle was as follows.

Monsters with the same attribute as the floor would receive a boost, while challengers with an attribute disadvantage would be weakened.

For example, just as water could extinguish fire, the water attribute had an advantage over the fire attribute.

So, if I changed the first floor to the water attribute, our employees with water attributes would become stronger while fighting there.

On the other hand, what would happen if a fire mage who used fire magic entered?

They’d start the battle with an environmental debuff caused by the elemental disadvantage, even before the fighting had begun.

“Hmm… I heard there are special environments that can only be created by assigning certain attributes. If I give the first floor the water attribute, could I make a swimming pool too…? That might actually be fun.”

At present, only two of our employees possessed natural attributes.

Sabira, the Dullahan, and Alraune.

By sheer coincidence, both of them had the earth attribute.

The other low-ranking monsters didn’t possess any particular attributes. I’d heard that some monsters gained unique attributes as they evolved into different species, but that seemed like a distant prospect for now.

In any case, Sabira and Alraune were the only employees who could benefit from attributes right away.

So, if I changed the first floor to the earth attribute, that would give both of them a definite advantage!

“Since I’m thinking about it anyway, should I try assigning an attribute to a floor? But how do I do that?”

I opened a screen and looked for Brownie first. Knowing her, she was probably somewhere chewing out another employee.

“Ah, just as I thought…”

Once again, the victim of her scolding was the incubus.

Lately, whenever I used the screen to look for Brownie, there was a pretty high chance that the incubus would appear alongside her. Apparently, he’d become the target of her close supervision.

I could practically predict the future: if a workplace harassment complaint ever appeared on DungeonNet, Brownie would undoubtedly be the first person named as the perpetrator.

“Hey, Brownie.”

“Hm? Did you call?”

Brownie turned her head and looked at me through the screen.

“Come to the Sacred Relic Room. There’s something I want to ask you.”

“Just a moment.”

The moment those words left her mouth, the incubus’s drooping shoulders subtly straightened. I could even clearly see him letting out a sigh of relief.

‘He looks especially exhausted lately. Managing DungeonNet must be pretty demanding.’

I should probably tell Brownie to go a little easier on him.

“What did you want to ask me?”

How many seconds had passed since I’d called her?

Brownie had already appeared in the Sacred Relic Room.

“I want to assign an attribute to a floor.”

“You’re really thinking of doing it? But there’s something you need to be careful about. Once you assign an attribute, you absolutely cannot change it unless you completely rebuild the floor. Are you still okay with that?”

“What exactly do you mean by rebuilding it…?”

“You have to completely destroy the floor and build it all over again! Naturally, I’ll be charging you for that much work.”

‘That was a risk I hadn’t even considered!’

Perhaps I should think this over a little more before assigning an attribute…

“Still, if you want to go ahead with it, just touch the sacred relic and make your request.”

Touch the sacred relic?

My gaze naturally shifted toward the staff.

I was supposed to actually touch that disgusting staff, with its roots wriggling and throbbing like blood vessels?

…I think I’d better think about this twice more.