Monster Company Tycoon Chapter 9

Chapter 9

 

I gathered the ten newly hired monsters on the first floor and held a brief orientation.

Four skeletons, five low-ranking goblins, and one slime.

I’d done my best to recruit a diverse group, while deliberately including several monsters of the same species so they could form groups together. The only exception was the slime, since it was the only one of its kind.

These are the first-generation employees of our company.

Looking at them all gathered together, they seemed like a disorganized rabble. Still, with so many of them assembled in one place, they gave off a certain imposing presence.

“Hello, I’m Gong Choi, the manager of this dungeon–”

“Chihuahua.”

“…Grit. I’m Chihuahua. I sincerely welcome all our new employees to the dungeon. I look forward to seeing you grow together with our company in the future.”

After finishing the formal greetings, I moved straight on to the practical details.

“You’ve all been hired for field positions, and your area of operation will be the first floor.”

The monsters merely nodded without much reaction. They looked as though they’d already expected this.

During one of the interviews, a monster had told me something like this:

It had never made it past the first floor, even in an instant dungeon. So one of its dreams was to visit another floor someday.

“The first floor is the starting point of the dungeon, as well as its public face. It’s an extremely important area.”

However, I didn’t want the new employees to feel disappointed with their circumstances.

Now that I’d decided to hire them as full-time employees, I genuinely wanted every single monster to grow alongside the dungeon.

The fact that this world had levels meant that growth was possible, right?

I steeled my gaze and raised my voice.

“There’s a saying: You have to get the first button right. That’s why each of you will become an important starting point that determines the direction of the entire dungeon. Do your very best to prevent challengers from advancing.”

No position in a company was unnecessary.

Even something as simple as managing office equipment mattered. If a single copier or printer broke down, it could throw off the entire day’s work.

“I know it won’t be easy to adjust from your very first day on the job, but you’ll have to get straight to work. Our dungeon’s first challenger is expected to arrive at daybreak.”

Everyone looked tense.

“Um…”

One of the low-ranking goblins raised its hand.

“When we see a challenger, should we just charge at them as we did in instant dungeons?”

Instant dungeons, or indungeons for short.

I’d heard that they were created by monsters with a bit of power who wanted to establish a force of their own.

In other words, they were like companies founded by rich kids who wanted to try their hand at running a business.

Compared to the dungeons run by the Demon Kings, instant dungeons were considered rather illegitimate. But apparently, if one became a huge success, it could attract the attention of the God of Demons and even give its owner a chance to aim for the position of Demon King.

Considering how precarious our owl Demon King’s position was, perhaps one of the instant dungeons had been doing particularly well lately.

Nine out of ten employees at our dungeon had experience working part-time at instant dungeons.

When I asked them during the interviews how they’d worked back then, every single one said they’d charged straight at the challenger as soon as they spotted them.

In my opinion, rather than gaining practical combat experience that way, they’d probably just accumulated a mountain of defeat and helplessness.

“No. This isn’t that kind of place. Above all, our dungeon will operate according to a system.”

During the interviews, I’d been Gong Choi, the HR manager. From now on, I was Gong Choi, the gamer.

I was going to bring together every bit of dungeon knowledge I’d acquired from games and use it to make this dungeon as troublesome as possible with just ten monsters.

In other words, Dungeon Defense!

When monsters were all gathered in one place, they were practically begging to be wiped out by an area-of-effect attack.

If they stayed huddled together like this, all it would take was an adventurer who knew a little magic shouting something like “Chain Lightning!” once, and the dungeon would be cleared.

In fact, experienced players often deliberately gathered monsters in one spot and unleashed area-of-effect attacks to finish battles quickly.

I absolutely refused to let our dungeon become another victim of someone’s attempt to break the speed-clear record!

“Brownie, put up some walls on the first floor to divide the space.”

To prevent that kind of danger, we needed to make it impossible for challengers to gather all the monsters together and take them out at once.

Brownie, the resident fairy of this dungeon, could freely alter the layout of floors that had already been created without requiring any special payment.

I carefully explained to Brownie how I wanted the first floor rearranged, and she immediately got to work following my instructions.

“That much is easy!”

Brownie zipped around energetically, flying here and there with enthusiasm.

First, we made the path leading to the second floor one-way.

Then we divided various parts of the first floor with walls, separating it into multiple small areas.

There was one door between each area, and each door was set to open only after a specific condition had been met.

The condition was simple.

Defeat every monster stationed in that area.

In other words, challengers would have to break through one area before they could move on to the next.

Our dungeon didn’t yet have a system that automatically advanced challengers to the next stage once they’d fulfilled the requirements.

But we had a very convenient alternative.

We could simply give the monsters in each area a key that opened the door to the next one.

“You’ll serve as the guardians of each gate, protecting the keys that lead to the next gate.”

Brownie could make keys out of dirt, so that part was easy!

The monsters looked impressed.

“Guardians of the gate… That’s so cool!”

“I feel like I’ve been entrusted with an important mission. Rattle, rattle.”

Calling them guardians of the gate was practically the equivalent of giving new employees official titles in a company.

There was a definite difference in the sense of responsibility someone felt when they were merely called an employee versus when they were called the person in charge of a specific area.

I nodded in satisfaction and continued.

“Next, we’ll organize teams to guard each gate. Three monsters per team.”

Dividing ten monsters into groups of three would leave us with three teams and one monster left over.

The skeletons had slightly different levels, but their attack power was 100, and their defense was 50 across the board.

The low-ranking goblins had an attack power of 50 and defense of 100.

The only slime had attack power of 10 and defense of 200.

I put together teams by mixing the monsters appropriately.

One team would specialize in offense, with two skeletons and one goblin.

The other would specialize in defense, with two goblins and one skeleton.

If I grouped monsters exclusively with others of the same species, their weaknesses would become far too obvious.

Skeletons would fall apart easily because of their weak defense, while goblins would struggle to land decisive blows because of their low attack power.

“Um… Manager, I don’t have a team.”

The slime left on its own bounced its body as it called out to me in a panic.

Its full name was Small Slime.

It was about the size of a soccer ball, with a translucent body through which a bead-like core could be faintly seen.

It had been the only slime among all the monsters who’d come for interviews.

When I’d hired the slime, I’d paid particular attention to its specialty.

Its special attack skill was [Digestive Fluid Spray (C)]. It was the only monster with a ranged attack skill.

“Brownie, make some small passageways inside the walls. Just wide enough for the slime to get through. And put little holes in each wall, too.”

Brownie immediately created narrow passageways inside the walls, connecting the different areas.

“The slime will be a one-monster team, but instead, it’ll serve as something like a hidden card.”

“A solo team! A hidden card!”

The slime hopped up and down in place, visibly thrilled as it tried to express its excitement.

“See those holes in the walls?”

“Yes! I can see them!”

“If any of our employees are in danger, your job is to spray digestive fluid through those holes to support them.”

In effect, I’d turned the monsters into a sort of trap mechanism.

With the slime providing support from somewhere out of sight, the flow of combat would become much more difficult for challengers to handle.

“Our combat strategy isn’t about defeating the challenger in one go. Instead, think of it as gradually wearing down their stamina over time. Even if you fail to stop them at your own gate, you’ll make them more and more exhausted as they advance through the next gates.”

“Ooh…”

I’d been deeply impressed by the skeleton’s story about how, even after its entire body had been smashed to pieces, it had clung to a challenger’s ankle with its jawbone and refused to let go.

“The team compositions might differ a little, but the core principle is the same. The goblins hold the front line while the skeletons attack! We need to move strategically like this.”

The goblins’ special attack skill was [Trick Attack (F)].

When I asked one of them to demonstrate it, it suddenly poked me, catching me completely off guard.

Its raw attack power was weak, but its ability to exploit openings seemed pretty decent.

“From now on, imagine that I’m a challenger. Of course, I’m not a real one. I don’t have any combat power at all, so don’t attack me in earnest!”

Holding a tree branch and doing a rather clumsy imitation of an adventurer, I explained the combat strategy to the monsters.

“So, if I try to attack like this, you should retreat first, and then…”

Of course, this strategy had one fatal flaw. It had been designed on the assumption that the challenger would be alone.

In reality, most dungeons were tackled by parties. But given our current situation, this was the best we could do.

“Now, practice what I’ve explained with your teammates until you get used to it.”

“Yes! Understood!”

Only after I’d stationed the monsters at their respective gates was I finally able to take a breather.

“Wow, you’re pretty good! You came up with a surprisingly decent plan for a bunch of weaklings like them!”

“I’m not even sure yet whether my approach will work.”

All I could do was hope things would go well.