Monster Company Tycoon - Chapter 19

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Monster Company Tycoon
Chapter 19
Luadis had laid down exactly two conditions.
First, the monsters would need to develop sufficient combat ability.
The dungeon’s current monsters were rated [★☆☆☆☆ So weak I’d rather just punch wooden dummies] on the user satisfaction scale.
Which meant my staff would have to follow Luadis’s training regimen with their lives on the line.
Second, exceptional rewards.
Right now our dungeon lacked merit as merely a place to gain real combat experience.
‘I’ll admit it—a dungeon’s true flower is the generous rewards you get after clearing it.’
We had to prepare rewards that would spark the competitive spirit of novice adventurers and satisfy their sense of accomplishment.
Though Luadis did agree to lend some assistance with this part.
Which meant my job was….
“I’ve got to come up with a rewards package that’ll satisfy the client! But this is planning department work—I’ve never done it before!?”
I buried my face in my desk, tearing at my hair, while Brownie spiraled chaotically overhead.
“Our Brownie’s doing so well, so well.”
“This is rough. So this is what people running businesses with fewer than five employees feel like? Maybe I was just lucky before…. At least I had plenty of staff.”
“You’re talking strange—clearly you’re mentally exhausted. Brownie, it’s time to touch your lucky totem.”
Brownie spoke sympathetically and tapped lightly on the clay safe sitting in the corner of the office.
As if possessed, I approached it, opened the door, and stroked the thick bundle of crisp yellow bills inside.
Twenty Million Won, enshrined carefully in the safe. The force that moved me.
Stroke, stroke.
“What’s so great about that useless stack of paper anyway?”
“Sigh….”
This soft texture. The sweet touch of capitalism felt through my fingertips.
As I imagined all the things I could do with twenty million won, my mind and body gradually began to settle.
“I can do this…. I can do this….”
That’s it. Recharged.
I spun my greed-coated brain back into gear and sat down at my desk again.
“What I can do right now is design a rewards package for novice adventurers.”
There’s no way I can raise the monsters’ combat ability overnight, no matter how hard I try.
I dredged up every memory I had of beginner dungeons from all the games I’d ever played and pondered the rewards structure.
Dungeons you had to clear to finish the tutorial, the first dungeon that unlocked sequentially by level, dungeons naturally accessible from the beginner town—all that sort of thing.
‘They all share one common trait in their rewards: beginners can’t tell if those rewards are good or bad. They look decent on the surface. And honestly, they’re actually useful at that stage.’
If I translated it to game terms, my current position as dungeon administrator was no different from that of a game designer creating dungeon content.
The reward structures varied wildly from game to game.
Sometimes you’d just hand out a little in-game currency, or you could provide gear suited to the next difficulty level.
In those cases, you’d give rewards like barely-useful currency or equipment that doesn’t fetch much due to game balance issues.
Since beginner-exclusive dungeons had low difficulty, players could run them repeatedly and openly farm them.
In more linear games, you’d seed items that help with the next dungeon or quest.
Synthesizing all these features, it seemed like I just needed to find something useful for the next journey but reasonably inexpensive.
“Which place did they say most adventurers head to after graduating from the Training Facility?”
I recalled the conversations I’d had with Ragner and Luadis one by one, organizing the information.
The place where fifty percent of adventurers starting their first journey lose their lives.
“Garga Forest.”
Including Nest Village near the dungeon, this region—dotted with towns large and small—could be considered geographically rural.
Few people per town, sparse facilities, backward infrastructure, no room for development.
So adventurers head toward cities where all manner of adventure thrives.
Like aspiring actors heading to Hollywood.
Which city they choose is up to each adventurer, but they all had to pass through Garga Forest, which surrounded this entire region.
Only after surviving and reaching the city could they truly say they’d completed their first journey.
According to Luadis, Garga Forest qualified as the “Demonic Realm.”
Land unclaimed by humans—in other words, land occupied by monsters.
The world was spread thick with the Demonic Realm like sewage flooding a riverbed, and human settlements were scattered through it like holes poked through soapsuds, he’d said.
Land rich in resources and wealth is contested by human and monster alike.
Therefore, the danger level of the Demonic Realm actually increases the closer you get to major cities rather than in these rural areas.
‘It’s like humans and monsters are waging constant war….’
All of humanity’s territories are protected by the Holy Barrier.
That barrier dimly envelops even the surrounding terrain, and the moment you cross that boundary, the Demonic Realm begins.
Beyond Nest Village, deep into the forest, from where the barrier ends, Garga Forest spreads out.
There, unimaginably powerful monsters and countless traps lie in wait, along with poisonous swamps, man-eating trees, and other horrors—or so I’d been told.
‘If I wandered out of the forest without knowing what I was doing….’
I recalled the regional map I’d seen at the Training Facility.
‘So if I offered the Wind Spirits more than a thousand yen, word might spread all the way to the Demonic Realm? What kind of monsters are even there? Would they not apply to our dungeon?’
The objective for the reward was set.
Luadis had said she intended to establish a regulation requiring graduates of the Training Facility to clear our dungeon.
So I wanted to prepare a reward that would actually help with breaking through Garga Forest.
Rather than just tossing some half-prepared equipment I didn’t even know how to use into the reward box….
‘We don’t even have extra gear for our own staff!’
I wanted to be as helpful as possible.
“What kind of items would be good for preparing against Garga Forest?”
No amount of thinking was going to tell me that.
So I decided I’d need to meet with Ragner again.
He was an exceptional adventurer who bore the title of Hero—surely I could get some advice from him?
***
“Keep watch over the dungeon in my absence.”
“Okay… and don’t you dare run away—you have to come straight back to the dungeon!”
“If anything happens, let me know through the Wind Spirits.”
I entrusted Brownie with an emergency fund—a single thousand-yen silver coin.
I’d decided to start a part-time job at Three Trees Restaurant in the village today.
The name came from three large trees that used to stand beside the restaurant, though two had been cut down and only one remained; still, the name stuck.
After being called that for so long, it had settled into a proper noun.
Most shop names in the village followed the same pattern.
The one by the well was the Well Sundries Shop, the one at the crossroads was the Crossroads Dry Goods Store….
Hearing such names filled me with a nostalgic warmth that came from the village’s long history.
“Sniff, sniff… Manager, be strong!”
“Manager, work hard! Earn lots and lots of money!”
When word spread that I was starting a part-time job to earn operating funds for the dungeon, the monsters burst into tears—moved by my dedication to the dungeon’s sake.
When I told them that if they were grateful, they should attend Luadis’s lessons diligently, they burned with enthusiasm.
I’d worried that maybe the ones who’d been thoroughly beaten by Luadis had lost their spirit, but fortunately that wasn’t the case.
‘I hope no challengers show up while I’m away….’
Of course, our dungeon was still gathering nothing but dust.
It was better to do something rather than sit idle waiting for customers.
Before leaving the dungeon, Brownie hung something around my neck.
“What’s this?”
It was an odd necklace made from a brownish rectangular tablet strung on a cord.
The shape and weight, the precise spot where it rested against my chest—everything about it….
‘This familiarity…!’
No matter how I thought about it, something came to mind… an employee badge…!
“Our Brownie, there’s a chance some foolish monsters might try to pick a fight with you.”
I’d already been a little worried about walking alone to the village from now on, fearing I might encounter monsters on the way.
On my first day in this world, I’d tried to run away from the dungeon and met a terrifying monster—I’d even received its business card.
“You still bear a mark from your contract with the Demon King, so most monsters will instinctively avoid you, but there are occasionally some foolish ones who don’t notice.”
“A mark!? Where!?”
“Your heart.”
…….
Why on earth there of all places.
“Anyway! If they come near the dungeon, I can punish them myself, but if you’re far away, I can’t, right? So I’m sending you with this.”
“So what exactly is this?”
“You’ve seen it before. You stamped it eagerly all over the resume, remember? With the dungeon’s aura clinging to it, any monster will recognize that you’re the dungeon manager.”
I stood there with my mouth hanging open.
Could this really be a seal? How did things end up like this?
“This… isn’t this the Dungeon Authority that the Demon King—I mean, that our superior—delegated to me? Is it okay to just carry it around openly like this?”
“Hehehe! But it’s also a shackle! You can never remove it from your body! It’ll follow you around like a curse! So don’t even dream of running away!”
Having an employee badge that followed me everywhere was unsettling, true enough… but what exactly could it do just by following me around?
The question nagged at me, but I didn’t bother asking Brownie.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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