Monster Company Tycoon - Chapter 2

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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 2
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A parched, hard floor. The crackling of flames gnawing through kindling, sparks hissing and popping.
Sensation crept back into my limbs one by one, and consciousness flickered awake.
I opened my eyes to darkness all around.
‘Did I pass out until nightfall?’
I retraced my last memory before losing consciousness and pushed myself upright.
At the same time, I thought idly of what I’d need to do once I got home and surveyed my surroundings without much care—and something felt wrong.
“Where am I?”
No matter how I looked at it, this wasn’t the neighborhood where my Studio Apartment was located.
I stood in an unfamiliar space.
Ash-grey stone walls ran seamlessly from floor to ceiling, their suffocating closeness making it hard to breathe. It felt like standing inside an empty barrel—strange and disorienting.
Then a memory surfaced abruptly, and I snapped to full awareness.
A hole had torn open in midair, sucking my Resume in, and I’d plunged through a gap beneath my feet.
And then I fell into this unknown place. What in the world is happening?
“You’ve awakened?”
The strange voice I’d heard from beyond the hole now came from behind me.
My heart trembling, I turned slowly to look.
“Eek!”
An enormous figure sat in a chair nearly as massive as its own frame, staring down at me.
Something like a curtain draped from head to foot, obscuring its exact form.
But within that drape, at what seemed to be its eyes, two sallow lights flickered.
“Congratulations on your new employment at the Hidden Hermit Dungeon, New Employee Chihuahua.”
“…Pardon?”
My fear of the bizarre entity faded in an instant, replaced by a strange cognitive dissonance at such an ordinary word.
I wondered if I’d heard correctly, or if panic had made me hallucinate.
Chihuahua? Why that particular nickname—the one I despised most?
“From this day forth, you shall become the chief executive responsible for overseeing this Dungeon.”
“Is this a dream…?”
I formed a rational conclusion to make sense of this bizarre situation.
Surely I hadn’t actually regained consciousness—I was still wandering through a dream.
The real me must have fallen into an open manhole or a sinkhole while reaching for my Resume.
The impact of the fall had knocked me unconscious, and I hadn’t woken up yet.
But the droning voice sternly refuted my words.
“This is no dream. I wish to finalize the Contract with you quickly and return to my slumber, so refrain from unnecessary speech.”
“A Contract?”
Then, something suddenly surged up from the ground and blocked my vision.
“Hey now! Didn’t the Demon King just tell you to refrain from unnecessary speech?”
It was a creature the size of a fist, molded from earth like a doll.
Its head was disproportionately round and large for its body, and short stubby limbs barely hung from its squat torso.
Like a potato sprite freshly dug from the ground.
“What is this now…?”
“Sign the Contract. Hurry. Please.”
The small figure fluttered around my head, urging me on in a frantic voice.
It sounded like a fly buzzing and whining.
Yeah, figures.
“This really does seem like a dream.”
A dream about being kidnapped and hired by monsters. My desire for a job change must have been overwhelming.
I nodded lightly and bowed respectfully to the entity before me—ghost or Demon King, I couldn’t tell which.
“Forgive me, but I believe I’ve found the wrong interview venue. My apologies for the intrusion. I’ll take my leave now.”
If I refused the job offer, maybe I’d wake up?
As I turned around with that thought, a sheet of paper suddenly materialized before my eyes.
“You expressed your desire to seek employment here.”
“Wh—why is this here…?”
It was my Resume, the one I’d written myself—with my real name mistakenly written as “Chihuahua”!
The moment I grasped an object that should exist in reality, chills ran down my spine. The texture felt far too real.
At the same time, the enormous figure began emanating overwhelming pressure.
“To submit your application directly and then renege on your word.”
My spine went rigid.
I couldn’t completely shake the suspicion that this was still a dream, yet even so, something told me I shouldn’t provoke the being before me, no matter how illusory this place might be.
I stammered out a response.
“I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t even know what kind of place this company is. The Resume I was planning to submit was meant for a different company that better matched my abilities, and…”
“This is a Dungeon. A place where we must bestow trials upon adventurers reckless enough to enter us, cultivating our dark renown. You possess sufficient potential to fulfill that mission. That power of yours—the way it draws all beings indiscriminately—is precisely what this Dungeon requires.”
Wrong. I had a terrible premonition that no excuse I offered would make the slightest difference.
A Demon King. A Dungeon. I couldn’t grasp what was happening here at all.
So then.
“I… I’m so sorry!”
“Wait! Where are you going?!”
I abandoned my attempt to reason with these strange beings and bolted in the opposite direction.
If this truly was a dream, I figured I’d wake up if I just acted on impulse.
But the farther I ran, the stronger grew an ominous feeling that this might not be a dream at all.
In dreams, I’d never been able to run this smoothly. Usually my movements felt sluggish, as if I were wading through water, or my legs simply wouldn’t obey.
“Haah… huff…”
Yet I felt my breath coming in gasps and sweat beading on my skin. My thighs, suddenly taxed, trembled with exhaustion.
Still… there’s no way this isn’t a dream, right?
I ran blindly until I spotted an exit. Even though I ran hard, I felt trapped in the same space circling over and over—but then, at some point, I noticed a direction from which bright light was seeping in.
“The exit!”
My ankles throbbed, but I gritted my teeth and pushed forward, finally breaking free from that strange space.
The moment I stepped outside, blinding sunlight poured down upon me.
Yet…
“Where on earth am I?”
Lush vegetation and soft grassland. Thick-canopied trees and a lake that sparkled in the light.
Even rubbing my eyes and looking again, this was not the alley where I’d last walked.
Looking closely, even the vegetation seemed somehow alien. It felt like I’d stepped into a fantasy illustration, slightly out of sync with reality.
“Why haven’t I woken up from this dream yet? How am I supposed to get back home…?”
That’s when I heard the sound of something rustling through the grass, and a shape pushed through the brush to reveal itself.
The moment I saw it, I barely managed to stifle a scream that nearly burst from my lips.
“Grrrgh…”
It was a colossal two-legged monster, standing perhaps three times my height. Its entire body was covered in green skin, and sprouting from its shoulders was a wild boar’s head.
Sharp tusks, drool dripping from its mouth, hot breath rising from its nostrils—everything was far too vivid, far too real.
The monster approached me slowly, a massive Club gripped in its hands.
From the moment it spotted me, it licked its lips and smacked its mouth, gazing at me with the eyes of something eyeing its prey.
“Kweeeeee!”
“Ahhhhh!”
As the monster let out a horrific shriek, my legs gave way and I collapsed where I stood.
The fear was so overwhelming I couldn’t even muster the will to run.
The monster raised its Club overhead and charged toward me.
And just as it was about to bring that Club crashing down upon my skull…
“Oh! Are you a Dungeon Employee? My apologies. I mistook you for a lost ordinary human.”
Suddenly the monster’s savage aura vanished entirely, and it bowed respectfully at the waist—all while speaking in a human voice…!
“…??”
I stared up at the monster with tear-filled eyes. I was utterly confused.
“I’ve been preparing hard to secure Employment at a Dungeon lately, and I was so focused that I failed to recognize you immediately. I… was that performance just now acceptable? Do you think I could at least qualify as an entrance guard, even if deeper Dungeon levels are beyond me? If you were to give me a score, what might it be…?”
“……”
Despite its grotesque appearance, its manner of speech was disturbingly normal, making it feel all the more alien.
“I fear I’ve overstepped. My sincerest apologies. If ever a position opens at the Dungeon, please do contact me. I beg of you.”
The monster even rummaged inside what looked like tattered rags it wore and handed me a Business Card.
I accepted it using only my fingertips, genuinely wanting to minimize the contact surface.
But why in the world was this monster carrying Business Cards around?
“Then I shall take my leave.”
With that, the monster dragged its Club behind it and vanished back into the brush.
“……”
This is real.
That encounter had drained me completely of any courage to flee.
“Outside is… dangerous.”
In the end, I had no choice but to return to that strange space—that dark tunnel-like place.

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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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