Monster Company Tycoon - Chapter 34

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

Monster Company Tycoon
Chapter 34
***
My first memory was of a forest in the rain.
Whoooosh.
The deafening patter of it.
Cold rainwater drummed against my armor, falling ceaselessly onto the blackened, sodden earth.
How long that sound continued, I couldn’t say.
The very concept of time was dim.
That day, the endless drumming of rain on my armor stirred my consciousness—submerged in fathomless depths—for the briefest moment.
I stood in a forest.
Why I was there, where I should go, who I was.
None of it was clear.
I tried to think of something, but my mind held only thick darkness.
Yet within that darkness, there was one sensation that felt peculiarly alien.
An intense, visceral refusal—a dread of encountering something.
Soon even that fragile spark of consciousness sank back into the dark.
My second memory, too, was set in forest.
This time the weather was clear.
Sunlight poured through the canopy.
“Ahhhhh! A monster!”
A shrill scream cut through the air.
That sound awakened my consciousness once more.
I found it unbearable.
So I swung the blade in my hand, and soon all was quiet.
Then I sank back into darkness.
The third memory….
“Durahan!”
Someone’s cry.
But this time was different.
The moment that voice reached my ears.
Crack!
It was as though someone had seized my consciousness—trapped deep in a murky swamp—and wrenched it to the surface in one violent motion.
The world blazed into clarity.
Leaves trembling in the breeze, the smell of earth and grass, the weight of armor bearing down on my body.
And, at last, my own presence—something I had forgotten for so very long.
That was when I understood.
My consciousness had been locked in a deep slumber all this time.
What had stirred me was no mere shout.
It was a summoning.
A command carved into the deepest reaches of my being—a mark, an imprint.
A connection so absolute that refusal and flight were impossible.
This was dominion granted only to the highest twenty-one Authority Holders who commanded the demonic realms.
Beings who had been granted Authority directly by the Demon King himself, who commanded countless Monsters beneath them, and who were permitted to reign over them.
Lesser Monsters must answer to their summons without fail.
It was instinct etched into our very existence from the moment we were born as Monsters.
An Authority Holder had called me. I had no choice but to answer.
That summons had dragged me from the abyss of deep darkness.
Because of it, I could become wholly myself again.
This was my second life. Once human, I had died and been reborn as a Monster.
But the memories of my former life were threadbare, riddled with holes. There was far more I forgot than remembered.
I had a friend I was close to once, or so it seemed. I had harbored grand ambitions, perhaps.
Yet no matter how hard I grasped, those memories slipped through my fingers like sand.
It must have been because I lost my head. My memories are contained within it, and so my current self is incomplete.
Which is why I must find my head. If I could only retrieve it….
But why is it so loud? What in the world has been making all this noise?
“Durahan!”
That voice calling me again.
“Haven’t you thought about working in a better environment? I can absolutely guarantee compensation suited to your abilities!”
Work? Ah, that’s right.
Monsters ought to be placed beneath their rulers.
It was the safest way of life for us, the natural order that beings born from the demonic realm must follow.
Yet even that mattered little anymore. Everything felt tedious, and I was numb to it all.
I wanted nothing except to find my head.
“How much longer will you wander these woods in such discomfort? The Hermit’s Dungeon offers stable living quarters!”
I wasn’t interested. My head was somewhere here.
I could feel it, yet no matter how hard I searched, it remained invisible.
Without a head, a fine dwelling or better treatment meant nothing.
But something was strange.
The voice was annoying and noisy, yet I found myself wanting to hear it again.
Each time the voice reached me, fragments of scattered memory fell back into place, one by one.
A rural village. Yes, I grew up in a small village.
I wanted to become an adventurer. So I learned the sword beneath my master’s instruction…
And… there was someone. Someone very close to me.
As the memories returned, I felt myself becoming more whole.
“Ah… has the Demon King himself come to find me?”
For the first time, I produced a sound. My voice was rougher and more broken than I remembered it.
Yet strangely, it felt good.
To be able to speak. To transform thoughts into words.
That small fact alone made me feel as though I was gradually returning to myself.
“There would be no need for such peculiar efforts if you simply gave me a command.”
If the Demon King ordered me to come at once, I would gladly kneel at his feet.
I drew up my power and spread it across the entire forest.
The energy spreading like a web of silk finally found the Authority Holder who had called to me.
Something was wrong.
A presence both familiar and strange.
It bore demonic power, yet its form was nearly human.
At least, among the twenty-one Demon Kings etched into my instinct, none possessed such a presence.
A new Demon King? …No. There are no vacant seats among the Twenty-One.
Then what in the world was this?
For the first time, something other than my head stirred my interest.
I observed the presence without revealing myself.
“One more employee benefit awaits you at our dungeon! We can even… immediately help you locate lost items!”
My attention snapped toward them in an instant.
Find lost items?
I nearly took a step forward without thinking.
But I stopped. Not yet.
Just a little more. I wanted to hear that voice a little longer.
The more I listened, the more lost memories returned to me.
I needed to know.
Who I had been, what I had lost.
And most importantly.
How exactly I had died.
According to what fragmented memory remained… I had been murdered. My throat was cut without mercy.
The way my heart had tingled just before death suggested I might have been killed by someone very close to me.
Now that I’ve been given a second life, surely it isn’t impossible to find the one who killed me and take my revenge?
***
“Durahan, while you wait, could you fill out a Resume for us? I’ll be right back.”
“Why speak so much? It would be easier if you just gave an order.”
I handed Durahan a pen and a sheet of paper with the Resume form, then hurried out of the office.
The moment the door closed, I slid down the wall, my back against it.
“What… what did I just hear?”
I’d been thoroughly annoyed by the remark about resembling the dog that Ragnar kept.
That’s when Durahan suddenly dropped a bombshell.
“It seems like my childhood friend was the one who killed me. Bokshil, have you ever heard the name Ragnar?”
What kind of misunderstanding would lead to such an absurd conclusion?
Was he truly out of his mind because he lacked a head?
At any rate, I’d managed to make contact with Durahan. Next, I needed to arrange for Ragnar and Luadis to meet with Sabira.
But Sabira was firmly convinced that Ragnar had been the one to kill him.
His belief was so iron-clad that no matter how hard I tried to clear up the misunderstanding, it was futile.
When I asked why he thought that, the answer that came back was even more exasperating.
He said the last thing he saw before death was Ragnar’s face, and in that moment his heart had ached with a sorrow so intense it felt like it would tear apart.
Therefore, he was certain he’d been betrayed and killed by the friend he trusted most.
No.
I told him it wasn’t—that a powerful monster had killed him, and that he’d sacrificed himself instead to protect his precious friend Ragnar.
No matter how many times I repeated the explanation like a broken record, he wouldn’t listen at all.
It was becoming clear that the lack of a head had definitely lowered his intelligence stat.
At this point, I started to worry.
Whether I should let Sabira, whose memory wasn’t intact, meet the two of them as things stood….
“Maybe I should find his head first?”
If I brought his head to him before the meeting, his memories might return properly.
But there was a fatal problem with that plan.
It meant I’d have to carry a severed human head with my own hands.
“Blegh….”
Absolutely not!
“Stop your moaning and let’s just talk it over. What good does it do to worry alone? It’s faster and easier to ask the people involved directly for their opinions.”
After all, humans are social creatures, and conversation is the most correct and noble means of resolving conflict!

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