Ruadis had two conditions in total.
First, the monsters would have to reach a sufficient level of skill.
Currently, the dungeon’s monsters were at the level of a usage review rating that read [★☆☆☆☆ Too weak—I’d rather just beat up wooden dummies].
So the employees would have to follow Ruadis’s training to the death from now on.
Second, a special reward.
As it stood, our dungeon lacked merit as a place purely for gaining real combat experience.
‘Even I admit that. The flower of a dungeon is the rich reward you get after clearing it.’
We needed to prepare rewards that would stimulate beginner adventurers’ desire to challenge and satisfy their sense of achievement.
However, Ruadis said she would help with that to some extent as well.
So what I had to do was….
“I have to come up with a reward plan that satisfies the client! But this is planning team work, and I’ve never done it before!?”
Clutching my head and slamming my forehead onto the desk, Brownie flew around above me, making a dizzying nuisance of itself.
“Our Chihuahua is doing well, doing well.”
“This is agony. Is this how people working at businesses with fewer than five employees felt? Maybe I was actually lucky…. We had a lot of employees.”
“Seeing as you’re saying strange things, you must be under a lot of mental strain. Chihuahua, it’s time to touch your lucky totem.”
Brownie soothed me in a pitying voice, then tapped the dirt safe in one corner of the office.
As if bewitched, I walked over, opened the door, and stroked the crisp bundles of yellow bills.
Twenty million won enshrined carefully inside the safe. The driving force that kept me going.
Stroke, stroke.
“I really don’t understand what’s so great about that useless stack of paper.”
“Haa….”
This soft texture. The sweetness of capitalism at my fingertips.
As I listed in my head all the things I could do with twenty million won, I felt my mind and body gradually calming.
“I can do this…. I can do this….”
Done. Recharge complete.
I sat back at the desk, rolling my brain, now coated in monetary desire.
“What I can do right now is design a reward plan for beginner adventurers.”
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t raise the monsters’ combat skills overnight.
I dug up every memory I had of beginner dungeons from all the games I had played and agonized over the reward plan.
Dungeons you must pass through to finish the tutorial, the first dungeon in a series that opens sequentially by level, dungeons close to the beginner village that you naturally wander into, and so on.
‘There’s a similar commonality in the rewards of all those dungeons. When you’re a beginner, you can’t tell whether the reward is good or bad. Because it looks decent on the surface. And at the time, it’s actually somewhat useful.’
In game terms, my position as the current dungeon manager was no different from a game designer creating dungeon content.
The method of reward varied wildly from game to game.
It could be a small amount of in-game currency, or equipment suited to the next level.
In that case, due to game balance issues, the reward is a very small amount of currency or equipment that won’t sell for much even if you try.
Beginner-only dungeons have low difficulty, so you can repeat them over and over and openly aim to farm them.
If it’s a linear game, they’d plant items that help with the next dungeon or quest.
Putting all the characteristics together, it seemed I just needed to find something helpful for the next journey and reasonably cheap.
“Where did they say most adventurers head after graduating from the training ground?”
I organized the information, recalling one by one the stories I had heard from Ragner and Ruadis.
The place where 50% of adventurers who begin their first journey lose their lives.
“Garga Forest.”
The current region, made up of Nest Village near the dungeon and several other villages large and small, was geographically speaking a countryside.
Each village had few people, lacked facilities, was underdeveloped, and had no room for growth.
That was why adventurers headed to cities where all kinds of adventure lived and breathed.
Just as those who dream of becoming actors head to Hollywood.
Which city they went to was the adventurer’s choice, but commonly, they had to break through Garga Forest, which encircled this entire region.
If they survived and reached the city, only then could their first journey be considered complete.
According to Ruadis, Garga Forest corresponded to a ‘demon realm.’
It was land humans had not pioneered—or conversely, land occupied by monsters.
The world was shaped such that demon realms spread widely like sewage covering rivers, and human lands stood in between like holes poked by drops of soapy water.
Land rich in resources and goods was coveted by humans and monsters alike.
Therefore, unexpectedly, the danger level of demon realms increased the closer one got to large cities rather than rural areas like this.
‘So it’s a situation where humans and monsters wage endless war….’
All human settlements were protected by holy barriers.
Those barriers faintly enveloped even the surrounding terrain, and the moment you crossed that boundary, the demon realm began.
Beyond Nest Village, deep in the forest where the barrier ended, Garga Forest spread out.
There, unimaginably powerful monsters and all sorts of traps lurked, and horrific environments awaited—poisonous swamps, man-eating trees, and more.
‘If I went out into the forest without knowing anything….’
I recalled the regional map I had seen at the training ground.
‘So if I paid the wind fairies more than 1,000 eon, rumors could reach even the demon realm? What kind of monsters are there? Would any of them join our dungeon?’
I settled on the goal for the reward.
Ruadis said she planned to establish a rule that graduating from the training ground required clearing our dungeon.
So if possible, I wanted to prepare rewards that would help with breaking through Garga Forest.
Rather than placing half-baked equipment I didn’t even know how to appraise into the reward box….
‘We don’t even have equipment to put on our own employees!’
So that it could be even a little more helpful.
“What kind of items would be good for preparing for Garga Forest?”
No matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t figure this out.
Therefore… I decided I needed to meet Ragner again.
He was an outstanding adventurer with the title of hero, no less—so couldn’t I get some advice from him?
* * *
“Take good care of the dungeon while I’m gone.”
“Okay… Don’t run away, and make sure to come back to the dungeon!”
“If anything happens, let me know through the wind fairies.”
I entrusted Brownie with a single silver coin worth 1,000 eon as emergency funds.
Starting today, I was going to begin working part-time at the village’s ‘Three Trees Restaurant.’
It was named that because there were three large trees beside the restaurant, but even though two had now been cut down and only one remained, the name stayed the same.
It had been called that for so long that it had hardened into a proper noun.
Not just the restaurant, but most shop names were like that.
The Well General Store because it was next to the well, the Three-Way Cloth Shop because it was at a three-way intersection….
Hearing names like that, I felt the cozy charm of the village’s long history.
“Sniff, sniff, Manager, do your best!”
“Manager, have a good trip! Make lots and lots of money!”
Hearing that I was starting a part-time job to earn dungeon operating funds, the monsters burst into tears. They said they were moved by my dedication to the dungeon.
I told them that if they were grateful, they should work that much harder in Ruadis’s lessons, and their motivation blazed up.
I had been worried their morale might have been crushed after being so thoroughly beaten by Ruadis, so it was a relief.
‘Surely no challenger will come while I’m away for a bit?’
Naturally, our dungeon was still only visited by flies.
Rather than sitting still and waiting for customers, trying something—anything—was clearly much better.
Before leaving the dungeon, Brownie hung something around my neck.
“What’s this?”
It was a strange necklace made from a dirt-colored rectangular plate with a string threaded through it.
The shape and weight, and even the exquisite position where it rested against my chest.
‘This familiarity is…!’
No matter how I thought about it, something came to mind… an employee ID card…!
“Our Chihuahua, just in case some stupid monster tries to pick a fight with you.”
I had been a little worried about running into a monster on the way, since starting today I had to walk to the village alone.
On my first day in this world, I had tried to flee outside the dungeon and met a terrifying monster—and even got its business card.
“Because of the contract with the Demon King, you have a mark left on you, so most monsters will avoid you on their own, but there are occasionally really stupid ones who don’t notice.”
“A mark!? Where!?”
“Your heart.”
“…….”
Why there, of all places?
“Anyway! If you’re near the dungeon, I can scold them for you, but once you’re far away, I can’t do that either, right? So I’m sending this along with you.”
“So what is it?”
“It’s something you’ve seen before. You stamped it so enthusiastically on all those resumes, didn’t you? The dungeon’s energy is deeply soaked into it, so any monster will recognize that you’re the dungeon manager.”
I gaped blankly.
Don’t tell me this was the stamp? How had it ended up like this?
“This… isn’t this the dungeon authority the Boss—no, the Demon King—transferred to me? Is it really all right to carry it around openly like this?”
“Fufufu! On the one hand, it’s also a shackle! You can never remove it from your body! It will follow you like a curse! So don’t even dream of running away!”
Having an employee ID card that followed me wherever I went was a bit eerie, but… what could it even do just by following me around?
I had questions, but I didn’t bother asking Brownie.
