I shouted until my throat hurt, but sadly, the Dullahan still didn’t show itself.
Still, after causing this much of a commotion, I thought it might at least recognize me as the dungeon manager and not be on guard.
“How about at least meeting face-to-face and taking some time to talk?”
“Your throat must be hurting. How about stopping now?”
Ruadis, worried about me shouting into the empty air for so long, began to dissuade me.
“No. I’m going to use it now. My secret weapon!”
I tried my best not to look at the severed head covered by Ruadis’s coat.
“If you come to our dungeon, there’s one more employee welfare benefit! The wind fairies, partnered with a capable earth fairy, will—get this—find lost items immediately! You’ll never have to worry about lost belongings again!”
“What a bizarre welfare benefit.”
Actually, there was no such benefit….
If I said, ‘We have your head, so come out obediently,’ it would look too malicious. Like a kidnapper holding a hostage and making threats.
But then a ominous thought occurred to me.
The Dullahan has no head. So I had been assuming it couldn’t see well. It had left a grave sitting right there on its patrol route, after all.
But… what if it actually couldn’t hear either?
Ears are on the head, and the Dullahan has no head.
“What on earth have I been doing all this time…?”
Thud—my legs suddenly gave out, and I sat down.
“Let’s stop here for today. You look far too exhausted.”
“So it was all for nothing….”
“Your passion was truly remarkable. You really wanted to let us meet Sabira, didn’t you?”
“Um….”
“I’ve always thought this, but you have a truly gentle heart. Working hard for others isn’t an easy thing to do.”
She seemed to have misunderstood completely—what should I do?
The truth was, letting the old friend and student meet was only a secondary goal. Recruiting the Dullahan as an employee was the real plan.
My conscience pricked me, and I bowed my head deeply. Above me, I heard Ruadis’s kindly laughter.
“And what do you mean, for nothing? Even efforts that don’t bear fruit right away become fertilizer someday. The results just aren’t clearly visible yet—who knows what change your actions today may have brought about in the Dullahan?”
“I suppose….”
But if it really couldn’t hear me because it had no head, then it really was for nothing.
“Let’s go. Ragner must be waiting for us.”
“Um… then the head….”
“…….”
Ruadis lifted the severed head, and as she did, the coat wrapping it slipped slightly.
I happened to be looking up at her, and through that gap, I unintentionally saw the head.
“…!”
The first thing I saw was an old, dirt-covered helmet.
Inside it, a white skull, and neatly cut hair….
Goosebumps rose, and I hurriedly looked away.
Then Ruadis said something unexpected.
“Shall we wait a little longer?”
“Pardon?”
“Didn’t I just say that to comfort you? That the results just aren’t clearly visible yet.”
“…You did.”
Suddenly, Ruadis placed the coat-wrapped head back into the pit. Then she shallowly covered it with dirt.
“Uh…!”
“I’ll talk to Ragner for you. Next time, it might be fine to visit again without him.”
Ruadis had decided not to burn the remains right away. That meant I still had a chance.
Perhaps my desperate shouting hadn’t been entirely in vain after all.
* * *
“Are you stupid? An idiot? Have you been rubbing shoulders with lowly humans so much that your brain got worse? Of course it can hear everything!”
When I relayed my question about the Dullahan’s hearing to Brownie, what came back was harsh criticism.
“But… how does it hear without ears?”
“If it really couldn’t hear, would a Dullahan be an incompetent monster? Do you know how sensitive those things are? Did you forget how carefully we moved to avoid being noticed?”
“Ah, right.”
We had run desperately, afraid of being caught by the Dullahan and ending up searching for its head forever.
“Its eyesight is bad, that’s true. But in exchange, its hearing is extremely sharp. You had a living example right in front of you and still came up with such nonsense?”
Brownie suddenly zipped over to where the field staff were gathered.
“Hey! You!”
It called out to a skeleton sitting on the floor chatting.
“Yes! Director Brownie! Clatter.”
Incidentally, the reason Brownie had suddenly started being called “Director” by the employees was….
These days, Brownie had taken a liking to the terms from my world that I used, and had asked me what the next highest position after manager was.
So when I absentmindedly said that if the dungeon manager was equivalent to a CEO, the next highest would be a director, from then on it started bossing the employees around and making them call it Director….
“Come here.”
When Brownie brought the skeleton over to me, I hurriedly took off my glasses first.
The shock of seeing a human skull with my naked eyes hadn’t even faded yet, and now a full skeleton with every bone intact was walking toward me on two legs—it was hard to bear.
“Look carefully. Does this one have ears or not?”
…Ah, right. Once it becomes a bare skeleton, the ears would be gone.
“…No, it doesn’t.”
“Eyes? Nose?”
Brownie pointed one by one at what would be the skeleton’s facial features and asked me.
“Only traces remain….”
“Hey, can you hear sounds or not?”
“Yes? I can hear perfectly. Clatter.”
“Can you see ahead? Smell? Taste?”
“All of them are no problem! Huh…! Don’t tell me this is that vicious defect inspection? Clatter.”
The skeleton suddenly panicked and dropped to its knees. Its joints hit the ground so hard it made a loud noise.
“I have no combat defects whatsoever! I can see enemies clearly, and I can hear even the smallest movements! I swear by the Demon God that there is not a single problem in combat! Clatter.”
I was bewildered by the skeleton’s excessive reaction.
“Defect inspection?”
“I heard rumors that sometimes instant dungeons nitpick about defects to kick monsters out before the contract period ends…. Goodness.”
Brownie shook its head and spoke in a pitying tone.
That’s exactly like a black company that hires contract workers on 11-month cycles.
“That’s not why I called you. The matter is settled, so get lost now!”
“Yes! Thank you! I’ll continue to work hard! Clatter.”
Afraid Brownie might change its mind, the skeleton hurriedly ran back to its original spot.
“What did it say? A defect inspection?”
“We’re all getting fired?”
The small commotion seemed to have greatly unsettled the employees, as murmurs rose from here and there.
They looked so pitiful, like office workers anxious before layoffs, that I firmly told them there was no such thing. Only then did they seem relieved, and the atmosphere lightened again.
Anyway, Brownie’s sharp tongue had a tendency to blow things out of proportion.
“See? Even without eyes, nose, or ears, that one has no problems.”
“Yeah.”
“Monsters are lifeforms born from demonic energy. You can’t try to understand them like ordinary humans. You lowly humans receive information about your surroundings through various sensory organs, but monsters can grasp the situation around them instantly just by sensing energy.”
So the Dullahan, even without a head, can hear and see by sensing energy.
It really hadn’t been for nothing.
The thought that the Dullahan might have been hiding somewhere, listening to everything I had shouted with all my might despite the embarrassment, was a relief.
After that, for several days, I left the dungeon a little earlier than my part-time job time.
And before going to the restaurant, I stopped by the eastern forest of the village first.
I couldn’t go deep into the forest alone, but I went as far as my courage allowed and sent out enthusiastic love calls.
“Dullahan! We’re still hiring! I’ve heard many words about how incredibly skilled you are! You fit exactly the talent profile our dungeon is looking for! Join the Hermit’s Dungeon!”
I also visited the forest with Ruadis, excluding Ragner, but strangely, after that day, the Dullahan completely hid itself.
Still, it didn’t seem to have left the forest entirely.
The craftsmen said they had gone to gather materials just in case and encountered it again.
So I planned to keep talking without rest until it was tempted by my love calls and approached me first.
Ruadis had said that all effort could become fertilizer.
