MCT – CH 18

“You said a preliminary inspection is possible, didn’t you?”

“Yes, yes! Of course. Since you’re entrusting us with your precious students, you should come and see for yourself.”

It felt a bit like the dungeon was suddenly turning into a taekwondo academy. But this wasn’t the time to be picky.

“Then I’ll visit myself. I’ll decide after that. Not because I don’t trust you… but because I’m naturally a suspicious person.”

From her words, I could feel her consideration—not wanting to hurt the feelings of Ragner’s acquaintance.

“That’s a perfectly reasonable point! Just let me know a date in advance, and I’ll escort you personally!”

As the conversation was winding down, Ragner approached the table.

“Looks like it went well.”

“You really are something. Dumping such an absurd task on me.”

“You know as well as I do, Master, that the more real combat experience beginner adventurers get, the better.”

Master?

I was startled and looked back and forth between the two.

“Ah, she’s my adventuring master. I forgot to mention it.”

Why tell me something so important only now…?

Then again, if they were master and student, the deep bond of trust made sense.

“Don’t tell me you’re still dwelling on what happened back then?”

Ruadis’s voice sank heavily.

“…Master, of ten adventurers who leave the training ground and begin their first journey, five lose their lives.”

I flinched.

Was the outside… that dangerous?

As expected, not fleeing the dungeon recklessly had been the right choice.

“Because training and real combat are different. They freeze in terror or panic, and die without even getting a proper swing of their sword in. If they had been given more experience, wouldn’t more of them have survived?”

Ragner seemed to have already known how I would try to persuade Ruadis. Or perhaps he had said it to lend weight to my proposal.

“Do you believe we can coexist with a dungeon?”

“I still believe dungeons should be eliminated. They are nests harboring dangerous monsters.”

“Ugh….”

“But what I believe in is you, Choi. If it’s a dungeon contracted with you, I believe we can coexist.”

Ragner looked down at me with his characteristic languid eyes.

Simply because I resembled his dog Chacha… he trusted me too much, didn’t he? I was grateful, but….

No. He must be trusting in his own abilities.

The ability to bring our dungeon down in an instant if he felt like it.

And so, the partnership with our client took its first step.

* * *

Before returning to the dungeon, I visited the restaurant where the hiring notice had been posted one more time.

“Um… excuse me.”

“Oh, welcome. Did you leave something behind?”

I had felt it during lunch as well, but it was a very cozy restaurant.

The older man, whose legs were inconvenient, mainly stayed at the counter, while the older woman looked a bit overwhelmed handling both the kitchen and serving.

“I saw the notice on the door. You’re hiring employees….”

“Ah, are you here to apply?”

“Yes, yes.”

They said they close when it gets dark, so in reality, it was only a bit busy around lunchtime and fairly quiet after that.

The owners were kind too, so it seemed like it wouldn’t be a bad place to work.

“We’d be happy to have a young person help out, but we can’t pay much. Would that be all right?”

Like the monsters had wanted, this world uniquely used weekly wages rather than monthly salaries. It was nice to be paid quickly.

The work was three hours a day, no days off.

The money I could earn working part-time at the restaurant was 30,000 eon per week.

‘In hourly terms, that’s about 1,500 eon…’

In terms of my original world’s currency value, that was at the level of an exploitative employer, but considering the monsters had wanted 500 eon per week, it was actually quite a lot.

And seeing how Ragner hadn’t said anything about the wages, this seemed to be the going rate in this village.

“Just letting me work here is something I’m grateful for.”

The money aside, working here meant lunch was provided! They even fed me, so it was more than worth it.

“I see, then. Do you have any experience working at a restaurant?”

“Um… I’ve done similar things a lot.”

When guests visited, serving tea and refreshments was basically my job, and at one point the boss introduced some strange welfare policy and made me prepare breakfast for the employees every morning.

I did it. And when there were occasional drinking parties at the company, the cleanup the next morning was… also me.

At this level, I’d done serving, preparing, and cleaning—couldn’t I be considered experienced?

But for some reason, the older woman interviewing me wore an expression tinged with pity.

“You must need money badly.”

“Ah… yes. The more the better, I suppose.”

“Then when you have time, take a look at the bulletin board in the village square. Sometimes residents leave notes there when they need odd jobs done. You can earn a bit of errand money.”

“Oh, thank you for letting me know!”

Going back and forth between the village and the dungeon took two hours, and with the part-time job, that was five hours total.

I couldn’t leave the dungeon empty for too long, so I had no intention of increasing the hours beyond this, but checking occasionally seemed fine.

* * *

Two days later, as promised, Ruadis visited the dungeon.

Alone, without anyone accompanying her.

“Ah, you’ve come!”

Wanting to make a good impression, I had thoroughly drilled etiquette into the monsters.

“An important client is coming! If anything goes wrong, you’re all in for it! Do you want your pay cut!?”

“No!”

I had used company terminology so much that Brownie seemed to have picked it up too.

While the highly motivated Brownie kept the monsters in line, I quickly went outside the dungeon to greet Ruadis.

“So you’re living in the dungeon?”

“Haha… yes. I’m indebted to them. This is the lobby. It’s… spacious, isn’t it?”

“It really is completely empty.”

And so, following Ragner, she was the second person to wound me with the truth.

“We plan to improve it. For now… um… we lack funds.”

“It’s still strange to hear that dungeons are run with human money, even the second time.”

“It is, isn’t it…? I was quite surprised at first too.”

I guided her toward the gate where the monsters were waiting.

“Everyone, come greet our guest….”

“No, there’s no need for that.”

Shing.

Ruadis suddenly drew her sword.

“Wh, why are you doing that all of a sudden!?”

“Wouldn’t it be best to gauge their skill by facing them directly? Tell them to treat me like an ordinary challenger.”

“W, wait a moment!”

She was Ragner’s master! That meant she must be incredibly strong!

No, my employees will all die!

“They’re fragile, like glass—my employees, I mean, the monsters! If you face them, Instructor Ruadis, there won’t even be bones left to pick up!”

“I won’t kill them.”

“If something happens to you and another challenger comes later, our dungeon is really done for! This is obstruction of business!”

Ruadis looked at me with slightly exasperated eyes.

“Hmph….”

“You really do treat the dungeon like a business… Ha, never mind. I’ll go easy on them, so there’s no need to worry.”

“You have to promise! You have to go very easy! Very, very easy!”

And so Ruadis, having opened the gate… defeated all the monsters in less than ten minutes.

The strategies I had painstakingly devised, the training they had done as best they could… all of it was utterly useless before overwhelming skill.

“…….”

“I heard they were weak, but it’s more pitiful than I imagined.”

Along the path she had passed, monsters lay groaning, each badly beaten in one place or another.

Even our secret weapon, the small slime’s digestive fluid spray, was noticed and dodged well before it could help at all.

How were we supposed to recover our employees’ crushed morale now….

I felt like lying down among the fallen monsters.

“With this level of skill, far from giving my students real combat experience, you’d only foster unwarranted arrogance.”

“Ugh….”

It was cold. Ruadis’s biting assessment pierced my chest like a dagger.

“Um… then… the proposal….”

Was this really how it ended…?

“Unless you raise them into something useful, that is.”

“Pardon?”

“From now on, when you finish your work at the restaurant, come home with me.”

“That means….”

“I’ll teach them myself until those things become more useful than wooden dummies.”

“Huh…!”

I was momentarily speechless at Ruadis’s offer.

She was offering to personally help improve the monsters’ skills! And from a fine instructor who trained adventurers, no less!

“After hearing what Ragner said, I gave it a lot of thought. I try to give my students as many opportunities to face monsters as possible before they graduate, but it’s far from enough. It’s a very sad thing when a student loses their life without ever making a name for themselves.”

Ah, I let out a small sigh. Of ten who take their first step into adventure, five don’t reach the next journey and lose their lives….

“Making them stronger is all I can do for them. So I’ll cooperate.”

“…!”

“However, there’s one more thing that needs improving.”

As expected, securing the contract wasn’t going to be easy.