* * *
I desperately pulled myself back to my senses.
“W, wait a moment! How can I be sure that’s real? You could say you’ll give me a billion and then not give it to me.”
It had said this was a different dimension from where I lived. Yet it could give me currency from my original world?
And even if it conjured real money right here, what if it was counterfeit?
The Demon King, who had been silently watching me huff with excitement, slowly waved one wing. At the tip of the wing, a small white light gathered.
The cluster of light soon flew over as if alive and settled at my feet. And the moment it touched the ground, it began to change form.
“Huff…!”
They were bundles of fifty-thousand-won bills.
At a rough glance, it looked like about twenty million won.
“It’s an advance payment.”
The Demon King said in a languid voice.
“I took currency of that value from your dimension, but in exchange, I left behind an object of equal value. So there’s no need to doubt. It’s real money.”
“A, an advance payment? This money is really mine…?”
“It is.”
With trembling hands, I picked up the bundles of bills and clutched them to my chest.
The heavy sensation filling my hands made my mind spin.
Countless things I could do with twenty million won flooded my mind and paralyzed my reasoning.
I barely managed to hold back the words “Let’s sign right now” that had almost escaped my lips.
This wasn’t the time to be dazzled by money!
“You said you brought currency from the dimension I lived in—can I go back there again?”
Even if I obtained a lot of money, it would be useless if I couldn’t return to a place where I could spend it!
At my words, the Demon King let out a long sigh.
“I cannot send you back right now. Bringing you here consumed a massive amount of causality. Also.”
The Demon King pointed the tip of its wing at the bundle of bills I was clutching dearly to my chest.
“Bringing that here has completely drained my power. So as I am now, I cannot send you back to your original dimension.”
I froze on the spot.
I hadn’t anticipated that the Demon King’s power would be completely depleted.
And it had even used up almost all its remaining strength because of this twenty million won?
An ominous feeling crept over me. An ominous feeling that I might not be able to go home anytime soon.
“Th, then perhaps other Demon Kings… could they do it? Send me back to my original world….”
“You had best abandon any thought of leaving this place and finding employment at another dungeon. No Demon King would hire someone without experience, and humans themselves would never even have the opportunity to meet a Demon King face to face. To us, humans are nothing more than livestock from which we extract fear.”
Brownie, floating beside me, chimed in.
“That can never happen! I won’t send you!”
“Th, that can’t be. I would never! I didn’t think that at all, not even a little.”
I hastily shook my head and let my shoulders slump.
Then what was I supposed to do now? Was I supposed to live in this strange world forever?
Never seeing my family or friends again.
When I thought about never returning, leaving behind all the money I had scraped together, all the time I had lived, all my memories, my vision went dark.
Just then, the Demon King spoke slowly.
“To regain my power, I must extract fear from countless beings. If my rank rises to about eleventh, I should be able to send you back to your original world.”
The moment I heard those words, hope sparked within me.
I could go home!
If I raised the Demon King before me to rank eleven, I could go home! And with ten billion on top of that!
…Come to think of it, it didn’t seem like such a bad deal after all.
Either way, the only thing I could rely on right now was the owl Demon King before me, wasn’t it?
If it came to this, refusing the Demon King’s offer of employment would have been the bigger problem.
I didn’t know how difficult it would be to raise its rank, but with my return and ten billion won on the line, wasn’t it better to give it my best shot?
“I, I’ll give it a try!”
I clenched my fist tightly.
If I truly couldn’t manage it, I could always hire a capable new employee later and leave it to them.
The ten billion was a secondary goal; going home was the most important thing.
“Then the contract is settled.”
“All right!”
The Demon King’s voice brightened noticeably. The fairy Brownie also cheered and flew around frantically.
My resume appeared before my eyes once more.
Soon, the bottom of the paper began to burn, and something like a crimson stamp appeared.
It was writing that looked nothing like Hangul, yet strangely, I could read it.
The words stamped on it were [Hiring Complete].
And so I succeeded in changing jobs to a new company—no, a dungeon.
And then.
“Demon King…?”
The moment the entire process ended, the Demon King flopped down onto the floor.
And not even a few seconds later, it fell asleep, snoring loudly.
I had just joined the company, and the boss had gone off to dreamland.
* * *
The absurdity lasted only a moment. The dirt doll, having casually ignored the Demon King, fluttered over to me.
“Hello? Let me introduce myself again. I’m Brownie, the household fairy who will help you run the dungeon.”
“Hello…….”
Brownie looked incredibly pleased.
Its thin mouth, as if carved into clay with a chisel, was curved like a half-moon.
Brownie circled around me at waist height, chattering in a very high and slightly raspy voice. It seemed quite cheerful and lively by nature.
“I have very high expectations for you! The more you revive the dungeon, the stronger I become! My dream is to become a top-grade fairy. Please make this place into an incredibly infamous dungeon.”
“I, I’ll do my best. Though I really don’t know much…….”
To get home, I had to give it my all for now.
It only felt difficult because I was thinking of it as a dungeon. Couldn’t I just treat it like joining a disorganized company and work?
Wasn’t I talent who had endured four years on a pittance at an infamous black company?
“Anyway, I’m relieved. I was so worried the Demon King might not be able to hire a single employee after going bankrupt buying the dungeon.”
Just as I was comforting myself, I heard another remark that made me clutch the back of my neck.
“Wait! Hold on! Bankrupt? What do you mean by that?”
“Ah, the Demon King didn’t tell you. The truth is, the Demon King emptied out all of its wealth to buy this enormous dungeon. It said that as a Demon King, a small dungeon just wouldn’t do. It probably has some debt now too.”
I hurriedly looked around the empty space I was standing in.
So it went bankrupt buying the company building?
It suddenly occurred to me that the chubby owl Demon King really did seem like the type to do exactly that.
I had thought it was merely unmotivated and lazy, but it seemed it also had no sense of economics and was incompetent to boot.
No wonder… it was ranked last.
The former company’s boss suddenly came to mind. That person had been incompetence itself, and a sudden, immense unease washed over me.
Why was my luck with employers this bad? Physiognomist, you said I had great luck with people!
“Then you have no money at all—how are you going to run the company… no, the dungeon?”
“Fortunately, I have some basic funds. It’s money I’ve saved my whole life. I hid it from the Demon King, so this is our little secret, all right?”
The fairy opened its mouth wide over my hand and poured out a heap of dirt-covered, rusted coins.
The weight of the coins in my palm made my mind go blank.
“I worked hard collecting coins people dropped. I held back from buying candy too, so please use it sparingly. This is my investment in the dungeon! Because the dungeon has to grow for me to grow too!”
“How much is all this…….”
Naturally, they looked a bit different from the money used in my world.
The coins were large—just shy of half a palm—and quite thin.
“It’s about a hundred thousand eon. With this much, you could hire one or two of the more mediocre ones for field positions.”
“The unit is won?”
I was startled by the familiar unit.
“No, eon. Eon, the currency used in the Anais Empire.”
“Ah… eon.”
A pointless thought crossed my mind: ‘At least it’ll be easy to adapt.’
“You can hire employees with just this…?”
I was bewildered because I still didn’t properly know the currency’s value.
“It’s a job shortage these days. There are monsters everywhere begging to be given work as long as you pay them. Of course, since the pay is small, only the unimpressive ones will flock to you.”
With that, Brownie subtly gestured toward the monster’s business card I was holding.
So that terrifying green monster I had met was, by the fairy’s standards, an ‘unimpressive one.’
“Monsters… have it rough with employment too.”
