Chapter 74

Let’s Procure Some New Employees

Since Meat returned to being my hug pillow before I noticed it, she probably recovered from lying down all night. Looks like she slipped in while I was asleep, what a zealous worker. She even paid attention to changing the comforter out for a towel blanket so that it wouldn’t be hot.

Though I said we had a labor shortage, this inn that’s also a dungeon has a lot of secrets.

Like how we use the dungeon core to light up Rokuko’s room.

We can’t hire standard employees. So then, what do we do…? We get another one like Ichika. But we probably won’t find as good a bargain as Ichika again. But but! We need more employees that can stay and house-sit.

With the amount of people we have right now, I can’t even take anyone out to the human village. Despite going to such great pains to open that tunnel, Ichika can’t go visit her hometown, Pavuera. I’ve gotten a few goods from guests using the tunnel from Pavuera though.

… Even though they’ll hand us stuff like fish while saying, “Please cook this!” … It’s not like I can cook.

And then there’s the mysterious chef that cooks for the inn. Our setting has him named Ex Travagant-san. The setting has no use though since we don’t even have that praiseworthy person called a chef though…

Seems like Ichika’s only interested in cooking to eat it… Ah, she made some grilled fish. Then I ate it myself.

Right, our next employee should really be someone that knows how to cook. If they can reproduce dishes that we serve using DP, the inn can continue running even if Rokuko and I aren’t here so long as there are ingredients. Sooner or later Rokuko’s probably going to want to go and visit Haku-san.

“And so, this time I’m going to summon an employee~”

“Summon an employee… ah. A human-type monster that can mimicry!”

A monster like a [Succubus], as in like Haku-san’s butler, Chloe. In other words, an intelligent human-type, and if possible I’d prefer a female-type monster that’s good at cooking and has beautiful legs.

Furthermore, male-type ones are no good since this dungeon’s sponsor (Haku-san) said so and it’s not like I want to have a harem.

“It’s pricey though you know?”

“Yeah… it might be cheaper than a slave once all’s said and done though. Even after subtracting the amount of DP it’d take to teach them [Storage], it’d be cheaper.”

Then maybe I should purposely try to make it an expensive human-type monster? That way if the monster is intelligent, it might be able to use DP. Eh, maybe human-type monsters are expensive because they’re able to use DP?

“I see! If it’s a monster that can use DP I can go out as well huh!”

“That’s right… And because of that, maybe a succubus is the best way to go? Their war potential is reassuring and they have good abilities too.”

“Chloe set a good precedent for them, so there’s a sense of security… but, what about like Redra? A red dragon. They can look like a human even though they’re a dragon by using their human form technique.”

“I won’t argue their strength, but we don’t have enough DP for a dragon that can use a human form. Even Redra still had her tail. And I’d prefer to get two or three people if we could…”

“We wouldn’t have enough for succubi either then you know?”

Still, it was to the point that it’d use practically all of our DP savings. I don’t really think it’s a problem since we have a steady income now though.

“Oh right. Phoenixes can learn how to have a human form. It’s still an egg though! Wait, didn’t you promise to get it hatched by that dragon breath a long time ago?”

“… Craaap, completely forgot.”

I wouldn’t be able to use the phoenix egg for raw materials anymore if it hatched, so let’s do it after I get a bit more from it… is what I decided to do. In other words, I completely forgot about it after setting it up with the automatic egg smashing golem.

“… There’s probably plenty of materials now so let’s go get it hatched?”

“Kehma? You haven’t perhaps been breaking the egg while it’s unhatched have you?”

“D-don’t say something so scary.”

While I was trembling, I went back to the topic.

“That aside, isn’t it better for it to be cheap and convenient? Ah. Fighting strength isn’t needed right?”

“Yeah. It’s more important that they can look after the inn than be able to fight…”

“How about this then?”

As for what Rokuko showed me, a [Vampire]… wait, isn’t it both really strong and really expensive?

“I didn’t know there were so many variations of vampires… see? This one at the bottom is so cheap!”

“It’s a lesser one so its intelligence might be a problem, how about the common one… ooh, it’s still cheap? 30,000 DP huh, with the DP we have now… it’s not that bad.”

It might be a little painful, but there’d be no problem if we converted our cash earnings into DP. Recently we’ve been getting more than 500 DP a day, so we wouldn’t have any problems even if we used it all.

By the way, there’s one over 1,000,000 DP. It says something like true ancestor…

“… But don’t vampires turn into ash if they’re hit by sunlight?”

“There’s a lot of customization options you know? Look at this! It even says sunlight immune!”

“Oi oi, isn’t that expensive?”

“That’s why it’s optional!”

The offensive capability option… 100 was the upper limit, with 0 being the worst. The DP cost was practically synchronized with it.

“Shouldn’t we try out the offensive capability option at 0?”

… Taking the sunlight immunity option with it… it became 1 DP.

As for all of its other weak point immunity options, they were all 1 DP. Cheap.

Things like bat transformation and blood weapons that were the core ability options for vampires were still expensive though.

Well, as a result of fiddling with the customization options—

“… It doesn’t have any kind of ability, it can’t fly, even though it has fangs they have no offensive power, but it has no weak points… a blood sucking… oni?”

It doesn’t really need to suck blood either. It wasn’t even a vampire at this point, it was fine just eating normal meat.

Moreover, its cost was around 15,000 DP even though it started out at 30,000 DP. About the same as a lesser vampire, oi. Well, it can’t fight at all… it’d be completely useless if it weren’t smart.

Though it was doubtful if it could still be called a vampire, let’s put this one on hold as a candidate.

“What about this silky thing? It looks like a house fairy!”

A silky. It would help with household things, a house fairy that you could say looked like a beautiful woman.

A beautiful woman, sounds good. Since they also weren’t that strong, they were at the reasonable price of 10,000 DP each.

“Then this one might also be good. It’s a [Zashiki Warashi]. 5,000 DP though.” [1]

“Hmm? Heeh. A luck fairy huh… ah, it says that only people with pure hearts or children can see it.”

Ah, unfortunate. Guests not being able to see it would be bad. Rejected.

“There’s also this witch thing. How about that one?”

“Fumu, a witch huh…? Maybe that’d be good? It’s probably a human-type… or rather, what’s the difference between it and a human?”

“Eh? Isn’t it because it has a magic stone?”

“Come to think of it, it’s a monster if it has a magic stone huh. That’s the basics of this world.”

There was an option for the witch to be an apprentice, when it grew up it’d be a sorcerer or something. 15,000 if it’s an apprentice huh… apprentices are expensive. Rather, can’t the monsters sort themselves by intelligence?

Ah, but they know magic from the start. Apprentices almost know two low class ones though.

Rather, come to think of it, how exactly does the system of using DP to summon monsters work? Maybe it takes them from another world like it did with me? Or maybe it just generates the monsters…

“Ignoring special cases like with Kehma, they’re generally created by DP you know? … And they’ll also normally obey if you order them.”

“Eh, so then what should I summon?”

“… How about using the gacha?”

For now, I decided to summon the monsters.

The [Vampire (Customized)], the [Silky], and the [Witch (Apprentice)].

In order to investigate which we’ll get more of in the future, for now I’m going to just summon one body—err, one person—of each. [2]

… Well… I’ll just have faith that at worst at least one of them will be smart enough to serve customers…

“Vampire, silky, witch, summon!”

The magic formation expanded towards the edges of the room with a low hum, stopping at around one meter in diameter.

Then, there were three girls. They appeared from the magic formation.

The easiest one to figure out was the freckled girl with brown hair that held a staff and wore a robe. She’s probably the witch. She looked like a normal girl. If she isn’t intelligent, she’s a lie.

Then next was one with green hair wearing thin maid clothes… she’s probably the silky. Maid clothes, it’s the silky. There’s no way that’s a vampire. At least she wasn’t transparent or anything.

The last one was a silver-haired girl in black bondage clothes. By elimination, she’s the vampire. I don’t know if she has wings or fangs though.

The three girls that were floating in the magic formation slowly stepped onto the ground.

The vampire, with her silvery hair that extended to her lower back fluttering, opened her eyes.

She looked at Rokuko and me with her bright red pupils that looked like rubies.

“How do you do, master…”

“She talked! She can talk!”

“We did it Kehma! She’s smart!”

“Eh, umm—”

Ooh, the vampire is puzzled! Evidence that she can think properly!

“How about you other two? Can you talk?”

“Eh? Ah, yes. Pleased to meet you, master.”

“I will serve you from here on. I am humbled to make your acquaintance, master.”

It looks like both the witch and the silky can talk as well. All of them. They’re all able to talk.

… I have no problem with their looks either, it’s a total win. We did it!

Footnotes:

Wiki-sensei giving a link to save the day!

Doesn’t translate well to English—Keima used counter for bodies instead of people here. He then corrected himself.