Celia was in an especially good mood today.
【Grow the dungeon to befit my station. I shall grant you all authority.】
Her master himself had given the order.
He had entrusted the dungeon’s management entirely to her.
That was as good as saying he believed in her and trusted her.
Celia felt elated, but she did not act rashly.
This was trust, and at the same time, a test.
If she performed splendidly, then her master would surely entrust important matters to her in the future as well.
She absolutely could not disappoint him.
Celia first inspected the state of the dungeon.
For her benevolent master had given her several things along with the order to manage the dungeon.
The first was monsters.
At the same time she received authority over the dungeon, she also gained command over the monsters belonging to it.
“They’re skeletons.”
One skeleton swordsman, two soldiers.
And one archer, with two apprentice mages.
They were not a strong force.
Viewed coldly, they were no more than the bare minimum troops needed for dungeon defense.
But all of this, too, must be her master’s test.
If she could not break through this on her own, she had no right to call herself a servant of her great master.
This time, she turned her gaze toward the other items.
There lay two black cards.
The second item he had bestowed upon her was those cards.
She was not unaware of what those black cards signified.
Celia, too, had once been a disciple of the Succubus Queen.
And she had been able to learn, even if only a little, how to manage a dungeon.
“These are Demon Realm Trading Company cards, aren’t they?”
Even if one had a dungeon, there was a limit to how much it could be developed by one’s strength alone.
Just as there were merchants in human society, it was the same here in the Demon Realm.
The Demon Realm Trading Company.
It was the largest trading company in the Demon Realm, and at the same time, the only trading company.
No matter how mighty a Demon King might be, even they could not throw their weight around with the trading company.
If they did?
The trading company would immediately cut off all dealings with that Demon King.
Then even a Demon King would wither away, and their dungeon would go bankrupt.
That was why the trading company was both a force that could help a dungeon grow, and at the same time, a relationship in which one could not help but have a leash around one’s neck.
Of course, it was said that if one had plenty of money, even the trading company would lower its head.
And the third and final item was a rather large pouch.
Celia opened the pouch and her eyes widened.
“T-these are magic crystals?”
Small violet magic crystals sparkled within.
The quantity was tremendous.
There had to be at least several thousand of them.
And they were not low quality, either.
At this level, there would be no shame in calling all of them top-grade.
Even with the same number of crystals, differences in quality changed the grade of the magic crystals, and the price difference was enormous.
With magic crystals of this caliber, they had more than enough initial capital.
“Master truly is an incredible person.”
She had not expected him to support her to this extent.
He had already set the stage for her.
After receiving this much support, she could not possibly tolerate failure from herself.
Celia immediately set off, taking the skeletons with her.
Her goal was how to arrange them.
For the time being, for some reason, no one was able to invade the dungeon.
She had learned that when she gained authority over the dungeon.
‘It’s probably a barrier.’
Even so, that time would not last forever.
Thinking of the days after the barrier was lifted, she had to station the skeletons throughout the dungeon and focus on defense.
As Celia walked toward the dungeon passage with the skeletons, a thought suddenly occurred to her.
“It’s rather narrow, isn’t it? What do you think, Mr. Skeleton?”
Had it understood Celia’s words?
The skeleton answered with a clacking sound.
“So you think the same, Mr. Skeleton? We’ll have to solve this problem first.”
Because Celia was a succubus, she was lacking in military knowledge regarding full-scale offense and defense.
However, the problem before her eyes was obvious.
A narrow passage was a structure advantageous for defense, but also advantageous for the attacker.
There was a need to expand certain sections of the dungeon into wide open spaces.
If they did that, they would be able to repel intruders crawling in through the narrow passage.
That was not all.
Terrain like flat ground with no cover whatsoever only made the difficulties of defense stand out even more.
“It seems we’ll need the trading company’s help.”
A dungeon could not be expanded simply by saying it should be expanded.
They needed labor to carry out the expansion, as well as the necessary funds and time.
It was merely that her master, who had expanded the small dungeon that had existed before into its current state, was a being beyond all standards.
No one else could do such a thing.
In truth, with her master’s power, he could probably overcome the current problem in no time as well.
But Celia did not want that.
One could not rely on her master’s power forever.
Was that not why her master had trusted her and entrusted this to her?
Celia immediately tore a black card in half.
When she tore the Demon Realm Trading Company card, it was engulfed in blue flame and turned to ash.
It had been used properly.
A merchant from the trading company would visit shortly.
* * *
The Demon Realm Trading Company was enormous.
And because it was enormous, it was a structure maintained by countless monsters interlocking like individual cogs.
Monsters.
From a human perspective, they were all the same monsters, but to them, that was not the case.
Even among monsters, ranks existed, and their titles differed depending on what bloodline they possessed.
Those who had a noble Demon King in their bloodline, or those who had been promoted to Demon King, were not called monsters, but high-ranking demons.
And the high-ranking demons looked down on ordinary monsters, mocking them for having rootless lineages.
Of course, even that was only formal; in truth, those with powerful strength were treated well regardless of whether they were monsters or demons.
The Demon Realm Trading Company was the same.
As it was in the Demon Realm, many high-ranking demons with proper lineages and monsters with great strength were distributed throughout it.
And Moru, who was in charge of the very bottom cog in the Demon Realm Trading Company.
Today as well, she was sitting only at her desk.
Quite some time had passed since Moru had joined the trading company.
At the very least, she was not at the level of being called a fledgling.
However, due to the limits of her birth, she had been discriminated against within the trading company.
She was a monster with no lineage whatsoever. She did not even have strength.
No, there was one problem even worse than that: she was a child born between a succubus and a human.
She had suffered the most discrimination because there was a monster in the Demon Realm Trading Company who had inherited the blood of a lowly human.
All the good dungeons went to high-ranking demons or powerful monsters.
What was a good dungeon?
A dungeon with plenty of money, and a powerful dungeon master, so it would not be raided right away.
Moreover, because it was powerful, it had a high chance of bringing enormous profits to the Demon Realm Trading Company.
Good dungeons made it easy for merchants to build achievements.
And since those achievements directly determined one’s position within the trading company, everyone fought to take charge of them.
That did not mean the Demon Realm Trading Company managed only such dungeons.
There were few good dungeons to begin with, and the vast majority of dungeons were ordinary.
The problem was that Moru had never once been assigned even an ordinary dungeon.
“Haa…”
When would she ever be able to enter a dungeon?
At first, Moru herself had wanted to be assigned to a decent dungeon.
But now, she only wanted to build up even a little of her record, any dungeon would do.
Just as she was yawning, wondering if today would be another wasted day—
“Moru!”
Someone called Moru.
It was Juwel, the superior who had newly taken over not long ago.
Her superior was also a succubus, but unlike Moru, who had human blood mixed in, she was a pure succubus.
That was precisely why she hated Moru the most.
She called Moru a vulgar wench who dared to sully succubus blood.
So from Moru’s perspective, she could not help but feel intimidated.
“Yes? Ah, yes!”
Startled, Moru shot up from her seat.
Then her superior handed her a document.
“It’s work. You’ve been wanting to be assigned a dungeon all this time, haven’t you? Sign here.”
Moru was flustered by the sudden turn of events.
The superior she had thought would find some fault with her and scold her was assigning her a dungeon.
Moru had spent a long time doing nothing but guarding her desk, let alone being assigned to a dungeon.
Even juniors who had joined after her had long since been assigned to dungeons and begun working as merchants, but Moru was still in the same place.
And now, for the first time, such a Moru had been assigned a dungeon.
Deeply moved, Moru received the document.
Then she bit her finger and stamped the document with the blood that flowed out.
The deal was complete.
“Th-thank you! I’ll work really hard, Lady Juwel!”
“It’s late, so hurry up and get ready to go. It needs to go well if you’re going to build up achievements too.”
“Yes! I’ll be off!”
With a vigorous reply, Moru went outside.
As soon as she left, Juwel smiled.
‘She’ll come back empty-handed.’
It was obvious without even looking.
When she had checked, there had not been any noteworthy aura coming from that dungeon.
That meant it was either a truly insignificant dungeon, or a dungeon so overwhelming that it was impossible to approach.
But the latter made no sense.
If such a being had existed, the Demon Realm Trading Company would have noticed long ago.
Then it meant the former, and it was likely a dungeon with hardly any money.
In the Demon Realm Trading Company, the first virtue of a merchant was money, and the second, surprisingly, was loyalty.
So unless a dungeon vanished, or the dungeon’s master personally requested a change in trading partner, a merchant could not arbitrarily change the dungeon they had been assigned.
Being in charge of a penniless dungeon was stressful for a merchant.
Their results would be poor, and the dungeon would have no money.
In the worst case, the dungeon side might even ask to buy on credit.
However, a merchant also had to mind their reputation, and even a malicious dungeon master was still a customer of the trading company.
In the end, she would be forced to extend credit against her will, and her performance as a merchant would become the worst.
Those things would pile up and pile up, eventually strangling the merchant.
‘This is why there’s no helping vulgar beings mixed with human blood.’
Juwel was already looking forward to Moru’s expression when she found herself unable to do anything, trapped with no way out.
* * *
I visited the Awakened Center for the first time in a while.
“How may I help you?”
“I’m here for a mana test.”
“May I have your name?”
The purpose was, of course, a mana test.
It was an era in which hunters whose contact or activity had been unclear for an extended period were required to have their mana remeasured.
If they did not undergo the mana test, their hunter license would be suspended until they did, and they would be unable to use various services such as dungeons or the Hunter Market.
It was a measure devised to reduce crimes committed by hunters.
“Ah, Hunter Lee Ganghyeon. Due to your prolonged absence from activity, you are subject to a mana measurement test.”
And since I had spent two years on the continent of Eldorad, I had become someone who needed to be tested.
Originally, I had planned to take the test a little more leisurely, but now that I had a status window, I decided to get it done right away.
‘There won’t be much of a difference anyway.’
I had not had the status window that one was said to basically receive upon awakening.
And the only thing that had changed about me was that I now had that status window.
It was not as if my stats had suddenly risen or I had gained skills.
In other words, even if I took the mana test, nothing in particular would change.
Thanks to that, the fact that I had been to another world—though, of course, I had been kicked out—was something no one had any way of knowing.
“If you place your hand here, your mana will be measured.”
A transparent, spherical orb.
Simply placing one’s hand on it began the mana measurement.
A few seconds after I placed my hand on the orb.
“Ah, you’re coming up as F-rank. Are there any other special circumstances?”
As if it were only natural, the employee nodded and spoke while writing something down.
Now the real conversation started here.
“Originally, I didn’t have a status window, so I was planning to stop working altogether.”
The fact that I had no status window had already been registered at the Awakened Center.
In order to continue hunter work smoothly from now on, things needed to change.
“But this time, a status window suddenly appeared. Thanks to that, I came here to try hunter work again.”
“Huh…”
A brief silence flowed.
“Truly, truly congratulations! Now you’ve really become a hunter!”
The employee in front of me had her eyes widen slightly, then congratulated me.
Well, that reaction was only natural.
Until now, I had been a half-baked hunter.
“A new license will be issued within thirty minutes. Now that you have a status window, all that’s left is for you to grow from here on out.”
After giving a suitable reply and turning around—
“Huh? Who do we have here? Isn’t this the half-baked hunter?”
A voice I heard for the first time in ages.
The voice of a guy I really did not want to hear came from behind me.
“Damn, you’re still alive?”
He was a classmate from the Hunter Academy.