Summoning the Sixth and Seventh Shiso

[Core Room]

Since the dungeon was short-handed and run off its feet, once the meeting ended the Shiso (Asura) promptly filed out, leaving the Dungeon Master and Marie behind.

"Marie-san, salvia and coleus, was it?"

"Yes. To be precise, Salvia splendens and Coleus scutellarioides."

Marie presented a photocopy from the encyclopedia.

The Dungeon Master laid a paw on the Core and summoned the monsters. The Core glowed, and two monsters were summoned.

What appeared were a woman in a deep-red jacket and skirt, and a man in a flashy suit that looked like a mix of red and yellow. Of course, strictly speaking they have no sex. Among the Lamiaceae there are some species with separate sexes, such as the shima-murasaki group, but they are few.

"Something rather flashy got summoned, didn't it…"

"The man is the coleus and the woman is the salvia, but as for names… salvia also goes by higoromo-sō (scarlet robe), or scarlet sage, so 'Scarlet' will do. It's like the name of a fox in a book, but no matter. The coleus is kinran-jiso (gold-brocade shiso); in English, painted nettle, a colored nettle. The look is gaudy as can be, so 'Kinran,' I suppose."

The Dungeon Core announced,

"I'm called Scarlet. Leave sales to me. My motto is 'Always Hit the Target.' Working from a foundation of high-volume action that exceeds the minimum required effort, I'll build systems that let us produce results without relying on geniuses."

She had long-ish black hair with a deep-green metallic luster (structural color), and vivid red eyes, though she was no vampire.

"Likewise in sales, name's Kinran. Goods or services, if it's the selling, the sales and the marketing, then leave it to me."

He had short hair with a metallic luster (structural color) that shifted between red and yellow depending on how the light struck it, and pale purple eyes.

"Master, this dungeon isn't a company, so why on earth did you summon salespeople?"

"That you'll have to take up with the Core. Well, for now, good enough!"

"It is not good enough. I demand they be reassigned. From here on we have the major problem of getting the settlers to form a social organization, so they should be civil servants doing counter work, or something of the sort."

"The settlers can be regarded as customers to whom we provide the product that is the dungeon; and if we regard the settlers as the dungeon's employees, then it's a matter of management. Either way, this is a job for sales."

So said Scarlet.

"It was Scarlet-san, wasn't it. Put that way, perhaps sales is what we'll need next. All the same, why are both of them in sales?"

"Ah, your credentials, or rather, your 'faculty' by 'setting'… what does it come out as?"

Marie asked the two who had been summoned.

"It's an MBA, so a Master of Business Administration, but if you're askin' the faculty, it comes out as the Faculty of Commerce. Never set foot in a school, mind."

"I'm the Faculty of Economics."

So answered Kinran and Scarlet.

"Just as I thought."

"Marie-san, what do you mean by that?"

"It seems this Dungeon Core views monsters not by occupation but by credentials, and simply by faculty at that. By that reckoning, from the Core's point of view the Faculty of Commerce and the Faculty of Economics are treated as distinct. But in reality, the bulk of both commerce and economics graduates end up in sales, so a summoned dungeon monster is highly likely to come out as sales. Conversely, the machinery specialist Mint wanted: from the Core's point of view that would be a Faculty of Engineering graduate, the same as Mint, so it must have decided 'one already exists, no need to summon another.'"

"What an odd Core, yet again. Normally a dungeon monster has no credentials whatsoever, surely. What faculty are goblins and slimes?"

"For that matter, do pseudo-Western-style dungeon monsters of that sort even exist in this world? We did order a Slime once in the past, but it wasn't a monster. Setting that aside, isn't it possible some abnormality occurred when Master summoned me?"