Let's Procure Some New Employees

After sleeping through the night, Niku seemed to have fully recovered her energy. Before I knew it, she'd returned to her hug pillow duties. Looks like she slipped in while I was asleep, the diligent thing. She even went to the trouble of swapping out the comforter for a towel blanket so I wouldn't get too hot. Talk about attention to detail.

I did say we have a labor shortage, but this inn contains a lot of dungeon secrets.

Like how the Dungeon Core is being used as lighting in Rokuko's room.

So we can't just hire ordinary employees. What do we do then? That's exactly why we got a slave like Ichika. But finding another bargain like her would be pretty much impossible. Still, we need more employees who can hold down the fort.

With our current numbers, we can't even take anyone along when heading out to human settlements. Despite all the effort we put into opening that tunnel, I haven't even been able to let Ichika visit her hometown of Pavera. We have been getting some goods from Pavera through travelers using the tunnel, though.

… But when someone hands us fish and says, "Hey, cook this for us!"… I can't actually cook.

Besides, the story is that the inn's food is made by some mysterious chef named Kyou-Sha-san. Nobody's been eccentric enough to demand to see the chef, so we haven't had to use that cover story yet.

Ichika specializes in eating; cooking is just a hobby for her at best… Oh, she did grill that fish, though. And then ate it herself.

Right, our next employee should ideally be someone who can actually cook. If they have the skill to reproduce the dishes I put out using DP, then the inn can keep running even without both Rokuko and me, as long as we leave ingredients behind. Eventually, I should make it so Rokuko can go out and about like Haku-san does.

"And so, this time we're going to summon an employee!"

"Summon an employee… Ah. You mean a monster that can take human form!"

Haku-san's butler, Chloe, is a monster called a "succubus." In other words, what's ideal is a humanoid monster with intelligence, preferably one that's good at cooking and is a girl-type monster with nice legs.

By the way, the reason male types are off the table is our dungeon's sponsor's (Haku-san's) preference. It's definitely not because I have any harem fantasies.

"But they're quite expensive, you know?"

"Yeah, I know… If we want to keep costs down, slaves would still be cheaper. Even after subtracting the DP cost to teach them [Storage], it'd be more affordable."

So why go out of our way to get an expensive humanoid monster? Because if it's an intelligent monster, there's a chance it can use DP. Actually, maybe humanoid monsters are expensive precisely because they can use DP.

"I see, so if a monster can use DP, then I could go out too!"

"Exactly… So I looked through the catalog, and I think a succubus might be the best choice. They're reassuring in terms of combat strength, and their abilities are solid."

"There's precedent with Chloe, so that does give a sense of security… But what about someone like Redra? The red dragon. Couldn't a dragon work too if it can use the human transformation technique?"

"Their strength isn't in question, but a dragon capable of human transformation would cost way more DP than we have. Redra still had her tail showing even in human form. And ideally, I'd like two or three people…"

"We wouldn't have enough for that many even with succubi."

For the record, this would pretty much wipe out our entire DP savings. Since we have stable income now, it's not a huge problem, but still.

"Oh, that's right. What about teaching the phoenix human transformation? It's still an egg, though! Wait, didn't you promise to have it hatched with dragon breath a while back?"

"… Crap, I totally forgot."

About the phoenix egg: once it hatches, we can't harvest egg materials anymore. So I decided to stockpile more materials first before hatching it… Meaning I had it set up with the automatic egg-cracking golem and then completely forgot about it.

"… We've collected enough materials by now, so I should get it hatched soon."

"Kehma? Aren't you going to get stabbed by its beak the moment it hatches?"

"D-don't say scary things like that."

I shuddered, then got back on topic.

"Isn't there anything else that's cheap and easy to work with? Oh, and it doesn't need combat ability, right?"

"Right. Being able to watch the shop is more important than fighting strength, so…"

"How about this one?"

What Rokuko pointed to was "Vampire"… Wait, those have pretty high combat power and cost a lot of DP, don't they?

"Apparently there are tons of variations for vampires, I didn't know that either… Look, the ones at the bottom are quite cheap!"

"The lesser ones might have questionable intelligence, so let's go with a regular one… Oh, that's still pretty cheap. Starting at 30,000 DP, and with our current DP… that's not too painful."

A little painful, sure, but we can convert our cash income to DP if we need to. We've been steadily getting over 500 DP per day lately, so even if we use it all up, daily operations won't suffer.

By the way, the top end exceeds 1,000,000 DP. It says "True Ancestor" and everything…

"… But won't vampires turn to ash if they're exposed to sunlight?"

"There are lots of customization options. Look, see? There's even a sunlight immunity option!"

"Hey now, but that's gotta be expensive, right?"

"That's where this option comes in."

The offensive power option… 100 was the maximum, with 0 being the minimum. The DP cost was almost directly proportional to it.

"Now try setting the offensive power option to 0."

… The DP cost for the sunlight immunity option… dropped to 1 DP.

All the other weakness-nullification options were similarly 1 DP. Cheap.

The thrilling vampire abilities like bat transformation and blood weaponization stayed expensive, though.

And so, after fiddling with all the customization options…

"… No abilities whatsoever, no wings, can't fly, fangs remain but offensive power is zero, yet has no weaknesses either… A vam… pire?"

It doesn't even need to drink blood. It can just eat normal meat. At this point, it's barely a vampire anymore.

Moreover, even though the base price was 30,000 DP, the final cost was about 15,000 DP, below the original. On par with a lesser vampire, seriously. And zero combat capability… If it didn't have intelligence, it would be completely useless.

Whether it still qualified as a vampire was dubious at best, but let's add it as a candidate and put it on hold.

"What about this silky? It seems to be a fairy that does housework."

A silky. A household fairy that helps with chores and is said to appear as a rather beautiful woman.

Beautiful, nice. Perhaps because their combat ability is also low, 10,000 DP was a pretty reasonable price.

"This might be good too. A 'Zashiki Warashi.' It costs 50,000 DP though."

"Hm? Oh my. A fortune fairy… Ah, but it says only children and people with pure hearts can see it."

Ah, that's no good. If guests can't see her, that's a problem. Rejected.

"There's also this witch. How about that?"

"Hmm, a witch… That might work. Should be humanoid… Actually, what's the difference between a witch and a human?"

"Eh? Well, whether or not it has a magic stone, right?"

"Oh right, having a magic stone is what makes something a monster by this world's standards."

Witches also have tiers like apprentice, full-fledged, and mage. An apprentice is 15,000… Pricey for an apprentice. Also, when you summon monsters through the catalog, do they actually come out with proper intelligence?

Oh, but they do come knowing magic skills from the start. Apprentices only know two Low-tier spells, though.

Come to think of it, how does this system of exchanging DP for monsters actually work? Does it pull them from another world like it did with me? Or does it generate them from scratch…?

"Setting aside special cases like you, Kehma, normally they're generated by DP, I think? … And normally, monsters are designed to obey orders."

"Eh, then why was I summoned?"

"… Maybe the gacha is special?"

Anyway, the monsters to summon were decided.

[Vampire (Custom)], [Silky], and [Witch (Apprentice)].

To figure out which type to increase later, for now I'll summon one body… one person of each.

… Well… At worst, I'll just have to believe that at least one of them will be intelligent enough to serve customers…

"Vampire, silky, witch, summon!"

The magic circle expanded with a vwomm to fill the entire room, then shrank with a kyun to about one meter in diameter.

And then, three girls appeared from the magic circle.

The easiest to identify was the freckled, brown-haired girl in a robe holding a staff. That'd be the witch. She looked like a perfectly normal girl. There's no way she doesn't have intelligence.

Next was the one with pale green hair in a maid outfit… the silky, probably. Maid outfit, silk-y and all. No way that's the vampire. I was relieved she wasn't see-through, at least.

Last was the silver-haired one in black bondage-style clothing. By process of elimination, the vampire. I couldn't make out any wings or fangs, though.

The three had been floating gently in the magic circle, but slowly descended to stand on the ground.

The vampire, silver hair flowing down to mid-back, opened her eyes.

Her ruby-red eyes slowly turned to look at Rokuko and me.

"Pleased to meet you, Master…"

"She talked! She can talk!"

"We did it, Kehma! She's intelligent!"

"Um, excuse me…"

Ooh, the vampire looks confused! Proof that she's actually thinking!

"What about you two? Can you speak?"

"Eh, ah. Yes. Pleased to meet you, Master."

"I will be serving you from now on. It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance, Master."

The witch and silky could both speak as well. All of them could hold a conversation.

… Their appearances looked fine too. This is a complete victory. Nice!

(Ah, their names are undecided. Anyone have any good ideas…?)