-Mob Female Employee’s POV-
AN: I keep telling myself I’m done with black company stories, but here we are again.
This is the story of the oneesan who works at the Lake Biwa Dungeon, collecting, analyzing, and recording D-Coins.
-0-
My name is Kurashiki Chisa. I’m an employee of the Dungeon Bureau’s Osaka Branch.
Originally, I was stationed at the Hiroshima Branch, but I got transferred to Osaka. Within the same month, I was assigned to the Lake Biwa Dungeon in Shiga Prefecture.
Normally, Dungeon Bureau staff are occasionally sent out to help with lobby guidance or behind-the-scenes work at dungeons, but this time, the situation was very different.
A new dungeon had appeared near the Lake Biwa Dungeon. It was called the Black Dungeon, and it posed a serious threat to humans.
To counter this, a large-scale monster extermination was launched at the Lake Biwa Dungeon, the closest location, to reduce the miasma and cut down the number of monsters emerging from the Black Dungeon.
I don’t really understand how it works, but that was the plan.
The existence of the Black Dungeon is top secret. That means we can’t carry out large-scale extermination with many people.
So the Dungeon Bureau outsourced the job to Tenka Musou, an EPO corporation that uses Team Messiah as its main force.
I was assigned to confirm the extermination results and gather data.
-0-
Here’s how it works.
I receive the D-Coins collected by Tenka Musou after they defeat monsters, then use magic tools to check what kind of monsters dropped them and record the results.
Tenka Musou usually enters the dungeon from morning until evening, so I figured I could just spend that time analyzing and recording the D-Coins from the previous day.
Back in training, I learned how many monsters an average explorer defeats.
If they take down five monsters an hour and fight for ten hours, that’s fifty monsters. Even if I’m being generous, maybe seventy.
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There’s Oshino Hi, older sister of Team Messiah’s Alpha, and her team along with the former White Keeper members.
Even combined, they don’t total more than thirty people.
I heard the rest of Team Messiah would join them later.
It takes less than ten seconds to analyze and record one D-Coin.
Even if I had to handle two thousand D-Coins, I’d be done in about five hours.
What? You’re wondering if spending five hours analyzing and recording is really easy? Sounds rough?
Sure, back when I was at the Hiroshima Branch, I might have thought that too.
But in the Osaka Branch, working a full eight-hour shift is considered normal.
Before I joined, overtime was the default. Then a labor inspection came in and banned excessive overtime for everyone except the higher-ups.
Because of that, people now have more work to finish within regular hours and are constantly stressed and frustrated.
So compared to working at the Osaka Branch, the job at the Lake Biwa Dungeon, where I only need to work five hours, is actually pretty easy.
…is what I want to say.
Why don’t I?
「Kurashiki-san, here’s today’s batch. I’ll leave it to you.」
Saijo-san, the silver-haired gentleman with a charming smile, hands them over.
He’s like a noble prince.
I’ve been a fan of his for a long time.
He’s always looked youthful, and recently he’s started to show his age a little, but that only adds a cool, mature charm to him.
But the amount of D-Coins he brings in is insane.
Over four thousand.
And he collected them all by himself.
Because of him alone, my expected workload has tripled.
Apparently, he controls close to a hundred monsters and sends them out in shifts to hunt nonstop, 24 hours a day, across floors one through twenty.
That’s just not fair…
No wonder the Lake Biwa Dungeon was closed to the public. It’s probably because he was here.
That same day, I submitted a request for additional staff.
Even so, the hectic pace didn’t let up.
If I wanted to avoid overtime, I had to finish within ten hours.
Seriously, who came up with the idea of setting a cap on overtime?
I have complaints.
Well, one of the supervisors I should be complaining to is also stationed here.
And because he’s considered upper management, he’s working eighteen-hour shifts every day.
Sigh… I’ve got to do something.
-0-
「Kurashiki, starting tomorrow, the members of Team Messiah will be joining us. We’ll handle things here, so I want you to take care of them.」
「Really!?」
I was saved.
Team Messiah really is amazing, but there are only four of them.
Well, I did know that Alpha-san, or rather Oshino Hime-san, can use bunshins.
But her bunshins have low stamina and can’t overdo it.
So I figured I’d be fine.
At least, that’s what I used to think.
This is strange.
Who are these people, really?
They bring in so many D-Coins each time, it’s hard to believe only four people are hunting.
And once I found out the reason, it all made sense.
Oshino Hime-san uses bunshins, and each of them moves in teams of threes that constantly run around inside the dungeon.
Now that I think about it, she’s more famous for her agility stat than her bunshin skill.
With that kind of speed, it’s no wonder she’s wiping out monsters nonstop.
That much, I could still kind of predict.
But the other three were completely outside my expectations.
Makino Milk-san is originally a support-type, but she uses a gun, a weapon that normally isn’t allowed inside dungeons.
Because of that, she specializes in taking down flying monsters like bats and birds.
Her accuracy is incredible, too. She’s practically at the level of Mouri〇gorou.
To be honest, I’m a big fan of Mouri〇gorou. I heard he’ll be featured in next year’s movie, and I’m really looking forward to it, ah, I was spacing out again.
Anyway, that’s why the amount of D-Coins she gathers isn’t something to take lightly.
Ichino Taira-san possesses a variety of skills.
Most of them aren’t public knowledge, but one of the few abilities listed on his explorer card is presence detection.
He uses that skill to accurately locate monsters and take them down.
It’s unfair. He can find even the ones hiding in an instant.
Then, with powerful strikes, he slices through monster after monster.
Azuma Ayame-san is a magic specialist.
Normally, magic users stay in the back lines and rarely engage directly… or so I thought, but it turns out she brings in the second highest number of D-Coins in the entire party after Oshino-san.
She uses a mysterious skill that manipulates paper to gather monsters in one spot, then unleashes a large-scale spell to wipe them out all at once.
It’s like a combination of a shogi checkmate trap and a fishing drive.
Of course, the numbers would be high.
So, my workload has become completely insane.
And they really never take breaks.
They’re in the dungeon for around eighteen hours a day.
At first, they said they could go for twenty-four, but I had to make them stop.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t get any rest.
At the same time, I sent another request to the Dungeon Bureau for backup.
But before that help could arrive, a massive incident happened.
An outbreak of monsters from the Black Dungeon.
And it seems that information about the Black Dungeon leaked to the outside, because now the government, the Ministry of Defense, and the Dungeon Bureau are all scrambling to deal with the responsibility.
None of them have the capacity to pay attention to what’s going on here.
-0-
And just like that, today is December twenty-third.
Christmas Eve’s Eve.
Christmas… If things were normal, maybe I’d be spending it with a boyfriend….
Not that I have one.
There’s no way I could make time for romance with how much I’ve been working.
Maybe if I gave myself over completely to this black company mindset and started saying things like “my job is my boyfriend”, it’d help me cope a little.
「Here you go, Kurashiki-san. Christmas cake. A little sugar to feed your brain.」
My supervisor placed a small, adorably decorated Christmas cake in front of me.
「Thank you very much.」
「You’ve been working hard. It’s Christmas, so take tomorrow and the day after off. I’ll cover for you.」
「What? But to take a break at a time like this, 」
「Come on, what do you think management-level folks get the extra pay for? Don’t worry about it. I get that it’s hard to relax when those four young ones are still diving into the dungeon without a break, but… Well, I just got dumped by my girlfriend, and honestly, spending Christmas alone is depressing. I’d rather be working like this than sulking at home.」
What a kind boss.
Only three years older than me. Handsome, too.
And freshly dumped by his girlfriend.
Wait a second….
Could this be… a chance?
「Ano, senpai!」
「Hmm?」
「Ah, no, it’s nothing.」
For a moment, I thought maybe I could fall in love.
But no, not happening.
A man who works more than twelve hours a day at his desk without rest even in peacetime,
Even if he’s good-looking, kind, and rich, I just can’t imagine he’d have the capacity to care for a family.
More than that, I just want to rest.
My beloved pillow, still warm in the futon dryer, is waiting for me.
Right now, more than work, more than my boss, I just want to cuddle up with my pillow and sleep.
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