Chapter 6: Handicapped New Game (5)

Good. This much should be enough.

I gave them a beneficial suggestion. Their wariness towards me wasn’t entirely gone yet, but their affection towards me was rising steadily. If I can keep this up and perform well, then they won’t send my head flying for no reason.

Riff spoke.

“Rookie! Pick His Highness Demon Lord up on your back. We can move faster that way.”

“Roger. I got it!”

The rookie answered spiritedly. He promptly picked me up on his back.

“T-Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it. What do you eat to be this light? Your body looks fine on the outside, but your insides are empty.”

“Haha. It’s because he doesn’t have enough meals.”

The rookie clicked his tongue. He complained about how life was hard nowadays for both farmers and Demon Lords before he started to mumble about how shabby and poor his hometown was. Overall, he just talked about how the lord in his region was probably the worst lord in all of history.

It seems that my body truly was light to him as he managed to walk with lively steps. I was able to relax thanks to this. My right leg still hurts, however, compared to forcing myself to walk with it, this was bliss. Honestly, I would have never dreamed that they would give me a piggyback ride.

‘Phew.’

I was able to escape from my immediate life or death situation.

There was still a problem. It’s the fact that I had lied. Whether this dungeon actually has any treasure or not, or how to reach it if it actually exists, I knew nothing.

Let’s say we arrive at the Demon Lord’s room but there isn’t even a single silver coin. The sliver of affection that I managed to garner will evaporate and they’ll kill me in their rage.

In order to prevent such an unfortunate incident from happening, I resolved myself to solve my next impasse.

I moved my lips slightly and spoke.

‘Demon Lord Castle.’

Nothing happened.

‘This isn’t it. Demon Lord Castle Status? Not this either. Demon Lord Castle Situation…….’

Why am I suddenly looking for something like a status window? There’s a good reason for this.

There was a notice window that displayed Dantalian’s stats. Therefore, there should probably be other types of windows as well. If this world is based on a game, then there’s no way that the player’s status screen is the only thing that can be seen.

As I expected, one by one, I was able to discover several different windows like a quest log, alliance tab, etc.

‘But these aren’t what I’m looking for.’

They might be helpful later on, but not right now. I put aside the windows I had discovered before I then whispered to myself impatiently.

‘Dungeon Tab.’

A clear sound effect resonated.

A hologram appeared before me.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Dungeon: Dantalian’s Demon Lord Castle]

Rank: Over the hill(F)

Technology Research: 0 Magic Research: 0

*Special Skill: None *Monsters: 0 units *Wealth: 1000 gold

※The castle is in ruins. Neighborhood kids refer to this place as a fun playground! This place is in danger of being conquered at any moment. Urgently open the ‘Monster Employment Tab’ and prepare yourself by hiring a unit of monsters. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

‘All right!’

I cheered inaudibly.

Honestly, I wasn’t satisfied with the condition of the dungeon. This was my first time seeing such a shabby and pitiful dungeon. Nevertheless, it didn’t matter.

What’s important right now is the wealth! The very fact that I had even a tiny sliver of money was important.

‘My entire wealth is 1000 gold…….’

This was an amount of gold you’d normally get after beating a boss around the early-mid portion of the game. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t little either. I can scheme something if I have this much. Lady Luck hasn’t abandoned me yet.

I concentrated on the area of the notification window that had the words ‘wealth’ written on it. The words ‘profit’ and ‘expense’ appeared in dark red letters. It even kindly informed me that if I don’t improve my income structure, then I’ll go bankrupt. I’m sorry, but that’s not what I’m interested in right now.

What decidedly caught my line of sight was this.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dungeon wealth withdrawal. If you withdraw too much, you may go bankrupt.

Withdraw: ____ gold Remaining Balance: ____ gold

※After you’ve decided on the amount you wish to withdraw, please think of the word ‘confirm’. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

‘Bravo.’

It was as I had expected.

Only an hour has passed since I found myself in this godforsaken world, but I already had a grasp on what set of game rules this place followed.

This was most likely a first-person management simulation game. There was probably some RPG factors sprinkled on top as well. The player manages a dungeon and goes around by himself as well. If you picture yourself playing Jet Coaster Tycoon in first-person, then it should be easier to understand.

In these types of games, the players are able to take out their management funds and use them separately. This was the function I was searching for. The window that had appeared before me satisfied my hopes completely.

Now I can take out money whenever I wanted.

‘Now I don’t have to worry if these adventurer bastards tell me to hand over the money.’

My life was on the line.

Although these people were keeping me alive at the moment, they weren’t doing so because they were merciful in any way. It was because they believed that only I could open the door to the treasury. There was no certainty that I wouldn’t be killed the moment I hand them the gold.

‘These guys are selfish to a certain degree. Even if they aren’t actually selfish, it’s better if I think that they are.’

I recalled something that Niccolò Machiavelli had once said. He stated that a monarch should always think selfishly, didn’t he?

There was no issue if the opposition wasn’t selfish. I wouldn’t be at that much of a loss just because I didn’t think egotistically. There was no issue there. However, what if the other party was selfish? If I didn’t prepare any precautions?

I’ll sustain a loss. In the worst-case scenario, I could die.

Therefore, I have to always assume that the other party is selfish. It won’t matter if the other party isn’t selfish, and if the other party is selfish, then I can at least respond accordingly. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

‘I can’t rely on the tiny bit of affection I’ve garnered with them.’

It was funny. I remembered a Niccolò Machiavelli quote which I read due to an assignment during my first year at my university.

I remember hearing somewhere that when a person is in a life or death situation, they’ll abruptly recall pieces of advice which they’ve never thought about even once before in their lives. When I heard this, I simply thought of it as an interesting fact. I never would have expected that I would actually experience it myself.

‘My brain might not actually be complete garbage.’

I smirked in a way that the rookie wouldn’t notice. I was composed enough to make jokes now.

The outcome where I die because I can’t give the adventurers any gold is now gone. What I can do to not die after I give them the gold. This was the problem now.

‘Should I try pulling at their heartstrings?’

This was nonsense that had no worth in even considering.

‘Let’s say that I make them use me as a hostage against monsters. ……No, this won’t work either.’

I wept about how I didn’t have a single monster left in my dungeon. I can’t go against my words all of a sudden and say that I actually did. The adventurers won’t be able to trust me.

‘Wait a second.’

At that moment, a brilliant solution flashed through my head.

‘I can spend money and hire monsters!’

I quickly pulled open the dungeon tab again. That was definitely written here.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Dungeon: Dantalian’s Demon Lord Castle]

Rank: Over the hill(F)

Technology Research: 0 Magic Research: 0

*Special Skill: None *Monsters: 0 units *Wealth: 1000 gold

※The castle is in ruins. Neighborhood kids refer to this place as a fun playground! This place is in danger of being conquered at any moment. Urgently open the ‘Monster Employment Tab’ and prepare yourself by hiring a unit of monsters. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hire a unit of monsters from the Monster Employment Tab!

This meant that I could hire monsters without any unnecessary legwork. How could I be so idiotic? I casually disregarded the line that was kindly warning me. A lifeline was laying right under my nose this entire time.

Naturally, I have a lot of excuses. Until just a second ago, I was worried that they might see through my lies. I was more concerned about trying to hastily find out whether I had any money or not. Regardless, what if I truly were smart?

‘I probably would have thought about hiring monsters the instant I confirmed my wealth.’

On the other hand, I was recalling some quote from Niccolò Machiavelli and my head was congratulating itself for thinking of something useful. I was truly an idiot! What can a line from someone that died centuries ago do to help in a situation like this?

The adventurers are selfish? That’s obvious. They were individuals who had left their hometown while putting their lives on the line. How could such people not be selfish? They’ve probably been harboring some malice in their hearts. There was no reason for me to go out of my way to talk about Niccolò Machiavelli while assuming that the adventurers were selfish…….

I packaged an obvious truth with some plausible-sounding nonsense.

Even in a life or death situation, I wasted my time boosting my own ego. My ever so precious time.

I shook my head.

‘Damn it, Lolita! Bring yourself together!’

I glanced at the weapons the adventurers were holding.

Spears, maces, bows, and knives. Those are the weapons that will kill me. At some point in time, my heart will be pierced by a spear if I lower my guard.

I purposely focused my attention on the portion of my thigh where the arrow had grazed. It hurt. I wanted to engrave this pain in both my body and mind. That way, I could rehabilitate my rotten brain.

“Hey.”

The rookie called out to me worriedly.

“Are you perhaps unable to make a sound because it hurts that badly?”

“……No. I’m okay. I can endure it.”

“Mm. If it starts to hurt badly, then tell me.”

I nodded. It hurt badly. It has since a while ago.

However, while skillfully mixing a bit of laughter into my tone,

“Thank you very much. You truly are kind.”

I uttered these words.

“No, well. This is nothing.”

The rookie got shy. He was unfathomably pure. I was grateful for his purity.

These adventurers were amateurs. I was certain of this. I was intimidated by their rough facial features at first, but they were just men who had once swung pickaxes in their hometowns. If I were to put it into game standards, they were nothing more than practice NPCs for the tutorial. As long as I keep my head on straight, I shouldn’t get beheaded for no reason.

I promptly imagined the monster unit hiring screen.

‘Monster Employment Tab.’

A semi-transparent list appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Useable Fund: 1000 Gold]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“…….”

Weak.

They were also expensive.

‘D-Did the Demon Lords in Dungeon Attack……pay these exorbitant prices for these low-grade monsters as well?’

These monsters were trash mobs that the protagonist in the game would slay entire units of with a single swing of their sword.

I examined each monster carefully. If I focused my gaze, then I could see each of the monsters’ stats in a bit more detail.

There was nothing much to say about their stats. In the case of the slime, they simply had one skill called ‘Regeneration’. It was a skill that allowed them to naturally regain their health over time. It wasn’t bad. The issue was that they only had 3 health points. It was clear that they would die before they could even use this skill.

‘Damn it. Is there a chance that the adventurers have really low stats as well?’

If both the adventurers and monsters are weak, then I could understand why these monsters were unfathomably weak.

I looked at the Adventurer Captain, Riff, and muttered in my head.

‘Status.’

「You do not have enough affection with Novice Adventurer Riff.」 「Only the simplest stats will be viewable.」

Ding, a screen appeared above Riff’s head along with a sound effect. Different from when I looked at Dantalian’s status screen, it only portrayed a very simplified version of his stats. It seems I have to raise his affection to a certain degree before I could see a more detailed version of his stats.

“Kuh.”

I inadvertently let out a groan.

Riff’s stats in total was 13. If I were to compare him to a monster, then he was as strong as a goblin. Admittedly, he was weak.

However……compared to the level of the monsters I could hire right now, Riff was strong enough. With my 1,000 gold, I could only hire 4 goblins.

In contrast, there were 15 adventurers.

I checked the stats of every adventurer. Fortunately, Riff was the strongest. The other adventurers’ stats totaled to between 5 and 8. Nevertheless, they were still too powerful for 4 goblins to handle.

A sense of disappointment overwhelmed me. Are you telling me that even with monsters, my chance of victory is still far off?

“We’re almost there!”

An adventurer shouted. It seems we’ve almost arrived at the Demon Lord’s room.

The adventurers started to chat rowdily.

“Sheesh, this place is needlessly large.”

“You’re only saying that because this is the first dungeon you’ve ever been to, idiot. This is normal. Typically, it should actually feel even larger than this because of the monsters and traps. If anything, we’ve arrived a lot sooner than we should have.”

“This was a really easy dungeon, huh?”

Shit. I didn’t have a lot of time left.

I desperately poured everything I had into my head. I tried thinking within the frame of the game and outside of it.

‘Should I hire a lot of slimes and try to overwhelm them with numbers? No, it’d be better if I just hire the golem with the highest stats and ambush them. Or wait…….’

The party of adventurers finally arrived at their destination.

“We’re here! That’s the Demon Lord’s room!”

At the same time, I narrowly arrived at an answer. I bit my lips strongly. Blood flowed into my mouth, but I didn’t let it bother me.

‘All right. I’ll go with this……!’

Nothing about the cavern had changed. It was unvaryingly large and silent.

The strange spheres that acted as light sources were lined up along the sides of the tunnel and the sound of the adventurers’ footsteps and chatting resonated drearily. However, only a single person, only I knew that all of this was changing and had to change.

‘I’ll get out of this alive!’

At this moment, my drive to live started up unimaginably quietly.

***

TL note: Thanks for reading the chapter. I was able to get this out faster than I expected. In any case, I know there are a fair amount of people waiting for more Handholding chapters, but I’m still waiting on my scans. The person who does my scans is, well, a rather busy person and tends to forget about doing the scans. I’ll try to remind him more often. I’ll see you guys in the next release.