Labor Shortage
The season flew by and it became Summer.
I was in my room in the [Dancing Doll’s Pavilion]… I may be the one who made the inn, but it was a comparatively good room.
When I looked outside my room’s window, I could see the pleasant blue sky.
… It’s seriously hot. While thinking that it still had four seasons despite being another world, I stuck my feet into a wooden bucket filled with water.
Aaah, this cool water feels so good… Well, it probably won’t stay that cold for long though.
It’s been several months since I came to this world. Somehow or another, I’ve become a dungeon master and I think that I’ve done a pretty good job working… Think I’m done working though. I made a toll fee mechanism for the tunnel I went through great pains to make through Tsuia Mountain. With that, even though I’ve finally been able to get easy income… now I’m busy managing the inn’s operations and profits from the toll. Oh right, maybe it’s time to get some more people? More people to use for the inn that is.
As for the dungeon’s primary business, I decided that golems that sometimes carried knifes would wander around the second and third floors that were the labyrinth areas. Of course, the knifes were golem blades. The knife magic sword improved its sharpness by vibrating the magical power that filled it. People could get the knife magic sword if they managed to safely beat it. There’s still just five of them though.
Also, I’ve added iron golem spawners. Though they cost 50,000 DP each, thanks to Haku-san coming over a few times to visit, there are now iron golems wandering around past the riddle area. Meaning, she gave me a huge payment in DP for them. Ah, there’s also one in the labyrinth area that occasionally clashes with adventurers. They’re hard to defeat so people usually run away when they encounter them though.
Thanks to finagling out such an outcome, today there are three parties (one is a beginner party that came to gain fighting experience against goblins) in the labyrinth.
For the riddle area on the fourth floor… no one’s solved it even though it’s been found. One party was just barely able to reach it by chance, but since they were exhausted, they turned back while wary of traps. After that, there have been people getting incredibly irritated after losing their way in the labyrinth, but no one else has been able to reach it again… Looks like people still haven’t figured out that that correct route changes at fixed times yet.
The income we’ve gotten from people coming to the inn and tunnel is DP and money. Thanks to that, my current lifestyle has gotten pretty easy. I can even turn money into DP. That’s why I’m just lazing in my room.
Therefore, I think I’m going to just sleep in my room all day today and not do anything.
Maybe I should put an air conditioner in my room… actually, maybe there’s some kind of life magic that’d let me spend my time in Summer comfortably? Wait, come to think of it the only life magic I’ve been using is [Cleanup] huh… Even though I went to such great lengths to learn the magic skill, it feels like I’ve just been using [Create Golem].
That’s somewhat sacrilegious… right, let’s replace the water in this wood bucket with water from the low class water-type magic [Water].
I threw the water from the wooden bucket out of the window.
While anxious, I input the chant as according to the scroll into my head.
Fumu fumu… [Water, form a small sphere] huh? … Let’s mix it up a bit.
“Cold water, form a smallish sphere. [Water].”
I felt a little of my magical power drain away as a sphere of water appeared in front of me. Then, it fell into the wooden bucket with a splash as planned. Yep, it’s cold.
It’s the first time I’ve used a magic other than [Create Golem] in a while now. Though as expected, magic is convenient.
“Kehma, mine too~”
It was my partner who was also in my room for some reason, the dungeon core, Rokuko. Oi, this is my room. I have made it pretty wonderful though.
I exchanged the water in Rokuko’s bucket with cold water by chanting again.
“Aah~, Kehma’s magic really is strange~. It doesn’t feel so nice and cool when me or Meat does it!”
“It’s not changed normally after all.”
“It can’t be you know? Normally.”
I thought there’d be a language analysis done on the language’s patterns or something, but according to Rokuko there’s no one other than me, who has the translation cheat, that can modify magic. Rokuko doesn’t really know about many people since she doesn’t leave far from her dungeon core though… wait, me, my slaves Meat and Ichika… isn’t that just three people? Ah, there’s Haku-san too. Dungeon Core No. 89’s turned into our dungeon’s god of fortune. Imperial Capital Bigshot-san.
“Well, with her relationship with the hotel recently, hey, I’ve gotten to know the guild’s Receptionist-san too! S-Siliana-san.”
I probably wouldn’t be that wrong to consider her as another.
Our relationship with the guild isn’t bad. Although the guild’s branch office was mostly built by now, Receptionist-san still eats here, as well as bathing here once a week. Looks like she likes it a lot.
Since the place where the guild is located is part of the dungeon’s territory, we get a bit over 80 DP per day from Receptionist-san. It’s really delicious. We’d get twice as much if she stayed in a locked room though…
“Goshujin-sama, please replenish the food.”
Meat, who was in charge of taking food to the dining room, entered… it’s troublesome, but there’s no choice but to do it. I took out some side dish breads and low quality dishes and passed them to Meat.
Meat stowed the dishes I handed her away into her space-time magic, [Storage]. She’d take them out in the kitchen to give to guests. Meals you could get in convenience stores and family restaurants in Japan were very popular in this world. There’s even been adventurers these days that purposely came for the food.
… Rather, it’s fine even if Rokuko bought them with DP, but for some reason it’s a higher quality when I do it. I wonder if it’s because of a difference in knowledge?
Oh? Meat dropped one of them while I was handing them to her. Fortunately, since the side dish breads came wrapped in plastic, it wasn’t much of a deal even if they dropped on the floor.
“… Your complexion doesn’t look that good. Are you okay?”
I finally noticed that Meat’s complexion looked off. I didn’t notice sooner because she normally has beautiful tanned skin, like she went suntanning. It would’ve been easier to tell if she was fair-skinned like Rokuko though.
“Eh, ah… I’m… fine, I think.”
Meat was a dog eared beastkin, so her body was strong compared to normal humans. However, she was still a child that might not even be in the double digits age-wise. I put my hand to Meat’s forehead. Sweat was sticking to her skin… and she was terribly hot.
“… Go rest!”
“Hya—… eh—, y-yes…”
I laid Meat down on the futon and went out to the dining room for her.
*
Meat is fatigued, huh. It’s probably from overworking along with the heat. I’ll have her rest properly.
Well, I realized something.
… We have a labor shortage!
Well yeah, I mean I’ve vaguely noticed it already. The number of guests we’ve been getting has gradually increased lately.
First, there’s one person at the reception. Then, there’s another person in the dining area. Those two people are absolutely necessary to keep the inn running. We only have four people, me included, to manage the dungeon and inn.
That isn’t enough people. Moreover, we’d need two more at the least.
Since physical labor can be taken care of by the golems, we basically just need humans to take care of our visitors.
Since there’s things like the life magic’s [Cleanup], washing and cleaning in this world is overwhelmingly easy, but serving customers still uses up stamina and willpower.
I was serving tables today instead of Meat, but even though it’s different from town restaurants and we only had a few customers, Meat was amazing at managing the dining room by herself. Seriously.
I mean, there’s practically been no complaints about the dining room. Though Ichika was the one running the reception desk where complaints were received, and Meat’s a child, a slave, and a child, you could count the number of complaints on a single hand. Additionally, it hasn’t even happened again after the first time.
I was just serving tables today but the number of complaints has already risen a level. Come on, what the heck? It settled down when I asked Rokuko to lend a hand, but maybe it’s that. These guys are just lolicons.
I keep forgetting about it and am not really conscious of it, but when magic is used, magical power—I guess something like mental stamina—gets used as well.
Meat uses [Storage] to take the dishes out, so it’s probably a big burden on her.
I carelessly overlooked it since she’s been working with a healthy face, but she must have been incredibly tired every day. Even with that… I’ve been using Meat as my hug pillow when I sleep. Even then she wouldn’t show off an unpleasant expression and would just smile… it’s fine to say something even if you’re my slave, you super girl.
“… Goshujin-sama…?”
“Oh, did I wake you up? How are you doing?”
I gently stroked Meat’s head. Her dog tail wagged happily under the towel blanket she was laying under. She was obviously happy. [1]
“I’m… fine already.”
“Keep sleeping. You don’t have to be my hug pillow today.”
“… Ugu—… b-but, this is Goshujin-sama’s sleeping spot…”
“Don’t worry, there are other rooms open. Thankfully, this is an inn.”
Like that, I tucked Meat in.
Lonely since she can’t work, she really is just like a big faithful dog.
I mean, right. I still haven’t set up proper vacation days yet. I’ve just been sleeping when I feel like it, and though I’ve told Ichika and Meat to do whatever they wanted when there’re no guests, the number of days like that have decreased recently… rather, it’s more like we have guests every day now.
To add to that, Meat’s been working as my hug pillow.
She has no holidays… and though I’ve offered the daily necessities, since they don’t really have salaries either, they’ve basically been working nonstop with no pay.
Due to all of that, we have an overwhelming labor shortage.
For Meat and Ichika’s sleep, as well as mine, I need to do something…
Footnotes:
タオルケット -> Towelket -> Towel Blanket. Made-up English word that Japanese use for something we don’t have (kind of like a snuggie). Gave a link before, but here it is again.