The Paypocalypse 2: New Hire in Hiretown

A/N: heya, now that Commerce Emperor has concluded, the poll for the new story ends in two days, but it is still at 50/50 split... and I kinda need to break that deadlock and start outlining the winner.

So I'm publishing additional chapters of each option; if any has changed your mind or if you haven't voted yet, please do so soon!

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Previous Chapter

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One flash of light later, and Martin found himself in an elevator traveling downwards.

The experience was so off-putting that he nearly threw up immediately after. It took him a few seconds to recover and realize that the coffin of steel around him had its doors closed and a single plasma video screen encased in its left wall. His shotgun was gone too for some reason, though he kept the shirt and cap uniform. 

That… that might not have been a good sign. The goddess Saltina had been screaming at him long after he completed the gig. Had she indeed complained to Martin’s manager as she threatened to do?

W-were they going to fire him on his first day? Or worse? The company sent him to fight monsters on his trial period, what else could they do to him?! For all Martin knew, the elevator was taking him to a secret basement for organ harvesting, or a sex dungeon for failed telemarketers!

He barely had time to start biting his nails before Dungeon Corp’s garish logo flashed on the screen, followed by a catchy, trumpet-powered jingle. A startled Martin straightened up as the image shifted into what appeared to be a video livestream. 

A strange creature showed up on the video screen, sitting on a throne of gold in front of an impeccably cleaned mahogany desk. The figure reminded Martin of those skeletons he used to see in biology classes, except this one wore clothes and was entirely gilded. Every single inch of its bones was encased in shining gold, while its teeth had been replaced with vibrant gemstones and the eyes with two rubies. A grandiose hat adorned with feathers sat atop the skull and an extravagant black cloak flowed down from the shoulders. Golden necklaces inscribed with symbols Martin didn’t recognize and a wealth of amulets clung to the chest, whereas precious rings glittered on the fingers. 

And then it spoke with a deep male voice echoing with excitement.

“Dear new employee [insert name here]!” The skeleton waved a hand at the viewer with aristocratic grace as if its body moved through its own power. “It is with immense pleasure that I, Director Golich, welcome you to the wonderful world of Dungeon Corp!”

If killing a band of goblins and encountering an interdimensional Karen hadn’t destroyed whatever skepticism Martin might have about magic, having a cheery undead talking to him over a video call did the job. He was half too spooked, half too terrified to react to the broadcast.

“You are now part of a beloved centillion-credits, cosmo-corporate union spanning over twelve universes and trillions of galaxies!” said the skeleton. “A family values-System stretching from Hell to Heaven and all of the weirdness in-between!”

Martin could only stare at the screen in disbelief while the sound of fireworks echoed in the background. The skeleton extended his arms as if to welcome him into a warm, HR-mandated hug. From what Martin gathered, he was now looking at his new boss. 

Wait, did… did he say Hell and Heaven? And centillion? How many unfathomable trillions did that represent? That number was so huge Martin struggled to even imagine it. 

“Let me ask you a few innocent questions, [Insert your name here]!” Director Golich said, his hands clenching into tight fists brimming with determination. “Should a hero summoned to save a world not be entitled to a paycheck for services rendered? Shouldn’t paladins go to war with top-of-the-line gear rather than junk found in some undead’s basement? Shouldn’t quests be decided by advanced algorithms rather than provided by senile old seers hiding in caves? Should a planet’s salvation be entrusted to incompetent volunteers, or to trained professionals?”

Martin cleared his throat and tried to come up with a thoughtful answer. “I, uh–”

“We here at Dungeon Corp believe in the industrialization of heroism!” his new manager all but shouted through the screen. Martin should have known management wasn’t interested in a new recruit’s opinion. “From selecting and equipping the best heroes a god could ask for to managing System experience allocation and designing legendary quests, we believe in doing good for a fee! As our newest employee, it’s now up to you to build a better future for our customers and for yourself!”

Martin wasn’t sure he understood everything, but he knew what kind of answer managers expected at the end of such a speech. “Y-yes sir, yes sir!” he replied with a military salute. “I’ll work hard for my paycheck, sir!”

“That’s the spirit! Work hard, grit your teeth, breathe the brand, climb the ladder, and I swear to you, even this throne of mine might become yours by the sweat of your brow!” Director Golich pointed a finger at Martin, his ruby eyes shining with an otherworldly glow. “I too began my career in that elevator! Once you start at the bottom, the only way you can go is up!”

The video call ended immediately afterward, the screen shifting back to the company’s castle logo with a somewhat ominous automated message. 

“Dungeon Corp: a company to die for!”

Martin hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but he breathed in relief nonetheless. 

He kept his job, and that was all that mattered!

The elevator continued to descend afterward for God knows how long. It didn’t freeze in place or encounter a bump. No, it simply went down and down to the tune of turning gears and the company’s jingle music without pause or explanation. Martin eventually started to grow nervous once more until he finally sensed it slowing down. 

The doors gently opened, and Martin gasped in shock. 

There was a whole new world waiting outside the elevator, an entire metropolis under a silicon sky. A vast cityscape unlike anything he had ever seen stretched on ahead of him as far as his eyes could see; it was a sprawling maze of stainless steel buildings, medieval stone towers, and mechanized factories of rusted gears and green smoke-spewing pipes. Neon-brightened stores and houses of all sizes jostled for space under a massive glass ceiling providing the illusion of a sky. A single spiraling spire of impossible height reached all the way to the ceiling and pierced it like a needle. It alone dominated the entire horizon, though its stained glass shell seemed utterly devoid of windows. 

“This is incredible…” Martin muttered to himself as he walked out of the elevator to take a look outside, his nervousness swept away by amazement. “It’s so big…”

The likes of Paris would look like villages when compared to this immense metropolis.

Martin barely heard doors closing behind him amidst the chorus of clicks and clanks. Countless rows of elevators whose numbers boggled Martin’s mind surrounded his own like the strings of an untied rope, each of them a different size. 

Many strange creatures walked in and out of them all around him. 

Martin stared in amazement at humanoids with pointed ears, giants thrice his size, centaurs, and even goblins similar to those he had killed walk in and out of the elevators wearing copies of his own uniform. Other creatures verged on the bizarre, from winged squids to treasure chests with legs and even robots with more gears than Martin had bones. 

“Wait…” Martin struggled to believe his eyes. “Centaurs are real?”

He… he always believed in cryptids and aliens—though he always considered bigfoot to be a hoax—but centaurs? How did that make biological sense?! What next, harpies?! 

As if on cue, the floating, holographic blue screen from earlier returned. It materialized right in front of Martin and projected a video of a huge, green-eyed snake with an employee cap on its head. A dotted number too big for Martin to count was tattooed on its red scales. 

“Hi, Martin!” the snake said with a high-pitched, vaguely female voice brimming with enthusiasm. “Welcome to Hiretown!”

“Ah!” a startled Martin took a deep breath to recover from his surprise. Things just kept getting weirder! “W-who are you? How do you know my name?”

“I’m Lerne, your personal Hydrassistant!” the snake chirped back, her reptilian lips morphing into a big smile. It looked a lot uglier than she probably intended, but somehow managed to sound innocent. “I’m here on behalf of the Mortal Resources department to show you around, answer your inquiries, and put you at ease!”

Mortal Resources? Was that Dungeon Corp’s equivalent to Human Resources? Martin forced himself to calm down to avoid giving a bad first impression. He had no idea how to properly talk to giant magical snakes. 

“You’re a… a hydra? The multi-headed monster?” Martin froze upon realizing his mistake. Not even a minute and he might have already insulted HR itself! “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to sound insensitive!”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Lerne reassured him. “Monsters are our official designation! To be honest, I find you humanoid people super-duper disturbing too! You all look like deformed cripples with only one head!”

“Oh, okay, that’s good!” It wouldn’t do good for Martin to start his career with a racial slur. “In that case, Miss Lerne, can you explain to me… well, uh… everything?”

“Sure! How about I give you the rundown while guiding you to your new free employee home?” 

Martin’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. “My new home?”

“Your new rent-free household!” Lerne confirmed. “Which you will have to share with other determined employees at no cost, because community rhymes with pro-duc-ti-vi-ty!” 

She had him at ‘free.’ Martin couldn’t shake the thought of finally escaping his poverty-induced rent-stress. Only a single strand of guilt prevented him from cutting off that hanging rope for good. 

“Is there a way to inform my landlord back home that I’m moving out?” Martin asked. “He’s become like a father to me. He called me every day to ask for money, like my dad!”

“Don’t worry, we’ve taken care of the last payment, the unexplained disappearance notice, everything! Your family won’t even ask questions because they are a dis-trac-tion!” Lerne chirped happily. “At Dungeon Corp, we do our best to ensure our employees can focus on the grind free of worries!”

No more rent? No more ways for his parents to complain all day? Free social activity? Exploring fantastical worlds and getting paid for it?

Okay. Martin’s anxieties faded away, until he couldn’t contain his rising excitement. Okay, this job might actually be good. 

A new floating blue screen appeared next to the video call, showing what appeared to be a GPS-like map of the district. A red point at the end of a calculated itinerary glowed on it. The path looked rather short, so Martin hesitantly followed it on foot while questioning Lerne.

“So, uh, what’s this System exactly?” he asked. The screens made it seem like a computer program of some kind, but one that appeared to rewrite the very laws of physics. 

“It’s a proprietary algorithmic non-binary god-machine, a reality-bending occult matrix, and Dungeon Corp’s flagship product!” An explanation that hardly enlightened Martin. “Have you ever watched an Isekai anime?”

“Yes, a few tim–” Martin blinked upon realizing the similarities with the Saltina job mess. “W-wait, is that what we do?”

“Exactly! The boys in marketing actually finance most of those shows in order to subliminally prepare candidates for the role and to condition them to a life of merciless struggle!” Lerne let out a hissing sound that Martin took for a chuckle. “Who do you think provides the hero’s powers? Or who forges their legendary weapons, or arranges for their transportation to a parallel world? Well, that’s us!”

Martin never really bothered to ask where those came from, being an easy buy himself when it came to TV shows, but now that she said it… teleporting someone across dimensions alone probably demanded a lot of resources. 

Lerne proceeded to give him a rundown of the situation. Not only did parallel worlds and gods exist—and Saltina’s example largely explained why all of Martin’s prayers always went unanswered—but many faced problems that ran from demonic invasions to cataclysmic disasters. Like any company answering a market demand, Dungeon Corp thus proceeded to build an entire business around solving those issues. Their activities included selecting and reincarnating would-be heroes, equipping them, providing restricted System access to worlds threatened by an apocalypse, and even operating dungeons full of monsters. 

“Wait, you create those?” Martin asked as he walked into vast streets inhabited by crowds of strange creatures. He briefly paused upon seeing a bus with legs filled with goblins running straight past him; he had the feeling he would grow used to weird sights. “Isn’t that a bit counterintuitive?”

“Oh silly, how else could we train our operators for the actual dangers?! We even design prophecies and custom quests to teach them the ropes!” 

“And what about anime where the characters become vending machines in another world?” Martin wondered out loud. “Or where they just chill out and don’t save the world? Do we organize those too? Why?”

“We use them for multidimensional reality TV contracts! And we don’t even need to pay the candidates, besides providing the occasional tombstone!” Lerne quickly moved on to the meat of the job. “Anyway, as a system operator, you’ll answer direct requests from our Dungeon Corp System. This means a compulsory gig a day, five times per week, though you’re free to take on new jobs during your free time if you want!”

“So like the goblin job?” Martin wasn’t sure he had the nerves to handle the likes of Saltina five days a week, but he was determined to endure. He couldn’t pass on the opportunity to earn more money! “What about the 3,000 credit paycheck a month I was promised?”

“The 3,000 credits is a monthly retainer fee that you’ll keep so long as you complete the compulsory gigs. The higher you climb the Corporate Ladder, the bigger your monthly paycheck and the better the jobs the System sends you.”

The way she stressed ‘Corporate Ladder’ aroused Martin’s curiosity. “And how does a young fresh candidate climb this ladder?”

“With your feet,” Lerne replied. “It’s in the dungeon in the town’s center, you can’t miss it!”

Martin looked up at the immense spire dominating the cityscape, his eyes working their way up to the point where it pierced through the glass ceiling. Only then did he understand the very subtle metaphor. “Oh.”

“Social mobility is lethally competitive, so I wouldn’t try it right away!” Lerne advised. “Anyway, you’ll need Classes to complete your gigs. Classes are like superpowered jobs which you can equip and switch around based on your needs.”

“Like the [Employee] class I have?”

“Everybody starts with that one,” Lerne confirmed. “Classes provide stat bonuses and additional abilities as you level them up, and even overwrite your natural elemental affinities!” 

A third screen appeared to fill Martin’s vision, showing him what appeared to be a basic rundown of his personal information. 

“Those are your stats when affected by the [Employee] Class,” Lerne explained. “You are completely average all across the board with no bad affinities, the perfect springboard to mold a model worker!”

“And I suppose some gigs are only open to specific classes?” Martin guessed. It would make sense for specialized jobs to receive more niche requests.

“Yuppy yup! Everybody starts with [Employee] because it’s a fit-all-sizes designation, but most buy more specialized classes as they accumulate credits. You can find them in your Class Compendium feature!”

The more Martin listened, the happier he became. This job sounded better and better by the second. Exploring new worlds for free and gaining superpowers out of it? All while having a rent-free home that wouldn’t devour his budget like an all-devouring black hole? Who wouldn’t sign on for this? 

Sure the assignments sounded dangerous, but Martin would enjoy a steady paycheck and job security so long as he completed them! Plus, this Corporate Ladder offered him the possibility to ascend through the ranks. Maybe he could rise high enough to have his own personal office one day, with his own secretary!

Best company ever–

Wait. 

Wait a second. 

“Did… did you just say I had to buy my Classes?” Martin asked upon recalling that worrying detail.

“Yes, of course!” Lerne confirmed with a telemarketer’s boundless enthusiasm. “And you have to buy the levels too, because here at Dungeon Corp, investing in your future starts with yourself!”

Martin rechecked his stats and focused on the level part. Indeed, the System required two hundred and fifty credits to upgrade it to two; a sum which represented nearly half of his hard-won earnings!

“I have to spend the money I win back on company features?” Martin choked at the obvious racket. “That’s, that’s… that’s devious!”

“It’s the cycle of life!” Lerne replied with a big wide smile. “You work to earn the right to work more!”

That…

That, uh…

Come to think of it, that wasn’t that big of a change from Earth. 

Martin grumpily digested the information and considered his situation. Having to pay for a promotion left a sore taste in his mouth, but it wasn’t required; he would still receive gigs if he refused to invest his salary into advancements, just not good ones. He guessed he could play it safe for a while until he could check whether buying new classes and levels was worth the investment. 

Besides, who was he kidding? What kind of fool would refuse the opportunity to visit distant dimensions, gain magical powers, and get paid for it? Martin couldn’t pass on this job even if he had any alternative. 

And worst of all, Dungeon Corp wouldn’t give him a cover letter if he left now. 

“Alright,” Martin decided after pumping himself up. “I’m in!”

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Link for the poll: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114448120

Other story link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/story-pilot-1-113495310