“You got Boss’s message?” An orc engineer working on the maintenance of the Sandroku Golem looked at the time. There were only 15 minutes left until Christmas.
“Yeah. I think everyone got the message. The peeps at Section A spread the news like wildfire.” The Goblin assistant took off his working gloves before wiping off his sweat.
Suddenly Moloch appeared to make a last minute check with the System Tablet on the Sandroku Golem.”Looks like this one’s ready to go.”
He checked off the maintenance of this particular Sandroku Golem.
“But that can wait until after the meeting.” Moloch smiled as he thanked the orcs and goblins in the area.
“Get a quick shower and wear your best…erm cleanest outfit for the meeting. I heard it’s quite an important one.” Moloch told them as he sent the last unit working off to their bunks. The rest of the monsters had already returned to their instance. This was the first time he heard silence in the Dungeon City Fortress.
He walked out to the edge of the floating land platform, to take in the scene of the nearly completed city. Lights from construction cranes as well as warning lights were the only things shining from the bottom of Pand-Atlantis.
Moloch could not be prouder of their accomplishment. In fact, in his entire life, this was the first time he felt such pride and joy to see this particular city being built. Within a short time, the monsters along with the System meticulously brought this idea into fruition.
Of course, Jin had a hand in this since he was the one who had supplied all the necessary manpower, resources. To be honest, Moloch had never expected his master to be able to fulfil the promise in such a grand manner.
He’d long since thought that Jin would just create a half assed city for Moloch to control and that the Demon Lord would be the one to address any problems as they came up.
But no.
Despite his crazy ideas, the implementation of the city’s foundation was extremely sound. Jin purposely included sanitation and used proper city planning to incorporate the power supplies and even allow for future development. Without a doubt, Qiu Yue had been vital in the whole process too, as she modified the blueprints to suit the developmental needs while ensuring the highest quality.
Her strict and stringent quality checks influenced Moloch to be observant and catch any possible defects as soon as possible. Any workers responsible for any deviation of the plan would not be reprimanded and instead given a full break. (She refrained from calling it suspension from work.)
Yet, it was indeed suspension. Instead of telling the affected parties about the fault that they had done, the upper management purposely let them rest for three days before showing them the truth of what they had done to receive this treatment. After which, the goblins affected were given a lump of gold and asked to return home while the Orcs were given further breaks.
But somehow, it had an opposite effect on them. It was mainly because they had been working so hard that the workers found the break extremely unusual. And when they learnt what they had done, the goblins and orcs would wish to atone for their mistakes instead of leaving after all the work they had done. They pleaded and even begged to let them get back to their work.
The reverse psychology was heavily implied here, letting them feel a full load of guilt before Qiu Yue and Moloch allowed them to fix the problem they had done. Surprisingly, they became even more efficient and more careful.
Was it because of possible returns that the goblins had stayed rather than to accept that lump sum of gold? Was it because the idea of not doing any work made the Orcs feel useless? Or was it because they had pride and passion in their work that they eventually felt responsible? Qiu Yue only smiled at Moloch when he asked these questions.
“For a Demon Lord, you seem to have a bit more to learn on how to manage your minions.” The Red Panda Cultivator replied before they returned to their work.
Regardless, because of that incident, Moloch began to observe them more closely and started to learn that those Goblins and Orcs had their own quirks and bonded with them even more. Even those from Goblin World had discovered that the Minotaurs were not just a bunch of cows who just wanted to stop the infighting between the Goblins and Orcs.
The Minotaurs eventually realised that some fighting was necessary to clear misunderstandings along with lots of explanation and sometimes even joined in with the fights to release their stress along with the Orcs and Goblins.
It was a rough start for the first month or so but soon, their teamwork became the best Moloch had seen. Everyone was doing their work systematically to the point they invented new ways to clear the construction process more efficiently.
“I guess within a week we can start pouring water into Pand-Altantis…ah. I have to consult with Master Jin where to get such a massive amount of water. Or maybe I should ask Sir Derpy since he came from the Fishing World.” Moloch smiled to himself as he added that one last objective before turning his tablet off.
“System, bring me to the meeting,” Moloch said, and he was immediately teleported into the Town Hall meeting place where everyone was gathering behind a large towering digital wall of screen.
It was obviously set up by the System with the following message:
“Welcome to the first Christmas Grand Feast! The event will launch in 4 minutes and 48 seconds!” A few Pandas with a Santa hat were used as part of the advertisement, but other than that, there was no other information.
“So it’s a buffet?” Moloch wondered out loud before he noticed that it wasn’t just the monsters from the Dungeon City Fortress who were called in. Nearly everyone was already present in the area, and they were all talking with each other as they waited for this feast event.
Last to arrive were the bellators.
Three minutes before the unravelling of the event, Kiyu was projected on top of the screen. The natural crowd puller began to explain how Christmas worked in Jin’s world. (Now Kiyu understood why Jin asked her to explain how Christmas came about.)
“Does that mean we were supposed to prepare gifts for our friends?” Niu Lang asked in a naïve manner. “I have no presents with me. The message only told me to come to the meeting.”
“Nah, I think it’s just a food buffet, I really hope that it will be Chef Lynn’s cooking!” Brown said as his mouth started to water.
“You think Ms Lynn has the time to cook for thousands of minions? Her penguins would work themselves to death!” One of the Deep One Mages interjected.
“Wait, speaking of penguins, where are the penguins?” Half Ghoul Lord Derek asked, and the people started to notice that the penguins were nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe the peggies are helping with arranging the foodstuff? They should be the best ones for that job.” Dread Reaver commented, and the people in the surrounding concurred with that explanation.
The casual yet lively bantering went on until the last ten seconds where the screen changed to numbers. With Kiyu beginning a countdown, the monsters all became animated and started to chant along.
———-
“You ready?” Lynn asked as she adjusted Jin’s fake beard.
“He looks as corny as ever. Probably need a big round stomach to complete the look.” Qiu Yue laughed as she took her phone out to take a picture of the empty side of the Town Hall Instance.
“Hey, let’s take a picture together to commemorate our efforts. This preparation was no joke at all. And here I thought the hardest event I ever planned would have been for a company dinner. This feast literally brings it to another level.” Qiu Yue complained while the other two smiled at her. They knew how hard she worked, arranging the required resources for the feast.
Thus, the three System Users took a group ‘we-fie’ on stage with the massive table preparations behind them before they heard the crowd shouting the countdown together. The System who was in the loop then asked if Jin was ready.
“Even if I’m not, time doesn’t wait for anyone. So, let’s get the Surprise Christmas Feast started!” Jin answered with a smile as he quickly hid behind the stage.
All that’s left to do was to hope that his feelings of appreciation would be felt by minions and bellators.
