I'm Not a Wicked Boss

A string of messages floated up before my eyes.

Something felt off.

Was the Tower never just a place for hunting monsters after all?

"Hold on. I accepted a goblin horde under my command?"

The Wave 15 goblin pack I hadn't so much as touched a hair of. Their numbers easily topped a hundred.

People were national power, as the saying went — more hands never hurt. And since they were monsters, I could send them into the kind of jobs humans would rather not touch. According to the system messages, sweet-talking the Tower's goblins would get easier too.

But what about food? Did the ship even have room for them?

I was still turning it over when a thought slipped out.

"Just cram them in the warehouse, maybe?"

"It would be better to remodel part of the cabins to suit goblins, Mother."

Second Lieutenant Rice, the supply officer, spoke up.

"We can do that?"

"If the Combat Engineers come aboard, yes."

We had a Supply Section handling logistics and production — but no Combat Engineers to dig fortifications or build out a base.

"What if I level up right now?"

I called Alex back in — the one who'd landed the finishing blow on the giant snake. If experience settled the way it always did once the aircraft returned, the snake's XP might be enough to push me over.

And just like that, I jumped two levels.

That hidden boss of a giant snake had been a generous snake indeed.

"Combat Engineers — please, Combat Engineers!"

It was about time they showed up.

So what had changed?

Two new crew members. One Combat Support Engineer. One Education & Training officer.

The engineer was exactly the talent I'd been praying for. The one worth watching, though, was Education & Training.

Every officer born from my ability arrived as a finished superhuman. So who, exactly, were they supposed to train?

The answer was painfully obvious — that one line sitting way down at the bottom of the status window.

Allies: Untrained ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Goblin Tribe — 120.

Calling them "untrained" on purpose could only mean they could be trained.

"Combat Engineer?"

"Loyalty!"

"Remodel the cabins so they can house a hundred and twenty goblins."

"Understood!"

"And Education & Training?"

"Loyalty!"

"Get ready to train the goblins as crew. Basically work crews — engineering detail type of work."

"Understood!"

Looking back, my ship had always been a little strange. Not a single enlisted sailor — nothing but officers from stem to stern. Had my ability been designed from the start on the assumption that I'd recruit soldiers from the Tower?

The goblins worked hard, skinning the snake, building fires, roasting the meat.

"Chief! You eat first!"

They brought me the first piece that finished cooking.

"It might ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be a venomous snake — what if I die?"

"No poison! This snake tasty!"

Well, if they insisted.

I put a bite of roasted snake in my mouth. The flavor was… complicated. Better than frozen chicken breast, not quite as good as fresh samgyeopsal off a grill. At least it was fresh enough not to taste fishy. Small mercies.

"You lot eat too! Eat as much as you want!"

…Huh. I might ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have picked up a little of their speech pattern.

The cabin remodel took long enough that I ended up sleeping inside the Tower. I'd entered right at midnight, so it was practically a respectable bedtime.

"Cabin remodel complete. Goblins can be housed."

"Good work. How long did that take?"

"Eight hours."

"So it'll be morning when we step out. Perfect."

Outside, I'd have Alex sell the potions, turn the haul into clean money, then strong-arm Haneul back into college. The plan was already set.

"Load the hide and leftover snake meat into the warehouse. Get the goblins on board…"

After giving the orders, one curiosity snagged me.

Back when I could only summon little planes, I'd pictured the space beyond the gate as some tiny storybook country. But I could pull out a hundred-eighty-centimeter Alex, stuff hundreds of kilos of herbs through it — and now park a hundred and twenty goblins inside. An enormous space.

What happened if I walked in?

"What happens if I go through the gate my own ability makes?"

"And after that? Can I come back?"

"Why are you only telling me this now?"

I hadn't known I could enter my own ability. Which meant there was no way I wasn't going in.

"Gate open!"

I thrust out my right arm and shouted. A gate roughly my height bloomed open. I hopped through — and landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The same enormous, beautiful beast I'd once stood face-to-face with at Busan Port, the pride of the good ol' US of A. Of course it looked like that. The image I'd locked onto at the moment of my awakening had been that ship, so it was bound to resemble it. The only difference was the missing American flag — and the banner snapping in the wind, lettered Kim Bada.

…

Looking out, an endless open sea stretched in every direction. Not any world's real ocean, though — more like an unfinished game's out-of-bounds zone. Weirdly still water, not a single wave, yet you couldn't see into it.

"What happens if I fall in?"

"I would grab a life ring and go after you, Mother."

Captain Alex stepped up behind me. The rest of the crew was gathering too.

"This is the first time we've seen your face, Mother."

That tone — Simona.

"Loyalty! We present ourselves before our great Mother!"

That one was Willis, the transport pilot.

"Welcome aboard!"

Every last crew member was a stunner. Another reflection of my "ideal," maybe?

I'm the aircraft carrier. So does standing here mean I'm standing on top of myself?

Either way, looking out over this carrier adrift on that uncanny sea, I finally understood what it really was.

This is my mental world. A space like the inside of my mind.

Something that had once been pure fantasy, given substance by the Tower's miracle. It looked separate from me — but at its core, it was the same thing.

"Still, a ship this huge only hauling one ton of cargo? That can't be right."

Anyone could see it was built to carry thousands of tons.

This thing had been butting into my conversations for a while now.

"Are you the Tower's system, or my ability?"

"Pass. I don't need that kind of nonsense."

"If the goblins eat three meals a day, that's three hundred sixty portions? The crew runs fine on my mana alone, but goblins are outside life-forms, right?"

"Six hundred portions? Even ballparking five thousand won a head, six hundred is three million won."

"If I feed them something like kibble and get five meals down to five hundred won…"

"I can't drop three million won a day."

This wasn't me being a wicked boss.

The world was making me wicked.

After clearing the Tower and looking into things on the outside, even the cheapest estimate put food costs at about fifteen hundred won a day per goblin. Times a hundred and twenty — a hundred and eighty thousand won. Just keeping them around burned a hundred and eighty thousand plus change every single day.

I was starting to wonder whether these guys could even earn their keep.

As planned, I sent Alex out to dump every last Red Potion, then used the money to get Haneul re-enrolled in college. In the meantime, I needed a way to keep the goblins fed.

Buy some idle land and farm it? Not like I could plant crops on an aircraft carrier at sea.

"What the—!"

That was when the videos hit my eyes while I was scrolling YouTube. Cows so healthy they were overproducing milk — so the milk got dumped on the ground to stabilize market prices. Cabbage yields so high that distribution costs beat the sale price, so instead of harvesting, they just plowed the fields under.

"There are kids in the Third World starving right now — and so are my goblins!"

I couldn't stand for this.

I went to a military surplus store, bought a digital-camo poncho, and finished a perfect disguise. Then I rode the Carrier out toward the farms.

"Go strip those cabbages bare and eat them!"

I turned the goblins loose on the cabbages that were about to be plowed under. That would cover a day's food costs free of charge.

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow would come with tomorrow's plan.

The next day, the news broke.