The Cat's Perfect Terms (3)
The innkeeper's daughter, Chloe, sometimes drifted into thought.
A mother who had left the world the moment she was born. A father forced into retirement from the mercenary life by injury. And the single inn they had been left with.
Chloe's childhood had ended earlier than anyone else's her age.
It was the day she happened to catch her father—who always smiled as if nothing in the world could worry her—drinking alone behind her back with a face more exhausted than anyone she had ever seen. The day she learned the reason was money. No—that it was because of her.
That memory had changed her completely.
She stopped playing with children her own age and began helping at the inn. She took customers' orders, and little by little she learned to cook. Inn work turned out to be harder than she had expected, and there was so much of it.
Life was a constant, dizzying scramble from one chore to the next.
Then, one day—a gloomy day with no guests at all—it struck her that she had somehow turned nineteen.
An age when some people were already married.
Only then did she look back on her life for the first time.
The same day, every day. The same work. The same worries.
…Tomorrow would probably be the same.
No—ten years from now would still be the same.
She had worked hard, and nothing had changed. The money they scraped together on good days all went to surviving the bad ones. Her father had grown older without her noticing, and she would too.
…Is this my fate?
Was she supposed to live like this until she died? Every night before bed she prayed to the gods, but no answer ever came.
……
Fine.
Just live. Don't think about anything. Don't hope for anything.
That would be better.
But the emptiness kept growing. Larger with every day that passed.
Then, one night, a strange young man turned up late and proposed that they work together. It was hard to believe, but he even leaned on his status as an Academy graduate to persuade them.
Somehow, they ended up partnering with him. Why a talent who had graduated from the Academy would be doing this kind of work made no sense at all—but the results were astonishing.
"D-Daughter. This is really real, right? I-I'm not dreaming right now, am I?"
Day after day, the inn was packed beyond belief. More customers than at any of their former peaks. And every one of them left the place beaming with satisfaction. Some were so pleased they even tossed her compliments and tips.
"Hahahaha! Another round of cold beer down the hatch! This here's a tip—take it!"
"…What?"
"Go on, go on! Don't be shy!"
The party of dwarves who had become regulars treated her like a favorite niece. Chloe had never known dwarves could be so boisterous and warm.
The positive energy they brought. The daily record sales that kept getting broken. Her father's joy at all of it.
Before she realized it, Chloe had been swept into that cheerful atmosphere. Somewhere along the way the gloom had vanished, and she no longer worried about tomorrow.
Work had become fun.
She rose earlier than anyone and went to bed later than anyone. The sheer volume of work had forced that life on her—but she was fine with it. The mental joy outweighed the physical exhaustion, and that was enough to keep her going.
So once again, the day began as usual.
Full of energy, Chloe threw herself into preparing the inn. First thing in the morning she scrubbed the first-floor floors and threw open the windows to air the place out.
"Let's give it our all today…!"
Next on the list was prepping the cooking ingredients in her father's place. She was on her way to fetch them when a strange sensation hit her.
"…Huh?"
The world spun. A wave of dizziness washed over her. Her vision went white and her balance failed; she barely managed to grab a support pillar and stay upright.
At that moment, Kyle was coming down from the second floor.
"Good morn—"
He started to greet her cheerfully, then sensed something wrong and hurried over. He took a closer look—and startled.
"Nosebleed! You're bleeding from your nose!"
"…What?"
She touched her nose. Thick red blood was running down it—enough that it had already tracked down her neck and soaked into her collar.
…Huh? What?
How long has this been happening?
In the middle of that thought—
—Thud!
She collapsed where she stood and lost consciousness.
This was bad.
Chloe had collapsed from overwork. The second I realized it, I got some basic healing magic on her as first aid, but that wasn't a real solution.
"…And the inn's workload is only going to keep growing."
It had been about a month and a half since the renovation. Regulars were starting to form, and word had somehow gotten around—new customers kept showing up.
In other words, there was still far too much work.
Healing magic only restored some energy. It didn't erase chronic fatigue. We had a gaping hole in the inn's operating structure.
"I'm sorry. I should have caught this sooner…"
I apologized to the boss with a guilty look. I had been so busy myself, juggling a dozen things at once, that I hadn't paid attention when I should have. My eyes had been fixed on my new venture.
"Not at all. Even I, her own father, didn't notice…. This isn't your fault, Kyle."
"……"
We put Chloe to bed to rest, and the boss and I sat down to talk it through. We went around and around, but in the end there was only one real answer.
"Boss—anyone nearby we could hire?"
"Hmm…. Our family spends almost the entire day at the inn, so we don't really have close neighbors or anything…"
"Ah…. I see."
His answer only made me brood harder.
The work kept piling up, and we needed people as fast as possible. Ideally from among people we already had some connection with—but even that looked impossible.
…Is posting notices at the Mercenary Guild and outside the inn really the only option?
It wasn't my preferred approach, but nothing else presented itself. I decided to go with it and took charge myself.
I put a help-wanted notice on the inn door first, then posted another on the Mercenary Guild board. Time passed. No applicants.
One day.
Two days.
…
…
A week.
Time kept moving, and still no one showed the slightest interest. Maybe the terms were too poor? I improved the offer—and it still did nothing.
People simply weren't interested at all.
Apparently there was some kind of prejudice against inn work. Mercenaries seemed to think it wasn't their kind of job—that it was some grueling 3D occupation best avoided.
…Hold on. Isn't risking your life as a mercenary out in the field the actual 3D job? Am I the weird one here?
Compared to mercenary work, inn work was a hundred—a thousand—times better, wasn't it? No life-threatening danger, and the pay was genuinely solid.
I couldn't make sense of it, but that was the reality. You couldn't rewrite public perception overnight, and I didn't have the luxury of trying.
…This is a problem.
We couldn't keep going like this. If I just sat around waiting on notices, the boss would collapse from overwork next. I could feel the strain building in my own body day by day.
So I changed tactics.
…I'll just scout someone myself.
Right. I'd go to people directly and talk them into it. With that in mind, I started hunting for someone I could actually persuade face-to-face.
The first people who caught my eye were staff working at other inns. Scouting was supposed to mean poaching talent from a competing business, after all.
I shook my head.
…Try that in a place this size and I'll get a knife in the ribs.
In a small city, pull a stunt that violated business ethics and there was no telling what would happen to you. This romance-fantasy world styled itself after the Middle Ages—and in the Middle Ages, fists often moved faster than words.
That left ordinary commoners and mercenaries…
Still, it'd be nice if they could adapt to our inn without too much trouble…
The truth was, our place was basically a non-human specialty inn. It wasn't somewhere an ordinary person could settle in easily. Even the boss and Chloe had only adapted because I practically tutored them every day on the traits of different races.
So I needed someone reasonably trustworthy—and already comfortable with non-humans.
…Where was I supposed to find someone like that?
And then—
Wait.
A face suddenly surfaced in my mind.
The customer I had brought in on our very first day of business. The one who had become a full-fledged regular and was now staying in the room right next to mine on the second floor.
The cat-tribe beastman, Karif.
…Hasn't he been short on work lately?
He looked broke. As a Myojok, he was the type to keep his word. His understanding of non-humans went without saying. And he was devoted enough to the inn that he never missed his daily cup of ranchonip tea.
…
…
In other words—
The conditions are perfect, aren't they…?
The talent I needed had been right under my nose all along.
The next day.
"So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Karif—you ever think about getting rich?"
"…What?"
I sat down for tea to talk a cat into taking a job.