The Rooftop Viewing

The wyvern did not leave.

It was circling high outside the barrier in wide, sweeping arcs. This was already its eighth lap. I stood before the main gate and tracked its path with my eyes.

Sixty a minute. Sixty a minute…

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

My stomach twisted, but I couldn’t shut it off. A creature that size could change its mind in a single second.

And yet the longer I watched, the stranger it seemed.

There was no second breath attack. The claw strike had been only that one. If a monster of this caliber had truly meant to tear the tower down, the barrier should have been cracking by now.

Instead it simply circled. And through every turn, the direction of its head stayed locked on one place.

The top of the tower.

The roof. The highest point of the spire above the attic floor. With each circuit its orbit tightened a little more, yet its gaze never left the rooftop.

“…It’s hurt.”

The wing membrane was torn. Looking closer, the rhythm of its wingbeats had been half a beat off for a while now. It had fled from the west, they said—but it hadn’t merely been chased. It had been mauled while it ran.

And now, with its body in tatters, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was circling the night sky, staring down at the tallest, densest mana perch on the continent.

Ah. This.

I knew that look.

Five years as a property manager, and I’d seen it countless times. The person who circles a listing three times, four times, staring up at a single window as if they could bore a hole through it. The one who only needs you to say, “Would you like to come inside and take a look?”

This guest was mid-viewing. And the property it had its eye on was clear. Not the first floor. Not the vacant fifth-floor unit.

The roof.

“…You’re looking at the penthouse, guest.”

Problems stacked up like a mountain. The harpy tenants in the attic were probably still trembling at the scent of a natural predator, and this wasn’t a soundproofing special clause—I would need an entirely new inter-floor predator clause. Barrier repair fees of three thousand two hundred plus ongoing maintenance would make for a long invoice, and I still had no idea how to take a security deposit from an A-rank monster, or whether it even carried mana stones around.

But all of that could be sorted out once we were sitting across a contract.

First, I had to show the guest the property it was looking at.

I glanced down at the contract in my hand. When the breath attack had fallen earlier I had clenched it without thinking; the corners were a crumpled mess.

I pressed it flat against the document folder. The creases didn’t fully disappear, but the signature line was still straight. That was enough.

“Tower Master.”

Oswald called from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the threshold.

“The roof.”

“…You intend to step outside the barrier?”

“No. Only as high as the highest point inside it. Matching the guest’s eye level.”

A long, sigh-like sound escaped the skeleton’s jaw. No lungs, yet somehow.

“If you fail to obtain a signature within one shichen, this old man shall ascend himself.”

“Thirty minutes will do.”

Grok set the head of his hammer on the floor with a heavy thud and rested both hands on it. Under that send-off—whether it was reassuring or terrifying, I couldn’t tell—I crossed the lobby.

At the foot of the stairs I looked up.

From the first floor to the roof: nine floors and an attic. Above that, in the night sky, the A-rank guest was on its ninth circuit.

I straightened my grip on the contract and set my foot on the first step.

“Coming up, guest. Here to show you the property.”

The stairs covered nine floors’ worth of height.

As I passed the fourth floor the goblins poked their heads through the door cracks. Seeing me head upward, they silently clenched their fists. Their idea of a send-off, apparently—though every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time I saw it I felt like I was walking off to receive last words.

On the sixth floor the sound of splashing water cut off abruptly. The lizardmen never left their reservoirs even in a crisis. In a way they were the most reliable tenants of all.

The problem was the attic floor.

“Predator! Predator scent! Closer! Getting closer!”

The voices leaking through the door crack trembled violently. The rustle of feathers, the creak of perches. Just from the sound I could picture the two of them huddled in a corner as one terrified lump.

I stopped in front of the door and spoke as gently as I could.

“Guests. It’s me, the manager. It’ll be quiet soon. I’m on my way to handle the upstairs problem right now, and when I’m done I’ll come back with a special clause. Keep the door locked tight.”

“S-special clause…?”

“Yes. Paper that guarantees your safety. I’ll write you a nice thick one.”

Instead of an answer, the rustling of feathers quieted a little. Good. In this tower the word “paper” now worked roughly like a sedative.

I climbed the narrow iron ladder beside the attic and pushed open the final hatch.

Wind slapped me across the face.

The roof. The peak of the Gray Spire, the tallest perch on the continent. Clouds hung low across the night sky, and beneath them the black bulk was on its tenth circuit.

Up close it was even larger. The span of its wings exceeded the width of the rooftop. The night sky showing through the wing membranes was because they were torn.

The guest was looking at me.

More precisely, at the property I was standing on.

Good. Once a guest has come for a viewing, the next step is fixed. You open the door.

I opened the core line. Familiar warmth rose from beneath my feet.

Barrier, partial open. Limited to the airspace directly above the roof. Minimum width.

Two seconds. More than enough time for a single stream of breath to fall.

I opened it anyway. No guest walks into a property that won’t open the door for a contract.

Above my head, a silent piece of the night sky peeled away. The faint pressure unique to the barrier vanished from that section alone, and the texture of the wind changed.

The wyvern did not miss it.

The circling stopped. The wings folded. And the black bulk plummeted straight toward the opened gap.

“W-wait—”

KRA-BOOM!

The entire rooftop shuddered. Stone flooring shattered like a plate under its claws, and the landing shockwave slammed into my legs, driving me two steps backward before I managed to hold. Broken stone chips shot into the night sky and clattered back down.

When the dust settled, a house-sized monster stood before me.

A briny, electric stench rose from its wet scales. The torn wing membranes flapped in the wind, and yellow vertical pupils looked straight down at me. Residual current crackled and popped between the scales of its neck.

Krrrrrrr…

A low rumble struck my breastbone directly. So this was storm pressure. Every time that throat vibrated, the air itself grew heavy.

Six slabs of stone just broken. Including compaction work, fifty mana each. Three hundred.

I straightened the crumpled contract, held it properly, and bent at the waist to a precise forty-five degrees.

“Welcome, guest. This is the Gray Spire.”

Krr?

“You’ve come a long way. And just now—”

I straightened and pointed a finger at the guest’s feet.

“—you damaged six floor slabs. That goes on the invoice.”

The wyvern tilted its head.

Every time its neck cocked, residual current crackled. Facing that expression—threat or pure bewilderment, I couldn’t tell—I pulled the ledger from the document folder and opened it.

“Let’s settle accounts first. One: the breath you fired at our tower earlier. The mana the barrier swallowed to stop it was three thousand two hundred. Two: the six slabs from that landing just now, three hundred. Total: three thousand five hundred.”

Krrrrr!

Storm pressure slammed into me. My robe skirts flared backward and the ledger pages flipped wildly.

Terrifying. Truly terrifying. But if I gave ground here, three thousand five hundred would simply vanish into the air.

I licked a finger and turned the pages back.

“Yelling won’t reduce the amount, guest. The three-hundred-year-old elder downstairs is waiting for any excuse to shoot you down even as we speak. What I’m offering you right now isn’t an invoice.”

I raised the contract.

“It’s a debt-relief plan.”

The yellow pupils stopped on the paper.

“Allow me to describe the property. The place you’re standing on right now is the rooftop floor of the Gray Spire. The tallest, densest mana perch on the continent. Unobstructed views in every direction. And the most important part—”

I pointed at the gap in the barrier I had just opened overhead. And beyond that gap, the dark western horizon the guest had fled from.

“—sign here, and from tonight that barrier becomes your barrier as well. The same barrier that took your full-power breath head-on without a single scratch. I don’t know what reduced you to this state—”

The torn wing membrane twitched.

“—but whatever it is, it won’t get in here even if it comes after you.”

A low sound escaped the wyvern’s throat. Different in texture from the earlier growl. Those yellow eyes flicked once toward the western sky, then returned to me.

That was it. That look.

The exact eyes newlyweds make when they’ve been scammed out of a deposit and someone starts talking about deposit insurance.

“Terms. Monthly rent: three hundred mana. However, given your current mana deficiency, the first three months are half-price until you recover. The other half is offset by labor. Labor content: aerial watch. Just sleep here, and if anything suspicious flies in, give one cry. You’d be doing it anyway.”

Krr.

“Special clauses. One: no breath attacks inside the barrier. Two: no predation of tower tenants or their property—this includes the two harpies living in the attic and their feathers. Hunting only outside the barrier. Three: land only on the designated perch I will reinforce for you. Break the floor like just now and you pay for the stone every time.”

Whether it understood the words was not my concern.

It had been the same with Bbodeugi, the same with the goblins. This contract went deeper than words.

I unfolded the contract and raised it to the guest’s eye level. The signature line began to glow softly. That light reflected in the wyvern’s pupils, and the massive head descended slowly, very slowly.

Its breath pushed the contract. Instead of the smell of burning paper, a sharp ozone scent washed over me.

“Ah, and finally there’s the security deposit.”

Krrr…

“Come now, don’t give me that look. If I take an A-rank guest without a deposit I’ll never be able to face the other tenants. Mana stones—do you happen to have any? If not, additional labor—”

The wyvern’s throat worked with a heavy gulp.

Gulp. Gulp.

“…Guest?”

The enormous maw opened, and with a retching sound something poured out at my feet in a wet cascade.

From the steaming, soft pile, glossy gleams rolled free. Mana stones. Two mid-grade, three low-grade. It had swallowed them the way a bird swallows grit for its gizzard. Mixed in among them was a piece of metal so rusted its original shape was unrecognizable.

“…The stirrup will be excluded from the deposit calculation.”

I wiped each mana stone clean with my robe sleeve and kept my face carefully neutral. Two mid-grade were worth twenty low-grade. The orc warrior band’s deposit had been twenty-one low-grade, so the rank roughly matched.

“Security deposit received in full. Then, guest, if you would place your mark on the signature line—”

I had worried about the claws. Those scythe-like talons could have split the entire contract, not just the signature line.

But the wyvern carefully, one by one, folded those talons inward.

And then it pressed the soft pad of its forefoot—claws fully sheathed—gently onto the signature line, exactly like stamping a seal.

The contract blazed white.

Light burst from the contract and rippled outward like a wave. It swept across the rooftop, flowed down the tower’s outer walls, and the entire barrier pulsed once as if taking a deep breath.

Once that resonance passed, the owner of that foot-stamp—regardless of species—would be bound by the clauses.

The wyvern looked down at its own forefoot. It shuddered as something swept through its body, then, as if nothing had happened, curled itself into a neat circle right there.

It carefully folded the torn wings, rested its chin on the broken stone, and closed its eyes.

In less than ten seconds the massive torso began to rise and fall in a steady rhythm.

…It was asleep.

The A-rank monster that had just stamped a contract was snoring before the ink was dry.

Looking down at that battered bulk, a thought arrived ahead of any invoice calculation. How desperate must this creature have been to circle the night sky ten full times—unable even to land—while half-dead, just to complete a viewing first?

“…Sleep well, guest.”

The broken slabs I decided to put on the goblin tenants’ labor list for tomorrow. Of course the cost would still be deducted from the snoring gentleman’s monthly rent.