The First Commission
"Oh."
Leaving Grace free to talk with her father, I slipped quietly back into the inn and, on a hunch, checked the interface from behind the counter.
Just as I'd expected, the guest count had gone up.
The dragons who'd been standing out front a moment ago had been registered as guests.
So even if they never set foot inside the building, as long as they enter the zone that counts as inn grounds, they qualify as guests.
Come to think of it, most of the orc mercenary company hadn't come inside the building on their second visit either. And those orcs had still been counted as guests. Of course it worked that way.
"Oh… then should the three of us sing every morning to assemble them for roll call?"
"No. Absolutely not."
What a horrifying suggestion. This wasn't the army, and I wasn't about to start morning formations.
"Still… maybe I should have at least given them a commission."
At those words, every gaze in the room swung toward the bulletin board on the far wall of the inn.
It was the same board that had appeared for the first time yesterday, still holding a One-Strike Bear subjugation commission with a six-hour time limit.
"How about giving it to Grace's father outside?"
"You were thinking the same thing I was, Sister."
The words had barely left Silver's mouth when Grace walked in, escorting a middle-aged man whose golden hair matched her own.
His identity was obvious enough—Grace's father, who until moments ago had been in dragon form.
"Subjugate a One-Strike Bear? Is that really all you want from me?"
Grace's father, it seemed, was less than thrilled about being assigned a One-Strike Bear hunt. Not because it was tedious or difficult—his pride was simply wounded that a task handed to a dragon amounted to nothing more than a One-Strike Bear subjugation.
"I'll be back before you know it."
With that, he tore the commission notice roughly from the board and strode outside.
"Hmm…"
Rain watched him go, then turned to Grace.
"Do One-Strike Bears even live around here?"
"Beats me."
Grace answered with a shrug that said she genuinely had no idea.
"A One-Strike Bear living in the Dragon Canyon wouldn't be strange, but I've never seen one anywhere near here. Not that I've been living here all that long, either."
"If there aren't any right nearby, then even Father is going to need time. You have to find the thing before you can hunt it."
At that, Eliona carefully raised a hand.
"Um… this One-Strike Bear… you don't mean the Doom Bear, do you?"
Doom Bear…
One-Strike Bear already didn't sound like a pushover, but Doom Bear had an entirely different weight to it.
"Probably. That's what they're called in some regions."
The color drained from Eliona's and Riaen's faces.
"That's an Annihilation-class monster…"
"…Even if a knight order stationed in a city manages to subjugate one, they still can't avoid being disbanded afterward…"
Annihilation-class?
"I don't really know the human monster classification system."
"Neither do I."
"Then I'll explain."
Since Grace and Rain both looked blank, Silver stepped in.
"Monsters in this world are divided into nine ranks."
If ordinary civilians can handle it, it's Low-class.
If it takes minimally trained guards or a group of civilians, it's Danger-class.
If a formal guard force is required, it's Guard-class.
If it takes a properly trained knight, it's Knight-class.
If a lone knight isn't enough and an entire knight order has to deploy, it's Disaster-class.
If that knight order risks being wiped out, it's Annihilation-class.
If it could destroy an entire nation, it's Nation-class.
If it could wipe out an entire race, it's Extinction-class.
And if it could destroy the world itself, it's Apocalypse-class.
"That's how humans rank monsters. Dragons are generally treated as somewhere between Disaster-class and Nation-class."
It's not a perfectly precise system, though.
"Even within Annihilation-class, the quality of knight orders varies wildly. A monster rated Annihilation-class in a place with weak knights might only be considered Knight-class somewhere stronger."
The One-Strike Bear was treated as Annihilation-class in the Valerian Kingdom, but elsewhere it might only rate Disaster-class at best.
"Was the Valerian Kingdom weak?"
"It wasn't a minor power, but its knight forces were weak."
"Hmm… just out of curiosity—where does Grace's father fall on that scale?"
Dragons were Disaster-class to Nation-class, she'd said. I didn't actually believe it, but if he were the same Disaster-class as a One-Strike Bear, wouldn't he struggle?
"Only dragons that haven't reached adulthood get rated Disaster-class. An adult, no matter how weak, is at least Annihilation-class. And Grace's father is the oldest of the Gold Dragons—an ancient dragon. At minimum, you'd have to call him Nation-class. For reference, we Jewel Dragons fall somewhere between Nation-class and Extinction-class."
That was reassuring.
No—wait a second.
"Then what on earth were those heroes who pushed Grace to the brink of death?"
Accounting for the fact that she hadn't been at her peak, Grace would still have been Nation-class, right?
"Well… based on what Silver told us… each of those heroes was probably Disaster-class or Annihilation-class in their own right. And there weren't just one of them—there were five. On top of that, they brought a whole party of members ranging from Knight-class to Disaster-class. So it wasn't exactly surprising that I went down."
I was also holding back so I wouldn't destroy my own lair, she added.
"Hmm…"
Honestly, no matter how carefully they explained it…
"Maybe it's because I'm weak, but even when you tell me how strong you are, I can't really picture what that means."
"Ahaha… fair enough. Just think of it as, 'ranks like that exist,' and leave it there."
Behind Grace, Silver wore a thoughtful look, then turned to Rain.
"…Hey, Rain. You and Grace both made a Dragon's Contract with Master, right? What were the terms?"
"Hm? Well… if he just saved our lives, we'd offer body and soul and everything we— Wait! What are you making me say?!"
Rain, who had been answering diligently, flushed scarlet and recoiled in horror.
Depending on how you interpreted it, the wording could get pretty embarrassing. But that wasn't the part Silver was focused on.
"What did 'saving your lives' actually mean? Just freeing you from that situation? Or…"
"…Both Rain and I were wrecked when we made the contract. After it was done, we were fine again."
Grace clearly understood what Silver was driving at.
"That's why I'm alive right now on Master's mana."
"Oh—right! I'm receiving the Dragon Vein— I mean, Master's mana too!"
Rain's slip of the tongue was a little concerning, but I let it pass.
"So Master can give either of you any order he wants. And no matter how badly you're hurt, as long as he keeps supplying mana, you'll recover."
Which meant…
"Master is at least Extinction-class!"
Silver beamed as she said it.
…What?
"I mean, if someone has enough mana to keep two Jewel Dragons alive—not ordinary dragons, Jewel Dragons—and is strong enough to command those two Jewel Dragons however he likes, what else could you call him but Extinction-class or higher?"
"…I'd love to argue, but I don't know the ranking criteria well enough to push back."
Still, the logic was fairly convincing. My own combat ability was nothing special, but the two Jewel Dragons at my side would throw their lives away to carry out any order I gave. And if those two Jewel Dragons were regenerating on my mana—which was, for all practical purposes, the infinite mana of the Dragon Vein?
And if, the way I had with Rain, I drove other dragons to the brink of death and then forced them into a Dragon's Contract… calling me Extinction-class wouldn't be enough. Apocalypse-class—the rank for threats that could destroy the world—wouldn't even sound unreasonable.
Not that I have any intention of doing that.
Why would I? It wouldn't even raise the inn's level.
"As expected of the Dragon King…"
"Mm. If he's a Dragon King the likes of which has never existed before, then even at his weakest I'd put him at Apocalypse-class, Sister."
Eliona and Riaen were murmuring something in the corner, but I couldn't make it out from here.
We were still deep in the monster-rank discussion when—
BOOM!
Something heavy landed outside the inn. At a glance it might have sounded like an explosion, but after hearing dragons touch down in front of the inn enough times, I was starting to tell the difference.
"I'm back."
"Already? There shouldn't be any One-Strike Bears around here…"
"There weren't. It was quite a ways off."
Grace's father said this as he tossed the One-Strike Bear onto the dining hall floor.
Eliona and Riaen exchanged glances, then cautiously approached the carcass.
"…Riaen… this really is a Doom Bear…"
"Yeah… it's even bigger than the ones presented to the royal family…"
"Incredible…"
"As expected of an ancient dragon…"
After inspecting the One-Strike Bear, Eliona and Riaen looked up at Grace's father with pure awe.
"…Hahaha! Humans you may be, but you've got a good eye!"
Dragons tended to regard every race but their own as lesser beings, yet Grace's father seemed genuinely pleased that the two of them were looking at him with sincere admiration. He laughed with open delight.
"Hey, Eliona? Riaen? I can do this much too, you know?"
Silver, apparently jealous, shoved her face between the two of them and clamored for some praise of her own.
Grace sighed at the sight, then turned to her father.
"For you, Father, taking one down this cleanly isn't surprising. But how did you finish so quickly?"
"When I tore the commission off the board, the One-Strike Bear's location felt as if it had been etched into my mind. I followed that feeling, and there it was."
Had the system put a quest marker over the target's head or something?
"In any case, once I completed the commission, a subtle change came over my body."
"A change?"
"Yes. I'd had the sense that, given my age, I had a few hundred years left at most. That lifespan seems to have extended by about a week."
A few hundred years, and he said "at most"…
Dragons really did operate on a different scale.
And how exactly did he know it was about a week?
"So the commission reward is lifespan?"
"No. I believe it grants whoever undertakes the commission whatever they need most."
Which is why I look forward to working with you going forward.
"…Excuse me?"
The sudden courtesy from Grace's father left me completely off balance.
Why was he bowing to me?
"I have clan affairs of my own, so I cannot always be here. Even so, I would like to return periodically to take on commissions. I wish to live longer—long enough to watch my children live their lives."
"Uh… well, I'd be grateful if you did."
Having Grace's father complete commissions on a regular basis was pure profit for me. Since he counted as a guest, the conditions for leveling up the inn would fill faster than before. And assigning commissions to guests was itself one of the daily quests I hadn't been able to progress until now.
More than anything…
The reward that came to me when Grace's father completed the commission.
I looked at the new resource that had appeared in one corner of the inn management interface—Inn Tokens.
I had nowhere to spend them yet, but I was certain a use would present itself before long.
And when it came to tokens, the more the better.