Commission (2)
A week had passed since Grace's father first completed a commission.
In the days that followed, he had taken two more, and both times, he said, the reward had been either a lengthening of his lifespan or a measure of rejuvenation.
On a day when Grace's father could not come, a few other Gold Dragons arrived in his place and carried out commissions of their own…
"Small… but a beautiful jewel."
"I feel it instinctively. If I keep taking these commissions, I'll eventually hold a perfect gem in my hands…"
They left the inn with jewel fragments clutched in their fists.
Watching them go, Grace remarked that Gold Dragons had always been fond of gold and precious stones.
Just as her father had predicted, each commission seemed to grant the one who completed it whatever they needed most — or wanted most.
Even so, the way they looked at those jewels was completely unhinged…
…I decided to set that particular observation aside for now.
Over the past week, no guests other than dragons had come to the inn.
Even the orc mercenary company that had promised regular trade with us had yet to appear.
So what had we been doing all that time?
"Check."
"Hmm…"
Nothing more than playing board games and growing closer as a result.
We had crafted and played every kind of board game I used to enjoy in my own world, along with this world's own game, Crownfall.
Grace held the highest win rate, followed by Silver, Rain, Riaen, Eliona, and then me.
"Checkmate."
"…I lost."
No matter the game, I was by far the worst player.
It wasn't simply a low win rate — I had never won a single match.
Well… it wasn't as though my pride was wounded by it.
Grace, Rain, and Silver are dragons with sharp minds, so of course I can't beat them. And Riaen and Eliona were raised as royalty — they clearly received an elite education.
Losing a battle of wits to them didn't sting.
Still, at first I had thought I might at least win a game of pure luck — something that hinged on rolling dice. The two humans were one thing, but after only a few rolls, all three dragons seemed to have figured out exactly how hard and at what angle to throw in order to land whatever number they wanted…
Eliona and Riaen aren't quite at the dragons' level of rolling whatever they please, but even they manage to get the number they want about half the time.
I had even suggested the method you see so often in Japanese manga — putting the dice in a cup and shaking it — but that still couldn't stop the dragons' dice from landing exactly as they intended.
"You're quite good at this, considering you don't usually play board games."
"Thanks, even if you're just being polite."
Riaen, who had been so shy at first, had spent a full week in our company, and somewhere along the way the stammer had vanished. What remained was the elegant bearing of a true princess.
Even if the clothes she wore were a maid's uniform, and her job was cleaning.
Of course, the cleaning gets done whether she lifts a finger or not.
I watched a mop move of its own accord, scrubbing the dining hall around us.
The auto-cleaning skill.
Just as Eliona had gained a cocktail-crafting skill when her employee level rose, Riaen had acquired an auto-cleaning skill of her own.
The moment she did, every cleaning tool within her range of influence began moving on its own, scouring the inn from top to bottom.
It even cleaned the various artifacts in Grace's and Rain's rooms, apparently.
Not destroyed them — cleaned them.
Grace had deliberately dirtied her artifacts to make them look worthless, and Rain simply never bothered to maintain hers, so they had grown filthy over time.
The cleaning tools animated by Riaen's skill had polished every last one of them to a shine.
And then arranged them all in neat, attractive displays.
Putting things back in their proper places was still cleaning, so there was nothing strange about it.
I simply found myself impressed that her skill could clean and move artifacts that might have caused a catastrophe if handled carelessly — and do it without a single mishap.
"Haa… I wish I could use my skill already…"
Eliona murmured the words as she watched the cleaning tools tidy the inn without anyone's help, much the way I did.
Her skill was cocktail crafting.
To make those cocktails, she needed ingredients — ingredients this inn simply did not have.
All she could do was hope that when the kitchen or the pub reached level five, the things she wanted would finally appear.
For the kitchen and pub to hit level five, the inn itself has to reach level five first… and satisfying that condition is still a long, long way off.
The requirement to upgrade the inn to level four was one thousand visiting guests.
Level five demanded ten times that — ten thousand…
"Bleak."
Still, if we diligently completed the daily quests, I figured we could manage it within a year.
…Which would make level six a ten-year project?
Better not think that far ahead.
Just considering it made it hard to breathe.
"If you're that bored, why not take up a productive hobby?"
While I was lost in those thoughts, Grace came in through the door that led to the backyard and made the suggestion.
A wooden board was tucked under her arm.
"A productive hobby?"
"Yes. The reason you're thinking like that in the first place is that you have nothing to do right now, isn't it?"
She wasn't wrong.
With nothing to occupy me, my mind had wandered, and eventually it had wandered all the way to the future of this inn.
"Spending time making something, the way I do, is a good way to pass the hours, I think."
As she spoke, Grace set the wooden board down in front of us.
"What's this?"
"A sign to hang out front. This inn never even had a proper name, after all."
An inkwell and a quill followed, set beside the board.
Ah… so that was it.
"You want me to make a signboard for the inn?"
"Yes. And think of it as using the entire surface when you draw. Mistakes are fine — we have plenty of boards and ink."
"Mm. All right."
Grace took my answer and left the inn again.
She still had work waiting in the backyard, it seemed.
The moment she was gone, Eliona and Riaen dragged their chairs over beside me, looking thoroughly intrigued.
"May we help?"
"Sure. I wasn't planning to do this alone anyway."
Honestly, I didn't believe I had any artistic talent to speak of.
I had taken art classes in school, of course, but I tended to think of art as a field where raw talent did most of the heavy lifting.
Which brought me to a thought…
"Riaen. Want to give it a try?"
"…Me?"
Over the past week, I had learned a great deal about Eliona and Riaen.
Eliona is excellent at everything, for a start.
There was almost nothing she couldn't do.
I didn't think that meant she was gifted across every field so much as that she had been educated in all of them.
Riaen, on the other hand…
Her talent is extraordinary.
In terms of raw present ability, she fell short of Eliona in many areas.
But watching her play Crownfall with Rain, and then every other board game we threw at her, made the truth plain enough.
The only places she lagged behind Eliona were the subjects she had actually been taught in the kingdom.
"You've been hiding your talent all this time, haven't you, Riaen?"
Probably because she hadn't wanted to compete with her older sister Eliona for the throne.
Eliona and Silver had already known as much.
"Here, you can use that talent as freely as you like without ever having to fight your sister. Go ahead."
"……"
Riaen looked at Eliona after hearing me out.
"Do it. This sister of yours wants to see just how far our Riaen can go."
"……"
Riaen gave a firm nod, her expression set.
As if she had steeled herself for something momentous.
"…What should we call it?"
"No need to make it grand. How about just Canyon Inn?"
Eliona and Riaen both stared at me as though they couldn't believe what they had heard.
"What?"
"You're really going with that?"
"But this is where the kings of dragons reside…"
"Kings? Ah…"
Did the people of this world regard the Jewel Dragons as the kings of their kind?
"Well, with three Jewel Dragons here, I suppose a slightly grander name wouldn't be out of place."
Hmm… still, I didn't want anything too extravagant.
The inn sat in the Dragon Canyon, after all…
"Dragon Canyon Inn."
"…We'll decide it ourselves."
"Yes, Sister. I think we should be the ones to choose."
Having delivered that verdict, the two of them headed straight for the backyard where Grace was working.
They came back with a few spare wooden boards and began writing down every name they could invent.
"What about Domus Draconum? It literally means 'the dwelling of dragons.'"
"Draconis Crown House isn't bad either, is it?"
"Let's avoid any words that call royalty to mind."
"Ah, right. Hmm… what about something in the Eastern style? Looking at Master, he could pass for someone from the East."
"True — from what we've heard of Master's original world, it does sound rather like the East… Then how about Yong-eum-geo? The Abode Under the Dragon's Shade."
"'Beneath the dragon's shade'… I like it, but anyone who isn't from the East would struggle to understand it. Let's go with Samryong Hyeopgok-gwan — the Three Dragon Canyon Hall. That's intuitive enough that even Westerners could grasp the meaning."
One grand name after another spilled out in a steady stream.
Before long, Grace had come in from the backyard, and Rain — who had been hiding somewhere — slipped into the dining hall as well, both of them watching the sisters with keen interest. Silver, who should have been in the forge, had left her smithy and was smiling warmly as she watched the two of them wrestle with the inn's name.
"We've decided, Master. The official name of this inn should be the Three Dragon Canyon Hall. Anything less would fall short of this establishment's dignity."
"Westerners might find it hard to understand, but the Abode Under the Dragon's Shade has more refinement. Which would you prefer?"
Eliona and Riaen turned to me, eyes shining.
Hmm…
"Just go with Canyon Inn."
What use did an inn have for dignity?
It wasn't as though we were only taking noble guests.
"More importantly, those three are still hiding the fact that they're dragons. Putting 'dragon' right in the name would be absurd."
Not that the hiding seemed to have accomplished much, if I was being honest.
"Pfft! Ahahaha…!"
"Indeed. The two of you thought hard, but it seems Master has settled on Canyon Inn after all."
"Well… honestly, Canyon Inn is intuitive and good. It really does give you the sense of an inn sitting right in the middle of the canyon, doesn't it?"
Faced with the dragons' reactions, Eliona and Riaen simply sank into their seats.