Rules Guests Must Follow

The inn was in better shape than I'd expected.

It wasn't that I'd imagined every building on the outskirts of the city crumbling to pieces, but I figured that after failing to attract a single employee for this long, at least one corner of the roof would have caved in by now. Yet the building in front of me had all its windows intact, and not a single large crack ran through its walls.

The problem was that I couldn't see any guests.

Wondering if it was simply because the area was sparsely populated, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I glanced back over my shoulder. A little way down the road, a loaded wagon was trundling past, and across the street someone was tidying up outside a shop. This wasn't a place where people never passed by at all.

I checked the job posting pinned beside the door and stepped inside.

"Excuse me. I heard you were looking for a manager, so I've come about it."

Beyond the empty dining hall, a middle-aged man flipping through a ledger looked up. His eyes went to my face, then to the bundle slung over my shoulder, then back to my face.

"Saw the posting, did you?"

"Yes, sir. Is the position still open?"

"It is. Can you clean and cook?"

"I've lived alone, so I can handle most household work."

This time, I felt a little confidence as I said it. If he'd asked whether I could wield a sword or whether I carried a letter of recommendation from a merchant guild, I'd have had nothing to say — but when it came to mopping floors and simmering a pot of soup, I was a seasoned veteran.

The man closed his ledger and rose from his seat.

"I'm the owner of this place. Let's have a look around while we talk."

The kitchen had perfectly serviceable pots and tableware, and the pantry still held flour, dried meat, potatoes, and the like. The guest rooms upstairs had nothing worse than a layer of dust on them — the beds and furniture were all sound.

The work was exactly as the posting described. Clean the place, receive guests, and serve simple meals when orders came in. There was even a ledger listing the rates for lodging and food, so I wouldn't have to wrack my brain over pricing.

"You can eat from the ingredients here, and write down anything that runs low so I can buy more. Your room is in the back, behind the kitchen."

"When will I be paid?"

"End of the month. This much."

I checked the figure he'd jotted down for me. It wasn't a fortune, but if I didn't have to pay for food and lodging, the story changed completely. It was a far sight better than life back then, when the coins vanished just from breathing.

After confirming the terms, I asked the question I was most curious about.

"By the way, have guests always been this... scarce?"

"That's how it's been lately."

"Even so, my wages will still be paid?"

The man studied me for a moment, then smiled for the first time.

"Don't worry about that. I'm not docking your pay over a few empty rooms."

I asked him to write that down as well. Without complaint, he added it to the paper, and only after we'd both signed our names did he hand over the ring of keys.

I had a job.

No one had thrown me out for lacking experience, and no one had demanded a guarantor. Apparently, across two lifetimes, the single most useful skill I possessed was housework.

The owner said he had other business to attend to and headed off. He told me to come find him if anything came up, and the address he gave was somewhere deeper in the city.

First, I set my bundle down in my own room. It held nothing but a bed, a small wardrobe, and a desk, but the door closed — and the key that locked it was in my hand.

When I sat on the edge of the bed, the wood creaked softly.

At the lodging I'd stayed in last night, I'd paid money just to hear that sound.

I resisted the urge to lie down for a moment and got back up. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I couldn't spend my first day on the job testing the durability of the beds with my own body.

Besides, I had a meal to earn.

* * *

When I opened the window, a gust of wind sent dust swirling in. Covering my nose with my sleeve, I hoisted a chair onto the table and started sweeping from the floor. I scraped out the clumps of dust wedged into the corners, hauled water to rinse the rag, and scrubbed at stains that had dried on sticky and hard.

Cleaning wasn't difficult. It was just endless when you were doing it alone.

"The dust settled in before the guests did."

The upstairs hallway was even stacked with empty wooden crates. I could squeeze past them sideways, but stumble out here in the dark some night and they'd catch me right on the shins. I moved the crates to the storeroom and checked the guest rooms one by one.

In one of them, a black scorch mark marred the floor.

Crouching down, I rubbed it with my hand and found it wasn't just surface grime. Someone had apparently lit a fire inside the room — what kind of nerve did it take to do that on a wooden floor?

Maybe they'd been cold, maybe they'd been hungry, but next time I hoped they'd come down to the kitchen. There was no need to turn the entire inn into kindling just because you wanted to cook from your own bed.

I went back downstairs, took out paper and pen, and set to work.

Explaining things to every guest the moment they walked in would be a chore. Just like at the lodging establishments of my past life, posting them somewhere easy to see would make life easier for everyone.

First, no lighting fires inside the rooms. Second, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no entering other guests' rooms without permission. The walls didn't look particularly thick, so a rule about keeping quiet at night was necessary too.

I had no intention of offering a safekeeping service for valuables. If someone came back later claiming to have lost ten gold coins, I'd be the one turning out my pockets to prove my innocence.

And lastly, if a problem arose, come find me. That beat having some guest wrestle a broken door open until the hinges tore clean off.

When I finished writing it all out, it looked fairly respectable.

I pinned the paper to the wall where it would be plainly visible from the entrance and stepped back. The handwriting was a little crooked, but there was no trouble reading it. I'd have liked to add little illustrations too, but my attempt at drawing a flame came out looking like an onion, so I gave up on that.

By the time I finished the cleaning, the sunlight slanting through the window had grown long. My stomach, which had skipped a proper lunch, belatedly demanded its due.

The moment I reached into the pantry for potatoes, the bell on the door rang.

"Welcome, I'll be right—"

I turned to greet the visitor and didn't manage to finish.

A woman was standing at the door.

Red hair spilled out from beneath a worn cloak, and above it, fox ears twitched as if chasing every sound from beyond the door. She looked as though she'd walked a long way — the hem of her cloak and her shoes were caked with dirt — but her face was what caught my eye first.

She was beautiful. My mind flashed to the girls back home who'd been called pretty, and then decided there was no point in making the comparison at all.

And behind her — tails.

At first I thought she'd stuffed a fur coat under her cloak. But when I saw the red tails moving in separate directions, I revised my thinking. Counting them one by one, I fell silent at the ninth.

Fox ears. Nine tails.

The stories I'd heard in my past life very helpfully supplied the answer in my head.

A gumiho. A nine-tailed fox.

The part about them eating human livers surfaced right alongside it, and I quietly set down the potato I was holding. I wasn't sure what good a potato would do in a situation like this, but once it was down, my hand felt strangely empty.

The woman looked at me, then closed the door behind her. She moved not toward the table near the window, but over toward the wall. With every step, the tails swayed slowly beneath her cloak.

"Rooms. Any free?"

Her voice was low and quiet.

I checked her hands first. She wasn't holding any weapon, and nothing about her suggested she was about to lunge at me. At the very least, what she'd just said was an entirely normal inquiry about lodging.

It wasn't as if I could ask whether having many tails meant she ate people. There was no guarantee the gumihos of this world matched the stories I knew.

"Yes, we have rooms. Will you be staying alone?"

"...Yes."

Her gaze lingered on my face for a moment, then slid sideways. I wondered if she was looking for someone else — but what she was staring at was the paper I'd just put up.

Her eyes traveled down the list from the top and stopped at the second item. Even after reading through to the last line, she didn't look away right away.

"What's that?"

"The rules guests must follow."

I brushed the dirt from my hands and returned to the counter.

"Fires in the rooms are dangerous, and entering other guests' rooms or making noise late at night is a nuisance to everyone. If a problem comes up, don't try to handle it yourself — just call for me."

"Not going into other guests' rooms... does that apply to anyone?"

"You'd need the permission of whoever's staying in the room."

I thought it a perfectly obvious answer, but the woman showed not the slightest expression that she found it so.

"What if someone comes looking for me?"

"I'll tell you that someone's asking for you."

"And if I say I don't want to meet them?"

"Then that's exactly what I'll pass along."

I opened the ledger, then looked up.

"Are you perhaps expecting to meet someone from your party?"

"No. Nothing like that."

The answer came quickly. She seemed to have her reasons, but it was hardly my place to pry at a guest I'd only just met. I didn't particularly want to launch into the story of my first love every time someone asked why I'd left my hometown either.

When I told her the price of a night's stay, she fished coins out from inside her cloak. There was a small cut on one of her outstretched fingers, and dirt was packed under the tips of her nails.

I counted the coins and set a key down on the counter.

"May I have your name?"

"Ara."

"Miss Ara. I'm Grain, the manager. Meals are separate — just let me know if you'd like one."

Even while I wrote her name into the ledger, Ara didn't take the key. When I raised my head, her face was there, closer than before. She had come right up to the counter at some point, and she was looking straight into my eyes.

Up close, she was even prettier. But I couldn't very well gawk at the face of a woman I'd just met, so I nudged the key a little further toward her.

"Your room is up the stairs, on the right."

Ara's ears flinched. She looked from my face to the key I'd pushed forward, then asked in a hesitant voice.

"Looking at me... doesn't bother you at all?"

It wasn't that it didn't. How could anyone be unfazed with a beauty bearing nine tails ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠standing right in front of them? But saying that out loud seemed rude.

"Was I staring too much? I apologize."

"No, that's not what I..."

Ara stopped mid-sentence. The hand resting on the counter slowly curled into a fist, and the eyes that had been checking the space behind me now refused to leave mine.

Even the fox ears that had been turning toward every sound beyond the door were now pointed squarely at me.

"Why are you... acting like nothing's wrong?"