I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 850

Most people who work in the service industry will probably relate to this.

You can push through physical exhaustion somehow, but dealing with nightmare customers takes a mental toll that is truly unbearable.

Physical fatigue usually boils down to one thing: being run ragged when a massive swarm of customers rushes in at once.

With enough rest, you can recover from that, and if worse comes to worst, you can always take a day off.

The psychological stress of dealing with nightmare customers, however, is difficult to put into words.

To make matters worse, they don’t just come in one flavor—the variety is staggering.

A friend of mine once said that people complaining over petty, trivial nonsense don’t even qualify as real nightmare customers.

Drunks throwing up on the floor, crazy bastards splashing water in an employee’s face, dine-and-dashers who walk out without paying.

Paleolithic cavemen trying to barter with all sorts of random junk instead of actual currency.

And finally, underage brats who secretly drink and then report the place themselves to sabotage it.

Title) Guys. Got a nightmare customer here

Wild Grylls

(Video: A customer making a scene with thunder and lightning trailing behind him)

Pretty sure he’s a dragon, and he started throwing a fit the second he walked in.

I’ll keep recording just in case, but no clue how this is gonna go;;

Heavenly Demon: Show him your might, and the uninvited guest will naturally bow his head.

Wild Grylls: I’d love to, but my house would blow up T_T

Heavenly Demon: Ah. That is indeed a problem.

Sword Matstar: A blown-up house sounds a bit rough, haha.

Don’t Abandon the Hero: Please be careful!

Allfather: Still, to summon thunder by mere presence alone... Is he truly an ordinary dragon?

Does that look like an ordinary dragon to you?

Even Vanir didn’t drag thunder and lightning behind her;;

Then what do you call him?

A nightmare dragon, obviously.

Fuck, how is that any different?

A dragon throwing a tantrum and causing a scene vs. a dragon making a normal threat.

Holy shit;; the first one is insane;;

A nightmare dragon is just a fucking disaster, lmao

And among nightmare customers, the biggest headache of all is a foreigner.

The language barrier is there, the culture is completely different, and if you get into a fight, it might even make the news.

They’re practically like a budget version of a protected natural monument, so the moment they make a scene, the stress is off the charts.

Granted, back in the foreigner’s home country, people would cuss them out for being a national embarrassment.

’Except dragons don’t have a country, do they?’

I stared at the dragon, who had been acting like an entitled prick from the get-go.

The hood of his robe made his face hard to see, but scales peeked out across his body, and his way of speaking was peculiar.

In fact, the robe was more like a hooded cloak, leaving his neck clearly visible.

Clank—

—Cat got your tongue? Ah, don’t tell me you want to see the gift first? How mercenary.

The nightmare customer spoke, the massive restraint around his neck rattling with every movement.

With that, he reached into thin air and pulled out some kind of fruit.

Zap! Crackle!

The fruit he produced was anything but normal.

It was shaped like a dark storm cloud, completely saturated with blue lightning.

Holding blue lightning and being shaped like a cloud might sound absurd.

Yet that was exactly what the fruit in the customer’s hand looked like.

’...Is that a Devil Fruit or something?’

Everything previous guests had brought was extraordinary in its own right, but this was on another level entirely.

At least what earlier guests brought had been good for the body—none of them looked so downright hazardous.

—Brought it from over where the lightning pours down. Take one bite, and it’ll give you a real kick.

Aside from his rough tone, was he really here just to use the bathhouse?

Still, his initial demeanor had been aggressive, and everything pointed to him being a dragon like Vanir.

"Elia. Take the kids and head over to the goblin village for a bit."

"Pardon? But..."

"If that guy starts throwing a fit, even I won’t be able to handle it."

"...Be careful."

Quick on the uptake, Elia hustled the children and the rest of the group away.

If this nightmare customer turned hostile, he’d be the most powerful entity we’d ever faced.

I would’ve died against the Colossus without Vanir’s help, and this time, I couldn’t count on her.

’It hasn’t been that long since she took Tyranno, after all.’

Rumble!

Around the time Elia began evacuating the others, thunder rumbled again.

Worse, the vibe coming off the customer was turning sour.

It reeked of irritation: I brought a gift, so why aren’t you rolling out the welcome mat?

To keep him from causing a scene, I tried to start a conversation first.

Naturally, I switched from informal speech to polite honorifics.

"...What brings you here?"New chapters come out on novelping(.)com first.

—Don’t you know that full well already?

This fucking bastard.

Anger flared inside me, but I bit it down.

In the service industry, the owner is always the one who loses if they lose their temper.

Besides, all he’d done so far was make a fuss(?); he hadn’t actually caused any real trouble.

"...If you’re here to use the bathhouse, right this way."

—Mm. That’s more like it.

Pleased with the answer, the difficult customer strode forward.

The closer he got, the more overwhelming the sheer presence of his frame became.

Even from a distance he easily cleared two meters, but up close, I had to crane my neck all the way back.

He wasn’t just tall; his entire skeletal build was massive, giving him an imposing physique.

—Where do I go? Who attends to me here?

"Nobody attends to anyone here."

—Is that so? What a nuisance.

Swish—

Grumbling, the guest tossed back the hood covering his head.

With the hood off, his head was fully exposed, revealing a completely unexpected face.

’Did he use Polymorph? Or...’

The residents of Large Field—that is, the dragon descendants—had a wide variety of appearances.

Many had humanoid features, while plenty of others flat-out sported reptilian heads.

The newcomer belonged to the former; except for the horns on his head and scales dotted across his face, he looked largely human.

His thick, bluish-white beard, braided with meticulous care, lent him a peculiar presence.

—What are you staring at?

"Because you look striking?"

—Ha! At least you have an eye for it. I like that.

Looking pleased, the guest resumed walking.

Flattery was the absolute foundation of the service industry.

Besides, sweet-talking like this might just earn you a little something extra.

"I shall guide you, guest."

—Oho? One like this, too? Fascinating.

Wait, what the hell?

I’d clearly told Elia to evacuate everyone, but Lackey was still here.

And not just Lackey—Bbareumbo was watching quietly as well.

Caught off guard, I hissed at them in a harsh whisper while the guest looked around inside.

"Hey. Why didn’t you guys leave? I told you to go."

"Thought you’d have a rough time, so I stayed to help."

"You son of a..."

To think he’d say something like that after living together all this time.

"Hence, what say we make that guest our house specialty, candied sweet potatoes? He would be most satisfied."

"Could you not sound so cool saying such fucking dumb*ss shit?"

First Wonmo, and now him. Why was this whole household entirely allergic to touching moments?

Sighing inwardly, I stole a glance at Bbareumbo.

Instead of climbing onto my back, he was simply fixing the guest with an unblinking stare.

It was Bbareumbo’s way of showing he’d jump in the instant the guy tried anything funny.

’Right. If it’s come to this, I might as well give him the best hospitality I can.’

The customer hadn’t thrown a tantrum yet.

His first impression had been pretty rough, but I could figure him out as we went along.

More than anything, I needed to learn what he wanted and why he’d come to my house.

’He said earlier that he came after hearing rumors. I need to find out whether those rumors were about my house or about me.’

If it was the former, I could just shrug it off as my house’s fame(?) spreading far and wide.

While dragons like Gerdi couldn’t leave their designated territory, Vanir was relatively free to roam.

’If it’s the latter, things get messy.’

Gerdi had told me before.

That the faction led by Aragon had stabbed the moderate dragons squarely in the back.

Gerdi himself had barely escaped, and though he was under watch, he lived in relative peace. As for the rest, there was no telling.

Moreover, after liberating Large Field recently, we’d caught signs that its records had been transmitted somewhere.

If that dragon had been dispatched because of that, I had no choice but to watch him like a hawk.

Zap! Crackle!

Before that, though, I needed to figure out what to do with this cloud.

I examined the storm cloud fruit I’d received from the guest from every angle.

Too vague to call it a fruit, yet too strange to call it a cloud.

Hell, it was doubtful whether this could even be classified as food.

Starlight Lady: It feels... almost like an essence.

Allfather: An essence, you say. As far as I know, those usually require an extractor.Follow the newest chapters on novelp⁠ing.com.

Starlight Lady: There are essences found naturally on occasion. Flame essences are discovered fairly often among them.

Princess Chaenggu: Why is that?

Starlight Lady: It’s because of volcanic eruptions. Essences tend to pool deep inside volcanoes.

An essence.

Back when I wanted to gain cold resistance, I’d practiced alchemy by combining a Mature Mandrake with Frost Flower Herb.

With Selena’s help back then, I’d barely managed to extract an essence, and that was how I gained cold attributes.

In other words, ingesting this storm cloud might let me wield lightning, but...

’I’d probably get electrocuted and die before that even happens.’

Still, it seemed to be a precious gift, so I’d better store it safely.

First, I needed to attend to the guest heading into the bathhouse.

[Watch that guy. No matter how you look at it, he didn’t come here with innocent intentions.]

As I was heading toward the bathhouse, Heukgu, hiding in my shadow, chimed in with a warning.

I was already plenty on guard, so I had no intention of dropping my vigilance.

—To think someone would build a bathhouse in such a godforsaken place. Pretty ingenious.

"Thank you. But, guest..."

—What?

What do you mean, what?

You’re completely naked, yet that restraint around your neck is still on.

Pointing it out directly felt a bit awkward, so I just shot him a pointed look, and he caught on soon enough.

—There are circumstances behind this. You’re not going to pry into every little detail, are you?

"Of course not."

He was a paying customer, after all.

Appearing satisfied, the guest sank into the steaming bath.

Since he was our first guest today, the water was crystal clear, so he was bound to be pleased.

I waited outside until he finished his soak.

Fortunately, the violent thunder and lightning raging outside had quieted down.

—Hey. I’m all done. That was thoroughly satisfying.

A moment later, the guest called out that he was finished.

I handed him a large towel and checked the condition of the bathwater.

A friend of mine who once worked part-time at a bathhouse told me that out of all the villains in the world, public bath villains are the absolute nastiest.

It’s too disgusting to describe in detail, so I’ll spare you. That was why I needed to see what this customer had pulled.

Crackle! Zap!

"...In all my life, I’ve never seen anything like this."

Thankfully, he hadn’t done anything truly foul in the tub.

It was just that sparks were crackling across the entire tub as if an electric line had short-circuited.

Wondering if it was just on the surface, I dipped a fingertip in.

Zzzzt!

"Aaaagh!"

A shrill shriek tore from my throat at the jolt of lightning coursing up through my finger.

Good thing I yanked it back in a panic, or I would’ve been roasted to a crisp by lightning.

"Haah... haah..."

Heavenly Demon: It will be no easy feat to change that water.

Seriously, I had no clue how to even drain it.

For now, it seemed best to shut down the bathhouse for the day.

If I left it like that and another guest got electrocuted... I didn’t even want to imagine it.

’Please let this be the end of it.’

The customer, however, clearly had no intention of leaving just yet.

He hung out in the guest house.

—Ooh. So how do I play this?

"First, arrange your tiles here..."

He was getting tutored by Lackey in various board games, starting with mahjong.

He was actually having a blast, wearing an expression of pure, unprecedented bliss.

Surprisingly, he didn’t throw any tantrums and things went smoothly, which wasn’t half bad.

—Aha! It’s been ages since I had this much fun! Take care!

"Goodbye."

And never come back.

I finally managed to send the nameless dragon guest on his way.

—I forgot something yesterday, so I’m back. Can I use the bathhouse again?

"..."

He returned the very next day.

’...I barely just fixed the bathwater.’

That guy is worse than a nightmare customer.

—I even brought liquor today! Having it with those candied sweet potatoes from yesterday will be an absolute thrill!

"Did you hear that, Master? The guest desires it."

"I’m losing my fucking mind. Seriously."

He’s worse than a nightmare customer.