I've been alive for one thousand, two hundred, and thirty-seven years, more or less. You'd think with all that time, I would have done something impressive. Maybe built an empire, conquered a continent, or even become a god.
Instead, I run a bar.
"Another round!" the young swordsman at table three called out, slamming his empty mug down with the kind of enthusiasm only someone in their early twenties could muster. "We're celebrating!"
I held back a sigh and grabbed a clean mug. My name is Kaito, or at least that's what I've called myself for the last hundred years or so. I've had a lot of names over time. Too many, really. It's tiring to keep track of them all.
The Tired Dragon was quiet tonight, except for a group of four who came in about an hour ago, their armor still covered in dust from traveling. They were a typical adventuring party: an eager swordsman with a secondhand sword, a young woman in mage robes a bit too big for her, a nervous priest holding his holy symbol, and a rogue who kept glancing at my liquor cabinet as if figuring out how much it was worth.
I'd seen a thousand parties just like them. Literally. A thousand.
"Coming right up," I said, pouring four mugs of the house ale. It was a good brew. I learned the recipe from a dwarf master brewer about six hundred years ago. He made me promise not to share it. I kept that promise for two hundred years before I got bored and opened this tavern.
Sorry, Thorin. Your secret died with you anyway."
You know," the swordsman said as I set the mugs down, his eyes bright with that particular gleam of youthful idealism I'd long since lost, "they say the Legendary Founder himself once walked these very roads."
I nearly dropped the fourth mug.
"Is that so?" I managed, keeping my voice carefully neutral."It's true!" The mage leaned forward, her brown hair falling across her face. She pushed it back with an excited gesture. "The Founder traveled the entire continent, teaching the ancient arts to humanity. They say he could split mountains with a word and turn back armies with a gesture.
"I hadn't done either of those things. Well, I did split a mountain once, but that was an accident with some earth magic and too much wine. And I never turned back an army; I just convinced them their target wasn't worth the effort. That was diplomacy, not magic.
"The legends say he was ten feet tall," the priest added, his voice reverent. "With eyes that glowed like stars and a voice that could shake the heavens.
"I'm five-foot-nine. My eyes are brown. And I have a slightly nasal voice that I've never particularly liked."Fascinating," I said, wiping down the bar with a rag that had seen better days. "What brings you folks to this border town, anyway?"
"We're on a quest!" The swordsman stood up so quickly his chair scraped against the wooden floor. "We're going to defeat the Demon Lord Valdris and save the world!"
Ah. Valdris.
I felt a headache coming on.
Valdris was one of my students back when I still taught people. He was bright and talented, with a real gift for dark magic that I probably should have discouraged more. The last I heard, about two hundred years ago, he decided that humanity was a blight on the world and needed to be "cleansed."
I meant to deal with that. I really did. But I got distracted by a new fermentation experiment, then there was the dragon migration, and before I knew it, eight hundred years had gone by. Time moves quickly when you're immortal.
"The Demon Lord, huh?" I said, returning to the bar. "That's ambitious."
"We know it won't be easy," the mage said, her expression turning serious. "But we've been training for years. And we have faith that the Founder's legacy will guide us."
My legacy. Right.
My legacy was apparently a demon lord threatening to destroy the world and a bunch of kids who thought I was a mythical giant with glowing eyes.
"We're planning to tackle the Dungeon of Eternal Shadows tomorrow," the rogue spoke up for the first time, her voice quiet but confident. "They say it holds one of the Founder's legendary artifacts—the Blade of Dawn's End."
I froze mid-wipe.The Dungeon of Eternal Shadows. That's what they were calling it now?
It was my wine cellar.
I built it about nine hundred years ago when I was really into making wine. The "eternal shadows" were just because I forgot to put in proper lighting. And the Blade of Dawn's End wasn't a legendary artifact; it was a letter opener I enchanted because I kept getting paper cuts.
I'd left it down there after I moved my wine collection to a better location. Apparently, someone had found my old cellar and decided it was a dungeon.
"The Dungeon of Eternal Shadows," I repeated slowly. "You're sure you want to go there?"
"Absolutely!" The swordsman's hand went to his sword hilt. "It's said to be filled with deadly traps and ancient guardians, but we're ready for anything!"
The so-called "deadly traps" were probably just the pressure plates I set up to keep rats away from my wine. The "ancient guardians" were likely the enchanted brooms I used to keep the place clean.
This was going to be a disaster.
"Listen," I said, setting down my rag. "That place is... complicated. The layout is tricky, and there are a lot of things down there that could go wrong if you don't know what you're doing."
"Are you saying we're not strong enough?" The swordsman's jaw set stubbornly.
"No, I'm saying..." I stopped myself. How was I supposed to explain that I didn't want them breaking my things without admitting I was the one who built the place?
The mage was studying me with curious eyes. "You seem to know a lot about the dungeon, mister...?"
"Kaito," I supplied. "And I've lived in this area for a long time. You hear things."
"How long?" the priest asked innocently."Oh, you know. A while." About a thousand years. "Long enough to know that dungeon isn't something to take lightly."
"Which is exactly why we need to conquer it!" The swordsman grinned. "If we can claim the Blade of Dawn's End, we'll have a weapon worthy of challenging the Demon Lord himself! They say the Founder crafted it to slay the greatest evils of the age."
I made it to open letters. Specifically, letters from the Merchant's Guild about my overdue membership fees.
"The Founder was truly the greatest hero who ever lived," the mage said dreamily. "I wish I could have met him. They say he was wise beyond measure, kind beyond compare, and powerful beyond imagination."
Once, I set my own robes on fire while trying to light a campfire. I forgot my own birthday for three centuries in a row. And I accidentally created a species of carnivorous rabbits that still cause trouble in the northern forests.
But sure. Wise, kind, and powerful. That was me.
"I'm sure he was just a regular person," I muttered, pouring myself a drink. I needed it.
"A regular person?" The swordsman laughed. "The Founder was no mere mortal! They say he learned magic directly from the gods themselves!"
I learned magic from a book I found in a library. Later, I found out it was filed in the wrong section and was actually a cookbook with some very strange metaphors.
"Besides," the rogue added, "everyone knows the Founder disappeared centuries ago, ascending to a higher plane of existence after his work was done."
I'd gotten tired and opened a bar.
"Look," I said, making a decision I was probably going to regret. "If you're really set on going to that dungeon, at least let me guide you. I know the area, and I can make sure you don't do anything... irreversibly stupid."
The four of them exchanged glances."You'd do that?" the priest asked, surprised. "But we can't pay much..."
"Consider it a public service," I said dryly. "Can't have you kids dying in a dungeon and haunting my bar."
Also, I really didn't want them breaking my enchanted wine racks. Those had taken me three years to get right.
The swordsman stood and extended his hand. "Then we accept! Thank you, Kaito-san. I'm Ren, and this is my party—Yuki the mage, Hiro the priest, and Sora the rogue."
I shook his hand and noticed the calluses from sword practice and the determined look in his eyes. He reminded me of myself when I first came to this world—young, eager, and ready to change everything.
I'd been so naive.
"We leave at dawn," Ren declared. "Together, we'll claim the Founder's legacy and take one step closer to saving the world!"
The others cheered, raising their mugs.
I raised mine too, more out of habit than enthusiasm.
The Founder's legacy. My legacy. A demon lord I accidentally created, a wine cellar that became a legendary dungeon, and a letter opener these kids believed could save the world.
After one thousand, two hundred, and thirty-seven years, I was still cleaning up my own messes.
Some things never changed.
"To the Founder!" Ren shouted.
"To the Founder," the others echoed.
I took a long drink and wondered, not for the first time, if immortality was really as great as people say.
Spoiler: it wasn't.
But at least the ale was good.