I Got the [Innkeeper] Class Instead of Revenge (The Beer Turned Out Better Anyway)

Jackson Conway used to be a hero. Three years as an S-rank tank, positioned to eat every hit his captain didn’t want to take himself, until the injuries piled up too high to explain away. The guild called it cheating, stripped his rank, and threw him out. Three weeks and a pair of ruined boots later, he owns a flooded swamp and a falling-down tavern he bought sight unseen. He also owns, it turns out: a starving girl holding a kitchen knife on his porch, a shape-shifting mimic pretending to be a pewter mug, and a class the system swears is real — [Innkeeper]. Nobody warned him that healing a person takes longer than clearing any dungeon he ever dove. Or that the beer he brews to spite the man who ruined him would start tasting less like revenge and more like home the longer he pours it. The household grows one stray at a time — an exiled dragonkin fighter, a runaway heiress with a grudge of her own. Every bottle on the shelf carries somebody’s name. Most of those names used to hurt him. Aldric Vance is still out there. And the season’s almost over. Some people rebuild with a sword. Jackson’s doing it one pour at a time.