The Innkeeper

Chapter 1995: That was easy

The journey was not quick, or uneventful. But then again, Lex had already expected that. He had given up all expectations of an easy life. His only concern now was to return to the Inn as quickly as possible. If the mermaid route didn’t work out for him, then he’d have to just pay up 10% of his power to exit this place.

After a harrowing journey, Lex finally felt like he was close to the mermaid. On top of that, the scenery was pretty great, so the group decided to stop for a picture. Lex rarely used his polaroid, so this was a good opportunity for him.

For once, Mango and Fenrir were on board with his plan, and so were the red bulls, so they all grouped together and posed for the picture. Once it came out, Lex excitedly started to flap the polaroid in the air, waiting for the picture to appear. Although he no longer needed to do that for the printed pictures to appear, as this was not an actual, retro polaroid, he was used to it.

Once Lex looked at the picture, he smiled as he appreciated how great the picture looked - until he noticed a posing mermaid in the background!

He turned around abruptly and caught sight of a mermaid, swimming through the air - because naturally, as an immortal, she could do that. Behind her was an entire horde of Magical Murder Hornets - the worst kind of hornets to encounter.

"Looks like it’s our lucky day guys, we finally found her," Lex said, and pointed towards Lorelei.

Fenrir looked towards Lorelei, and then the hornets, and then decided to act like he hadn’t heard Lex at all. Mango, too, did not seem to show any enthusiasm. It seemed that even now, he was holding a grudge against Lex for finding someone else with a fin, as if he was being replaced.

Lex rolled his eyes, and then controlled the bulls to head towards the mermaid. Lorelei, being extremely aware of anyone approaching her that she was, immediately noticed, and thought they too were after her bounty. Why wouldn’t they be? She had a bountiful bounty, far greater than all the other girls. That’s why she was always the most popular assassination target.

Not only was she incredibly skilled in being aware of anyone targeting her, she could also extremely accurately judge how big of a threat they were to her, which is what she used to determine how much of an effort she needed to make to run away. No use in displaying all her powers all the time, right?

As it turned out, she felt no threat from Lex and the gang, so she mistook that to mean that they were not strong at all, which was pretty great because she hadn’t done any ten step skin routines lately, and if she got any more pressure she might start developing wrinkles.

Lex, entirely unaware of Lorelei’s thoughts, didn’t wait until he closed in to talk to her. With their close proximity, and their karmic connection, he directly sent her a message.

"Excuse me, I hope I’m not disturbing you," Lex said softly, his voice carrying over to her directly. "I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment?"

Lorelei was startled for a moment, but she quickly figured that it was the human talking. Since he couldn’t reach her, he decided to send his voice over. Very clever.

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Lorelei asked. "We need to have a positive outlook on life, am I right? Never know when a conversation might change your life, so let’s have a conversation. What do you want to talk about?"

Lex was taken aback by how chipper the mermaid was, and how energetic her voice seemed. For a moment, he had actually thought she was genuinely running for her life. Now, he thought that she was probably just enjoying herself.

"You’re absolutely right. A positive outlook is super important," Lex agreed, feeling like he was already beginning to like this mermaid. "It’s a bit presumptuous of me to ask this so directly, but I was wondering if you might have a way out of Arch-Heaven? I’ve heard that some merfolk have a special bloodline ability that lets them travel across the universe, and I was wondering if such an ability might let us leave this place."

Lorelei laughed, as if she had been told a grand joke.

"Yes, yes, that would be lovely, wouldn’t it? I wish we could talk about this in detail, but it’s a tad bit inconvenient with all these admirers..." Lorelei was saying, but a loud snort reverberated across the land as a goldfish looked down on them all.

"Behold, the might of my fin," he exclaimed before jumping out of his fishing bowl, flipping once in the air, and then flicking his fin towards the hornets.

A tornado, as if summoned on demand, appeared in front of him and tore through the hornets in the blink of an eye, as if they were absolutely nothing.

Not only was Lorelei stunned, even Lex was stunned. It was not often that Mango displayed his own power rather than the power of his official position. That move was absolutely not weak. Good thing he was their guardian.

"Right, like I was saying," said Lex as he approached the stunned mermaid. "I would greatly appreciate it if we can talk about how to exit this place. If you have the power to take us out of here, I can pay you for it. Have you heard of the Midnight Inn? It’s a great, relaxing place to rest and enjoy yourself. I work there, so if you ever come around I would love to be your host."

Lorelei was not skeptical of Lex’s claim at all. After all, she had to think positively. If what he said was true, then she could get a free vacation, and if it wasn’t, this wouldn’t be the first time she’d been kidnapped. At least they’d gotten rid of the hornets for her.

"Who all would like to leave?" she asked, looking at Lex. "First I need to somehow raise my power percentage just a bit so I can fuel my bloodline properly. The more people who I have to take, the more energy I’ll need."

"Just me," said Lex, raising his hand. He could summon Fenrir back once he returned, and Mango did not want to leave Arch-Heaven until he was certain he was off the Dao bounty list, which was fair.

He summoned some Blessing Stones and handed them to her for Lorelei to use. The mermaid was extremely confused at how easily everything seemed to be going, but she didn’t question her luck as she used the stone to increase her power percentage, and then left Arch-Heaven while holding Lex’s hand.

Abandoned, although not really, Fenrir and Mango left on the red bulls, intending on returning to Mango’s white hut.

For once, everything really did go just fine. Positive thinking all the way!

A few days later, a figure bearing a golden cloak, emanating a powerful aura appeared in the location where Lex had disappeared from.

"Signal lost," he muttered as he sniffed around. "No, I can’t just give up. That was the strongest system I’ve ever sensed. I have to find it. System, activate the Time Replay token. I must see what happened here. We have to find the target. With this, you can finally enter into the SS ranking!"