The Innkeeper

Chapter 1996: Everything is going great!

Lex was feeling great. Although the journey to find Lorelei hadn’t been straightforward, his exit from Arch-Heaven was far easier than he expected. It wasn’t everyday where things worked out for him so straightforwardly, so he was rather enjoying the sensation. Maybe it was the power of positive thinking.

He looked at Lorelei and grinned, slowly taking in the feeling of being able to use his full strength. The mermaid, however, was looking all around them, trying to identify their location.

"What is this place?" she could not help but ask as she looked at the thick, black liquid all around them.

"I’m not sure about our exact location, but I do believe we are inside what I like to call freedom fuel. Or, more simply, we are inside a crude oil deposit," Lex answered as he stretched out his spirit sense, trying to see if he could find freedom on the horizon. Unfortunately, it seemed not. They were far, far underground in a realm that Lex was entirely unfamiliar with. Although for a brief moment he considered sticking around and exploring, he had delayed things long enough. He had taverns to build, puppets to bring back to the Inn, and capitalism to enact!

"What?" Lorelei asked, confused by Lex’s words, yet the strange human only chuckled.

"The important thing is that we are outside Arch-Heaven, and I would like to thank you for that. Would you like to come to the Midnight Inn with me? I assure you that you will enjoy it a lot."

Lex’s kind words only confused her further. For too long, she had been on the run, to the point where she somewhat forgot how to behave in normal circumstances. In fact, the absence of a murderous horde on her heels actually started to stress her out. Her brain could not compute what to do in this situation. But she was a positive thinker, so she agreed. What was the worst thing that could happen anyway?

"Yeah, sure, let’s go," she said, suddenly putting on a wide smile and holding out her hand for Lex to grab. "You’ll have to guide the way though. I’ve never been to the Inn, so I’m not sure how to go there."

"Haha, don’t worry, I got this," said Lex, clasping her hand once more and returning them to the Inn!

It never occurred to Lex what chaos could be unleashed when two people with absolutely terrific luck grouped up together. Why would it? Everything had been going great since he met Lorelei, which was about ten minutes ago or so.

The two of them disappeared, and reappeared in the Midnight Inn. Surprisingly, the world wasn’t falling apart. There were no emergencies for him to handle. Heck, even the construction of the taverns was going well with the help of the Valkyries.

It was as if Lex had arrived in that mythical, magical part of life that everyone referred to as the ’Good Times’ that he had heard so much about.

Lorelei, meanwhile, kept looking around, assessing her surroundings for the trap that would spring any second, constraining her. For some odd reason, it wasn’t appearing. Maybe it was having mechanical issues, she should wait a bit and let them spring the trap properly. It would be rude to embarrass someone by just walking out of their trap while they were having technical difficulties.

"Welcome to the Midnight Inn!" Lex said with a lot of excitement in his voice. Boy was it good to be back home! "I don’t think we got a chance to properly introduce ourselves. My name is Lex, and I work here."

The mermaid looked around her surroundings oddly, before looking at Lex oddly. Why weren’t there any traps? No, wait, could it be? Was this the legendary... honey trap!?!?!?!

If not, then Lorelei really couldn’t think of what else was going on.

"I’m Lorelei Kinari, nice to meet you," she said, letting go of Lex’s hand as she evaluated her skin to see if any poisons had been applied to her hand. It seemed not. "This is a really cool place. You said this was an Inn?"

Lex nodded.

"Yes, this is a universal Inn. We accept guests here from across the universe, and as long as no one breaks our rules, everyone is welcome here," Lex confirmed.

"Rules? What rules?" she asked sceptically. So the trap had finally appeared. The rule would be for her to walk into prison, wouldn’t it? Ingenious!

No wait, she had to think positively. So, she finally found a place where no one wanted to harm her. Yes, that was right - positive thinking!

"The generic stuff, you know. Like no harming, eating or hunting guests or staff. No stealing, no abusive language, no mixing ice cream and ketchup together, all pretty basic stuff."

Lorelei found it hard to believe.

"Really? That’s it? And you what... just pay for it normally? No eternal slavery or anything of the sort?"

Lex laughed.

"No, no nothing like that. In fact, why don’t you go and explore a little? If you wish, I can have someone show you around. I need to actually go and help bring a guest to the Inn."

Lex summoned a staff member to take care of Lorelei, and then excused himself as he quickly ran to Orin to have him help repair his spatial ring. Once he did that, Lex would return to the Primordial Garden, undergo a tribulation, summon the Puppet, and move on.

Lex was genuinely beginning to suspect that the reason bad things kept happening to him was because of the karma he had connected to his parents. Ever since that was severed, his life was going great! They should have severed their karma long ago!

Considering that the ring was self healing, Orin did not have to do much to help it recover enough to actually work. It was still damaged, but that would fix itself over time.

Once again able to summon Naraka, Lex felt a lot more comfortable, so he quickly departed. Best not to keep the puppet waiting.

Back within Arch-Heaven, the figure wearing the golden cloak was using its 65% power percentage to do everything in his power to search for signs of the system he had detected a short while ago. This was not an opportunity he could miss.