The Innkeeper

Chapter 2390: Little Toby

"Excuse me, sir, I keep telling you. I’m a guest! I’m not from your mushroom cave," said Little Toby as he was carried by the massive turtle, but it was to no avail. Little Toby dared not resist the turtle either, and so he could only protest verbally as he was carried away.

If there was one consolation, it was that he was being taken away from the countless Tribulation Fiends that were sunbathing out in the open.

Little Toby looked behind him just to check one more time if he was dreaming, and then quickly turned back when everything was as he recalled.

As far as the eye could see, there were terrifying Tribulation Fiends in the shape of horrifying monsters, radiating the terrifying, uncontrollable power that came alongside tribulations. There were Farham made of lightning, singing the air itself as their lightning bodies sparked and created ozone.

There was the terrifying, forbidden creature known as the Bone Widow - a massive, twelve feet large (3.65 meters) spider made of bone, with enormous antlers similar to that of a moose. Except that the Bone Widows here were not made of bone, but of tribulation fire! For some odd reason, the otherwise terrifying creature actually looked kind of cute with a body made of orange flames.

Then, there were the Fiend Tribulations that represented Spirit tribulations! They were... they were...

Little Toby shuddered to even think about it, for the memory alone caused the mushroom without a mouth to begin salivating. The Fiend Tribulations representing Spirit tribulation were actually in the shape of massive Mantu!

Even though Little Toby had never eaten dumplings before, or ever eaten, for that matter, the sight of the massive Mantu filled his mind with such temptation that he actually longed to be struck with such tribulations!

Little Toby trembled as he caught himself slipping once more, and collected his thoughts, not letting them stray any longer.

Instead of thinking about the Tribulation Fiends, he instead thought about why the hell they were all sunbathing without the slightest hint of maliciousness!

Little Toby looked up in the sky and saw a crow shaped sun, shining down bright, warm sunlight that felt like it was the perfect temperature. It didn’t burn him, and instead filled his body with a welcome warmth.

"Is that... the legendary Primordial Sunlight?" Little Toby asked hesitantly, not really expecting to get an answer.

Unexpectedly, the massive turtle stopped and looked up in the air.

"Don’t be silly," said the turtle, causing Little Toby to feel at ease. Of course it wasn’t Primordial Sunlight. That no longer existed. Then... the turtle continued speaking.

"That’s the Primordial Plant Growth Booster the Innkeeper installed for my plants."

Little Toby was stunned, and didn’t know how to respond. So at the end of the day, it was Primordial Sunlight. That meant there was a Primordial Sun Crow in the sky, and that the reason the Tribulation Fiends had turned docile was because the original ’remnant spirit’ of the races was stirred due to the presence of genuine Primordial Sunlight. After all, these races had gone extinct in the Primordial Age.

As a history professor, Little Toby had a lot of knowledge about a lot of arcane and unusual things most people did not pay attention to.

Of course, even though Little Toby could come up with a semi-plausible explanation for why the Fiend Tribulations had begun to sunbathe, he could not understand what the peacocks and bunnies were doing.

What possible reason could the peacocks have for entering the bodies of the docile Farham and cultivating within? And why would the bunnies cultivate within the flaming bodies of the Bone Widow?

While Little Toby could not understand the logic behind the actions of those two groups, assuming that there was some unknown benefit to cultivating within a Tribulation Fiend - something literally unprecedented in history - he could not even begin to understand what those strange looking cats were thinking, trying to eat the Spirit Mantu all the while screaming ’oh lawd’!

It was incomprehensible!

"Ish thish the one, uncle turtle?" asked a cute little voice, causing Little Toby to look over.

He was a tiny little human - even smaller in size than Little Toby himself - dressed in a pink, princess frock and wearing a plastic tiara. The massive, silver spear that was more than three times the length of her body that the little girl held did not exactly fit the look of her outfit, but then again, neither did the massive, scary looking dragon she was sitting upon.

"Yes, silly little human, this is the one who brought in the law-fertilizer," said the turtle with a nod.

The little girl seemed extremely excited upon hearing the words.

"Oh, oh, does that mean we’re going to feed him to uncle Luthor’s hell?" she asked excitedly, her eyes practically sparkling. Little Toby, on the other hand, suddenly began trembling because he had no idea what was going on, but he certainly didn’t like the idea of being fed to anything, especially a hell!

"No, no, silly little human. We cannot feed guests to the hell for unknowingly committing crimes. We will take him to the Lotus Garden pond where the pollution he brought can be effectively turned into law-fertilizer by Uncle Lotus."

The turtle paused when it realized it had said ’Uncle Lotus’ and suppressed a sigh. It seemed even he was being infected by little Almira.

"Almira, your mother has forbidden you from playing in hell," said Pel Jr. in an exhausted tone. He was her babysitter today, and for some reason it felt harder than fighting off an invasion. "Hell is an inappropriate place for little girls. If you want to play, we can play in one of the custom-made dungeons your mother had built for your training."

"But Uncle Luthor said he needs my help beating up the bad guys in there," she said as she crossed her arms and pouted, careful not to smack the spear onto the dragon. This thing had been made for her by Uncle Orin, and could hurt almost everyone.

The turtle moved on, much to the relief of Little Toby who was extremely frightened by the little girl who was wielding what seemed like an Immortal weapon! As he looked back, he could tell that even as she pretended to be upset, there was a hint of mischief hidden in her eyes as she looked towards him.

Little Toby shivered and looked away, suppressing his tears from flowing out - even though he did not have tear ducts, or even eyes for that matter.

"Excuse me, sir, I keep telling you, there must be some kind of mistake. I’m just a simple guest," the mushroom pleaded, but the turtle only called him a silly turtle and kept on moving.

In the sky above him, a black phoenix flew by, glancing at the mushroom for a bit before flying towards the Valley of Time, where Mary was building her body. She had struck a deal with Vinei to help her speed up the process.

Elsewhere within the Midnight Inn, a reflection of Moon’s body stood inside the Dreamy Mirror, watching everything happening. It had been... quite a long time since she saw Lex. She was beginning to get a little worried.