The Innkeeper

On Earth, two pale looking agents stood in Larry's room, leaning against furniture for support. Bullet casings littered the ground, along with bits and pieces of broken furniture. Clearly, there had been an intense fight here, and the two armed men did not hold an overwhelming advantage.

"We have a problem," one of the men said, after calling someone. "The target used an unknown item and escaped. But he suffered multiple gunshot wounds so he should not have gotten far."

"Search the area and see if you can find a trail. Have someone waiting at nearby hospitals as well. If you can't... Do you have any pictures or the person the target was just with?"

"Yes."

"Send the picture to Bluebird and put out an arrest warrant. If we can't find him, his friends will have to do."

"Got it," the man answered and closed the phone. But instead of searching for Larry like he had been instructed, the man threw himself on a nearby sofa to recuperate.

"Aren't we supposed to look for him?" the man's partner asked.

"Are you crazy? What if we actually end up finding him? I don't want to fight that crazy maniac again. Pretty soon, this assignment will be someone else's problem. Make sure to forward the pictures to Bluebird. And check the kids' fridge for some drinks. I could use one about now."

The partner breathed a sigh of relief, then walked towards the fridge.

*****

As the hours passed by, the other guests noticed that the behavior of the guests from Earth changed dramatically. They had long stopped betting, and none of them were as jovial as before. Soon the empire got word that a civil war had erupted on Earth. This was bad for them as it would probably affect the number of participants Earth would send to the games.

Just as Anthony was about to send someone to the family heads to discuss if their cooperation would be affected, someone by the name of Lee showed up. He introduced himself as a member of the new council that was overlooking Earth. He discussed new terms that were entirely different and less stringent. Anthony didn't care one way or another, but said the agreement would depend on performance. And thus, the soldiers who were participating in the games had switched allegiance, but other than some of their superiors, they had no idea.

Eventually, the second match started completely, and was much more intense than the first round. Many of the guests from Earth had stopped watching, as watching such dangerous combat only made them fear what was happening at home. But that did not reduce the number of guests, however, as by now the empire had distributed the golden keys amongst their staff on all three planets in the Vegus System, as well as the natives with a considerable amount of contributions. A large batch of keys was also being sent to the Command Carrier.

So, for the first time in centuries, residents from all three planets of the Vegus system had an opportunity to meet. Yet despite their common origin, their societies had developed differently and they did not have much to talk about. The only common thing they shared was that they all thoroughly enjoyed watching zombies die on the big screens!

As a result, the Earthlings filled the distant corners of the Inn to get away from the noise as they hid and waited for news from home, and the rest filled the coliseum seats. All of this, accompanying the various army camps, made the Inn as crowded as an amusement park.

But Lex knew none of this as he slept. But it was not a deep, restful sleep. His body heated up despite the ambient temperature being quite cool, and soon he was covered in sweat. His face was entirely red, and soon, white smoke started coming out of his nose and ears. The smell of something burning filled the air, but no one was around to notice.

Along with Lex's sweat, dark-colored filth came out but did not have a chance to accumulate as it was quickly burnt away.

Mary watched Lex nervously, unaware if this was a typical reaction to the medicine or if the devils really had done something to it. But whatever the case may be, she could only watch.

Things continued like that for nearly six hours before Lex finally woke up. He was expecting to feel amazing, which is how he usually felt after getting stronger, but the reality was the exact opposite.

Not only did he not feel stronger, Lex felt incredibly weak. He felt wet from all the sweat, but thirsty at the same time. His body felt drained, as if he had starved for days.

"Water," he murmured to Mary in a hoarse voice, as his mind was currently not clear enough to mentally summon it himself.

When he finally started drinking, it was like he was sipping from the well of life! Strength immediately started returning to him, and his mind started clearing up. That's when he noticed that his room looked a little foggy, as if a smoke machine had been running for hours. But he could not mind that as the stench from his own body nearly incapacitated him. He stumbled his way to the restroom where he lay in a tub and turned on the water.

It took him nearly an hour more before he finally cleaned up and all his exhaustion left him.

"Do you feel better?" Mary asked, now that he was finally recovered. "Can you tell if the medicine worked?"

"Not really," Lex said, frowning. "I feel about the same as before I drank it. Let me check my status."

Name: Lex Williams

Age: 23

Sex: Male

Cultivation Level: Regal Embrace Body Tempering Stage 3

Health: Suboptimal (enlarged brain tumor), mild dehydration, mild starvation

Midnight Points: 1,331,530

Remarks: Occasionally, decent people also brush their teeth after cleaning up with a shower. Just saying.

He was happy to see he had earned some more MP while he slept, but there was no information on the status of his soul. Well, at least there was nothing seriously wrong with him except bad breath, apparently.

He summoned food directly into his apartment and donned the Host Attire so he could check up on what had happened at the Inn while he was asleep. Immediately, he noticed the massive crowd. Not only were the refugees - which were not too many actually compared to the rest - but new guests piling in from God knows where.

Originally, Lex had planned to expand the Inn after the games were over. But now it seemed like it was something he could not push off for too long. He did not like the massive crowd. It was also affecting the wildlife that he had at the Inn, as all of them had gone to the forest to hide. That's when he noticed the littering! Were people actually littering at his Inn?

Immediately he passed an order to his guards to clean up, and informed all his staff as well as holograms of a new rule. If someone littered, the first time they would get a warning from the hologram, but the second time onwards they would get a fine!

It seemed like it was high time he upgraded the Inn and its capabilities. He could not keep waiting for the system to upgrade the Inn for him with rewards. He opened the Midnight Market to check how much it would cost to increase the size of the Inn. Considering that the system would literally be creating land out of nothing, the price was a reasonable 100 acres of land for 1,000,000 MP.

Lex didn't immediately go for the upgrade, though. He scrolled through all the available options. Buying buildings and A.I.s was just one aspect of the Midnight market. It also provided various other options.

One very interesting option that caught Lex's eye was a one time upgrade to the Mystery trial. The upgrade would not benefit the guests, however, as Lex was the intended beneficiary for this upgrade. Since the Mystery trials purpose was to refine the users strongest skill, the upgrade would allow Lex to add certain search parameters. Whenever a guest would use the Mystery trial and their skill fell into one of those parameters, Lex would be notified. This was an excellent way of scouting talents.

The upgrade only cost 50,000 MP! Lex bought it without any hesitation and started entering the parameters. The first one he entered was for a chef. The second one was for a musician. If Z were here to watch as Lex kept entering his parameters, he would be reminded of a certain anime about pirates. Why else was he looking for a sharpshoo- eh, no, why else was he searching for a marksman? And a swordsman. And a historian. Even Mary was confused as she watched him enter meteorologist. The climate at the Inn was under his control, why did he need a weatherman?