The Innkeeper



"Wait, that's it? You've basically done nothing other than tell me about this! We need help!"

Leo's relatively relaxed expression turned solemn as he looked Miranda in the eyes. He understood that she was desperate. Deep inside, he even felt a little guilty. But this was a decision he had to abide by. Helping out even this much was attracting trouble towards the Inn.

He was lucky that the devils hadn't appeared to hold a grudge against the Inn, but he couldn't say so for others if the Inn kept interfering. As much as Lex wanted to help, he had his Inn and his workers to look out for.

Of course, he wasn't about to explain that to her.

"I made it absolutely clear that the Inn wouldn't be helping you, just providing you with a way to help yourself. Besides, have you done anything worthy of such help anyway? All I asked was for you to find three people. Let alone those people, you can't even get the information on them without my help."

The sudden admonishment woke Miranda up from her desperate stupor. Immediately she knew she had messed up. As someone trained in managing relations, she should have known better than to have such an emotional reaction. Besides, Leo was right. They hadn't really done anything worthy of the Inn intervening on their behalf. She had built up that hope on her own, and had acted out when it was crushed.

She was about to apologize, but Leo already teleported out of the room. She felt concerned for a moment, wondering if her outburst would affect whether the Inn allowed them to host such an event. But wondering wouldn't get her anywhere. She hurried out of the room to go inform the council. If they needed to incentivize others for help, they would need planning.

*****

Lex was not genuinely angry at Miranda. To be more specific, he couldn't be bothered with her. The moment they were done, and he had everything, he decided to teleport away. The quicker this was done, the better.

He strapped the locator onto his wrist, and used a technique called Notorious Anonymity. This was also a 'defensive technique' that he had picked up, and was actually one of Lex's favorites at the moment.

Unlike his other techniques, this one did not create a shield or strengthen his body or anything of the sort. Instead, it covered his face with a very prominent looking mask, and only 'defended' his identity.

That meant the mask wasn't able to stop any attacks, but no one would be able to see his face or scan his identity in any way while he wore it. After he upgraded it, the mask even gained the ability to change its appearance from time to time, alongside the ability to block more types of surveillance which was also an important aspect of the technique. The only drawback was that the mask would never look discreet.

For example, when he used the technique now, a black mask enveloped his face with large, white fangs indented into it right below a massive pair of eyes. It sounded bizarre, but it looked incredibly creepy. Lex could imagine himself as the antagonist in an anime with the way he looked right now.

He changed into his armor and, just for safety, wrapped the protector in a layer of Impervious Shield.

After making sure he was prepared, Lex teleported to earth. It was best not to waste time.

But the moment he teleported, his intuition warned him of something, but he was too close to dodge. A beam of something hot hit his back, nearly burning his synthetic armor! Faintly, Lex felt some warmth on his back.

The fact that it was warm enough to allow Lex to feel something meant it was hot enough to kill others.

Not wasting a moment, he spread his spirit sense around him, gaining an understanding of the situation, which made his expression fall.

His face hidden behind the mask, Lex didn't feel the need to hide his emotions. What he didn't know was that the mask reacted, changing from a mad grin to that of a predator.

It was dark, not only because night had fallen, but also because of the massive ship blocking all star and moon light. Yet one did not need to look at the evil mask to feel the pressure Lex was radiating right now.

Somewhere in front of him were a pair of men, running away. Looking at their clothes, they looked like office workers, and judging by their appearance, they were around Lex's age. They had no idea that in the darkness behind them, a machine had tried to kill them.

Lex also did not need to turn around to identify the machine. Though its body did not look metallic, or like any stereotypical earthly design of robots, Lex knew it was a machine underneath its synthetic skin that looked like it was made of glass.

There was no sound, it did not speak, yet Lex's universal translator picked up what it was saying through the radio frequency waves it was emitting.

"For the war crime of interfering with the execution of resisting slaves, you are hereby sentenced to death!"

The nearly see-through machine started gathering up more energy to kill Lex with another laser beam when something unexpected happened. The organic lifeform replied to it!

"For the war crime of pissing me off, die!"

The pavement under Lex's feet could not contain the force with which he rushed towards the machine, leaving cracks in the ground in a spider web formation.

The glass machine detected his approach, but could not move fast enough to dodge. The last thing it saw before Lex's fist wearing iron knuckles smashed into its body was a demonic face staring deep into its soul! It was also the last image it sent back to the mothership.

The machine was unable to survive Lex's strength, and broke into countless tiny shards as his fist went through its body.

Lex stood there, looking at the ground, covered in the countless remains of his enemy. Despite his victory, he was not satisfied.

In truth, the mask had not looked so creepy for no reason. Lex truly was looking into the machine's soul with his soul sense. Or at least, a wisp of its soul.

Whether it was the fact that a machine had a soul, or that it only a wisp of its soul in its body were both things Lex had never encountered before.