The Innkeeper

"What's wrong?" Lex asked, setting the cake on the table. Much of the area of the Inn was blanketed in snow, but the main areas where guests usually spent time had been kept clean. That included picnic areas such as this, so Lex had no trouble walking around.

"Wrong? What could be wrong? Nothing's wrong!" Kenta said, but clearly he was not very used to lying, as his expressions were clearly contorting. Lex turned to look at Sohee and Velma, both who immediately looked away. Velma even began whistling as she looked up in the air.

He looked back at Kenta and only pointed at the girls, as if their actions were enough of a dead giveaway.

"Oh yes, I remember now," said Kenta, who quickly looked towards the stove where he was cooking, as if he needed to monitor the progress.

"It's nothing, really. You already know I want to open my own restaurant, right? But before I ask anyone at the Inn for a shot, I thought I'd brush up on my skills. I don't get many opportunities to cook back at the palace, you know. So I went to the Guild room. Just like you said, there were a lot of people there who had opened up shops and were selling incredible goods. I placed an order, but before I could pay, I realized that that damned geezer had frozen all my assets! I was literally broke!"

Kenta smiled weakly at Lex, before quickly turning back to the stove.

"That's when Aoi offered to pay instead. I felt really guilty, but she insisted, so I eventually relented. It was completely her idea, and I offered to pay her back in the future, but she denied me. What could I do? But it was only after we had paid, and already received everything, that we recalled that you were sponsoring Aoi and Asami's stay, so the… eh, the bill probably got charged to you… ehehehe."

Lex's smile cramped.

"Mary, how much did they spend on groceries?" he asked. Since he had already stated that he would sponsor Aoi and Asami, he told Mary to take out all their expenses from him. With hundreds of billions of MP, he was not really concerned about how much they spent. But at the same time, he didn't like being taken advantage of.

"They spent 20,832 MP in total, including groceries and some other miscellaneous expenses."

Lex's expression fell flat, and he glared at Kenta. That was nearly 21,000 MP! To put it in easy terms, that was $21,000,000! There was no amount of guilt Lex could feel that was worth 21 million dollars!

Sure, he had much more than that. But at the same time, he was certain that Aoi had not volunteered to pay on Kenta's behalf.

"It's okay," Lex said, as he slapped Kenta on the back, not holding his strength back at all. "What's a little money between friends?" He slapped him again. From afar, it looked like he was merely patting Kenta's back, though the expression on the elf's face said otherwise.

"Besides, I've already thought of a way you can pay me back. You can work as a chef in the restaurant that I am opening. I hope that you're a good cook, otherwise god only knows how long it'll take you to pay off your loan."

"Hey, hey, hey, take it up with Aoi, she's the one who spent the money!" Kenta exclaimed, but Lex was no longer listening. He had come here to relax, not get even more stressed out.

*****

Deep inside the cosmic cloud where the allied forces were fighting off the Fuegans nurtured armies, there was a planet where many battalions were employed. How many were deployed, why they were sent there, and what did the allied forces hope to achieve, all of them were meaningless. The only thing that mattered was how deep inside the cloud they were.

Unbeknownst to most, this cosmic cloud was extremely different from normal ones. If not, why would the Fuegan have used it to begin with? This cosmic cloud was once connected to another place, though that was no longer the case.

As a result of that severed connection, however, space behaved in an unusual manner, and at the same time, was extremely vulnerable. One had to be extremely careful when operating in this region, lest they set off a destructive chain reaction.

A secret shuttle landed on the planet, hidden from the eyes of the allied forces and the Fuegan alike. Within the shuttle was a demon - a weak one, but one with great intelligence.

Once the shuttle landed, the demon took out a golden key and crushed it.

Instead of teleporting away, like he had done every time prior, something new happened. The crushed key was reformed, and a stream of information entered his mind.

The fabric of space in his locale was too vulnerable to support teleportation, even by the Midnight Inn. If they tried to teleport him over, space itself would rip on a massive scale in that region, which was something the Inn refrained from doing. If he wanted to teleport, he would either have to strengthen space around himself somehow, whether through use of a formation or his own abilities, or he would have to relocate.

The demon smiled.

Finally!

He immediately took out a device and sent a detailed message, making sure to specify all the information he had received from the golden key. Once the message was sent, the demon exited his shuttle and disappeared into the ground, as if he had not stepped on land but instead inside water.

Soon, his allies would be joining him, and before that happened, he had to collect all the information he could on the ground. As for the allied ships that were flying around the planet… someone else would take care of those.

After such a long time, his mission was finally beginning. The demon, although weak, had very strong killing tendencies. Suppressing them for so long had truly been a pain, but now it could finally let loose!