The Innkeeper

The appraiser and Henry both looked at Lex like he was a mad man, but for completely different reasons. Lex, on the other hand, was completely relaxed, and was reveling in his schemes.

He was slightly upset that neither Henry nor the appraiser paid attention to how the bag that was absolutely massive fit through a door it absolutely shouldn’t have. It was just a simple trick of shifting it into and out of his spatial bangle faster than anyone else could notice while moving through the door.

But the whole comedic spiel he was doing of a man carrying a bag much larger than himself seemed to be lost on everyone here. Perhaps since everyone was a body cultivator, feats of strength were a lot easier to accept here. He would need to keep that in mind.

Disgruntled, the appraiser moved towards the bag and opened it, revealing the top of a neatly organized, clean stack of body parts harvested from local beasts.

The appraiser gave a questioning look to Lex, before he exited the booth and called for an assistant. One by one, the appraiser began to study the body parts and confirm their quality, while the assistant placed them aside neatly and marked which commission they were a part of.

Lex and Henry observed in silence as the man continued to remove body parts one at a time, marking each of them as perfect quality, having suffered no harm during the killing or harvesting process. After a while, though, as the number of parts removed from the bag became so massive that there was little room left in the booth for them, Henry began to look at Lex oddly. Had he really done it?

Logically speaking, based on the size of the bag, the body parts at the bottom should have been crushed or at least deformed a little, but no. Each and every piece removed was in perfect quality.

In the end, the appraisal process alone took more than an hour, surpassing the time it took for Lex to actually bring the commissions back in.

“All… all the commissions you took are complete,” Henry said, dumbfounded at the words he was saying. “In fact, you’ve brought some extra pieces. Your rewards total up to 3 gold coins and 31 silver coins, and your rank has been increased to four. Would you like to collect your reward, or keep it at Simple Life as credit?”

“Credit is fine for now. Can we head out? I want to accept some rank 2 commissions.”

“Wait, you, what?” Henry followed Lex as he exited the booth, after giving the appraiser a nod. He walked to the rank 2 hunting commissions and, once again, accepted them all.

“You… you can’t keep accepting all of them,” Henry said, lamenting Lex’s speed. He hadn’t even given him any time to consult with his manager.

“Alright, how about I only accept a few of them for now? But I complete all of them, and then you just keep registering them while the appraiser checks everything?”

“Umm, yeah, I think that could work,” Henry said, suddenly feeling excited. It suddenly occurred to him that instead of worrying about getting caught for breaking the rule for allowing Lex to accept so many commissions, he should find a way to capitalize on it somehow. He didn’t believe for an instant that Lex completed all the commissions in an hour, but regardless, the Simple Life building had profited from his actions, regardless of his agenda. That meant if he could improve his relationship with Lex, he could stand to get a raise from all this somehow.

“Great, I’ll see you soon then,” Lex said as he walked out.

“I’ll… I’ll prepare a bigger booth and some more appraisers!” Henry yelled out after him. Lex seemed to vanish as soon as he stepped out of the building, but Henry wasn’t focused on that. He immediately ran to the appraisal area and back to the appraiser he had just worked with.

“Prepare a bigger booth, and get a couple more guys on duty. The client from just now is planning on coming back soon with more stuff.”

“More stuff? Are you insane? It probably took him a month to gather all of this, and you’re saying that he still has more stuff to bring?”

“But… but he only accepted the commissions a couple of hours ago. And, right now, he just accepted a bunch more from rank 2.”

“Don’t be ridiculous Henry. There’s no way he’s coming back any time soon. Besides, I’ve already appraised more things today than I normally do in a week. Do you think I’m sticking around? I need a break! My mind is fried.”

“But…” Henry began, yet the appraiser wasn’t interested at all and left. The assistant, who was carrying all the items away one by one, paused and looked at Henry. Clearly he was busy, so there was no point in telling him to get anything done.

“Carry on,” he said, and then rushed to his manager.

Lex, meanwhile, had already completed the commissions. After all there were only 82 rank 2 commissions available, and although they were supposed to be harder, it hardly made a difference to him. But he was still waiting for that one hour mark, so he watched Henry run around the building.

The manager, although just as bewildered as Henry, was a lot more clear sighted than the appraiser.

“Look it doesn’t matter how he did it, or what his reasons are,” the manager told Henry. “As long as he’s completing the commissions fairly, and there’s nothing wrong with the goods that he brings in, then we don’t need to worry about anything else. Go back to your desk, I’ll arrange a separate appraisal for this person. Whether he comes today, next week, or next month, we will deal with him professionally.”

Lex smiled. Although that’s what the manager was saying, he could sense the intrigue that he was feeling.

At the one hour mark, Lex walked back into the building, once again carrying a massive bag. This time, he got even more attention. Although most people did not know who he was, or what he was doing, many had seen him come earlier as well and head to the appraisal room. So his arrival a second time naturally drew attention.

Meanwhile, a small crowd had gathered and were discussing the oddity of so many rank 1 commissions disappearing all of a sudden.

As soon as Henry saw Lex, he rushed to him and escorted him to a private room where a number of appraisers were waiting.

“Herny, why don’t you deal with this? In the meantime, I’ll go deal with the rank 3 commissions.”

“Yes! Absolutely! You can trust us to appraise all your stuff without issue. Every single item will definitely be accounted for!”

Lex chuckled, and then left the room. The appraisers were stunned as they began to unpack the bag, and the sudden disappearance of all the jobs for rank 2 that dealt with hunting began to attract notice.

Both the crowds and the staff began to notice something strange going on as assistants were getting summoned away and there were fewer and fewer work staff on the ground.

Around forty minutes later, the 2nd batch of Lex’s haul got appraised, but they only had a short break for twenty minutes later, Lex walked back in with another massive bag.

“Hey, what’re you doing? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before,” asked one of the regulars of the Simple Life building. People had begun to suspect that the disappearing commissions might have something to do with Lex, but how could that be possible?

“Yeah, I’m just here for the day, doing a few chores,” replied Lex with a smile.

Before the man could ask anymore questions, Henry found Lex and brought him to the private room. The assistants and the appraisers who had been working nonstop became pale at the sight of Lex carrying yet another bag.

“Shall we do it like last time?” Lex said as he left the bag.

“Eh… Mr. Lex… the thing is, my manager informed me that… if you’ve already done all the rank 3 commissions, and you go to do all the rank 4 ones, we might not have the liquidity to pay you the amount owed in a short time…”

“Eh, don’t worry about that. I don’t mind keeping it as credit for now. Besides, maybe I could buy something from you instead. That would prevent you from having to pay me all at once.”

“So, uh, does that mean you’re still doing the commissions?”

Lex just smiled at him, then looked at the pale workers who were trembling and waiting for an answer with dread.

“Why don’t you get all the lads here a little pick me up from me for all their hard work. Something to boost their energies. I’ll be back in an hour.”

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