The Innkeeper

As Lex sat in the veranda of a wooden cabin halfway up Mount Midnight, sipping hot chocolate made from some magical cocoa tree that the turtle had somehow mutated, he could not help but reflect on life.

Once, just living two separate lives simultaneously had been an achievement for him. Now, he was living a dozen lives simultaneously, and chilling at the same time. Lex suddenly felt like he should create a service where the guest has a clone chilling all the time while they themselves work. It was oddly enjoyable.

Of course, this was the kind of thing he could only do inside the Inn. Lex still hadn’t found a cloning technique that perfectly satisfied him, and all his clones were either really weak or had to stay within a certain distance of his main body. What happened with Jack was an accident he couldn’t really replicate even if he wanted to.

With the Inn completely under his control, its entire region basically under his eye, it provided a safe environment for him to play around like this. Of course, if a serious situation were to occur that required him to focus all his attention, the clones would all either vanish, or enter a dormant state depending on how they were made.

“Hey Mary, you ever had hot chocolate?” Lex asked as he continued to stare out into the distance. He had a couple of days to burn before work got serious, and he intended on spending it… just doing nothing. His previous vacation wasn’t as restful as he thought it might be, so he wanted to just chill a little on his own.

Although, technically, every other version of him was working. But there was no need to get technical on a vacation.

“Not really, no. Believe it or not, chocolate isn’t really a universally existing thing. I didn’t even know about its existence until the system merged with you.”

“That’s sad. How long till you get your body? Just thinking about the fact that you have to live so long without having chocolate is a little depressing.”

“Well, based on our current rate of accumulating the necessary ingredients, if I maintain my current standard, then a few centuries. If I drop my standards a little, then as soon as you give me the phoenix feather, I’ll be good to have my body be born.”

“A few centuries, huh…” Lex’s thoughts drifted off once more, no longer speaking. Yet Mary, who had appeared, for once in a simple shirt and jeans, stared at him for a while.

“Are you feeling melancholic?” she asked in a somber tone. For immortals, it took a great to cause a shift in mood or emotion, especially towards anything negative, yet that did not mean it was impossible.

It just so happened that out of the dozen or so parts Lex had split his mind into, the one controlling this body was feeling morose. It may have happened randomly, or it may have been something he carried around with him all the time, without ever showing it.

“I guess,” he responded, his gaze still out into the distance.

“Talk to me. What’s going through your mind?” she asked as she pulled up a chair, and sat in the air right in his line of sight.

Lex looked at her for a moment, then sighed.

“I’m not sad or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s just… my life is kind of awesome, you know?” Lex smiled as he said that – a genuine smile, not a facade.

“Back before the system, whenever I used to do anything fun or crazy, I used to call up a few friends, or even my family and rub it in. I used to make my sisters jealous, and somehow, it was just more fun like that. Well, my family is a mess so let’s not even get into that.

“But… I just traveled to two different Major realms, met a bunch of important people, possibly changed the course of the political climate for the entire Angelic race, learned a bunch about Karma, went out on a date with a terrorist and… well, I don’t really have anyone I can brag to at the moment.

“I’m not unappreciative about my life, and this doesn’t mean I don’t love every moment of it. But it’s just…”

Lex paused, as if searching for the right words, but then eventually just sighed.

“I don’t know.”

Mary looked at Lex and, for the first time, despite spending so many years together, that maybe a part of him was lonely.

“You have me. You can always talk to me about that stuff.”

Lex snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Mary, you forget I can sense souls, and the two souls I can always sense, even in my sleep, are you and the system. I don’t pry when you go off and do sneaky stuff because everyone deserves to have their privacy. But you gotta admit, it’s hard to treat someone like ‘one of the boys’ if that someone is actually a remnant soul of a Celestial Dao Lord who knows everything about you, has more knowledge about systems than possibly anyone else in the universe, is creating a body that surpasses her peak body in terms of potential, and could possibly steal your system from you the moment she returns.”

The up until now casual conversation suddenly turned incredibly serious and Mary, for once, felt like she was standing on thin ice.

“Is that what you think of me?” she asked.

Lex snorted, and shook his head.

“Relax, I’m joking. Even if you do come back with a new body, I doubt it’ll match up to me. I’ll have you know, besides being notoriously handsome, I’m also incredibly talented.”

Mary rolled her eyes. Clearly whatever mood had infected Lex had passed already, and he was back to being normal.

“Listen, no matter what you think, you should know, I’m eternally grateful for whatever help you’re giving me. Ignoring the fact that I have no intentions of getting mixed up with systems anymore in the future, even if that were not true, I would never do anything to hurt you. Without your help, I have no hope of truly being free ever again. That’s not the kind of thing I would overlook. Ever.”

Lex looked at her for a moment, taking in her sincere expression.

“Relax. I already said I was joking. What I meant was, I can’t really treat you as ‘one of the boys’ until you’re truly free, and not obligated by the system to be nice to me. When you regain your body, and regain your freedom, then we can see about everything else. For now, I think I’m going to go chill in the lazy river.”

Lex jumped right off the mountain, but Mary stayed where she was, looking at Lex, leaving in the distance, with complicated emotions in her eyes.