The Innkeeper

Lex did not immediately attend to the fishing event once he returned to the Inn. Regardless of how popular it was, while listing his various tasks he was reminded of a chore too important to put off until later.

He teleported directly to X-142 and entered the Infinity Emporium. Not only had his order of Shining Irisberry fruits arrived, Powell had even arranged for a tree sapling for the tree that grew the plant! He gave plenty of warnings of how difficult it was to planet, but Lex was sure the turtle would be able to handle it.

That was, until he heard that the tree had to be planted on the surface of a star to grow. That… that added an element of complication to planting the sapling, but he was sure he’d be able to figure something out with the Inn.

Then came the issue of payment. Lex once again had to barter some goods he had collected through the Inn to receive his order. He was beginning to get annoyed at the system for not allowing him to convert his MP into currency at a more reasonable rate.

He returned to the Inn and immediately gave the turtle the berries, and informed him of the sapling. The turtle replied that he would look into it once his cultivation was done, and retreated into his shell.

While the turtle disappeared, Fenrir had completely recovered from his difficult breakthrough and became unusually attached to Lex. No matter where he went, the wolf pup would follow him and stick to his side, not that it could be blamed.

Unlike his workers, who were newborns but had the maturity of adults, the pup was genuinely a newborn. On top of that, the person it was most attached to, Lex, barely spent any time with it causing it to feel extremely clingy.

Lex could only laugh and allow the pup to follow. Considering the fact that Fenrir was able to partially change its size, and was usually more than large enough for Lex to ride, he often forgot that Fenrir was actually still a pup.

The two were on their way to the fishing well when Lex received a system notification. He was a little surprised, since he wasn’t expecting any notification, but stopped dead in his tracks when he read it.

New Notification: Connected planet Earth is undergoing a world event ‘World War’. All currencies have lost 100% value due to global blackout, and will not be accepted as payment for MP. Only physical assets are eligible for payment

New Notification: Guests from earth are eligible for ‘refugee’ status and will experience a 70% discount on all prices. All refugees from earth below the age of 15 are eligible for a 99% discount.

“What the hell?”

Lex immediately teleported to Velma, who was in the Newsroom.

“What’s going on on earth? Have you heard any rumors about any new massive wars? What is the council of new order doing?”

He asked, though despite his inner anxiety, he had to maintain his calm as the Innkeeper.

“War? No, there’s been no rumors of any large-scale wars, nor have the order been focusing on that.”

“Well pay attention to this matter. A world war has broken out on earth. Gather as much information as possible.”

Without waiting for Velma to answer, the Innkeeper teleported to his office. He sat on his chair to maximize his synchronization with the Inn, and began honing in on all new arriving guests.

He started picking out the ones coming from earth, and began eavesdropping on their conversations. He did not know the situation on his planet, and since war had just broken out it was unlikely all the guests were even aware of it yet. Most likely, they would just be suffering from the so-called global blackout.

But at least a few should know something, right?

Unfortunately, reality was out of line with his expectations. Not only did most people arriving from earth have an idea of what was going on, they all kept saying similar things.

Keywords like ‘aliens’, ‘ giant spaceship’ and ‘aerial invaders’ kept on being repeated.

As if their worries were not already enough, many of the guests who arrived from earth started getting notifications from their personal hologram assistant. The knowledge that they were eligible for a discount was well received, but the fact that their currencies held no worth made almost everyone immediately broke!

Panic and chaos started to spread amongst the refugees.

Though Lex was extremely troubled by what he was hearing, he did not completely lose his mind. He set a new area where all incoming refugees would teleport to, so that the chaos they would create would not spread to the general public. Moreover, he deployed many guards and workers to calm all incoming people down.

Though they felt like the Inn was taking advantage of them, there was nothing Lex could do about that. MP was one of the few things about the system that had forever been outside the domain of his authority. Fortunately, the system was able to claim their physical assets as payment even if they didn’t bring them. Of course, that did not extend to assets such as buildings or land. Yet things like furniture and used cars, apparently, were fully acceptable.

But the logistics and technicalities of how the system accepted payments was the least of what was on Lex’s mind.

“Goddammit!” he exclaimed, and decided to teleport to earth. No matter how much he hated his family right now, he could not leave them to fend for themselves.

Even as Lex passed a few instructions to Mary and teleported to earth, he did not stop cursing his family.

If those stupid, greedy, fat, annoying, stupid people had not kept secrets from him, he would have never decided to ignore them, and he would not be in this situation.𝑂𝑣𝐥xt.𝒸𝒪𝓜

No matter how much he hated his situation with his family, he could not help but give them the benefit of doubt. Moreover, no matter what his parents did, he could not abandon his sisters.

Belle… well, Belle would be fine even in war, but his younger 2 sisters deserved better. Unfortunately, due to the very secrets Lex was cursing his family for keeping, he did not know that his family on earth were all spirit clones. Not only that, the clones had all vanished from earth some time ago.