The Innkeeper

Lex looked at how much MP he had spent. Due to the size of his many massive structures, the cost ended up being a lot more than anticipated. For example, just a single one of the 100 story highrises cost him 450,000 MP each. Adding 50 of them then cost him 22.5 million MP.

The colosseum, the city in the sky and the underwater city, as well as all the additional buildings in between them, cost him another 31 million MP. Obviously maintaining all these buildings would require sufficient staff as well.

Although the Inn automatically took care of maintenance and various other services, minimizing the need for actual workers, it was only minimized and not reduced. He hired 3000 more workers solely for the village, with the full expectation that he would need to hire more soon. Hiring them plus putting away their salaries for the next few months cost Lex another 11.7 million MP.

While he allowed Mary to decide their jobs and the division of labor for most of them, he gave her instructions to select 100 of them for a special designation. In his system he had a panel called employee benefits which he had so far only used to distribute pay, give them homes and pass out basic cultivation techniques. Now, however, it was time to make further use of the panel.

He went into specializations and selected architecture, civil engineering and city planning and designated those 100 workers with these specializations. They wouldn't become overnight specialists in these fields, but would be provided relevant knowledge about them. The same way they had to cultivate on their own, the workers would have to study the new material.

Once they were sufficiently educated in the fields, he would have them work on expansion plans for the village and, if he was satisfied, then on Main street and the rest of the Inn. After all, currently, while the village seemed fine, it lacked a sense of cohesion. The large structures in various corners all had drastically different styles, and the city looked more like a hotpot of different designs than a unified whole.

He planned on having these workers, who were now a part of the planning and expansion division of the Inn, gain experience with the village, which had more allowance for errors. After all, the whole purpose of the village was to host large events, so the focus could be slightly diverted towards function over finesse.

With that done, though, he turned his attention back to transport. This was yet another thing that would be under the purview of the planning department, but he created several terminals for an underground subway system. The 'trains' created by the system were completely silent and levitated off the ground, so they caused no vibrations. This way, guests could be quickly transported throughout the Inn without hassle. Naturally this did not mean he discontinued the golf cart service led by Gerards former crew. They had developed some fans of their own.

Unexpectedly, the underground train system was more expensive than he expected, and cost 15 million MP. This, however, still left him with 35,850,000 MP to spend on his idea.

He remembered, when he was a child, and would travel with his family, they would often take trains to travel overnight. For some reason, the allure of spending the night on a train was beyond comparison when he was a child.

Since it was something he used to enjoy, there was no reason others wouldn't enjoy it as well. He spent the next few hours fiddling with the system interface, trying to get his idea just right. Once he was done with that, he spent several more hours planning a train route.

The route had to be close enough so that those onboard could see the various sites and sceneries the Inn offered. This train's only terminal was in a street branching off from Main street, and its path would begin with a visit around the lake. It would then loop around to the forest surrounding the greenhouse, and would make its way through the grassy slopes to come into view of the Midnight manor. From there it would go towards the hill with the Meditation rooms, visit the mystery trial, go through a tunnel in the Midnight Mountain and then visit the various sites in the village, including the underwater and floating portions of the city since it wasn't actually a steam train, before looping around and ending back at the terminal.

This 'train', which bore the appearance of a steam train, would move much slower on its track, allowing its passengers to enjoy the scenery passing them by. But, the purpose of this train was not transport. No, this train was full of rooms that could be booked. Unfortunately, due to needing to meet the standards of the Inn, there could only be a very limited number of rooms. The train had nine cabins behind the engine, and eight of those cabins could only be rented as a whole.

Each cabin contained a small, cozy room, a relatively large sitting area furnished with the finest carpets, sofas and tables, with a view on either side, and a bathroom. Naturally, anyone who rented a cabin could share it and bring multiple guests along, but ultimately each cabin would belong to one person or party.

The ninth cabin was the kitchen and, through clever use of teleportation that Lex's increased authority allowed him to enable, a waiter could go directly from the kitchen to any cabin that ordered food.

This particular project cost Lex another 2 million MP, and he decided to set the rent for each cabin at 1000 MP a night.

Now, there were a few other things that needed his attention.

*****

Even today, a month later, Hailey found everything surreal. Even as she listened to the explanation for the different portions of the pageant, how each portion would be judged, and how she should prepare, she felt like she was in a dream.

She was but a simple farmer girl, who would spend her days working the land, and her nights dreaming while still awake. She longed for a different life, imagined herself changing overnight and seizing the day, living fabulously without any regrets. But her longings were supposed to remain as longings, her dreams remain as dreams. Whether it was a lack of courage, or an addiction to the pain of a substandard life, something was stopping her either way.

But, in the mundane routine that was her life, an accident had flipped everything over. After all, it had to be an accident. Someone like her couldn't be destined for such things. But whatever it was, her life had changed with that one flash of gold that night.

As she explored the Inn, on that day she had stumbled into this fairy tale - too afraid that she would wake up the next second - she ran into a rather... handsome man named Harry. One look at her, in her dusty old clothes, tangled hair, untidy wings and eyes full of wonder, was all it took for him to see something she herself had never seen.

He asked her to let him do a makeover, and when she told him she couldn't afford his prices, for she truly could not, he said he'd do it for free. Hailey was a proud woman, simple though she may be, and would have normally never accepted such charity. But whether it was the magic in the air, or the excited look in his eyes when he saw her, something forced her to accept his offer - the second accident that day.

That man - Hailey blushed, the color running down to her neck as she thought of him - was a maestro. When he wielded his scissors and his comb, his expression changed. His eyes were sharp and his hands fast, yet Hailey felt not a single tug of her hair as he worked on her - only a tenderness that nearly caused her to shiver. It wasn't as if Hailey was unaware of the ways of the world, nor was she a prude, but somehow she lost all her words that day.

It was not just her hair that he worked on, no, he also groomed her wings. When folded, they fit nicely behind her back, barely visible, but when extended, they stretched even beyond the length of her arms.

Her wings, as dark as her hair, had never been groomed, for they would just get dirty and messed up again the next day at the farm. But as he untangled her curls and brushed their length, she felt like ropes that had been tying her down had been cut.

Many hours later, when she stepped out of his store, her sun-kissed skin practically glowed under the light of the sky lanterns and her long, flowing hair hiding her wings perfectly. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a stranger looking back at her. The stranger was too neat, too clean, too perfect. It was not like how real people looked, at least in her experience.

But, instead of the mirror, when she looked at Harry with his crooked smile and dazed eyes, she got a feeling, deep in her heart, that she must have looked beautiful.

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