The Innkeeper

-n0ve1、com Lex William had grown up with three sisters but, oddly enough, never in his life did he ever feel like he needed to protect them. He had traveled the world with his family, so he was quite familiar with the fact that in most countries, brothers were culturally taught to be protective of their sisters. Even in the countries where this was not a thing, simply out of sibling affection, brothers and sisters would look after one another.

Yet, despite knowing all this, he never felt weird for not feeling protective of his sisters. There was one very simple reason for this. His elder sister, Belle, was a freaking maniac. Not only was she cold and aggressive, she actively made it a point to be as merciless as she could possibly be. To top it all off, she had not a shred of fear in her body, and could not be intimidated at all. Even when they were kids, Lex clearly remembered that Belle would not shy away from scolding even her parents if she thought they were in the wrong.

But, at the same time, despite the fact that she portrayed herself as an emotionless robot to the whole world, it was very evident that she cared for her younger siblings. In his entire life, Lex never even had the opportunity of simply facing a bully, let alone actually being bullied, because Belle was always around. His parents were a little quirky, but the moment Belle felt like they were affecting her siblings' education or normal growth, she would set them in place. In a way, she was the parent for the whole family.

As such, Lex spent his entire life without a strong feeling of responsibility towards protecting the women in his life. That didn't mean he would leave them to suffer should they ever face danger, but just that the thought never crossed his mind.

In the moment that he saw Nani pulled into the arms of a strange man, though, something inside Lex's mind snapped. He had been handling the stress and pressure of being stranded in a different realm, far away from home, and everyone he knew quite well, but that did not mean he didn't feel it. Moreover, less than a year ago, he was just an ordinary man, living an ordinary life. He never faced mortal danger, never was hunted by animals, was never burnt alive by lava, never had his mind, body and soul assaulted by slimy monsters.

Overall, he handled the stress of the change well. But clearly it had been building up somewhere in Lex, and now, suddenly, with a tide of anger, it broke through whatever dam Lex had built up inside of himself, and tore away at all his inhibitions.

Lex clenched his fist, not to punch, but to control the formation in the tavern. He had already planned that, should he ever encounter trouble, he'd put the offender in a room made by the space formation, trapping them. In his mind, he had planned on simply creating a small, invisible room to isolate them from the rest. Yet when he acted out of anger, he overcame limitations that he had on his understanding of how the formation worked.

Who said that the invisible 'room' he created using the spatial formation to trap people had to be cubes or cuboids in shape? He instantly created several rooms, exactly in the shape of these 'important people', and trapped them in it.

They suddenly found themselves unable to move in the slightest, and felt something squeezing against their bodies, trapping them, yet they couldn't see what it was. Standing still, and suddenly being forced to become as stationary as a statue, were vastly different, and everyone in the room immediately noticed that something had happened, but they couldn't understand what.

Ignoring everything, Lex walked to Nani and helped her get out of that man's arms.

"You're alright now," he said in a warm, soothing voice. "Everything is fine. It's over." He checked her hands to see if she had any bruises and, fortunately, she was not harmed. Fortunate for the people who stood frozen.

The girl who had suffered more from the surprise of being pulled than anything else, quickly calmed down. Lex had reacted all too quickly, so much so that she had not even understood someone had grabbed her by the time Lex pulled her away.

Her two sisters, who had heard the yell, suddenly came to the hall as well to investigate, but Nani seemed to be fine.

"I apologize for not stopping the man sooner," Lex said sincerely. "I was distracted, it won't happen again."

"Oh, it's nothing," Nani said with a laugh when she finally got her bearings. "We wouldn't be in this business if we couldn't handle a little trouble."

Though she said she was fine, she quickly grabbed the fallen tray and retreated to the kitchen. Even a blind man would notice by now that some guests in the hall were... unnaturally still. Though their expressions remained frozen, since they didn't even have the space to maneuver their faces, their eyes kept darting about in fear and confusion.

Lex nodded and turned back to the 'cream of society'. To be honest, he was extremely pissed at them. Not only because they assaulted Nani and insulted him, along with everyone else in the room, but they also destroyed his attempt at seeming like an ordinary tavern.

When something snapped in Lex, it wasn't a blind rage that filled him, though there was definitely an abundance of anger. It was more like his inhibition broke. He kept holding himself back, keeping himself from showing all his cards. It was definitely smart to not reveal all his secrets, for his life was in greater danger while he was not at the Inn. Yet now that he had the tavern, and the system's functions could help him once again, there was no reason to be so repressed.

Lex clenched his fist harder, and the 'room' that had been trapping all the offenders tightened just a bit more, squeezing their bodies. It was not lethal, or even dangerous, yet, but it definitely wasn't comfortable.

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