The Innkeeper

Lex had seen the hell of battle, but this was a kind of anarchy he had never beheld. If only things had ended with one kid crying and one vomiting, it would not have been so bad. But, as if inspired by the first child, every kid in the vicinity started crying. Some kids who were still outside, and had not yet entered the tavern, also began to cry.

But the crying was independent of running, as they continued to do both actions separately. Even the kids who vomited started crying and running, leaving tracks behind him.

"George, make them stop," yelled a woman from outside.

"I'm trying," responded the man who had been talking to Lex. But between checking up on one kid's wound and tapping another on the back, trying to calm them down, he was incapable of reaching the one, leaving a trail across the hall.

The teenagers ran after that one kid, but he seemed adept at dodging, and navigated the hall like a battlefield, narrowly avoiding capture.

But all was not lost, for in the moment right before the mother collapsed, like angels sent from the heavens for salvation, the triplets swept in. With a practiced hand, Naki grabbed the evasion expert directly by the ear, though she did not pull, and only used it as a threat to hold him in place. Nami used a napkin to cover the wounded child's bleeding nose, and started complimenting him on his bravery. Nani rubbed her cold hand across a crying child's neck and massaged him. The cold hand grasped the child's attention, and the massage soothed it.

Showing the prowess of sisters with many siblings, they pacified the hurricane into a gentle wind.

"We only have two rooms remaining," Lex informed the weary man.

Before even responding to Lex, he looked towards the exit and yelled, "Two families disembark! The rest, keep searching."

He waited a moment for confirmation, before he turned towards Lex and began listing his requirements.

"We're going to need mattresses in both rooms, and extra blankets and pillows. Also a hot shower if you have it, and food, for 16 people. Also, if you can send someone for a doctor, some of us have injuries. Also, if you have someone to carry the luggage. Also, we'll take the food in our rooms. Also, can you send someone for the news? We've been in the wilderness for too long."

The man paused, as if to question if he had forgotten anything, and then asked, "oh yeah, how much for the rooms?"

"1 MP per night," Lex responded, taking the man by surprise.

"That's a little expensive for a tavern, isn't it? You taking advantage of the fact that it's dark out? You know, that's illegal. If I report you, you can get in trouble."

"That's the price, whether it's light out or dark. Our prices are fixed, they never change."

The man was skeptical, but he couldn't take the risk of losing these rooms, so he simply accepted it.

Lex had his latest workers, the miscreants who were causing trouble at the tavern, to carry all the bags up to the last two remaining rooms, which happened to be on the highest floor. Betty began preparing meals for the new families, and Lex sent out Rick to find a doctor, as well as Roland to bring the latest news.

Lex himself temporarily retired to his own room during this because he had something indescribably important to do.

"Mary, we need to start a daycare service," Lex said very gravely.

"What?" she asked, confused. She had been preoccupied with other things, and it took her a moment to absorb what Lex said.

"A daycare service? Why?"

"Just trust me on this," he said, as he recalled the look in the eyes of the parents he just saw. "This is imperative, and will take priority for now. I want the entire planning team to come together and design a place for kids. Design it keeping various age ranges in mind, and provide a large range of activities.

"In fact, I want you to work with them as well. You're familiar with my authority and all that I can do now, so take full advantage of it while designing it. Make it so that not only are we taking care of the kids, we're helping them in some way too.

"It's fine if you have to design different areas for different races, but I want it to be great. We can even use some of those rabbits working at the greenhouse as caretakers, they seem friendly enough.

"Give me an update when you've made some progress."

"Sure," she replied, still confused about how Lex was behaving.

Only after she gave an affirmative response did Lex allow himself to relax. Yes, the tavern really was a good idea. It was giving him new perspectives already, and would be good exposure for him on the finer details of hospitality.

He thought about returning to the hall, but he trembled, and decided to cultivate instead. Recently, he had discovered a new way to cultivate that would speed up the process.

Back when he was in Qi training, he rubbed a special oil all over his body to help with cultivation. For the foundation realm, he came up with a method on his own.

He went to the bathroom attached to the room he made for himself and approached the bathtub. He summoned a bottle of expensive chilled tea, and began pouring it in the tub. A single bottle was 150 MP, a skyhigh price for the average Foundation realm cultivator.

It was, however, worth it because this tea was very rich in spiritual energy which was extremely easy to absorb. As a true path cultivator, Lex's requirements for energy were much higher, so the benefit from drinking it wasn't so obvious. So he planned on submerging himself in it, and then cultivating. Theoretically, it should boost his cultivation speed.

He had to spend nearly 23,000 MP before he filled the bathtub completely. Lex quickly stripped before submerging himself, as if the tea warmed up it would lose much of its effects.

He closed his eyes and began cultivating. Hopefully this would work, or else he'd have to use even more expensive stuff.

*****

The town of Babylon, like many other towns and cities, had a very extensive formation in place to light it up whenever the darkness fell. Maintaining and protecting this formation was extremely important, as it was linked to the very survival of the town. After all, periods of darkness could last anywhere from a few days to weeks, months or even, sometimes, years.

The formation lit up not only the boundary wall, as well as the lighthouse near the harbor, but every street, building and any other area within the town. It was so extensive, that, functionally speaking, the town was just as well lit during the dark as it was when there was light.

Only looking up into the empty sky would remind them that it was still dark, and dangers were all about. Such thorough preparations were absolutely essential, though, for the town's survival. While it was filled with cultivators, if they had to rely on themselves, the town would be able to survive at most one week before enemies became too powerful.

That wasn't to say the town would be completely destroyed after that, but a majority of the people who were weak, relatively speaking, would most likely die.

This deadline was something that had been tried and tested over thousands of years, so everyone was familiar with it. Now, it had already been a few days since darkness fell, and it was approaching a week. The longer this went on, the more severe and serious the protection and surveillance on the formation there would be.

But even the strongest protection was only as strong as its weakest part. The serial killer, who was sitting on top of a pile of corpses, was reading a document that described in detail the light formation, and all the important parts of it that needed extra protection.

It was only natural that one of his victims should have such a document, for he was the deputy head of the constables in Babylon. He had been relentless in his search for the killer, so the killer decided to pay him a house call.

This time, though, he had killed using poison. He had no other choice, as the targets this time were too strong for him to confront head on. The fact that he was able to get his hands on poison strong enough to deal with the deputy spoke of his resourcefulness.

But while he filled his kill quota for the day, being unable to cut living flesh or taste the blood of his prey left him unsatisfied. After all, he was crazy, but not stupid. He wouldn't drink poisoned blood.

But his lust for blood had not been quenched, and that put him in an irritable mood. But that was okay, for this document had given him a new idea. He was really enjoying this darkness, and he wanted more of it.

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