The Innkeeper

Souta could have ignored the small comment easily. He could have moved on, for his feudal lord would look for him soon. After all, it was an inconsequential comment. How would anyone know whether he was lying or not, especially when he spoke so little? He had long learned how to prevent himself from having any behavioral tells or markers for whether he was lying or not.

Logically speaking, the other person was a scammer and had purposefully let him hear the murmur in order to arouse suspicion and doubt, and cause a disturbance in Souta's mental state. Such a vulnerability would then allow them to try to build a logical premise for how and why he should trust them, before, in a seemingly reasonable and logical sequence of events, going on to scam him.

Souta knew this because of the kind of exposure his feudal lord provided him with. Suzuki was a cunning man, and needed Souta to be well versed in every kind of established falsehood there was, not so that he could prevent them, but so that he could enact them.

Despite knowing all of this, he could not help but stop. Something in the man's voice... the certainty with which he spoke, yet the hush in his voice as if he was speaking only to himself... it told Souta that he wasn't making it up.

Yet when he turned and looked at the wide grin on the partner of the man who had murmured he suddenly had doubts. That was a scammer if he ever saw one.

"The name is Anakin Indiana McClane, friend. Why don't you hold on a minute and hear us out? If you feel like we can't help you, you're always free to leave.After all, there's no harm in just listening."

'Definitely a scammer, this one,' Souta thought to himself. Yet he stood still all the same. It was true, though. With how miserable his life was going, he really had nothing left to lose by listening to them.

"Have you heard of the Chamber of Secrets?" Anakin asked. "It's where we like to hold our meetings..."

Anakin's senses were tingling. He was about to make a huge profit. He just knew it!

*****

An hour passed by and the room where the Henali assembly was taking place was slightly more filled. The participants, those who did not hide their identities at least, continued to chat amongst themselves casually, though there was a tinge of anticipation in their eyes. They wanted to see how the situation was about to unfold.

At the exact one hour mark, when admission to the assembly hall closed, a figure appeared in the center of the hall. Everyone turned their attention to the figure, just as the figure looked out at the room. 2 of its 26 eyes, however, were completely fixed on a single card that read Innkeeper.

It said nothing before it began convening the meeting, but two of its eyes stayed fixated on the card throughout.

The audience was not disappointed by the lack of drama. On the contrary, they were even more enticed by the lack of it. After all, they were beings that did not plan out their day, but instead they planned out their millennia. It was the slow performance that got them riled up, the steady build up to a fantastic conclusion.

For now, just the direction of that single pair of eyes was enough to sate their craving. Of course, this was only for those participants that lived for this kind of enjoyment. Others couldn't care less.

*****

At the same time as the Henali assembly, which was being held by the highest most echelon of the realm, another assembly was being held. This time there was no Henali member to oversee the assembly, only their chosen representative this time.

Thus, presiding over this joint session that included the recognized empires, races and organizations, was a member of a race called the Starguard. A being made up of pure fire, its strength was extremely formidable.

At the same time, however, the Emperor of the Jotun Empire, who was sitting in the assembly, had never even heard of the Starguard race. He was seated in one of the middle sections of the room and even neared the top, even though the human race was considered, in general, much weaker than many of the races that sat even below the Emperor. It could not be helped, for he was not seated arbitrarily. He was seated according to the social rank of humans in the Origin realm which, based on common sense, should have been quite low.

This was because the status of a race was not determined by how large their population was, how developed their cultivation system was, or what kind of military might they held as a race. Instead, it was determined by the single strongest member of their race.

As far as the human race was concerned, in the entire realm, there was none stronger or with a higher cultivation level than him. Moreover, he was not the kind of ruler who sat on a bejeweled throne and passed down orders from behind safe havens.

No, the Emperor was a man so fierce that, besides being a ruler of one of the largest human empires in the realm, he had been hired as a personal envoy by the Henali. In a realm that did not naturally allow beings touching the Dao to be born, he was near what should have been the natural apex.

So his rule began with, and continued on while in the midst of eternal war. It was not his own innate logistical prowess that allowed the Empire to flourish. Instead, it was the secret help the Henali provided him in exchange for his excellent service that shielded his empire from downfall.

​ As it happened, while he was in the assembly, listening once again to drawl speeches about the future of the realm, and Henali's vision for its development, the Emperor once again received a missive. Once the assembly ended, he would have to visit a place called the Midnight Inn.

*****

From hours to days, time slowly passed. No one sensed anything unusual, for the most part, since they were used to the Innkeeper disappearing spontaneously. But a subtle tension filled the air that extremely few could detect.

Chad, the deputy director of security, directly under Gerard, began to notice Gerard behaving strangely. He was often absentminded and would occasionally disappear without explanation.

Things that were running smoothly up until now slowly began to have problems. Security, for one, began to cause trouble. Having two Earth immortals at the Inn at all times usually ensured that there wouldn't be any problems. But the universe was not without other immortals, and the Inn had already developed enough of a reputation that they could occasionally visit.

Though there hadn't been any direct confrontations yet, a few tense encounters had taken place.

What was strange, though, was that while usually Mary gave excellent orders to deal with the situation, this time she was being hesitant, and kept moving towards tolerating as much as possible.

Another issue was logistics. With an increased number of workers, everything originally ran very smoothly. After all, the system itself took care of so many things.

But with no clear upper management, and Mary herself acting out of sorts, alongside the Innkeeper's absence, many of the workers had to resolve their own issues. This often resulted in clashes or misunderstandings.

For most guests this was not a big deal, but for some of the older or more observant guests, this was a huge anomaly.

The number of Devils at the Inn had also increased lately, and while they created no problems themselves, they sent silent reports of everything that occurred in extensive detail. Who or why they were sending these reports to was a mystery, but they were not subtle at all with their actions.

As if to make things worse, a few days later, in the X-14 star system a huge, extremely coordinated battle took place that spanned multiple planets. The Dimitri family, despite being caught off guards, somehow managed to repel the attackers - with rumors abound that someone named Tetsuya played a significant role in resolving the attacks.

Yet the real issue that came to light was that the attackers all snuck onto the planets, and would then teleport to the Inn until the right time. Then, when given the order, they would return to the planets and launch an attack.

This information spread very quickly, and painted the Midnight Inn in a very bad light. Yet somehow, that attracted even more guests.

Mary was alarmed, for this was not what the Inn was supposed to represent, yet it was clear that people were abusing the system's capabilities while not breaking any of the Inn's rules. A hundred more minor issues were popping up.

The latest of which was happening today, on the day of Harry and Haileys wedding. A group of party crashers had barged in, and the situation was looking like it was deteriorating fast.

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