The Innkeeper

While Lex looked through the techniques and selected them, the Midnight Madness eventually came to a somewhat unexpected end. Despite Tiffany's admirable start, the favorites for victory were still the Nascent level cultivators. Yet there was an unexpected turn. While all his subordinates and lieutenants were defeated, Nzaar himself held up the remaining Nascents by himself.

This gave plenty of time for Tiffany to rack up an irrecoverable lead. In the end, literally besieged by all the participants, Nzaar still managed to survive. He was defeated, not killed, though his condition wasn't the best.

There was a small celebration after the event ended, and Tiffany received her 50,000 MP as well as a special token to commemorate her victory. Larry and Velma became the biggest winner from all the bets - other than Lex, of course. Due to how unexpected the event went, most people lost their bets and Lex ended up raking in a neat 210,000 MP via all the gambling, feasting and celebrations.

Had Lex been paying attention to the Inn at this time, he would have noticed a few interesting things happening at this point.

Tiffany, along with her winnings, headed straight towards the greenhouse and waited in the forest for the Sovereign Galactic turtle to emerge. They talked for a bit, before Tiffany pulled up her makeshift backpack and from it extracted what looked like burnt up roots.

The turtle took the root from her, and the Gardener appeared beside Tiffany and accepted 40,000 MP from her. It may seem like she only had 10,000 MP remaining, but she had also inherited 20,000 MP from Igishima when he died, so she currently had 30,000 MP for herself! As for the details of the transaction that had occurred between her and the turtle… they were a secret known only to them.

While this was happening, Will Bentham finally signed the deal with the Governor of Vegus Minima, with Mary as the assistant Innkeeper as the witness, and through the Guild room conducted their first major transaction. Through the 1% charge of all transactions, Lex earned another 4 million MP!

It may seem like this was a lot, but the truth was, this was only a small part of the cooperation they were planning. Will Bentham was supplying the Governor with extremely rare resources they had managed to collect from their new Minor realm, but did not understand how to use. In exchange, the governor was not only providing them with various new technologies, far beyond anything Earth had, but also weapons and, most importantly, the knowledge to build a sufficiently advanced space command center!

After all their matters were concluded, Will went to attend another meeting in the Inn, this time followed only by his very competent bodyguard, Hugo.

When he arrived at the new room, it was Larry and Matilda who were waiting for him. Larry did not wear his usual cavalier smile, and in fact, had a grave look in his eyes.

"I was informed you have information about Hugo's family," Will said, sitting down. His bodyguard, Hugo Laurent, had only agreed to work with Will on the condition that Will help him investigate what happened to his family that had been killed behind his back. Larry and Matilda provided the first real lead he had been able to find.

"I hope you have some evidence to back up your claims. This is not a matter I treat lightly."

"Neither do we," said Larry, his fists clenched tight. "Actually, finding out about Hugo's family was coincidental. Let me introduce myself. I am Larry Dershaw, from the Dershaw family."

Will was startled, for he recognized the name. "I'm sure you've heard the stories about my family being banished to the moon. Well, sometime during the upheaval caused by the Council taking over Earth and the moon, my family disappeared. This is my associate, Matilda. Her brother was also killed by someone from the council. We were working together when…"

While this meeting was going on, yet another one was taking place between Sam Brown and Richard, two of the original Nascents from Earth, with a Devil. The details of the meeting were unsurprisingly cliche. The two, unwilling to come to terms with their lost power, were striking up a deal with a Devil.

Something that was surprising, however, was happening not in these meetings, but in the interrogation room near the greenhouse. All the captured pillagers were held prisoner here. To make things quite simple, and ensure that none of them cause any problems, Anita had volunteered her aid. She resurrected all the dead pillagers and had them guard these few survivors.

The undead pillagers, it must be pointed out, did not have the gruesome and decaying appearance one would assume. Not only had they recovered their appearance to what it was before they died, they had undergone some sort of cleansing. Since it was Anita's angelic voice that revived these bodies, as beautiful and pure as it was, the bodies were washed from their impurities. The shackles of a cruel life were lifted from them, the karma absolved, and what they turned into was if they had been saints, living a humble life of piety. They were as pure as the day they were born.

One extremely important thing to know about undead was that they did not retain their original souls, but new, extremely weak and feeble energy filled their body, replacing the function that the soul would have performed.

The security measures aside, the surprising occurrence here was not Anita's help in security, but who was performing the interrogations. There was no bloodshed, no weapons, no threats or blackmail. Instead, one of Nzaar's lieutenants, an alien known as Grumbal that looked similar to a Doberman with small, batlike wings on its back as well as a third eye on its forehead, was sitting nervously at a table with tea and biscuits placed in front of him. Opposite to him sat Velma, taking a small sip of her tea and then nodding, as if appreciating the taste.

"Please, I'll tell you whatever you want," the Grumbal pleaded, with tears welling up in its three eyes. At the same time, it nervously eyed its captured companions, but they were all unconscious. "We're pillagers, killers! We've looted all over the galaxy! Entire worlds have known our wrath…"

"Oh hush, why are you speaking of all these boring things?" Velma said chidingly. "I am a lady, and my friend Larry told me that ladies should not spend their time talking about violence. You know, you're not the first Grumbal I've met.

"Some time ago, we had this lovely couple visit us on their honeymoon. Well, actually, they were going to X-142 for their honeymoon, but through a twist of fate, ended up here. Oh their love story was so wonderful, I heard it from them a million times. I remember how the wife dedicated her life to her husband, and the mark of love she left on her husband, to tie their fates together." As she said that, Velma's eyes wandered to a patch of gray fur beneath one of the Grumbal's wings. "They told me that through the mark, they can always feel one another."

"No please no," the Grumbal trembled once again. "Please, I'll tell you whatever you want!"

"You will? How lovely. Then tell me, how did you two meet?"

The Grumbal trembled once again, and then, reluctantly started telling Velma his own love story. He made sure to fit in all the information about Nzaar he could, every opportunity he got, and gave as little information about his beloved as he could. If he didn't know any better, he really would start to feel that this wicked woman was more interested in his love life than their origins, but he was no fool. The moment he saw that evil woman, raise his former comrades to life, heal them of their injuries and then enslave their minds, he knew they had finally come across someone they should not have offended. It was fortunate that those who came back to life did not seem to have their memories, or else he suspected he would not be given a chance to be interrogated at all.

Velma, on the other hand, listened to his story eagerly. Her endless curiosity, friendly attitude and love for gossiping had resulted in a unique situation that no one had yet realized. Even though she had never left the Inn itself, through talking to the various guests and learning all about their lives, along with the diverse crowd that the Inn had started to receive, in the entire Inn she knew more about the universe than anyone else.

She had become a living encyclopedia, and at the speed at which she gathered new information, soon it would be more fitting if Lex asked her questions about the universe than Mary. At least Velma wasn't limited by the system with what she could say.

As for whether she truly was only listening for love stories or actually fully interrogating the Grumbal, well, only the Innkeeper would find out when he eventually returned. She had prepared many reports for him about things she found interesting, reports even Mary did not know of.