Chapter 2536: Premature

Mary was, more or less, left speechless as Elizabeth disappeared, though she quickly gathered her thoughts. She glanced towards the worker who had been freed from his illusion, and simply strolled off to return to his regular duty without realizing anything was amiss at all.

She shook her head and turned around. As tempting as it was to go to the picnic she was originally aiming for, she needed to go speak with the Innkeeper.

Mary sighed and turned around. Just when she thought that they finally caught a break, another problem checked into their inn. Though technically, Elizabeth never checked in.

The question she couldn’t find an answer to was how she had been able to discover the Midnight Inn and enter it!

The only active entrance to the Inn at the moment was the tavern. She had clearly not forcefully entered through the realm barrier, as that would have caused some kind of anomaly, and she would need to find the physical location of the Inn first. Or was it possible that she had found the realm, but had a way to cross the realm boundary without triggering any reaction?

Was this really okay? Would she really risk attracting the universe’s attention by roaming around during this time? The answer was, apparently, yes.

Mary wasted no time in arriving at the Innkeepers office and knocked on the door. Considering how she would usually directly talk to Lex if they needed to discuss anything important, or teleport over, the mere action of entering the office from the front door was highly suspicious. Moreover, she was knocking.

Lex immediately realized that something was amiss, and instead of appearing inside his office sent a projection of the Innkeeper to appear behind his desk.

"Come in," he said calmly, as if he had already been waiting for her.

Mary entered the room and the very fact that she didn’t start the conversation with a random or witty remark alerted Lex to the fact that the situation really was critical. There was only one thing he could think of that might cause her to behave like this, and…

"I just had quite a pleasant conversation with a would-be guest, and she had a few messages for you, Innkeeper," Mary said. Although her speech wasn’t exactly formal, it was formal enough to confirm Lex’s guess. There was a Dao Lord inside the Midnight Inn – he just couldn’t guess who he was.

"Oh? Go ahead, I’m always happy to hear my guests’ feedback," said the Innkeeper with a warm smile. This really wasn’t a job someone with anxiety could do.

Mary nodded.

"Primal Queen Elizabeth would like you to know that if you ever wish to access the Ruins of Ascension, you must first join the faction of the Primals. Oh, and Lex is unwelcome in the Primal realm as long as he has a certain item hidden away in his soul – whatever it may be. Also, I’m fairly certain that the Queen did not deign to pay the Inn for her stay here."

The last sentence sounded much more like a complaint than a report, and the Innkeeper chuckled softly when he heard it.

"It’s okay, no need to be petty. I will simply place her bill on a tab and save it until the interest is high enough to actually warrant a trip to the Primal realm," responded the Innkeeper, as if justifying why he might want to go to the Primal realm one day.

The Innkeeper and Mary locked eyes, but did not communicate – not even secretly. On the one hand, Lex hoped he was being spied on and that comment about tabs and interest was heard. On the other hand, he hoped that the Dao Lord had already left.

But he had no way of knowing if that was true, in which case he needed to be cautious from now on. If Mary thought that she had already left, she would not have behaved the way she was.

The problem wasn’t the behavior, however. Although, not knowing whether or not there was a Dao Lord watching his every move was quite problematic in itself. No, the main problem was that he never accepted the chocolates, so why had she shown up anyway?

Based on what Mary told him, she was only supposed to show up if he accepted the chocolates. More importantly, how did she get inside the Inn? And how long would she stay? What could he do to guarantee that she didn’t harm him in some way? A certain mother and secret guardian of Lex had stopped responding to him, so that was one less assurance. Even Wu Kong wasn’t in the Inn any more. At least when he was around, Lex could take his help.

Also, what the hell were the Ruins of Ascension and why did she think that the Innkeeper wanted to go there? He remembered that one of the recent awards he’d gotten had something to do with the script of ascension. Wasn’t it a little too coincidental that he got offered that, and soon after someone accused him of wanting to go there?

Based on Lex’s understanding of the Inn, all quest rewards would be useful to Lex in certain ways, even if he didn’t know how that was at the moment. There must be something connecting him to that place – he just needed to understand what it was.

"In case you have another run in with Miss Elizabeth," the Innkeeper began, after a moment of contemplation. "Please let her know that the universe is changing, and many things will change alongside it. It is still premature to determine whether or not I will have anything to do at the ruins, but I appreciate the invitation to join the Primals. I will most certainly keep her hospitality in mind. However, for now, all I’m interested in is running my inn and nothing more."

It wasn’t like he could ask her why she thought he wanted to go there, right? More specifically, she had directly referenced the thing inside Lex’s soul. That meant she knew Lex had a system. Fortunately, she had not connected it to the Midnight Inn or the Innkeeper just yet. He had to make sure it stayed that way.

Mary nodded and left the room. She spent the next few hours randomly walking around the Inn, hoping she would run into Elizabeth, but that didn’t happen. Whether she was inside the Inn or not was uncertain, and there was no way to check either.

The projection of the Innkeeper stood in his office, looking out the window as it began to rain in a distant corner of the Inn.