The Innkeeper

From the moment Lex came to this planet he had been suffering from various extreme temperatures. As if that was not enough, the temperatures had an element of spirituality to them so that even Lex could not avoid being affected. From the extreme cold on the surface, to the boiling heat within the dragon's hall, he had weathered it all without much complaint. After all, what was there to complain about being too hot or cold? He spent his entire life as a mortal regulating temperatures.

But there were some extremes that even he could not tolerate. The moment he pulled out the chandelier, as if he pulled out a plug stopping a drain, molten lava started to fall from the hole left behind. Hovering in the air, with nothing to hold onto, Lex could not avoid getting splashed by the unusual gray colored lava.

Lex didn't immediately suffer burns but he could tell that if he were exposed to it too long it was only a matter of time before he was cooked. Remarkably, his suit seemed to be tolerating the lava better than him.

Lex crashed onto the floor, but he didn't remain covered in lava the whole time. He put the lava that had splashed onto him into his spatial drum alongside the chandelier and quickly jumped to the side as soon as he landed. Although this trick had worked once, he could tell that the lava was putting a strain on his drum. If he added anymore, he would cause the drum to collapse.

In the center of the hall, a stream of lava was falling down, forming an expanding puddle. Unless the lava stopped falling in, it was only a matter of time before this hall was filled entirely.

"I'm going up, don't stay here too long," Lex told Fenrir through his spirit sense before rushing up the stairs. Although the first encounter with lava had disturbed him a bit, the situation had not deteriorated fortunately.

How was he supposed to know that what he unplugged was actually the switch for the dragon's regular lava shower? It did not like the cold temperature of the planet, and so regularly washed itself in those flames.

Moreover, since that lava was used to bathe the dragon, it could absolutely not be normal. Perhaps many of the treasures in the hoard might not be as valuable as a drop of that lava, for a dragon would not allow its scales to be tainted with anything impure!

The skin on Lex's face which had suffered the splash of that lava also soon recovered from its blushing state, and looked fresher and more vibrant than ever before.

He quickly climbed up to the floor with various prisons, and then froze. Although Lex had not paid attention to many of the details, even his lack of specific attention resulted in a state where he could recall most things in his environment.

He immediately noticed that a single dwarf was missing. His eyes swayed to the various prisons and discovered nothing amiss, but the disappearance of a body was not normal at all.

Upon being unable to discover anything, Lex skipped over the bodies and went to the next floor. This floor only had prisoners and Lex was not interested in collecting slaves, so all he could do was move on to the next floor.

Although he had no recollection of having passed through the subsequent floors, that did not slow down Lex at all. He was able to hone in on the most valuable treasures on each floor and took them, leaving the rest behind.

He only managed to cover 3 floors like this before he encountered others. Countless Frigals in heavy armor were fighting against elves, dwarves and other races. Normally the Frigals would not be able to come this low due to the Dragons Might, but as the dragon itself had disappeared so had that deterrence. All the Frigals in the vicinity were gripped with fear even greater than that of the impending abomination invasion at the thought of their Lord dying, and so they rushed in to investigate. That's when they found that their castle had already been infiltrated!

The battle was chaotic and bloody, with body parts flying everywhere and screaming echoing in the halls. A mad fervor had gripped everyone, as the Frigals were in a rush to confirm their Lords status while the others wanted to loot.

Amidst all of this… Lex never actually slowed down his looting! He directly ignored the combat and continued to pick out anything and everything he thought was valuable. His actions were noticed by more than just a few, and they all took an opportunity to attack him, but the attacks could not even cause his clothes to crease let alone injure him.

Lex did not even bother to acknowledge the attacks coming his way, except to speed up all his actions. After a few minutes he already got everything he wanted and hurried to the next floor, leaving many who saw him bewildered.

"He came from down below!" one of the elves noticed, and rushed down during the distraction Lex had caused. Like a domino falling, as soon as the first went down, everyone else began to follow.

There were a few, however, who instead chased after Lex. He definitely got the best stuff already seeing as how he came from down below!

As soon as Lex entered the next floor he froze. Of all the things he was expecting to find inside a dragon's hoard, he was not expecting a spaceship collection!

Moreover, all of these ships were much larger than his Silent Wanderer, and seemed better equipped as well.

How the hell was he going to plunder these?

Just as he was admiring one up close, a frozen spike came out from the distance and hit the ship, causing it to tremble. Although the ship did not suffer too much damage, if such a thing continued it would only be a matter of time before it broke.

Lex frowned. Not a single one of these came with a spatial equipment in which they could be stored, and Lex could not fit any of them inside his spatial equipment either. In the end there was only one solution. He would break off the bits that looked the most expensive and have Xeon study them later. Maybe he should also invest in getting a few spaceship engineers.

Lex bolted and entered the spaceship. He knew that the two most valuable things inside a ship were its ammunition and its energy source. He planned on getting plenty of them, and anything else he could get his hands on.

Once again a similar scene reappeared where Lex was being attacked from all angles but he was ignoring all of it. He did not know the reason, but for now only Golden core cultivators had made it down so far. With that being the case, did Lex even need to fight back?

In fact, fighting back ould waste more time than just ignoring them, so that's what he did. More or less, his blatant dismissal of all incoming attacks intimidated those around him, and they even began to hesitate. That was, until, a mournful scream was heard throughout the castle, rocking the mountain-range itself.

Even Lex paused, for he felt in that scream for the first time the power of an immortal.

"A human has desecrated the Lord dragon! All Frigals, find and kill the human!" the voice roared, shattering every mirror and glass within the entire mountain range.

Lex's expression changed, but instead of running he just sped up his looting. He didn't know how his actions had been detected, but he could tell that whoever yelled was far away from him, for now at least.

But the reason for his exposure was simple. The two remaining dwarves from the first party were trying to escape, but were too injured to do so with so many guards in their way. Although they had already prepared an escape plan, to make sure things were as chaotic as possible, thus making their escape easier, Barley threw out multiple crystals containing the recording of Lex atop the dragon.

It was only a matter of time before they were discovered. When they were finally discovered, all the Frigals went mad in search of Lex, making it easier for the dwarves to escape. After all, once they saw that the two dwarves were not their targets, they would ignore them. Normally there would have been a fight, but right now they only cared about hunting down Lex.

"Did you manage to complete the mission?" Terrol asked, as he limped along with Barley.

"I couldn't loot the bottom floor, but rest assured, I left traces of Valder dust there. As for what happens next, that's none of our concern. That human might even take the blame for everything as long as we stay hidden."

"What about the others bodies?" Terrol asked, thinking of his former companions.

"Each of them came prepared. In an hour, their bodies will dissolve, leaving no trace."

"I told that human my name, will that be a problem?"

"Only if he escapes here alive."