The Innkeeper-Novel

273 Security

A lot of time had passed with Lex unconscious and it was fortunate that so far that the Raskals had not caused any trouble, but Lex no longer wanted to leave things to chance. With enough energy, as well as 2,845,000 MP due to his income of nearly 243,000 MP from all the guests entering due to the gaming tournament, he was ready to implement some changes.

Firstly, he finally put to use the Security room he received as a quest reward for exposing the Devil's plot to plant trackers on his various guests. Unlike the private rooms he could give to his workers, the Security room required a physical location. To keep it private and away from his guests, he put down the security room beside the greenhouse, and then immediately spent 500,000 MP on upgrading the room to level 5, one level above his regular authority.

The security room had a few vital functions, and the upgrades not only strengthened them but also added a few new ones.

First and foremost, the Security room could immediately detect anyone who had any malicious intent not only towards the Inn or its staff, but towards other guests as well. How the Security room detected them was beyond Lex's understanding, but after identifying a threat, the security room could perform a very basic form of the scan function to let security best decide how to deal with the threat.

Secondly, just by existing, the Security room allowed any staff registered as guards to directly communicate with one another across the Inn seamlessly. This made it much easier to coordinate than having Mary pass out instructions to each one of them.

Thirdly, the additional upgrade Lex got allowed his guards to teleport to the location of another guard quickly. Once again, it was a watered-down version of Lex's own teleportation abilities, but it was good enough.

Fourthly, having the Security room made various penalties available to Lex, as well as to his guards. Misconduct by a guest towards other guests or staff could allow them to now issue a temporary or permanent ban from entering the Inn. Believe it or not, this was the first time Lex was getting this ability.

Fifth, and perhaps what Lex cared about most right now, the Security room could track associates for offenders, regardless of whether the associates were at the Inn at the time of the offense or not. This meant that as soon as someone related to the Raskal attack entered the Inn, the Security room would alert the guards as well as Lex.

Finally, the Security room gave all the guards some basic strength and defense buffs, as well as some special equipment and uniforms.

As Gerard was the head of Security, Lex let him pick how many workers he wanted to hire for the position, and gave him the option of selecting existing employees or hiring/creating new ones.

Gerard ended up picking someone named Chad to be his deputy, and Lex used all the strength he could to avoid cracking up at that.

Gerard immediately began to work, as it surprised Lex to learn that there were well over 20 guests with malicious intent towards the Inn staying there immediately. However, they kept it to their intent and did not take any action - for now. After looking into it, Lex let out a defeated sigh. 19 of the 20 guests were thinking of urinating in the Lazy river, but as soon as they even considered it, they felt intense danger. It seemed, for certain things, the system did not need instruction to prevent.

Lex paused for a second, as it suddenly occurred to him that sometimes the system exhibited behavior outside of its usual crankiness, or insulting him. He was reminded of the time the Galactic Turtle was automatically hired - even though he was leading up to that, anyway. Preventing public urination was also good, but considering all the rules it put in place for Lex, something like giving guests a threatening feeling should not have been possible. It was something to think about. He already had various suspicions towards the system - he could not outright call it evil or malevolent since it was helping him out a lot technically, but he didn't quite believe it had no purpose either.

This thought only bothered him for a second, for this was yet again another thing he could do nothing about with his current strength. It was just something to remember for now.

Then, using his advanced authority, he purchased a building that he technically hadn't gained access to yet - the Library. Sustaining the Library would be a huge drain on his energy, but fortunately Lex was not planning on using most of its features, which saved him a lot of energy.

The Library was a monumentally important building at the Inn, for when guests from around the universe stayed, providing entertainment or distractions was crucial. Its importance was proportional to its size, as it had taken the shape of a massive castle, similar in design to the Red Fort in India, connected to Main street by a diverging road.

The majesty of the building and the intricacy of the artwork spoke volumes about the importance it was given. It was not an invisible pedestal of importance that the Inn gave to the preservation and impartation of knowledge, but a structure too glorious for even kings.

The Library, when it was operational, required a librarian - for which there would be stringent requirements - as well as knowledge on topics far and wide. Lex did not think for even a moment that he had even 1% of the knowledge required to open the library.

He did, however, have a historian. A single branch of the Library would be open, and would contain the history of the various planets and star systems connected to the Inn.

The purpose of opening a library, for Lex, was twofold. Firstly, the commonly known history of each planet would be openly available for any of his guests to peruse - after Anita filled it in, of course. Secondly, while Anita had been stuck interviewing guests and staff to learn various histories so far, now she had a special privilege. Following certain rules of noninterference and maintaining anonymity, she could travel to the various planets connected to the Inn! This would be much more helpful in recording down the history of the planets than interviewing a few select guests.

But, as a pregnant woman, Lex had no intention of sending her around the universe to conduct interviews. She could just summon her undead and send them on her behalf - it was all the same. Not to mention, he had already seen the kind of undead she summoned. No one would ever be able to determine the truth of their nature just by looking at them.

Next, it was time for Qawain. He was to be a sword instructor. Guests could hire him for guidance in helping them learn special techniques, figuring out their flaws, or just pointing them in the correct direction for exponential growth. Of course, while his services could be paid for, it was completely at his own discretion. Not only were his services the most expensive to acquire, a guest had to earn Qawain's approval before he could even consider spending his money.

Unlike his wife, who had a location provided by the system, there was no integrated swordsman room or anything of the sort ready for deployment. So, after having Mary consult the sword itself, Lex created a very... dramatic spot for Qawain's dojo.

A sword slash cut vertically across the entire body of Midnight mountain was formed, leaving behind a dark and narrow, yet prominent corridor. The corridor, imbued with some of Qawain's own sword intent, led deep into the mountain itself, where it opened up into a hall seemingly carved directly into the mountain rock.

These were some of the more normal things Lex did with his authority. Next were the few things that would really take advantage of his increased authority as well as energy.

He disabled random teleportation of guests, and made sure all new guests arrived at the front gates, as far as they may be from all the other main buildings. Then, he spent an entire 1% of the energy on upgrading the formation he placed here during the assault of the Raskals that prevented anyone from leaving. Now, not only was the formation much sturdier, it could selectively let people enter or exit as well as obtained a suppression function. This may seem a simple enough use for an entire 1% of the energy it would require for Lex to travel back from another realm, but that just spoke to the new strength of the formation. He doubted even Qawain could damage it now.

Just as he was feeling proud of his work, and was about to turn his attention elsewhere, Mary alerted him to a very serious issue one of his guests was having.

The guest was a proud centaur from Nibiru called F'ther Blaze and when Lex scanned him, he saw in his eyes a look of a man on the verge of death.