"Welcome to our Inn, are you a gu—Deigo, what happened?" A lizard-tailed woman, a Lizarn, to be precise, stepped forward to reach out for the brawny Lizarn teenager.
"Hmpf!" Deigo slapped away her hand and was about to yell at her when he suddenly froze and glanced back at Varian.
Gnashing his teeth, he said. "H-He's a friend of mine. He'll stay here for a while."
"Oh. Another friend? I'm Garcia, his mother. Please come in." Garcia welcomed Varian inside the shabby two-storied building with an awkward smile.
The wooden doors, with too many irregular cavities, hung loosely and seemed ready to break off at any moment. But when he did enter the Inn, they thankfully only creaked too much and didn't break.
The interior was surprisingly tidy. There were a few cobwebs here and there and numerous strong stains on the walls and floor. Intuition told Varian that they came from blood.
"There's a vacant room on the second floor. I'll take care of your meals…though I'll have to ask for your forgiveness, I can't provide you any good meals." Garcia showed him a very ordinary room.
Deigo sneaked a glance at Varian before running off, as if escaping.
"Thank you, I just need a place to stay."
"No, thank you for…sparing Deigo." She bowed so suddenly that it caught him off guard.
But the familiarity with which she bowed indicated it wasn't her first time doing this.
'She seems like a decent person, then why is her son a thug?'
"I won't ask any details about you during your stay, but try to avoid the Lord here." She bit her lip tight and turned around. "It's too obvious you're not from here, your eyes are too…bright, and they hate people from the outside."
After glancing at her one last time, Varian opened the door.
Clak!
"Ah!"
A little Lizarn girl jumped out of the bed in shock and landed on the floor with a small thud.
"Y-You!" She stared at him, teary-eyed and frightened for a moment before clutching her heart and sliding down against the bed.
Her small frame and face indicated her age to be around eight or ten years. But she was very thin and had a rather pale face.
"M-Marin is sorry, you must be the new guest, I'll vacate the room." Marin bowed to him deeply and climbed onto the chair.
The holographic school material on the table disappeared as she shoved the digital books into her small frock pocket.
Varian wondered about her identity. Was she the daughter of a guest here? Or the daughter of the Inn Owner?
"I-I'll clean this place. Just a minute." She grabbed a cloth from the window sill and started wiping off the table furiously, even though it was pretty neat already.
But a single blue spot remained, presumably formed by dried-up blood long ago.
The little girl tried to remove the stain. But she just couldn't. Sweat rolled down her forehead, and her little arms were shaking but the spot just wouldn't go away.
"I-I'm swowyyy…" She sniffed back her tears and said. "P-Please don't leave our Inn. I'll really clean it up."
Varian rubbed his forehead and wanted to tell her to stop. But the girl started wiping the spot again.
A small aura current rippled from Varian and glided past the table.
"Eh?! Ahhh!" The little girl's teary face beamed with joy as she saw the blue spot disappear. She put her hands together and wondered for a good moment if it was really true.
After confirming, she smiled at Varian and bowed before running off. "M-Mister, have a good stay."
As she left, Varian caught a glimpse of a few sharp marks on her forearm.
"A surgery at her age?" Varian closed the door with a neutral expression.
An innkeeper mom, a little girl who wasn't in school and seems to be studying at home, a teenager who skipped school for gangs. It's a weird family overall.
But Varian didn't want to think much about them.
"Now, time for another change."
A palm-sized horn grew on his forehead, his frame grew thinner and his facial features shifted to an entirely different person. He changed his plain clothes to appear even more shabby and tattered.
Then, he jumped out of the window and raced through the streets.
The area around the inn was relatively peaceful and calm. But not too far away, things were bad. And the farther he went, the worse it got.
As if he's going from 0 to 100, the crime, violence, zombie-like crowd, and fights all increased as he moved ahead.
And then, he stopped at an area enclosed by a huge alloy wall with a couple of entrances.
There were strong men and women patrolling the area. Tens of thousands were lining up, going in and exiting with excited smiles on their faces.
Some of them directly pulled the crystal powder out of their pockets and injected themselves to intoxication. While others danced.
There were a few theft attempts. But they were instantly killed by the guards and the drug users were safe.
This was the only place where Varian saw a semblance of law and it turned out to be protection for drug addicts from being robbed off their drugs.
Varian's senses swept the area invisibly and he noticed the levels of the powerhouses running this mafia.
'A fucking rank 2…there are more than a dozen rank 1s.'
For Centaurus Duchy that's been on a terminal decline, a rank 2 wasn't so cheap. Yet, here a Drug Lord happened to be a rank 2.
Varian swallowed his saliva. If Centaurus fights the human civilization, then just a drug lord and his aides would be enough to end the entire race.
'Are we that weak?'
Calming down his breath, Varian passed the area and the crime began to slowly decrease, going from 100 to 0.
It hit 0 exactly at the borders of the bright and dark sides of Ubiq.
Varian's shabby clothes turned bright, expensive, and elegant. With practiced confidence, he showed the fake ID Boo and Oob helped create to cross the border and step into the bright side.
'I'm here.'
