As the guests approached the building, the door burst open.
"Innkeeper-master!" Tumble yelled, followed by Ranran.
"Master!"
Pang was on Tumble’s head, looking quite cozy, even if he was practically half of the goblin’s mass. Pang then jumped onto Finn’s arms as soon as they were close enough.
Finn blinked but was touched. This guy could get a bit snarky, but he was kind of sweet someti—
"Finally some warm food, la!"
"..."
Finn’s eyes twitched and he hugged Panda tightly, kneading his face. "That’s all you gotta say, huh?"
"But all we had were jerkies!"
Since he was heading away, he had to pre-prepare their meals.
Fortunately, they did have a cellar, so there were pre-marinated meals there. All they had to do was heat it up (something he taught Tumble and Ranran to do). Technically speaking, there should still be some food.
Unless they ate that all up in a day.
"You—"
The Panda realized they were not rich, right? He didn’t even need food to survive!
Before Finn could nag the spirit, though, the guests already surrounded him. The reticent girls were leaning down to stare at the panda, while the men were also curious.
"What is this creature?" Marcus asked, looking very fascinated.
Durgan nodded. "Is it a pet? I haven’t seen a domestic animal like this."
"It is adorable," Nona said with a straight look on her face. She then turned to Leiah, who nodded with sparkling eyes.
"It’s something that found me somehow," Finn shrugged, handing the Panda to the girls to harass, er, adore.
Anyway, this world had its share of weird creatures, so while they found Panda very odd and unique, they didn’t react too strongly, except for the fact that he was adorable.
It was because of the essence in the air. They just changed the animals in some way or form. Even after the essence had dwindled due to the portals, many of the odd varieties remained here and there.
Finn cleared his throat and led them inside. They were met at the front desk with some seating at the side. It was quaint and comfortable-looking.
Finn walked behind his desk to facilitate the registration, checking the dashboard while he was at it.
[INNKEEPER DASHBOARD]
Inn Name: The Wanderer’s Refuge
Inn Level: 1
Inn Status: 28 Cleanliness, 20 Ambiance, 23 Comfort
Reputation: 16
Current Guests: 4
Number of Staff: 2
Rooms: Basic Bedroom x 4, Toilet x 1, Kitchen x 1, Living Room x 1, Dining Room x 1, Front Desk x 1, Barrier x1, Utility Room x1, Garden x4 Cellar x 1
Barrier Type: Basic
Barrier Health: 9492/10000
Active Functions: [Poison Blocker] [Basic Rule Maker] [Anti-Magic Limitation]
It seemed like as long as they paid for the entrance fee, they’d be counted as ’guests’. It seemed like their added furniture also added to the stats, which was interesting.
Anyway, he professionally registered the four. They already knew how much it cost, so they knew what to pay and more. Most of them paid in cores, though, which they had been efficiently getting on their way here.
After all, the person they were following was busy gathering materials randomly. It gave them more than enough time to grab the cores of their kills.
"We have rooms with double-deck beds that you can share. The meal is for one person though, and any additional meals will be charged accordingly. Also note that the regenerative effects of the rooms would be divided by the number of people inside."
He promised to treat them to a meal, but they ought to know how much it cost if he wasn’t.
"Does it really have a regenerative effect?" Marcus couldn’t help but ask. When he mentioned it on their walk, they were already extremely tired and irritable.
When Finn said things like ’you’d recover faster in my rooms’ on the way here, they didn’t think that he meant it literally .
Finn smiled, and then he looked at Leiah, who was most sensitive to magic. Finn, on the other hand, felt the effects even as a dormant because he was the Innkeeper, and the inn had much more effect on him by default.
"I felt it as soon as we entered the inn," she said. "There are indeed regenerative effects."
"10% increase for the inn," he said. "It’d stack to the effects of the rooms, which is another 10%. If you ate essence food, that’d add, too."
The group looked at each other with wide eyes. They really needed this!
Finn chuckled, wanting to tell them ’I told you so’. Anyway, they decided to rent 2 rooms, maximizing each room, even if it reduced the regeneration bonus, it was already very good. If there was an extra room, they’d have rented one each, but Finn and his staff members needed their bedrooms too!
They wanted to ask how the whole regeneration thing worked, but considering there were barriers, they could only assume there were special runes running in the house, which was fascinating, but it was impolite to pry on people’s trade secrets.
The group paid for the limited-time-only charges of 2 gold or 4 awakened cores per night.
"Thank you for your patronage! The inclusions for both types of rooms are: one essence meal, unlimited use of our bathroom, and free washing of your clothes."
"Out of curiosity, how would you charge if there were more rooms?" Durgan asked for future reference.
After all, although they only went out on missions in the danger zone perhaps once or twice a month, it was a really dangerous mission each time.
Having such a nice place to stay amidst all that was... amazing, to say the least.
They would need a rough price to budget well for future use.
Also, that barrier was no joke. Going out to the danger zone had so many variables. It could make all the difference to have this one constant.
"I’m giving you a discount now, but for the next transactions, I’m thinking that night for the basic bedroom is 3 gold," he said. The Upgraded bedroom, when he actually bought one, should be around 5 gold. The latter was also comfortable and had higher recovery bonuses.
This meant that the regeneration rate was faster in some rooms. This also meant that, if they camped out here and took those rooms, they could hunt more! He couldn’t spend money on it yet (there were more important things to purchase, even if he had surplus money), so he didn’t say it.
"That sounds fair for a mission we’d do once a month or so," Marcus said. "We’ll also be more productive, so I think it’ll be worth it."
The others nodded. This was really too good to be true, but they were experiencing it themselves, so there was really no denying it.
"We can’t afford it every day though."
"Well, we deserve it after everything." How much had they suffered? Although they wanted to make a report as soon as possible, their bodies and their minds were too tired. Seeing such a place reminded them that they needed to breathe, too.
Finn smiled. Indeed. The body had to relax, too in order to work well," he said. "Besides, I will feed you tonight. My treat."
And with that, all the burdens were gone. This time, they just needed to relax, rest, and eat!