THE INNKEEPER

Vera grumbled to herself the entire time she followed her mother, not that the loveblind woman noticed anything. They were going to go see the man because of whom they were held as prisoners on Earth, yet Kristine acted as if the man had done them a favor.

Vera clearly didn’t like her father, but it would be too much of a stretch to say that she detested him. The issue she had with him the most was that he always tried to control her life.

Now, one could say that there was nothing unordinary about a father trying to control their daughter’s life – especially when she was young. The problem was, even when she was young, a mere teenager, her ability to see her own future was just as potent.

The number of times she had seen him force her to do things she didn’t want to, throughout the course of her lifetime, might have been fine if she actually lived through them. After all, if she was living through them, each instance would be spread apart, and would have given her time to get over the previous incident.

But to see in one afternoon countless such instances, and then see them again every time she used her ability… it was too much. Not to mention, her impression of him wasn’t so great to begin with.

What kind of man used a woman as a shield, living freely and enjoying themselves while the woman rots away in prison – with their only child!

Maybe Vera’s impression of things might have been a little biased but… Kristine wasn’t really in any position to tell her that, as she herself was floating through cloud nine.

The two of them eventually hailed a ride on a golf cart, traveling all the way to a small picnic spot near a lake, outside the city they had been living in. A few other families could be seen, sitting on blankets on the grass, fishing in the lake, and playing games with one another.

Quite a few people were grilling some food as well, making perfect use of the pleasantly sunny day.

Yet neither Vera, nor Kristine focused on any of that. There was a cabin nearby that could be rented, and in the veranda in front of it the figure of a blonde man, sitting facing the lake could be seen. Even though his back was towards them, both of them knew he was the man they were looking for.

Vera groaned at how cringe the scene was. There was no way an oracle of his power didn’t know they were already there. That meant he purposefully sat like that, his figure against the light, forming a dark silhouette.

“Who are you trying to impress?” Vera groaned, yet an excited shriek from her mother the next moment answered that question.

“Robby my darling,” she screamed as she zoomed to him.

Robert, or Robby as Kristine called him, turned just in time to catch Kristine in a hug as she threw herself at him. Robby turned as he caught her, so that she was hanging in his arms looking up at him, and he looked down at her.

“Kristine my belov-” before Robby, in his suave yet passionate voice, could complete his sentence, Vera’s show that she had thrown from across the park slammed into his face.

“Don’t you dare demonstrate any kind of disgusting public displays of affection,” she yelled as she flew over, clearly missing her right shoe. “This is a place for families and kids – keep that cheap, low budget, cringe indie movie romance to yourselves!”

“Ah Vera my darling, you’ve inherited your grandmother’s temper,” Robby said with a smile as he looked at his daughter fondly.

“Cut the crap old man. I don’t need to see the future to know you’re here to cut a deal. Get right to business or I’m high tailing it out of here. Trust me, I can easily live a good life without the ability to see the future. Actually, I could probably live a better life like that.”

“Ah dear, this is not how you talk to your elders. I guess I’m the one to blame, since I was never around to teach yo- hey, hey, where are you going?”

Vera turned around in the middle of Robby’s ridiculous monologue and began to fly away. When he asked her the question, she only raised her hand and showed him the finger, not slowing down a bit as she flew.

“I suppose I deserve that,” Robby said while wearing a wry smile.

“Robby, if you treat Vera like a little girl, you’re going to lose your relationship with her,” Kristine said as she held his cheeks. “You need to explain things to her, and this is your only chance.”

Robby sighed.

“Can’t a guy enjoy a little family reunion before getting down to business?” he asked. But then, as he watched Vera fly away, without an ounce of anger in her body, completely indifferent to his existence, he realized that maybe he needed to have a family first before he could enjoy a reunion.

“Hold on,” Robert said, his voice suddenly a little more serious as he pulled Kristine closer into his embrace. A moment later, the duo teleported away, appearing right in front of Vera.

“Alright fine, you win. Allow me an opportunity to explain,” he said, looking directly in Vera’s eyes without turning away.

“Your explanation better be good. If you think you can turn off my abilities and blackmail me into doing what you want, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Nothing like that happened Vera. Let’s take a seat somewhere private, and I’ll explain.”

Vera squinted her eyes, but followed as the man hugging her mother led. Somehow, he was a little less insufferable when he was serious.

The trio returned to the cabin and stepped in, taking advantage of the Inn’s excellent isolation features.

“As you are probably aware, your ability to see only your own future is not natural. It is something I gave you.”

“Yes, I know,” Vera said.

“What you don’t know is that I didn’t have nearly as much control over it as you think. Have you heard of the Essence Wormhole?”1

“Of course,” Vera answered. “It’s the ultimate natural treasure for oracles. Absorbing it will allow them to see a fixed, immutable future.”

“Yes, but not exactly like that. It allows whoever absorbs it to see their own future, without a single flaw. Moreover, it is a future that cannot be changed. In that case, knowing the future, and not knowing won’t make any difference at all. It can even be said to be a curse rather than a blessing. But I have been experimenting with the wormhole’s energy for decades, trying to create the perfect tool for divination.

“During my experiments, I created many flawed creations which needed to be destroyed, yet I was literally unable to destroy them due to the immense power they held. But I discovered that, eventually, over time, they lose their energy and stop working. So, I did the most reasonable thing I could do.

“I brought all of my creations to a planet in a Death Zone, devoid of any spiritual energy, and left them where they couldn’t do much damage. That’s also why I left you there as well. You see, your previous ability to see your own future was not as perfect as you believed it to be. You could have wrought immense damage to the realm if you were allowed to interact with random people, which is why you needed to be quarantined on the planet called Earth.”

“Nice excuse. So why do you suddenly care about me now? If what you say is true, and I’ve lost my ability, everything should be safe now, right?”

Robert gave her a look she couldn’t quite identify, and it wasn’t one that she liked at all.

“Well, you see, there was an issue – one that I couldn’t have anticipated. Of the many failed experiments I did, some of them lasted longer than others. Of the ones that lasted, a few of them somehow ended up at the Midnight Inn, and experienced an unusual phenomenon where the realms star rank rose. Does that sound familiar to you?”

“Yeah, I’ve felt it, more than once. What about it?” Vera asked as an ominous feeling began to develop.

“Well, recently, I managed to somewhat improve my own fusion with the wormhole, and that’s when I learned something extremely dangerous. As far as I can tell, based on my experiments, those events somehow fused the wormholes’ energy into those people, or items rather than allowing it to dissipate. Once that happened, they slowly started to… pull the energy of the wormhole into themselves, slowly making their abilities stronger, and improving the accuracy of the future they can see.

“The problem is… if anyone finds out that a few weak mortals and immortals perfectly fused with the essence wormhole, then all of us are suddenly going to turn into universal fugitives, hunted by hundreds if not thousands of Dao Lords to use as their personal slave oracles. Oh yeah, and I’ve seen just such a future happen, to all of us. That is our fate if even a single one of us gets caught.”

The Essence wormhole was mentioned in chapter 6, in case anyone does not remember.

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