"Alright, take a good shower, you stink, a lot." Annabeth said while giggling as she pinched her nose and walked a little away.
Lucifer shook his head at her antics and found himself shutting the door on her face before stepping into the now slightly dark shed and taking a shower.
There was also soap on one of the shelves in the shed so Lucifer cleaned himself well and in a few minutes he was out wearing new and fresh clothes that were a little too large on him and he suspected were Enrique’s.
As soon as he stepped out of the bathroom, Annabeth asked him a question gently, "Will you help Enrique with the armour checks?"
"Does he need my help?" Lucifer instantly asked with a frown.
"Well... it would be nice... you know... father and son... spending time together."
"He’s not my dad..." Lucifer mumbled frustratingly.
Gasp! "You don’t need to be so shy, you both even have the same property!!"
Lucifer rolled his eyes, but looking at his mother batting her eyelashes to convince him while pouting, he finally relented with a deep sigh.
"Alright... but just this once!"
"Hehe~ That’s alright! Where there is a will, there’s a way!!"
And so with a non committal reply, Annabeth shipped off Lucifer to Enrique.
Enrique was busy checking everyone’s armour and weapons for any defects or weakness so Lucifer just stood there for a few seconds.
Watching as people came to Enrique and handed him their armour before he thoroughly inspected them and handed it back if there were no repairs to make and made repairs if there were any to be made.
Finally when Lucifer was about to just walk away, Enrique noticed him and had him help out by holding the armours for him to check them more easily.
Of course everyone else was quite unwelcome of Lucifer.
But with Enrique there, no one dared to say anything else.
Except Jack.
"Next..." Enrique said as Jack came up in the line holding his armour. "We know how to maintain our own equipment by now Enrique, we don’t need a filthy demon’s hands touching it."
Lucifer still tried taking Jack’s armour just to get done with the checking but Jack simply bumped into him, pushed him a few steps back and then walked up to Enrique on his own.
Enrique just sighed, choosing not to comment or force the matter as he checked the armour and dismissed Jack before continuing with everyone else.
Soon everyone was done and dismissed.
"Enjoyed it?" Enrique asked softly.
"Well it was simple work..." Lucifer said honestly as they walked back home.
"Haha, that it is... Let’s do this, when we go out of here, I’ll take you to my old store if it still exists."
"What’s the name of the store? Maybe I’ve heard of it in the prisons..."
"You probably haven’t, it was called The Garcia’s Mana Shack."
"Haven’t heard of it... although there haven’t been any prisoners coming to my block in the last five years... maybe it did become famous in that time if you had any descendents to handle it."
"I did have a brother... but I don’t know how well he’s doing... he never seemed interested in things like these..."
"I see..."
They met up with Annabeth in the house, she looked absolutely glowing to see Lucifer with Enrique, before the entire village, a group of about a hundred people, gathered around the edge of the village in front of a small cavern.
Enrique looked at everyone with a stern gaze.
"We’ve been through quite a bit together. But we’ve stuck as one."
"Today we venture out to confront what had brought us here in the first place and I promise you, as long as I’m around nothing can harm you!"
"For the Refuge!!!"
"For the Refuge!!!" Everyone shouted.
Lucifer noticed Jack’s expression looked like he’d eaten shit but didn’t comment on it.
Instead he looked at Enrique and had a strange thought creep up into his mind as he looked at the group that was energised to confront the demons outside.
’Maybe... just maybe... he’s not so bad after all...’
They all walked into the cavern and that was where everyone saw a great giant mana stone floating in front of them.
Enrique pulled out a sword from his waist and handed it over to Lucifer, "You were the bearer of good news, so you get to finally deliver us to freedom, light bearer."
Destroying a mana stone allowed one to absorb all the mana contained within it, and by destroying the dungeon core, Lucifer would absorb all the mana within it.
People seemed to want to say something but Enrique’s sharp gaze held them back.
Lucifer dropped his broken scimitar and grabbed the sword that Enrique handed over to him.
However-
-as soon as he did so-
[Warning : Irreversible Threat to Host’s Life Detected!]
’Huh!? What? Who’s after my life!?’
’Someone inside this dungeon!?’
’Jack!?’
Lucifer looked behind him and it was true! Jack was indeed rushing up to him with his sword pulled out without anyone realising it!
Now Lucifer knew not the first thing about the sword he was wielding to defend himself against Jack, and there was too little time to warn Enrique to do something about it since he was facing away from Jack.
So Lucifer did the first thing that came to his mind!
’If I break the dungeon core and teleport out of the dungeon I’ll have a chance to counter attack a disoriented Jack!’
Lucifer raised his sword to smash it over the Mana crystal.
[Forcibly Activating Demonic Bloodline Ability For Saving Host!]
A sudden sharp pain gripped Lucifer’s chest.
[Activated Ability : Checkpoint!]
[Price: Corruption]
[Saving Checkpoint!]
Lucifer swung his sword down regardless of the pain, however, for some reason the sword went straight through the crystal like it didn’t exist causing Lucifer to stumble forwards.
At the same time, Jack’s sword passed right through his neck without doing him any harm!
And, in the very next second-
PUCHI!
Lucifer stared down in disbelief.
Something had pierced straight through his heart... but from the front.
Lucifer coughed out blood from his mouth. He looked at the invisible weapon highlighted by his blood and couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable sense of dread.
’Wha-’
The weapon highlighted in his blood was pulled out before-
PUCHI!!!
-it was stabbed into his lungs once again.
But that was not all that happened in those moments.
The sharp pain that had gripped Lucifer suddenly expanded! Stretching all across his body like the veins and arteries as a sudden chill travelled down his spine.
’I’m going to die!’
Lucifer could feel it... he was going to die this time.
His healing would not save him anymore.
There was something in his body that was rapidly weakening him as if it were the blight and he was marked to be a still corpse.
Lucifer’s vision rapidly darkened as he felt the world around him sinking into oblivion.
The last thing in his sight was the message of the system in front of him.
[Activating Ability : Checkpoint.]
Lucifer’s life drained rapidly after that and he suddenly fell limp on the weapon that had been used to stab him.
Slowly as if the weapon were alive, it dragged Lucifer forwards.
His body folded unnaturally as if in the jaws of an invisible monster and then Lucifer’s body vanished with a sickening crunch.
***