Lucifer looked at his mother with a slightly saddened gaze, he could hold back the tears for now, but he couldn’t hold back his disappointment.
In the end after staring at his mother for a few seconds, Lucifer spoke up with a smile in his usual chirpy tone, "I’m fine now ma..."
"Are you?" Annabeth asked Lucifer with worry, she placed her hand on his shoulder and pulled him closer for a hug. "I apologise for the scare... Jack’s been taken care of."
"Wait! Enrique killed him!?" Lucifer asked in alarm and surprise.
"What!? No!" Annabeth quickly replied.
"He just detained him with mythril ropes... Jack is not going to be moving anytime soon... Enrique says we should hand him over to the authorities once we leave this place and I agree."
"What about you, what do you think? Do you want to kill him?"
Lucifer thought about it for a moment and shook his head, "No."
’The more people that play my games the more emotional points I get... I don’t know if it applies to dungeon monsters... but what’s the harm in trying.’
"You don’t want to take revenge!? After that nasty fright he gave you!?" Annabeth asked in slight surprise this time.
Lucifer simply smiled and explained himself since he had no hate for an illusory character that was being played by the real culprit, "That’s because I have found my dream..."
"Dream?" Annabeth asked with confusion apparent on her face.
"Hm~m. Can I speak to Enrique? I need his help."
"Are you sure you want to pursue your dream in the dungeon? Can’t it wait for once we’re outside?"
"Let’s be realistic ma... I might not get a chance to pursue anything once I go back outside... humans... are the same everywhere... they’re selfish and they hate demons..."
"They see my horns before they see me, they see me as one of the demons and they’ll do anything to get rid of me."
Annabeth lowered her head with a sigh.
"Alright... but make it quick... we can’t let it drag on for too long..."
Lucifer simply nodded.
Annabeth looked at him and spoke quickly, "Fine then, wait here... I’ll call Enrique here."
"I can’t go and meet him?" Lucifer asked slightly puzzled and Annabeth nodded.
"The other people are really against you right now... they feel that you’ve done them a great injustice by stopping them from leaving."
"But... weren’t they the ones that wanted to stay here before?" Lucifer asked blankly.
"Humans... are complex..." Annabeth said with a sigh.
It was clear to Lucifer that she was hiding the fact that they were angry with him because he’d gotten Jack imprisoned.
But he said nothing for the moment, simply appreciating the fact that the monster had created a faithful representation of his mother.
Annabeth left to fetch Enrique.
’But isn’t this a little too faithful?’
’Does the monster read the memories of the victims it captures and then replicate them, or does it simply observe them through the situations it puts them through and makes a realistic representation of them?’
’But that wouldn’t be easy would it? Even AIs from my past life required tons of data before they were any good at pretending to be corporate HR managers.’
’So it probably reads their memories right?’
’That’s probably how it knew so much about my life with Mother... so much of this stuff she’s told me about myself after coming here it probably never could’ve made her speak about otherwise...’
’But wait... isn’t the illusion property the monster’s using a subset of the light property? Are there memory reading variables in the light property subclasses?’
Lucifer found it somewhat unbelievable and frowned.
’Something’s fishy... I just can’t put my finger on it yet...’
It was at this moment that the sea shells curtain parted softly and Enrique entered. He looked a little weary from his most recent work but still looked at Lucifer with a smile.
"Tell me... you wanted to see me about something?"
Lucifer nodded and explained himself, "That attack proved something to me... I don’t have long left to live... I’ll probably be killed once I leave this dungeon..."
"No! I won’t let that happen, you can place your trust in me."
But Lucifer gave him a sad smile and shook his head.
"No, I can’t just let you be troubled because of it... you have to take care of ma when we leave... so while we’re still inside this dungeon... I want to make my one dream come true!"
"Oh? And what’s your dream?" Enrique asked with interest.
’Gotcha!!’ Lucifer smiled internally.
"To have all the people in this dungeon play a game I make."
Enrique immediately showed a confused expression on his face. "A game you make? What is that? Like a board game you mean?"
"Something similar... I want to make a game using my light property..."
"Using your light property?" Enrique asked confusedly.
"You probably don’t have many variables currently... so anything you make will not really be that good..."
"How about I make you one according to the specifications you need and then we can have everyone in the village play it one by one?"
"Hmmm... I don’t know if that will count..." Lucifer mumbled since he didn’t know whether the game had to be made by him fully.
’That would be unrealistic for large games right? After all... large games require the effort of hundreds or even thousands of people in a team...’
Still Lucifer insisted, both for working independently and as a test to see if he really was in an illusory world.
"Can you not give me an initiation? Please? Dad?" Lucifer asked with the best pretty eyes he could make while batting his eyelashes.
"Ah..." Enrique looked truly troubled, he showed a wry expression and spoke vaguely.
"I can’t give you an initiation because that might weaken me for the battle ahead... and I want to be fully prepared before we leave."
’Yeah... I’ve never heard of Initiations leaving someone weaker after... all he has to do is give me some mana to increase my level temporarily by sharing his soul with me.’ Lucifer grumbled to himself.
The answer had left him disappointed, but not by too much.
Lucifer had already figured out that these people were simply illusions of the monster and nothing more and they couldn’t truly help him in any way.
’So... the question stands... What do I do now? Is there a game I can make with only the position and intensity variables of the light property? Or do I do something else...’