Chapter 667: Play
"W-why are you doing that? Don"t leave us here, please! I don"t know how to swim! What do you want?!" Joan yelled hysterically. "We"ll do whatever you want!"
"What can I even ask from you? I mean, leaving you here seems more fun, doesn"t it?" Lucifer asked.
"Enough with the talk. Tell us what you want. If you didn"t want something from us, you would"ve left us here already. You"re still talking to us. You want something." The woman glared at Lucifer.
She didn"t care about mincing her words after the way Lucifer fooled her.
"You"re quite perceptive." Lucifer smiled. "I certainly want something from you. But I don"t necessarily need it."
"Still, I"m a bit merciful today. So if you do the one thing I ask, I"ll forgive you and not leave you here."
"W-what do you want? We will do anything you ask!"
"Father, do you even need to ask? Don"t you see how he"s looking towards me while talking about wanting something? In the end, he"s a man, after all. He probably wants me to sleep with him in exchange for our lives."
"You really think too highly of yourself, but no. I have no interest in sleeping with you. So you can drop that thought."
"Then what do you want from you? What else can I give that you don"t have? If you need money, you can literally gather as much as you want with that strength of yours. Why trouble us?" The woman asked.
"I want you to help me. You see, the guy you were trying to seduce...? He is really innocent... Even worse than I knew him to be. If he"s like this, who knows, some woman might seduce him like you were trying to do," Lucifer said.
It was fine if Zale was in the snowy lands alone since there was no woman there, but Lucifer had just realized that by bringing Zale out, he might have already risked the future.
He needed Zale to become more hard headed so he could last until meeting his mother.
"So I want to use this as a teaching experience. All you need to do is enact a play. Since you"re already so good at acting, it wouldn"t be hard for you."
...
Zale finished eating the food while Lucifer"s shadow clone waited.
"Looks like you are done as well. Shall we leave?" Lucifer asked Zale.
"Not yet. I promised the woman that I"d teach her some fighting skills. It seems bad to leave like that. Can I get a couple of hours to teach her at least some moves before leaving?"
"Sure. Why would I say no? Let"s go and meet her. I also need to apologize to her for my behavior last time," Lucifer said, smiling.
He stood up and walked with Zale upstairs.
Just as they reached the deck, they noticed the woman and her father standing near the railings of the ship, looking at the sea.
"She is with her father," Zale said.
"Don"t worry. I will take her father with me and keep him busy for an hour. You can talk to her. Let me talk to her father before you speak, so he isn"t suspicious." Lucifer took Zale with him to the lady whose back was facing them.
Lucifer raised his hand to call Joan, but before speaking, he sent a little wind as a signal to Joan and his daughter.
"My daughter, you really did good in fooling that Zale."
Lucifer stopped mid-way and didn"t touch Joan. He looked at Zale in confusion while gesturing to him not to make a noise.
"Of course I did. Who do you think I am, dad? No man can resist my looks. All I needed to do was tell him a sob story about being poor and stuff," the woman started laughing.
"He melted so easily and agreed to teach me. Now I"ll keep getting close to him, and before he knows it, he"ll be lying on his knees before me, begging me to love him back like a slave."
"Then we can take him home and use him to spread our influence in your business rivals."
"Hahaha, that"s so perfect." Joan laughed. "I"m so proud of you, my daughter. You did great."
"No, you did great, father. You found the perfect target. That Zale guy is so naive, unlike his sharp friend. Lucifer wouldn"t have been fooled so easily."
"Of course, it won"t work on him. I understood it as soon as I interacted with him. That guy is arrogant, but he isn"t naive. It looks like he has seen a lot of the world and knows how it works. Zale was more naive, like a kid. People like him are so easy to fool."
"Just continue your onslaught, and soon, we"ll be successful."
"Yes, father. I think I should put forth the second part of the plan and continue getting closer." The woman smiled as she turned around.
"Huh? W-what?" As soon as she turned around, she acted shocked to see Zale and Lucifer there. "H-how long have you been here?"
"Long enough to hear you talk about how stupid I was." Zale sighed. "I must say, you really showed me what I failed to see about myself."
Zale didn"t get angry or try to hurt the people who fooled him, but he was really disappointed. He truly understood how scheming people could be.
Instead of getting upset, he just turned to Lucifer. "It seems like you have a better grasp of things. Why didn"t you tell me about this possibility?"
"I just had a feeling. But if I had told you, would you have believed me?" Lucifer asked, frowning. "We are lucky that we caught them."
Joan clicked his tongue. "What lucky, you a*shole, you planned this whole conversation and the timing!"
"T-this is a misunderstanding. W-we were just practicing our play lines! Please don"t believe what you heard! Just believe me!" The woman said, placing her hand on the shoulder of Zale.
"Enough. I heard everything that I had to," Zale said as he shrugged his shoulders, freeing them from the lady.
He started walking away. Lucifer followed after Zale, smiling.
Another Lucifer clone appeared from the shadow near Joan. "This should keep him wary until he meets the right person."
"We did as you said. Are we free now?" Joan asked Lucifer.
"You are. But if I catch you doing something like this next time, you won"t be so lucky." The shadow dispersed.
....
"Do you want to stay here for longer, or shall we leave?" Lucifer asked Zale, already knowing what his answer was going to be.