Angels have lived since the beginning of time. The heavens were their territory. For them, it was paradise. There was once an angel who fell from Heaven. The first angel to fall was Lucifer. All the other angels in Heaven looked down upon Lucifer. This angel had defied God himself. Many had followed Lucifer into Hell. Lucifer has lived their whole life known as the devil, ever since the fall. Until one day they will come back and reclaim the home they lived since the beginning of time.

This was the story for the Aegis of Heaven dungeon in the game HellsCraft Online. The MMO that Lucy and I have been playing.

Even though there were influences that involve Lucy herself, she didn’t mind. There was some determination to beat the dungeon herself. She spent the past months trying to beat the dungeon which had the boss, Lucifer, at the end.

“Why is this so hard!?”

Lucy started mashing on the keyboard of a laptop. She was lying on the ground on her belly. I was sitting at my computer desk playing alongside with her. We were both playing the Aegis of Heaven dungeon along with Raphie, Colin, and Evan. Dungeons required a party of five people.

“Hey! I just bought that!”

Lucy didn’t stop mashing on the keyboard.

“You can always work at the grocery store and get another one if this breaks.”

Lucy said in a monotone manner.

“Do you know the value of hard work and labor you devil?!”

“Whatever.”

Lucy focused on the dungeon. Every hard press on the keyboard could be heard. Every press made my heart pulse faster. I could feel my blood pumping and a headache forming.

“Happy thoughts David, happy thoughts…” I whispered to myself.

It was late at night when we were playing. It was still three in the morning when I last checked the time. I hope Lucy doesn’t decide to sleep over this time. It was so late that I was too tired to be against it. I still wanted her to go back to Raphie’s place though.

I have no idea why Lucy was still staying over at my place. Raphie was busy with community service, especially in the summer. It was all she wanted to do. Since Lucy was alone all day, she just sticks around in my place.

This time I wanted her to stay over even if Raphie was still home. She needed a computer. There was no way I was going to lend her out of my supervision. I bought a laptop so we all could play at the same time. So we could finally conquer the infamous dungeon, The Aegis of Heaven. I beat it of course. It took the help of guildmates with trial and error. But for Lucy, Raphie, and Evan, it would’ve been their first time. Colin and I were the veterans of the game so we lead our group through the dungeon.

“Lucifer you devil!”

This time it wasn’t me. It was Lucy, who was engrossed in the game.

“Shut up Lucy and focus.”

I sighed and shifted my full focus on my computer monitor. On my screen was completely grey with the words ‘defeat’ in the middle of it.

We got defeated at the final boss once again. It was a difficult dungeon but we consistently were able to reach the final boss over and over just to fail at it.

“Okay, let’s take a break,” I said.

“Come on, we got this. One more time!”

“We human beings need to take a break once in a while.”

“You’re so fragile. Sometimes I forget who’s the woman in this room.”

I cracked a smile. Not a happy one though. My eyes were glaring at Lucy and that shut her up.

I walk to the fridge and pour a glass of cold water from the pitcher.

As I drank the water I noticed something. Lucy was still wearing her usual attire. Her long hair was tied back and was barefoot. But her typical white dress was much cleaner than usual. She appeared much cleaner than usual.

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It used to be disgusting really. Not even I could’ve forced her to get her act together. It was the devil after all. If there was someone who could’ve done it, it was Raphie who must have forced her to clean up. She made Lucy appeared to be less of a shut-in than before.

Finally.

Now that she was mostly out of my hands, Lucy was maintained much better with Raphie. But still, Lucy was still partially my own problem. I should’ve never given her a copy of my key in case of emergencies. That was before I ‘kicked’ her out.

Looking after the devil must have been hard work. I would know.

I was glad to know that after moving in across the hall, Raphie and Lucy were getting along.

Raphie was still busy with working at the grocery store and doing community service so Lucy was left home alone. Since Lucy was still a shut-in loser like me, she had no choice but to stick with me.

Lucy continued to smash on my laptop in rage.

“Why can’t we finish this fight!?!?”

“This is too hard!”

She continued to whine out loud what she typed in the chat.

I sighed. I wish I could’ve just gave her the laptop but it was my own money that I spent so I decided I would just keep it. It was more convenient whenever I wanted to just stay in my own bed.

“Lucy stop raging.”

“No!”

“You’re going to break my laptop.”

“No!”

“What a brat…”

I put down my glass of water on the counter and went back to my computer. When I sat I noticed something on my screen. It was a message.

“Tell Lucy to calm down.”

It was Raphie. She was reading what Lucy was typing after all.

“I’m trying,” I typed. It was a lie.

“Then actually try,” She typed.

It’s like she always knew me. I quietly laughed to myself.

We continued through the dungeon once more. I was doing most of the coordinating to lead everyone else besides Colin who could keep up on his own.

The dungeon itself wasn’t too bad. Everyone else had experience with doing the older dungeons so they had an idea of how to coordinate with one another.

The first part was a puzzle that was pretty simple to complete. The second part was a coordinated multiple boss battle that required everyone to beat their respective mini-boss at the same time. The third part was just a simple boss fight that was moderately difficult. In between each part involved fighting random monsters and smaller puzzles. Then after that was the final boss, Lucifer. We would always reach this part easily just to find ourselves completely wiped out by Lucifer. It was just difficult. It took too much time to get to such a difficult boss.

I sighed and slumped in my chair. Lucy just kept smashing on the keyboard.

I don’t even care anymore. I’ll end up finding some loose keys on the laptop later tonight, I know it. But not even I could contain the devil.

It was four in the morning when we were doing the dungeon for the fifteenth time of the day. I know Colin has work the next morning so we didn’t have much time to continue.

“Let’s do this.”

I typed on the chat. We coordinated through the dungeon and reached the final boss.

“Let’s go!!!”

“Shut up Lucy! I’m going to get a noise complaint from the neighbors!”

We went through another attempt just to fail once more.

“What the hell!!!”

“Shut up Lucy.”

Lucy just ignored me and continued to ramble on in the chat box.

Colin sent a message in the middle of Lucy’s rambling.

“We should call it a night. I got work in the morning.”

“Yeah, let’s end it right here.”

I typed out slowly. I waited until Lucy calmed down so everyone could communicate with each other.

I took off my headset and set it down on the table. Lucy just tossed my laptop on top of my bed.

It was late in the night to bother screaming at Lucy. I’ll save it for the morning. If I let her in of course.

“We’ll do this another time.”

“Tomorrow right?”

“Colin has to work, so I don’t know how late he’ll come home.”

“But we can still try tomorrow right?”

I looked up at Lucy while I sat in my chair. She stood right in front of me with her eyes wide opened.

“We have to play tomorrow.”

She spoke up again in excitement, She didn’t care for the volume she was speaking with. I was scared of the noise complaint I was going to get but I couldn’t look away from Lucy. There was this look in her eyes. I couldn’t help myself to look away. She looked up at me in excitement.

I finally broke our eye contact and stared at the ground.

“Yeah, we’ll play tomorrow. And we’ll beat the dungeon.”

“And we’ll take Lucifer down.”

She looked down at me, then to the computer. Her face wrinkled as she raised her eyebrows. Her mouth was curled into a smile and spoke up quietly.

“We can beat this.”

I’ve never seen Lucy invested in something as much as doing this dungeon. She had been playing this game casually up till now. There was something in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out. Like something wasn’t going to stop her. The Aegis of Heaven wasn’t going to be an unstoppable wall to her. Neither for the rest of us.