"What do you mean?" Zale asked, confused.
"Oh, sorry. First, I should ask if you two are married or single?" Joan corrected his question as he remembered he didn't even know if the two of them had any wives already or not.
"I am not married yet," Zale answered before glancing at Lucifer. "Are you?"
Lucifer also shook his head.
"That's good. So the thing is that I have a young daughter who is of marriage age. She is really beautiful and a kind-hearted soul. Someone that many people crush over. But I always wanted to find a worthy husband for my daughter."
"I was wondering if any of you would be interested in getting to know my daughter? If things work out, then all is well. If they don't, it'll still be fine. I just want her to find the right match."
While talking, the man tried to hide his real motives while acting as a concerned father of her daughter who just wanted her happiness.
"Ah..."
Zale simply looked at the man. He had thought the man had an important reason to talk to them, but he just wanted to set one of them up with his daughter?
"I think you should leave. None of us are interested in marriage at the moment," Lucifer chimed in, taking the lead.
Joan had already expected Lucifer to say no. He had a feeling that Lucifer was a spoilsport, but he still had hopes on Zale, who was much calmer.
"Yeah. I don't think we are ready for marriage. We still have a lot of things to achieve," Zale agreed with Lucifer.
"I'm not talking about marriage. But you can at least talk to her and get to know her. I'm sure you'll fall in love instantly," Joan insisted. "Please just once! Just talk to her!"
"Old man, I told you that we aren't free. This is the last time I'll say it. If you don't stop talking about it, you literally won't be able to talk the next minute. You know why?" Lucifer asked, glancing at Joan.
"Why?" Joan asked.
"Because your tongue will be in my hand, and your body would be lying near that wall in the distance. So if you want to be able to speak in the future, you should leave this instant."
As Lucifer talked, he didn't forget to give a little hint of his power by making the chair of Joan fly in the air.
The chair kept going farther and farther from the table of Lucifer.
"W-what?" Joan grew scared even though his chair was only flying a few inches above the ground.
He hastily got off the chair and ran away. He didn't dare to speak of this matter again, at least not until Lucifer was with Zale.
"What an idiot." Lucifer rolled his eyes, watching Joan leave.
"I think we should've handled him with care. Do you think we went overboard?" Zale asked Lucifer.
"Overboard? Not at all. You haven't seen my overboard at all. This was pretty tame," Lucifer replied, smiling. "Sometimes, you need to go to such lengths to get rid of idiots like them. Or you'll just waste your time."
...
Joan hastily ran upstairs, heavily breathing. His face was covered in sweat, and his face was slightly pale after running so fast.
He walked to a chair near his family and sat down, wiping his sweat.
His pale face attracted the attention of his daughter. "What happened? Why does it look like you ran a marathon?'
Joan told her and his wife everything that had transpired and how Lucifer behaved with him.
"I think that Silver-haired dude is more fierce. He is scary, arrogant, and gives me a bad vibe. The dark-haired guy is very nice. I think he would be a good husband for you. Now I just need to find him alone to talk to him," he said, sighing.
"No, wait. Instead of me talking to them, I think you should do it yourself. Try to attract the dark-haired Variant."
"Even after them insulting you like this, you still don't want to leave them alone? Who cares about those idiots. Let them be."
"My dear daughter, you don't understand. They are Variants and probably strong ones amongst them! Of course, they'll be arrogant. But as you know, all men fall before beauty."
"They might not understand my words when I tell them how beautiful my daughter is, but when you try to seduce them, there is no way they could resist," Joan said, patting the head of his daughter.
"Please, make my dream come true. I don't ask anything else from you as long as you can make the dark-haired Variant marry you. Just do this one thing. Please, daughter? Think of the future!"
"Sigh, you..." Joan's daughter didn't know how to respond. It seemed like his father had gone crazy about her marriage.
"Sigh, fine. I'll try. But I won't go out of my way. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, I won't try again. Moreover, if I don't like him after talking to him, I'll leave."
"Agreed!"
...
The waiter had left to get the best of dishes for the Variant guests that had suddenly arrived there, but on being asked, he didn't forget to tell his higher ups about the threats that he had received.
As he repeated the threat of Lucifer to his fellow members, the threat soon spread far and wide, ultimately reaching the Captain of this ship.
It also reached the deck. Slowly, the threat was everywhere. Everyone knew that the ship was hijacked by Variants, who were going to destroy it if their threats weren't met.
Amongst the people, Joan and his family were there as well.
"See? That's the power of the Variants! With just one sentence, they shook the entire Cruise and took everything in their control. I can't even imagine how beneficial they would be for my business," Joan let out, laughing.
Instead of being scared, he was proud of his future son-in-law.
That wasn't the worst part though. The worst part was that the threat also reached another Variant who was travelling on the ship as an ordinary passenger.
It was a dark-haired man who was basking in the sunlight on the deck. He had noticed two Variants landing on the deck, but he hadn't reacted much.
He didn't care about the appearance of Variants since he was also one, but it was a different matter now that he heard how arrogant those Variants were being.
The man wasn't any ordinary person either.. He was the most important piece of the future that was going to define what the world was going to become in the future.