When Anatoli and Lucifer arrived in Steel Needle's room, the mechanism was already jammed. They didn't even need to go through the secret passage; they could just climb up directly through the ceiling.
Lucifer struggled a bit as he climbed up. The passage was narrow, so he had to work hard to fold his wings, but the edges still got scratched. As soon as he got up, he complained, "Can't they design the passage a little wider?"
"I'm afraid even if it were wider, it wouldn't accommodate your wings," Anatoli glanced back at him, "I bet since birth, Lucifer's wings have never suffered such torment. And it isn't about his abilities; it's indeed because the passage design didn't consider non-human creatures, causing unnecessary harm to him."
"I'll be filing a complaint," Lucifer said with some indignation, "I'll give them a bad review and warn other angels to avoid this dungeon."
"Besides you, I doubt any other angel would be interested in playing it." Lucifer laughed, "Unless you want another go with Michael?"
"Oh, come on. That guy just keeps ranting about abandoning duties, and he's so rigid, he's not cut out for playing games like this."
"I'll take it as a compliment that you think I'm good at it."
"Well, you are indeed quite good," Lucifer said, looking at him, "I dare say, if I weren't in the game, as soon as the mechanism broke down, the folks from the design department would already be banging on my office door."
"Who exactly is in the design department?" Anatoli asked, seemingly unintentionally.
"It's not certain," Lucifer said, "They have many freelance staff; some are invited participants, while others join out of interest. But most of these independent dungeons are designed by them."
"Actually, you can see distinct personal traits in many dungeons, and there's a lot of speculation in the comments section about who might have made a particular dungeon. Some people consistently get high praise for their dungeon designs, while some others, well..."
"I can't say they did it poorly," Lucifer paused and said, "But overly stylized designs really depend on the audience. Some niche themes, although they don't break the Battleworld rules, still make you wonder if the designers shouldn't see a Doctor."
"Who's got the highest ratings?" Anatoli asked.
"Most people don't know who the actual designers are, so they use code names to refer to them. But judging by the system backend data, dungeons involving Greed are currently the most highly rated."
In the monitoring room, Greed immediately waved, bowing to the left and then to the right, as if accepting an Oscar.
"Why?" Anatoli asked.
"I mentioned that overly stylized and niche themes aren't popular; the popular ones are comparatively more mainstream dungeons. Although Greed's dungeon designs aren't top-notch in every aspect, they win on balance. The art, combat, and storyline experiences are all good, the discounts are big, and the bundles offer great value, which is why everyone enjoys playing."
Anatoli understood, then asked, "And the bad examples?"
"Of course, it's those madmen from Arkham Asylum," Lucifer sighed, "Their dungeon designs are really too niche; they're often both difficult and twisted, with heaps of Riddler-esque plots and incomprehensible philosophical debates. However, due to this, they've also amassed a group of fans who love niche works and have become ardent followers of these madmen, even more passionate than average players."
"I know you're curious about who designed this dungeon," Lucifer said, stroking his chin, "but in Battleworld, the designers are merely completing their work. Even if they add some of their quirky interests into the dungeon, it's only to increase the game difficulty. Since no one actually gets hurt, it's not about profiteering from murder. I think you should probably avoid causing trouble for them."
Anatoli shook his head and said, "I'm not the kind of person who would go beat up the game developers just because the game is too hard. I'm just trying to figure out who the mastermind is by identifying the lead designer, right?"
"Ah, so that's what you meant," Lucifer breathed a sigh of relief.
"You seem to have designed quite a few difficult dungeons yourself," Anatoli said, "Are you worried I'll come after you later?"
"Uh..." Lucifer opened his mouth, seemingly a bit embarrassed.
Anatoli noticed and asked, "Didn't your dungeon get good reviews? Why not?"
"They say I mixed in too many religious elements, calling it illegal proselytizing," Lucifer said somewhat dejectedly, "Some even commented they'd avoid buying anything with Eden elements. My bundles haven't sold many."
"Couldn't you just tone down the religious elements a bit?"
"But to me, those aren't religious elements," Lucifer said somewhat helplessly, "For example, Eden was my childhood bedroom, Sanctuary was the living room, Holy Spring was my bathtub, Bible was my dad's diary. To put it this way, I'm just using my original family as a creative foundation, like many designers do."
Anatoli seemed intrigued and said, "So you're just reminiscing, but they think you're doing religious storytelling?"
"Yes, nowadays people are fed up with it," Lucifer sighed deeply, "Not everyone invited to Battleworld is a fool; how many actually believe in God? Let's put it this way, compared to some of them, your view on God would seem extremely friendly. These people have no qualms about using bad reviews to bomb any religious story."
"It turns out designing instances has such effects." Anatoli pondered, "Can I join the design department?"
"Oh, my God, are you going to preach... I mean, spread your ideas, too?" Lucifer scratched his head and said, "Greed told me he's ready to open the free design feature, meaning anyone can design instances and publish them, freely competing. By then, the competition will be intense, only truly excellent works will stand out."
"Then I can give it a try, and if there are technical issues I can't figure out, I'll come to you." Anatoli seemed very interested.
"What kind of story do you plan to design?"
"How about our story?"
Lucifer was astonished, he looked at Anatoli, who said, "The things we've gone through together are rather epic, right? There have always been plenty of literary and artistic works themed on autobiographies."
"Then you could definitely write your own autobiography."
"But you play a very important role in it." Anatoli looked into Lucifer's eyes and said, "I can't even avoid talking about you when writing my autobiography, otherwise this whole thing wouldn't make sense."
Lucifer seemed a bit bewildered and at a loss for words, he finally managed to say, "Really? You want everyone to know our story? Despite..."
"Despite what?"
"Despite me losing a lot of things you gave me." Lucifer avoided Anatoli's gaze.
"But I also deceived you, we're even." Anatoli said, glancing at the steel needle he's been holding in his hand.
"Something's not right." Greed paced in the monitoring room. "Anatoli is not the type who likes to expose private relationships to the public, in fact, he's quite conservative about it, rarely mentioning his friends to strangers. And with figures like Batman around, is it really okay to just reveal their past publicly?"
"What are you worried about?" Stark looked at him and asked. "Isn't it normal to want to turn your experiences with your good friend into a book or a game? Once the free design permissions open, I'm going to make an autobiography too."
"Seems like he matters a lot to you." Joker casually said to Shiller. "Could it be that you also played a significant role in his life experiences?"
"That's the issue, if he can't avoid talking about Lucifer, then he can't avoid talking about me either. And he's a very ethical Doctor, there's no way he would disclose a patient's privacy."
"Perhaps he doesn't intend to sell it." Stark said. "Just make it as a commemoration."
The word "commemoration" seemed to spark some ideas in Greed, but he didn't say anything, just looked again at the surveillance screen.
"How do we play this round?" Charles looked at the cage in the middle of the room, while Erik noticed a brick on the wall. This room wasn't as dark as before, though it's not as bright as the room with the scales, it's still clear enough to see. Therefore, he instinctively noticed a brick on the right side of the wall that seemed a bit protruding.
He walked over and picked at it with his fingers, some dirt fell off the seam, then he used an iron bar to dig into the seam, discovering he could actually pry it open. While Charles was studying the cage, Erik persistently worked at the seam of the bricks, and finally managed to pry off the brick.
On the back of the brick, a line was written in blood: "They are watching."
Charles also moved over, pausing as he saw the blood words, blinking, then said, "Is this part of the storyline?"
"It should be." Erik nodded, after thinking for a moment, he said, "'They are watching'? Who are 'they'? And how are they watching?"
"Looks like the behind-the-scenes manipulator is indeed an organization." Charles started thinking from another direction, "If it really is an evil company conducting some human experiments, it's normal for them to watch here through surveillance."
Erik gently shook his head and said, "I don't think it's that simple. After the previous challenges, this person probably isn't in a good state, leaving clues would certainly be difficult. Since they leave them, they must leave the most important ones."
"And since this person can fool the eyes of the monitors and hide information behind a brick, it proves they're very smart and aren't stupid enough to fail to condense important information. That they chose to tell us 'someone is watching', it indicates this message is the most important. But this isn't actually normal, is it?"
"That's right." Charles nodded and said, "Normally, important information should help in clearing the level or directly pointing out the identity and purpose of the behind-the-scenes manipulator. Whether someone's watching isn't important, what difference does it make if someone's watching?"
"On the contrary, it would be strange if no one was watching. People who make it this far can more or less guess there's someone behind it all, they couldn't possibly have created such a big escape room and forgotten to install surveillance cameras. Normal people can guess someone is watching here, this seems entirely like invalid information. Unless..."
They exchanged a glance, Erik said, "The identity and purpose of the behind-the-scenes manipulator are related to 'watching'."