"This is?"
Ina watched as Luke opened the door and walked into the bedroom, watched him pick up a little girl of two or three years old from the bed, watched him hold the little girl's waist with his arms, watched the little girl's tiny hands and feet hang down like a cat, watched Luke walk up to her, hold the little girl's armpits with both hands, hold her in front of her eyes, and show her up close.
Luke poked his head out from behind the girl he was holding like a pet, "Kid."
"I know this is a child. What I want to ask is, who does she belong to?" Ina pondered as she looked at the little girl's face, which seemed more and more familiar.
"Ah! Ah!" The little girl opened her mouth and spit out a bunch of bubbles, waving her chubby little hands in the air with joy. Maybe she thought Luke was playing some kind of lifting-up game with her.
"What is she saying?" Ina looked bewildered. She knew many foreign languages, but she really couldn't understand baby talk.
"I don't understand either, but I think she's calling daddy." Luke said calmly.
Ina suddenly woke up, wondering where that familiar feeling came from.
"Your daughter? Your biological daughter? Damn it! Impossible! You don't have the time to do that, do you? Is it some female researcher at the company? I'm confused." Ina's expression changed instantly. She wanted to launch a violent attack, but the delicate little girl acted as a shield, making it difficult for her to do so. After her anger subsided, she quickly began to mentally check for suspicious candidates.
"No, it has nothing to do with that." Luke said aloud: "She was an accident."
"Of course she was an accident!" Ina raised her eyes and looked at Luke who had stuck his head out again.
"The accident I'm referring to is an accident during an experiment." Luke sighed, and pushed the little girl who was trying desperately to turn around and get into his arms directly on his head, which earned her a giggle. He then freed one hand to pull Ina downstairs and explained to her the whole story of the little girl.
More than 20 minutes later, Ina, who was sitting on the sofa, listened to Luke's explanation and looked at the little girl's delicate face. Then, with a strange and incredulous expression, she said, "So, this little girl isn't your biological child, but a Cosmic Cube?"
"No, in the words of Master Ancient One, strictly speaking, she can be considered my biological child in every sense. As for the Rubik's Cube? Well, just treat her as a non-vital child." Luke corrected her.
"But she looks no different from a normal child. I can feel the warmth under her skin." Ina stepped forward and tentatively touched the little girl. She felt like a real human child.
"It's not a bad idea to treat her as a real person." Luke felt a drooling little mouth biting his forehead.
"So you called me home just to introduce her to me? By the way, have you named her?" Ina looked at the little girl struggling on Luke's head, and a kind of maternal love inexplicably surged in her heart.
"Well, Becky. Becky Field." Luke thought for a moment and gave a name.
"Nothing special." Ina curled her lips in disdain, looked at the little girl and said, "Can I hug her?"
"Of course, that's why I asked you to come here. I think as a girlfriend, you should also take part in the parent-child time." Luke couldn't wait to grab little Becky from his head, stuffed him into Ina's arms next to him, and breathed a sigh of relief.
"It seems that besides research, you have another thing you are not good at."
Ina, who had mocked Luke for not being able to raise a child, quickly regretted her words. In just half an hour, she was already filled with frustration. Her once-perfectly styled hair was now a mess, and her expensive custom-made dress was a rumpled mess. And now, she was struggling to control little Becky in her arms, preventing her from crawling out.
Because just now she had moved her closer to the coffee table as she wished, but little Becky bit the table in her horror. Before she could think of a way to get her to let go, the little girl's mouth seemed to have a light-emitting device, and a blue light had already spread out. When the light spread over the entire table, the table shrank rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, and then was bitten by little Becky. The seemingly fragile baby teeth chewed the metal table like chewing biscuits, making a crackling sound.
"Oh my god! Spit it out!" Ina, stunned by the scene, instinctively tried to reach in and snatch the food from Becky's mouth, prying the shrunken table fragments out. But this action was met with fierce struggle and resistance from Becky, whose tiny teeth not only chewed faster but even bit Ina's probing finger. After Ina withdrew her finger in pain, she chewed it twice and swallowed the table. Then, her eyes returned to the sofa beneath her.
This forced Ina to stand up with little Becky in her arms, and stand far away in the empty space of the living room, fighting with little Becky in her arms who was struggling hard to find food.
"Here." Luke walked over and shoved a large 3,000ml bottle into Ina's hands. Little Becky stopped struggling almost instantly when she saw the bottle. Her azure eyes fixed on it, and her chubby little hands reached out to grab the two small handles that had been specially made for her. Her thin body held the bottle, which was about the same size as her, firmly.
"Huh, she's finally quiet. I know kids will chew on whatever is at hand, but little Becky..." Ina got stuck halfway through her sentence because she didn't know how to describe some of little Becky's behaviors and his incredible appetite.
"Maybe it's because I extracted too much energy from her, and she can't recover for a while. Her original form shouldn't be that of a baby. The current manifestation is that she feels hungry all the time. And because she may have integrated a part of my consciousness, she has mastered an instinct of life without any guidance, which is to eat to replenish energy when hungry. So when she wakes up, she has to chew on something. In addition to people and the bed she sleeps on. This is the result of my teaching for a long time. She is completely like a blank sheet of paper, and is more difficult to teach than an ordinary human toddler. After all, no matter how much she looks like a human, she is not an ordinary human toddler in essence." Luke explained to Ina.
"Okay, it seems we were overthinking it. But what did you give her to drink? It doesn't look like milk. It also looks a little familiar."
Ina finally breathed a sigh of relief as she held little Becky, who had finally calmed down. Though still small, she struggled mightily, and it took every ounce of her strength to stop her from escaping her arms. Once settled, her attention shifted to the large bottle Becky clutched tightly. As if sensing Ina's gaze, Becky's chubby arms tightened around the bottle, causing the liquid inside to drop noticeably faster.
"It's what you were thinking of. A multi-filtered emotional fluid," Luke replied. "It's all I have on hand right now. It can temporarily satisfy her appetite and give her some peace."
Such a large can of filtered emotion fluid would require at least five or six cans a day. Converted into the new currency and then into real money, it would be beyond the reach of the average wealthy family. Even a major funding body like S.H.I.E.L.D. would be intimidated by Becky's appetite and would retreat. In fact, Luke didn't dare to let Becky eat his fill. That would probably drain his entire supply of emotion fluid.
Ina watched in astonishment as the little creature devoured the bottle effortlessly, his speed dropping by one gulp after another. She finally recognized his uniqueness. This bottle of emotional fluid, converted into enough energy to last Heberon at its current size for at least a hundred years! Yet, it went into his stomach, not even causing a bulge. Even as the specially designed straw drained the fluid from the bottle, the little creature's face still showed a look of unsatisfied regret.
"Ah, ah!" Little Becky grabbed his empty little bottle and kept saying "ah, ah, ah" to Luke. Even though Ina didn't understand baby language this time, she could understand that this meant he wanted more.
"Eat small, frequent meals." Luke took Becky's precious little bottle. He'd given it to the little one before, but her stomach was a bottomless pit. No matter how much emotional fluid she drank, she never felt full. Becky's insatiable appetite had given Luke the strange thought that one day she would drink him bankrupt.
Energy is something that is always lacking and can never be satisfied.
Luke couldn't help but sigh inwardly once again, completely acknowledging reality. His only hope now was to quickly complete his Dark City and stuff the Mangogo monster promised him by God-King Odin into the Dark City's power core, thereby alleviating his still-stretched energy reserves. Of course, if possible, he could also discuss with his two partners about hunting down a few weaker dimensional demons and exploiting them. Even if the energy was divided equally, the cake would always grow in size, right?
If all else fails, it's not impossible to team up with other powerful dimensional demons and cooperate. For example, that guy, Mephisto, the lord of the Hell dimension, must have his rivals, right?
Do we need the help of a powerful external force?
If you need us, just ask. We'll work out a good price and our respective allocations. Once we agree on a deal and sign it, you'll provide target information, logistics, and bait. We'll help you with ambushes and positioning. Finally, once we capture the target, we'll divide the profits according to the agreement.