The Simulacrum - Chapter 114

As soon as I stepped through the door, the main hall erupted into cacophonous noise.

“Haha! See, honey? I told you he’d be all right!” dad-in-law’s voice rose above the wall of sound as he hugged his wife to his side.

“Kihihi! Galatea, quick! Bring the detectors!” Fred exclaimed in the back, lugging some kind of device on his back.

“Brother Leonard is back!” a tiny dragonette squeezed her way through the forest of legs rooted in front of the door, only to be picked up by a pair of huge fingers by the scruff of her neck.

“Careful. Could get hurt.”

Karukk gently placed Odango Girl onto his left shoulder, since his right one was already occupied by Ichiko, who was animatedly waving to me with one hand, while the other was holding onto the Faun’s horn.

“Everybody! Please quiet down!”

Roland, Arnwald, and Morgana tried their best to keep the rowdy crowd under control, to little avail.

“What a nuisance,” Sebastian muttered on the edge of the group, yet I could still perfectly hear him, and the familiar maid with the twin braids was nodding along by his side.

“He’s back. Can we go home now?”

“Zihao. Behave yourself. We’re in public,” Naoren scolded his younger brother, but then he saw that Xiao was still sitting on Karukk’s shoulder, and he promptly buried his face in his palm.

Let’s count, shall we? First, there were the girls. Then the Knights with all the squires, my in-laws along with the butler and Melinda, the Fauns, the entirety of the Research Division, the three Feilongs, the Kage ninjas led by Rinne, the mini-miko, and…

“Leooo!”

My headcount was interrupted by a certain Celestial elbowing her way through the crowd and making a beeline right at me. I was getting ready for another tackle, but thankfully she came to a halt before we could collide and grabbed hold of my hand. On closer look, was she prettier than usual? She had a kind of glow to her. Maybe some kind of makeup, I wondered?

Not that I had much time for that, as a moment later, her mouth opened.

“Are you all right? Are you hurt? How did you escape? No, wait! How did they even kidnap you in the first place? Can’t you do that thing of yours anymore without the mask? Was that how you got away? Wait! Your hand is cold! Let me check! Josh was sooo worried about you, you know?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

Her torrent of questions was dammed up by the appearance of our resident protagonist, using the gap she made to follow her to the forefront, and he was closely trailed by the class rep, and…

“Wow! Like, you look like a totally different person in white!”

The question, “What are you doing here?” slipped through my teeth before I could catch it, but Sahi, dressed in her school uniform, didn’t take offence.

“We’re here to represent the Critias School of Conjuration. Plus, like, Endy.”

Before I could ask what she meant by ‘we’, I finally noticed a distinctly exhausted Armband Guy, still stuck in the crowd between the Fauns and the squires and unable to follow after her.

“I’m glad to see that you’re all right,” Ammy addressed me before I could ask who invited those two, and she casually readjusted my collar that got dishevelled by the girls and their various tackles and hugs. “Everyone was really worried about you when you disappeared. Especially Joshua.”

“No, I wasn’t!” the guy protested and crossed his arms. “I told you that he should be back in a day or two, and I was right.”

“Yes, you did,” Ammy agreed with a slight tweak of her glasses. “Then you started making plans to invade the Abyss and rescue him in case he didn’t return on his own.”

That was unusually proactive of the guy, but once again, the conversation moved on before I could get a word in.

“How’s he?” the class rep inquired, her eyes fixed on Angie, and… yep, she was definitely cuter than before. Was it something about her eyes? Or maybe her cheeks?

“He has internal injuries all over his astral body, but it’s nothing major,” our unlicensed healer noted, and after a bit more humming, she added, “His right arm is in the worst shape, but it’s already healing.”

“Like, mana burns?” Sahi butted in, sounding more curious than worried.

“Yes. The kind you get from using too much power for too long,” Angie explained, and yet again, they moved on before I could explain myself.

“Is that true?” Penny raised an alarmed voice and grabbed my free hand. “Have you been fighting for your life all this time?”

“No, I really wasn’t,” I squeezed out, only to then be interrupted when Judy and Elly moved in unison and pushed everyone back.

“Give the Chief some breathing room.”

Saying that, my dear assistant peeled Angie’s hands off my own and shooed her away. In the meantime, Elly did the same to the rest, with literally ‘Shoo! Shoo!’ noises. It barely worked, and while our friends took a step back, the rest of the peanut gallery used the opportunity to try and replace them, forcing me to raise my hands.

“Everyone, calm down, please! Stop acting like I just came back from the dead and could keel over at any second, would you?”

“My boy, returning from the Abyss is, in many ways, just as miraculous,” Sebastian pointed out on one side, and many seemed to agree with him.

“Well then, it’s even less reasonable, because I didn’t come back from the Abyss either.”

“You didn’t?” mom-in-law raised her voice, along with a brow that was half shocked and half skeptical. “Then where were you?”

“It’s a long story, so how about we first move over to the briefing area and sit down?” I proposed, and while everyone agreed with me, the process of actually getting there lasted longer than expected, because, despite my best efforts, I still got surrounded all over again.

First, it was my in-laws, along with Sebastian and the Feilongs.

“Why do you always have to stir up trouble wherever you go?” mom-in-law sulked while playfully pinching my cheek, eliciting a series of chuckles from her husband and daughter.

“I think we were all very much aware of how much of a troublemaker he was when we accepted him into the family,” Sebastian noted blandly, yet I could see a tiny hint of concern in his eyes, which… frankly, gave me shivers.

“Leonard. Be honest with me. Was this part of another one of your schemes?” Naoren levelled a question at me the moment he could get in front of me, and I didn’t quite know how to answer him.

“It wasn’t, but now it kind of is, I suppose? I’ll try to explain it later.”

“As expected.” The bespectacled patriarch exhaled a long sigh, and once his eyes cleared up a bit, he looked me over and left me with the words, “For the record, darker colours suit you better.”

Before I could even respond, he was practically shoved out of the way by Mountain Girl, and while that was quite rude, he didn’t seem to mind much.

“Rinne wishes to apologize, Leonard-dono! As Leonard-dono’s retainer, Rinne should have been—”

“Ue-sama isn’t mad at you, Rinne-san!” Ichiko came to the rescue and stopped her from trying to genuflect in front of me. “Isn’t that right, Ue-sama?”

“Yeah, what she said. I left you out and got caught up in this mess on my own, so it would be monumentally hypocritical of me to blame you for anything.”

Mountain Girl’s face lit up like I just took a literal mountain off her shoulders, but we couldn’t share another word, as Fred elbowed his way into the conversation.

“Kihihi! Boss, please stand still for a moment!”

Saying so, he aimed a large device with a parabolic antenna on one end and a tangle of wires connecting it to a large backpack on the other. Both the tool in his hand and the thingamabob on his back were covered in twirling mechanical gizmos, blinking lights, and a bunch of knobs and dials.

“Fred? What are you doing?”

“Science!” he responded loudly, with zero self-awareness, and he would’ve probably continued to do… whatever he was doing, if not for Galatea dragging him away.

“Master, please don’t bother Grandmaster. You can scan his manatronic signature after he told us what happened.”

“L-Let me go! We have to do it while the traces are fresh!”

Whatever that was about got fully resolved when both the Fauns and the Knights pushed him back to get to me.

“Blackcloak. Welcome,” Brang spoke up softly and gave me a salute.

“Welcome back, my liege,” Arnwald represented the Ordo Draconis members, and while they didn’t all greet me individually or salute, they all nodded more or less in unison. “I’m glad you are back.”

“For the time being,” I pointed out before they would get their hopes up, and it prompted Roland to raise a brow.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I just told you, it’s a long story. I’ll explain everything shortly. Why don’t we just move on?”

“Uh-oh. Brace yoorselves, a’ fowk. Ah bit thes is gonna be a pain in th’ crease again…”

“Duncan! Language!” my sister hissed under her breath, while Morgana used a much more direct method and slapped the big guy on the back of his head.

“Choose your words more carefully, Sir Duncan,” she scolded him, only to then say, “Whether it’s a pain in the ass or not, you should not question His Majesty in public.”

“Was ‘at serioosly th’ hin’ ye burst me fur?”

Instead of words, she showed his disapproval with another light bonk to his head. It was odd, but then I noticed that Raven Boy was giving them a ‘Here we go again…’ kind of look in the background, so maybe these kinds of interactions were common? If memory served right, Duncan used to be her squire before he got his own title, so it wasn’t out of the question.

Meanwhile, Agrawain noticed that I was staring at him, and gave me a glare that said, ‘What are you looking at, punk?’, and even after he noticed the disapproving frown on his aunt’s face, it only softened into a ‘What are you looking at, sir?’.

As a matter of fact, I had much better things to look at, so I turned my gaze away. In particular, I was looking for Sahi in the crowd, as I still wanted to know exactly what she was doing here, yet tried as I might, somehow my eyes were drawn back to Angie time and time again. Worse yet, it didn’t escape a certain Dormouse’s notice.

“Chief? Why do you keep staring at Angeline?”

“I’ll be damned if I knew,” I admitted without trying to avoid the issue, lest she would misunderstand and we’d get into another one of those ‘anti-harem counter-measures’ dialogue spirals. “She just looks different from usual. She’s kind of… extra pretty, I suppose?”

“Isn’t that the baseline?” The princess’s whisper caused both of us to turn questioning gazes at her, so she hastily clarified, “You know? That thing about how everyone is pretty because of the Si—… that thing we don’t talk about in public?”

“Yeah, but she’s… how should I put it…?”

“You find her attractive?” Judy proposed, and after tasting the word for a while, I shook my head.

“Nah, not really. It’s more like there’s this sense of familiarity.”

“Oh, I think I got it!” Elly exclaimed, drawing nominal attention before shielding her mouth with her hand and whispering, “Maybe it’s because of those memories you absorbed. She’s a Celestial, and you’re feeling kinship.”

“Potentially,” Judy agreed, if tentatively, then suddenly poked me with, “Or it might’ve reawakened the Chief’s dormant harem seeker tendencies.”

“Not funny.”

My response earned me a light shrug.

“You better keep your eyes under control, before Josh notices and thinks we’re in a netorare story. Or worse yet, you make me jealous.”

“You? Jealous? No way,” I jested, and this time I got my foot lightly stomped for my trouble.

Meanwhile, Elly tugged on my sleeve, and when I turned to her, I found her other hand on her hips and a pair of stern eyes gazing into mine.

“That ‘netorare’ thing is no good! You have to be careful about it!”

“Please, princess. Who do you take me for?”

“The single most influential and powerful person I know, who also happens to be rich and ridiculously handsome?”

Her straightforward answer made me freeze up for a second, but then I turned to Judy and timidly asked, “Dormouse? I’m not ‘ridiculously’ handsome, am I?”

“Sorry Chief, it’s the truth. I’m sorry you had to learn it this way.”

I didn’t know how much I could trust her on that, considering even while she said that, she was still tapping the sole of her feet against my shoes in a distant facsimile of a stomp. In any case, I made a mental note about avoiding eye contact with the friendly neighbourhood Celestial for the time being, and once things calmed down, ask Fred to run some tests on me to figure out whether my newfound fondness of her really had something to do with the fragments of Polemos embedded into my subconscious.

“Unhand me at once! There’s data at stake! You’re obstructing science!”

… Maybe after the Kage ninjas finished restraining him, I guessed?

In any case, despite having to constantly weave in and out of conversations while we walked, we finally reached the briefing area of the great hall. It was the same as usual, except for maybe the first time since its construction, almost all the seats on the circular benches surrounding the whiteboard had been filled up with people. On a side note, I finally managed to find Sahi in the crowd, but she was sitting in the back, and when our gazes crossed, she flashed a grin and waved at me, completely unaware of how much her presence bothered me.

At last, the girls detached themselves from me and joined Snowy and Penny in the first row. There was a sort of naturally-formed hierarchy in the seating arrangements; my family and friends, including Josh and the usual suspects, the girls, my inlaws, and Sebastian (for some reason) occupied the first row, followed by the Feilongs, the Fauns, and the Knights (for the record, Odango Girl and Ichiko were still on Karukk’s shoulders), with Rinne in the middle. Then, behind them, were all the squires, the ninjas, the research division, and then in the corner, Sahi and Pascal.

Looking at all of them at once like this… I touched many lives in these few short months, haven’t I? Some for the better, I hoped. At the very least, a meeting between this many former rivals and enemies would’ve been outright impossible, and the less said about the weirdoes and outliers, the better.

No seriously. I won’t talk about Mountain Girl still acting like a caricature of a dishonoured samurai from some cheap historical drama, or Labcoat Guy still sulking after his techno-backpack was taken away. I won’t.

Anyhow, what I was trying to say was that, while all of them coming together like this because they were worried about me felt nice, it was also a little overwhelming. I couldn’t just stand in the middle of the crossfire of their gazes like a buffoon. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about stage fright, since I was pretty used to speaking in front of crowds of various degrees of weirdness, which at least made things a little easier on me. On the flip side, I had no voice amplification, and the ambient noise level remained the same no matter how much I waited.

It didn’t take me long to run out of patience, and lacking a better option, I pulled out both of my weapons and banged their blades against each other over my head. Since they were both top-of-the-line enchanted artifacts, the clash not only caused a loud sound but also some bright sparks that should’ve been visible to everyone, not just my magic-attuned eyes.

“Can I get started?”

That, combined with the loud question, did the trick, and once everyone quieted down, I sheathed my complaining blades and cleared my throat.

“First of all, thank you for attending this emergency meeting on such a short notice. I didn’t think all of you could make it, or expect all of you to be invited, to be honest, but since we’re all here… let me start with a question that’s been on my mind for a while.” Pausing, I turned to the front row, with Josh’s group and the girls in particular. “Shouldn’t you still be in school?”

While I thought that was an entirely reasonable question, it was followed by a confused beat, then barely stifled snickers.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Josh said with his hand in front of his mouth. “It’s just that… we have this big meeting, about you getting kidnapped and everything, and that is your first question.”

“That was sooo Leo of you,” Angie followed him up with a giggle, and Ammy nodded along like it made perfect sense.

“We got the whole week off,” Judy came to the rescue, but when I gestured for her to elaborate, it was the class rep who spoke up first.

“I told grandfather what happened, and that Judy and Eleanor were in protective custody. Since we’re already busy with the Assembly delegation, I proposed that we should shut down Blue Cherry High for the time being.”

“And he agreed just like that?”

“Grandfather naturally realized the gravitas of the situation. Also, we didn’t want you to miss too many marks on your attendance records.” As if rehearsed ahead of time, she shared a meaningful glance with Judy, and puffed out her chest. “I was very persuasive.”

There was a biting comment on the tip of my tongue, something about calling other people’s priorities messed up and then pulling a stunt like that, but I swallowed it down and uttered a soft, “Well, thanks, I guess.”

“Don’t even mention it.”

Ammy still sounded rather pleased with herself. I didn’t press the issue, but instead I roughly cleared my throat and swept my gaze across the seats in front of me.

“Now, I’m sure you’re all aware of the hubbub that’s been going on for the past couple of days. Before we start, let’s make one thing clear: rumours of my kidnapping were grossly exaggerated. You might even go as far as to say, ‘fabricated’.”

“Which part?” Roland cut in with an inquisitive frown. “The part where you were kidnapped, or the part where it was done by the Abyssals?”

“Both!” I exclaimed and raised a finger for emphasis. “As a matter of fact, it was a Celestial operation, and while they technically were trying to snatch me up, I let them take me along by my own free will.”

“But… why?” Snowy raised a question, and my other sister repeatedly nodded in support of it, all the while looking eminently confused. Which reminded me…

“Well, it was mostly to scout out the Elysium and some other stuff, but don’t worry, I’ll explain everything in detail. However, before we get to that… Snowy? Roland?”

“Y-Yes?/At your command.”

Putting their radically different responses aside, I pointed at my knightly sister in the middle.

“Please sit next to Penny and, if necessary, grab her.”

Snowy was already right next to her, and despite looking rather skeptical of my request, our Mr Griffon followed it to the letter and grabbed hold of the shoulders of the confused redhead in the middle. I waited for everyone to settle down, and then took a large breath and began my (mostly) sincere, (more or less) accurate, and rather (absurdly) long explanation of the events that started on an unassuming Sunday morning and led us to the current situation.

Also, for the record…

“Uncle Percy did whaaat?!”

… my choice to box Penny in ahead of time, so that she wouldn’t interrupt my recollection more than necessary, was on the money. Ha! Suck it up, hindsight; this time, I won!

“… and that’s the gist of it.”

The silence left in the wake of my straightforward and not-at-all rambling description of the recent developments was about as deafeningly still as expected. My girlfriends already knew most of it, so they were the least affected, while the other end of the spectrum was represented by Penny, who was still stunned over dear Uncle Percy’s involvement in the events. Everyone else was stuck somewhere in-between those two extremes.

I could understand that all of this was hard to digest at once, but we didn’t have all day, so after letting the first shock settle, I lightly cleared my throat.

“So? Any questions?”

“Too many to count,” Sebastian uttered in a voice flatter than the great plains and turned to Melinda by his side. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but we have already tested the boy, didn’t we?”

“Naturally. I collected the blood sample myself.”

Our local incognito dragon let out an intrigued hum and turned his gaze back to me.

“I think a second test is warranted.”

“With all due respect, von Fraenir.” The moment he raised his voice, everyone’s attention was glued to Arnwald, especially when he stood up. Most likely for the sake of emphasis. “While I understand that you care deeply about maintaining the bloodline of the Dracis family, we must focus on the matters more immediately perilous first.”

The two of them locked eyes for a second or five, and it resulted in the butler clicking his tongue and whispering something along the lines of ‘Just once I try to lighten the mood, and this is what I get…’

Nobody was paying attention to him though, as Naoren used the opportunity to raise his voice next.

“I believe our first order of business must be dealing with the traitor in our midst. I’m sure Leonard already has something in mind.”

“Kind of,” I responded a tad awkwardly, as I didn’t really have any concrete plan yet. It didn’t stop me from offering an ad-hoc idea thought. “Right now, he believes he got away with it. Let him keep thinking that. Ideally, I’d want him to get as full of himself as possible, just to make his downfall all the sweeter, so it would be best if everyone could pretend to fall for his schemes, and keep him busy that way while I’m away in the Elysium, and—”

“Hold on!” Roland suddenly raised his voice and sprung to his feet, following Arnwald’s example. “You’re going back to the Elysium? Why?”

“I… thought I adequately explained that. They think I’m this Second True Archon guy.”

“But you’re not,” Roland pressed on, and for a moment, I didn’t know how to respond.

“Well, no, not in the strict sense, but I worked hard to make them believe it, and it would be a waste not to capitalize on the opportunity to infiltrate the Celestial high command. There’s also this whole thing with the three factions, and I’m still trying to figure out who’s the least dastardly bastardly of them, so…”

“Leonard. Stop.” It was only at this point that I realized that Roland was glaring at me, and when I fell silent, he left Penny in Snowy’s care and walked over to my side with heavy steps before grabbing hold of my shoulder and pulling me over. “We need to talk. In private.”

His whispers were squeezed through clenched teeth, and for a second or two, I could only blink as I went through a whole gamut of internal reactions. First, there was this weird sense of irritation welling up from the pit of my stomach. Something about ‘insubordination’ and ‘questioning superiors’ and whatnot. That really didn’t feel like something I would think, whether it came from my digestive tract or not, but then the much more immediate surprise overwrote it anyway, so I didn’t bother to think too hard about it. That was followed by a wave of apprehension, but not even that lasted for only so long before my better judgement quickly concluded that Roland wouldn’t have done something like this if it wasn’t important.

As such, I nodded and turned to the jam-packed and I forcefully cleared my throat.

“Now then, how about we take a short break? We’ll be right back.”

Before the small crowd on the benches could even react, Roland already walked away, and I hurriedly followed after him.

“What is this about?”

He flatly responded with “It’s not private enough,” and led me towards the reception area with the teleport closet. I followed without any protests, and the moment we were inside, he closed the door behind us, before anyone else could’ve followed. We walked over to the other end of the room, and the moment we stopped, he raised a hand to massage his temple.

“So… is this about something the others weren’t supposed to hear?” I prompted him again, and this time, I was rewarded with a frown and a hard-to-interpret groan.

“Partially.” He fixed his posture and added, “Voicing one’s disagreement with his superior during a meeting is counter-productive, and it’s better to discuss the topic in private before forming a united front in public.”

“In other words, you disagree with something I said.”

Roland looked at me like I was a dimwit, and massaged his temple again.

“Yes. Yes, I do.” He took a deep breath and crossed his arms with a solemn frown on his face. “Leonard. Are you even aware of the full implications of this situation?”

“I’m pretty sure I am,” I answered maybe a touch too flippantly, as his brows immediately descended another notch.

“I’m not convinced. If you were, you wouldn’t have made a suggestion like that.”

“Which part? The one about Percival, or the one about going back to the Elysium?” Instead of answering, he was only giving me a disapproving glare, the kind that you would see on the face of a teacher when you told them the dog ate your homework, and it automatically put me on the defensive. “What? It’s not that complicated. Just let Percival think that he’s turning people against each other within the Draconic Federation for a while by playing along with him. In the meantime, I sort out this whole Celestial situation on my end, and once he thinks he’s firmly in the saddle, I swoop in and wipe that smug grin off his face, dragging him down just when he’s at his highest point for extra emotional and mental damage and everything. It’s really not all that complicated, especially compared to my previous plans.”

“… Leonard. Are you actually listening to yourself?” Before I could answer, Roland let out a low growl and raised his voice. “This isn’t a game! You are needed here and now.”

“I’m sure you can manage without me for a while.”

My dismissive response was met by Roland’s nose flaring up and his face gradually turning redder and redder.

“No, we can’t!” Raising his voice even further, for a moment I was seriously worried he was about to throw a punch at me. “This situation is already teetering on the edge of going completely out of control! Your presence is the linchpin that ties us to the Draconians! The longer you’re missing, the harder it will become to keep the entire Draconian Federation together!”

“Everyone who counts already knows I’m back, so what does it matter?”

“We aren’t running a hobby club here! We have to think about all our allies, the lesser Draconian families in the Federation, as well as the families not yet affiliated with us, and then we didn’t even consider the Assembly! If you really were kidnapped by the Abyss, it would be one thing, but to voluntarily follow the Celestials into their realm? What were you thinking!?”

Now it was my turn to raise my voice, and I stood my ground by straightening my back and mirroring his glare.

“How many times do I have to repeat myself? I used the opportunity to infiltrate the Elysium precisely so that I could get ahead of these kinds of ambushes in the future! It’s all about long term gains!”

“It’s an entirely meaningless concern when what you did might’ve already irreparably damaged everything we had built up here!”

By this point, we were both yelling, and after glaring at each other for a while, Roland let out a pent-up breath and held his forehead in his hand before continuing at a more reasonable volume.

“Listen. I’ll be honest with you.”

“Weren’t you already?”

“Stop that, and pay attention,” he growled and pointed at me. “We are in a precarious situation. The Assembly is already under the impression that the entire Draconic Federation is just a grand ploy by the Celestials. We can’t let them know that the Brotherhood was manipulated by the Celestials, we can’t let them know that you were taken by the Celestials, and we absolutely, categorically can’t let them know that you were a major Celestial leader hidden in plain sight all along.”

“For the record, I wasn’t until two days ago.”

My well-meaning correction earned me a scoff in return.

“Do you think they’ll care for the nuances?” Roland growled and crossed his arms again, this time holding his right elbow in his left hand, the fingers on his right pinched around his chin, and then followed it up with a deep breath. “On second thought, we really were under the thumb of the Celestials all this time, so they aren’t entirely wrong. In fact, since you are both the King of Knights and this ‘Archon’ at the same time, we technically still are.”

Noticing the piercing glare he was directing at me, I hastily raised my palms.

“Hey there. Don’t overthink this. Just because the Celestial Directorate thinks I’m the second coming of their long-dead founder, it doesn’t mean I’m actually a Celestial or care about their interests. At the end of the day, I’m still me.”

“If you don’t care, then why do you insist on returning to the Elysium instead of remaining here to sort things out with us?”

This time, it was my turn to groan, and I also crossed my arms for good measure.

“It’s like the third time I had to explain this. Listen, I need to understand the politics and factions of the Celestials, and to do that, I have to keep playing the role of Archon Polemos a while longer. I can’t just up and disappear from the Elysium without a word.”

“Why?”

I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t find the answer right away.

“It’s… because I already got myself into this situation, so I have to make the best of it.”

“No, you don’t. What you have to do is to fulfill your obligations to the organization you created with your own hands first. You have no such obligation to the people who tried to kidnap and brainwash you.”

“I’m not arguing with that, but technically speaking, wouldn’t using my newfound position to steer the Celestials into a potentially more amicable direction also count as doing my job? Not to mention, there’s a lot of tension and enmity running in their leadership, so if I just left the Elysium overnight, it would cause a lot of unnecessary chaos and collateral damage.”

“Why are you even concerned with something like that?”

“What the hell do you mean by that?” I bit back, feeling genuinely irked. “Of course I’m worried that I might start a civil war!”

“So what? It’s a Celestial matter. You aren’t responsible for what they do.”

“But I am! I mean, what if innocent Celestials get caught up in the crossfire?”

“Leonard.” Roland’s voice deepened into a growl, and his glare pierced right through me once again. When he continued, he emphasized every individual word. “They. Are not. Your. Responsibility.”

“Yes, they are! They are my people!” I yelled out, and only after the words already left my mouth did they fully register with me. After a long beat, I unclenched my fists and raised my palms again. “Hold on. That came out wrong. I meant to say they are Polemos’s people. You know how I have a bunch of his memory fragments swirling in my head? Things get blurry sometimes. It doesn’t mean I think they are more important than you guys, but… honestly, most of them are blameless in all of this, and letting the entirety of the Elysium get caught up in a conflict wouldn’t sit well with me anyway.”

Roland levelled a flat gaze at me and continued to scrutinize my face for a while longer, but at last, he let out a resigned sigh and uncrossed his arms, followed by a shake of his head.

“I understand. I thought something like this was going to happen.”

“Well, of course. I already told you about the memories.”

“No, not that.” For emphasis, he reached out and poked me in the chest. “I’m talking about that bad habit of yours, where you try to resolve every single situation without any casualties, even if you need to pile lie upon deceit upon trickery to do it. I understand that your heart is in the right place, and it would be almost admirable if it wouldn’t cause all of these outlandish situations all the time.”

What Roland just said sounded dangerously close to accusing me of having Chronic Hero Syndrome, but before I could object to it, he retracted his finger and thoughtfully pinched his chin again.

“I also know that you’re stubborn as a mule, so I probably won’t be able to convince you to change your mind even if I spent the whole afternoon arguing with you.”

“Hey. That was uncalled for.”

Ignoring my protest, our dear Mr. Griffon quietly hummed, deep in thought, and ultimately levelled a pair of dispassionate eyes at me.

“Let’s aim for a compromise. You can go ahead and try to bring the Celestials into the fold, but we absolutely have to stabilize the situation on the island first.”

“I’m not bringing anyone into any fold. You’re sounding like Elly right now.”

“I’m sure she must’ve also noticed the pattern already.” His response was rather detached, and a moment later he sank back into his thought while gently tapping on his chin. “Back to the previous point: To stabilize the state of affairs, we need two things; the traitor has to be removed from our midst, and we have to prove to all our affiliates that you’re still alive.”

“The latter shouldn’t be too hard,” I posited, slowly entering into scheming mode myself. “A ransom note could work. Maybe make it a video, so that it’s obvious that I’m still breathing? We could even have Rabom and Karukk loiter in the background for extra legitimacy.”

“I’m not so sure about that. There’s no telling how the Celestials would react to something like that if it reached their ears, and we wouldn’t want them to reveal the truth, either by accident or on purpose. Percival is also a rogue element in this scenario. We might have to consider taking him out of the picture first.”

“Do we? Can’t we at least give him a little more rope to hang himself with?”

“Leonard. Take this seriously.”

“Ugh, fine,” I grumbled as I threw out all my old plans. I really wanted to do the thing where I waited until he got really, really conceited and then smack him down in the middle of some kind of ‘I am the senate!’ speech, with all the catharsis it would’ve implied, but it was apparently never meant to be. “So we just have to take him out of the equation, right? Let’s use Bel.”

My suggestion made Roland shudder and level a skeptical gaze at me for the umpteenth time.

“… Are you serious?”

“Why? Percival’s cover story was that I got kidnapped by the Abyssals. Let’s turn it around by getting him kidnapped by an Abyssal for real. I mean, from the outside perspective. I’m not really an Abyssal.”

Roland narrowed his eyes, looking even less convinced than when I started.

“Getting both the true and the provisional leaders of the Ordo Draconis kidnapped one after the other would undermine our authority a good deal, wouldn’t it?”

“Not really. I mean, we can use Bel’s reputation and just go ‘Well, how were we supposed to stop that?‘. Considering all the groundwork I put into the character, it would be weird if he wasn’t involved in this kerfuffle, wouldn’t it? Not to mention, I can’t think of any better alternatives. Revealing that he’s on Celestial payroll and arresting him over that would be counter-intuitive, not to mention it would end up hypocritical when I return for good, and I don’t think we have another option.”

“Assassination,” Roland uttered with a straight face, taking me aback long enough to further add, “He’s officially still recuperating. We could blame a slow-acting Abyssal poison for his demise.”

“Wow. Dark.” He frowned at my deadpan response, and so did I. “No, that won’t do. As much as I hate the guy’s guts, he hadn’t done anything deserving the death penalty so far.”

“In some places, espionage and treason would warrant the death penalty.”

“Yeah, but then I would have to sentence myself to death as well, wouldn’t I?” I pointed out, and that finally made him reconsider. “Not to mention, it would make Penny even more distraught than she already is, so let’s just kidnap and detain him for the time being.” At last, Roland acquiesced with a deep nod, so I launched into the planning phase right away. “I’ll put you in charge of the preparations. Enlist Morgana and Agrawain; they are already familiar with the location and layout of the back-up base in the dockyard district. Have them put together a holding area there.”

“Sounds reasonable. I’ll make sure to have everything ready by tomorrow.”

“No need to rush.”

Roland nodded and moved on right away.

“What about the second point then?”

“Let me see…”

While I was still considering my options, Roland voiced his own proposal.

“How about we soften the blow a little, and instead of some kind of ransom message, we introduce the Celestial connection early?”

“… Please go on.”

“Let’s say that one of the Abyssal houses tried to kidnap you, but then during the battle, a group of Celestials backed you up. You are already well-known for not discriminating when it comes to your allies, so I don’t think anyone would question that part. After that, we could claim that you are in hiding and working with them to track down the Abyssal conspirators. If it’s only that much, the Assembly wouldn’t object too much, and we could keep them occupied with chasing a non-existent Abyssal threat on the island while we regroup and reorganize.”

“That sounds solid to me. We could even use Percival’s fancy holographic communicator to make it look more legit. Oh, and it could also be tied into the plan with Percival and Bel. I already established him as hostile to the Abyssal Houses, so we could say that he took Percival because he thought he had some kind of connection with the kidnappers.” Pausing for a second, I let out a soft ‘Huh?’, and whispered, “We’re laying the blame on the Abyssals thick, aren’t we?”

“They do serve as convenient scapegoats, and you could hardly say that they don’t deserve it.”

“Hey, let’s not generalize. I mean, yes, some of them are grade-A assholes, but the majority of them are actually just normal people like you and me.”

Once again, Roland’s eyes narrowed into a disapproving squint and he emphatically stated, “For goodness sake, Leonard. Please don’t tell me you have some grand plans for them as well…”

“What? No, of course not,” I denied on the spot… though now that he mentioned it, technically they were the victims of Deus and Polemos, and then vilified for centuries, and I did have an ‘in’ to their power structure through Snowy, so…

“Leonard?”

“Hm? Ah, it’s nothing. I was just lost in thought for a moment. Where were we?”

He was still looking at me suspiciously, but soon dropped the issue and moved on.

“I think we finished with the planning.”

“Good. In that case, let’s head back. I bet everyone’s getting nervous by now.”

“In a minute, but first, we have one last thing to discuss.”

I already took a step, so when he said that, I had no choice but to awkwardly shuffle back and meet his gaze again.

“Yes?”

Roland stared deeply into my eyes for an excruciatingly long second, and when he opened his mouth, his voice was soft, yet firm.

“Listen, Leonard. Normally I wouldn’t say this, considering you’re the King of Knights and this might come off as questioning your authority, but I think this is something that needs to be stated outright. This incident has once again proven that you’re too impulsive.

You’re young, and you have strange and unique powers at your disposal, so in a sense, I can understand it. You think you can solve everything on your own and always rely on your abilities to save you in a pinch, but you have to understand that your actions not only have serious consequences, but you’re now accountable for an entire organization. You’re responsible for thousands of people’s lives, including mine. You have to be more mindful of your actions.

Imagine that this memory-transfer procedure you described was successful. It could have not only rendered you, for all intents and purposes, functionally dead, it would’ve put the lives of your fiancées, your sisters, friends, your allies, and all of their families at risk.”

“It wasn’t—” I attempted to deny him on reflex, but I couldn’t quite squeeze the words out of my throat.

He… wasn’t exactly wrong in his assessment. One wrong move could’ve resulted in not only my personality being overwritten, but an ancient, warmongering Celestial warrior-king in everything but name getting unleashed on the world with all of these powers, with potentially my knowledge about the Simulacrum and the Narrative on top.

Heck, even just absorbing tiny bits and pieces had some unintended side effects on me, and although I got out of the situation mostly unharmed and in a prime position to exploit things, I did cause a lot of head- and heartache to everyone around me. Maybe, just maybe, the ‘S’ in my middle name didn’t stand for ‘safety’ after all…?

Anyhow, I really couldn’t argue with Roland on this one, so I tried to best not to sound too sheepish when I told him, “Well, you’re certainly not wrong, but in my defence, this particular situation really went off the rails and out of my control.”

“I can grant you that, and I understand. All I ask is a little more prudence.”

“I can promise to try?” I proposed with, what I hoped to be, a harmless smile.

“I guess that has to do for now,” Roland responded with just the barest hint of trepidation, and after one last long beat, we turned towards the door at the other end of the room in unison.

Roland just gave me a lot of things to think about, but it had to wait. First, we needed to conclude the emergency meeting, have Fred take a look at my head, and I really wanted to squeeze in a brief talk with Penny and a considerably longer meta-discussion with the girls before I had to return to the Elysium. All in all, this was promising to be a long day, and with all that food for thought to ruminate over, an even longer night.

The reception room was plunged into a chilly silence. Sitting on one of the benches by the far wall, I continued to lock gazes with Mountain Girl, yet even as the tension (and awkwardness) of our staring contest caused the air to positively crackle, she refused to back down. Behind her, a combination of Ichiko, the slightly more distinct kuniochi with their fishnet garbs, and Odango Girl (for reasons I’ll explain later) also stared at me in rapt silence, their eyes pleading for me to reconsider my stance.

Needless to say, I soon grew tired of this whole thing and exhaled a long, resigned groan while simultaneously pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger.

“Oh, fine. You can follow me in my shadow,” I ultimately relented, and the two little girls in the back looked like they were about to start celebrating before I raised a palm to forestall any cutesy noises and whatnot. “However, we can’t have you do that while looking like your usual self. If you manage to put together a decently convincing Celestial disguise by the time I have to leave, you can come with me. If not, the deal’s off.”

“Rinne understands!” she declared with altogether too much gusto, and the tiny fox and the tiny dragon both squeed in excitement before they grabbed hold of Mountain Girl’s hands.

“Come on, Rinne-san! We’ll help!”

“Yes! This is going to be so much fun!” Xiao agreed with an ear-to-ear grin, not even attempting to hide the fact she was only tagging along to play around.

Before long, the small group left the room, allowing me to let out another groan, this time one of exhaustion. After my talk with Roland, I planned to return to the meeting right away. Instead, when we opened the door, we found everyone clustered in front of it all over again. Worse yet, they took my private discussion with Mr. Griffon as a precedent, and so instead of one big meeting, it turned into a long chain of individual sessions instead.

First, Fred took the opportunity to take a couple of readings of my head with his kooky devices and then ran back to his workshop to analyse them. He barely even left the room when the whole Dracis household burst in, and I had to endure a heady mixture of mom-in-law’s worry-fuelled nagging, dad-in-law’s love-bombing, and Melinda’s teasing. The old butler was also there, but he restrained himself to a few sarcastic remarks here and there, and assuring me that if I asked nicely, he was willing to help me out. That would’ve been reassuring, but no matter how nicely I asked, I couldn’t get him to save me from the affections of my in-laws.

Right after that, Brang, Arnwald, and Sahi came over to give me a status report on our ‘military affairs’ (their words, not mine), mostly concerned with maintaining the security of the secret base, the Dracis mansion, my house, and the School. Apparently, the ex-arch-mage was here as a liaison tying us to Lord Grandpa. I would’ve expected that he’d rather use Peabody, or even the Class Rep, for something like that, but apparently, the brown girl was really insistent about grabbing the role, at least if Pascal was to be believed.

For the record, all those ‘military affairs’ boiled down to ‘Keep up the status quo, and have a bunch more secret patrols in the city while looking for Celestial shenanigans’. Not much to write home about.

Then, following their departure, I was caught by the Feilongs, whereas Naoren gave me an update on the political situation with both the Assembly, as well as within the Draconic Federation. Apparently this ‘provocative attack on the Federation’, as he put it, lit a fire under the butts of many of the more hesitant members, and due to that, Naoren could push a bunch of legislation and bills through that were previously the subjects of heated debates. It was all very dry and boring, so I had him boil it down to the simple question of ‘Was that a good thing for us?’, which he answered with a confident ‘Yes.’ That was good enough for me.

Right on their heels followed Rinne and the Kage ninjas, plus Ichiko, and they really, really wanted to follow after me, so that they could stop any future ‘kidnapping’ incidents. Originally all of them wanted to hide in my shadow, but after intense negotiations, I only gave permission to Mountain Girl. I still felt like I fell into their trap, and giving me such an outrageous proposal was precisely for making me accept a slightly more reasonable one down the line, but for the record, I was getting too tired to argue with them. At worst, I’d just claim that her disguise wasn’t good enough, and then I’d leave before they could object, I figured.

Anyhow, after that group left, I didn’t even bother getting up from my bench, and true to form, a new duo replaced the last group the moment they stepped over the threshold. The only surprising part was their identities, as I honestly didn’t expect that Penny and Snowy would also make an appearance. However, before I could even get a word in, my knightly sister dashed towards me without any prior warning, leapt into the air, and then landed on the bench butt first before letting out a wail and tumbling to the side so that her head landed squarely on my lap.

“I can’t believe it! It can’t be true!” she yelled while hiding her face with her hands, and after a long beat, I glanced up at my other sister. When our eyes met, I could read ‘Sorry, I tried to stop her,’ on her face, so I flashed a reassuring smile at her and, while she closed the metal door, I turned my attention back to the overdramatic girl still resting her head on my thighs.

“Come on, kiddo. Don’t be like that,” I chided her while simultaneously patting her frazzled hair, but it did little good.

After another whimper, she parted her fingers so that she could look at me, and asked, “Brother, are you sure Uncle Percy betrayed us? Maybe it was someone else disguised as him? There’s no way he would’ve done something like that, right? It has to be some kind of misunderstanding!”

“… No, I’m two hundred percent sure it was him all right.”

That made her pause for a moment, then she abruptly sat up and let her hands down and balled her fingers into fists.

“Argh! I’m sooo mad! How could he do something like that!? He raised us! We trusted him! I trusted him! I just wanna grab him, and squeeze him, and make him explain himself, right now!”

“Penny, calm down.” This time, it was Snowy’s turn to chide her, and she held her raised fists in her own hands. “Weren’t you listening to Leo? We can’t let him know that we know yet. We have to make him think that we fell for his plan, right?”

“That’s no longer a core part of the plan, so you don’t have to worry about that,” I responded to my Abyssal sister’s questioning gaze and turned back to Penny. “We’re going to do something about Percival in a day or two at worst, so maybe it would be for the best if you didn’t meet with him until then. Just to be sure.”

“Right. I understand,” Penny mumbled, not sounding very convinced at all. “But… I mean, what if he had a really good reason to do what he did? Maybe we could try talking to him first? It’s possible that he genuinely thought that it was for the best, and he was doing it for you? I mean, he might’ve been mistaken, but maybe he wasn’t malicious about it. Wouldn’t that mean that he’s not a bad guy?”

“Kiddo, please. Don’t make up excuses for him. Sir Percival was a Celestial mole from the beginning. Whatever his intentions were, he had already made his bed a long time ago, and now, it’s time for him to lie in it.”

“I… I know…” Penny muttered, suddenly sniffling, and then before I could react, she tumbled over again, her head impacting on my thighs once more, and then started softly sobbing while hiding her face. Since my right hand was still in its previous position, I absently resumed stroking her head and turned my attention to the other girl in the room.

“Can I help in any way?” Snowy asked, looking curiously determined. “I could try to question him? Maybe he’d let his guard down around me.”

“No, that’s not going to happen,” I rebuked her on the spot and shook my head for extra emphasis. “He has a massive hate-boner for Abyssals and was only pretending to be nice to you. If anything, I’d like to ask you to avoid him as much as possible.” Pausing, I glanced at the silent girl on my lap, and added, “That said, if you want to help, can I ask you to keep a watch on Penny, so that she wouldn’t do anything stupid?”

“I won’t do any such thing!” the frazzled redhead exclaimed and sat up again, her resolute exclamation made only slightly less convincing by her puffed-up eyes and the tear stains on my pants. “I’m a proud Knight of the Ordo Draconis! I won’t let my emotions sway me from fulfilling my duty! If brother tells me Uncle Percy is a baddy, then I’ll treat him as such!”

“… Wow, kiddo. You speed-ran the five stages of grief in record time, didn’t you?”

“Argh! Don’t tease me! I’m serious!”

Chuckling, I tousled my pouting sister’s hair for the third time today, and the atmosphere between the three of us was getting pleasantly cozy… right until the nearby metal door opened with a metallic creak that told me it needed more lubrication.

“Hey, boss? Are you free?” Fred asked, his head poking through the gap, and while my initial reaction was to tell him that we still had some heart-to-heart stuff to do, Penny beat me to the punch.

“I feel much better now,” she declared and sprung to her feet. “Thanks, brother.”

“I did nothing,” I said a touch flatly, as I really didn’t.

She didn’t mind though, and grabbed hold of Snowy’s hand.

“Come, s-sis…” She stuttered, but then she steeled her resolve and squeezed her hand even harder. “General Brang said he’s going to barbecue some patties for the guests! Let’s go and help him!”

“Really? It’s been a while,” Snowy muttered and allowed herself to be pulled out of the room.

“Have fun!” I called after them, accompanied by a wave of my hand, but even before they left, I couldn’t help but wonder just what gave the old Faun the idea.

It wasn’t a bad one, mind you, but a sudden barbecue party felt oddly laid-back, considering the circumstances. Though again, if I asked Roland, he would’ve probably told me my attitude rubbed off on them, so I figured I probably shouldn’t dwell on the issue.

Meanwhile, Fred, Galatea, and one of the other senior Research Society members (the guy with the high-tech plague doctor mask, whose face I’d yet to see in person) replaced my sisters in front of me.

“Ki-hi-hi! We’re done, boss!” my chief mad scientist declared, his bloodshot eyes looking rather unnerving. He apparently didn’t sleep at all since my disappearance, trying to figure out a way to find me, which would’ve been pretty heartening, except it made him look and act even more erratically than usual.

“These readings are truly fascinating! I can’t believe Robatto kept all of this for himself for so long!” Mr. Plague Doctor echoed him, if not in words, then in enthusiasm.

Out of the three of them, only Galatea looked normal, or at least as ‘normal’ as a busty android with glowing metallic fins for ears could be. She was carrying a clipboard with a handful of freshly printed pages on them, and when our eyes met, she lightly knocked against it with her finger.

“We would like to report that the analysis of Grandmaster’s most recent manametric readings is complete. My logic engines indicate a zero-point-two percent margin of error, deemed insignificant.”

“I’m listening.”

After a prompted them, Fred let out another grating chuckle and began to animatedly gesture with his hands, causing his crumpled white coat to billow left and right.

“Guess what, boss? Do you remember all those really weird and inconclusive data we got a couple of weeks ago?”

“When you were trying to analyse my soul?”

It was one of the smaller experiments we did a while back, mostly just out of curiosity. One of the weirder quirks of my powers was that, while I could interact with the souls of other people using my phantom limbs, when I tried to do the same to myself, instead of a multicolour yarn-ball, I was always greeted with the space-between-spaces of absolute nonexistence, a few not-dark not-rooms notwithstanding.

Unfortunately, when Fred tried to use his cutting-edge equipment to shed some light on this mystery, all we got was a bunch of gibberish. Or, at the very least, that’s what he told me; to me, even the control test we did on his soul looked just as nonsensical, but hey, Galatea confirmed it, and she was at least marginally more trustworthy than our resident mad scientist, and not necessarily because of her insistence that she wasn’t programmed to be able to lie.

“Soul is such an unscientific term…” Mr. Plague Doctor scoffed, but Fred didn’t mind and continued his explanation completely unabated.

“Yes! Yes, that one! We thought that it was inconclusive because of your inherent anti-mystic properties interfering with the procedure, but when we compared the new readings to the old ones, we made an amazing discovery!”

“I’m still listening.”

The two mad scientists shared an excited glance (or at least I presumed, but it was hard to tell with the beaked mask and all), and Mr. Plague Doctor stepped forth.

“Upon perusing the data Robatto shared with me, I came to the sudden and enlightening realization that your consciousness… has holes in it!”

I must’ve looked skeptical, because Galatea soon added, “In layman’s terms, the reason behind compilation errors during Grandmaster’s first analysis was caused by several missing sections within the records. We presumed they were caused by faulty equipment or phasic interference, but with the new data, we can say with eighty-one-point-two percent certainty that Grandmaster’s soul… has holes in it.”

Before I could get a word in, Fred got in front of me and clapped to get my attention, making me completely forget to chew Galatea out for that non-explanation.

“Listen, boss! The gist of it is that you don’t just have run-of-the-mill amnesia, but parts of your soul were carved out! As in, imagine that your soul was made of ice cream, and someone grabbed a scoop and just took whole chunks out of it! It’s crazy, but do you know what’s crazier!?” Once again, I didn’t get a chance to react, as Fred snatched the clipboard out of Galatea’s hands and put it in front of my face as if the lines of variously coloured numbers and symbols were speaking for themselves. “Look at this!”

“… I’m looking at it, but all I’m seeing is my patience getting tried.”

My grumbles caused Mr. Plague Doctor to yank the clipboard away from Fred and clear his throat.

“Let me explain. The reason why we realized that your consciousness has gaps in it was due to the new memories you absorbed.” He paused to turn the page, and then repeatedly tapped his finger against the clipboard. “Such as right here. These new records helped to delineate the extent of the gaps.”

“And not only that!” Fred elbowed his way back into the forefront with a frantic grin on his face, “But the strangest part is that these aren’t alien records! They could be absorbed so easily into you because they fit right into the holes in your soul!”

“What Master is trying to say…” Stepping in, Galatea grabbed Fred by the back of his collar and pulled him away from me, “… is that Grandmaster’s soul was a perfect match.”

“Indeed,” Mr. Plague Mask declared with a triumphant note in his voice. “It is to say, your consciousness seemingly had these gaps in it precisely so that it could accept the stored memories of this ‘Polemos’ person! It’s truly fascinating, and…” He paused tilting his head down before asking, “Could I borrow the vessel that stored those memories for a few weeks? No, a single week should suffice! It would push my research ahead by decades!”

“Sorry, but I kind of need Teeny to keep up my disguise in the Elysium.”

“Then how about after your return?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Please do! This could lead to the breakthrough of the century!”

“Ignore him, boss, and listen to me!” Fred practically pushed his colleague to the side and locked eyes with me. “The really important thing you have to consider is that, normally, absorbing partial memories like that would drive someone mad on the spot! The only reason you came out of it unscathed was because of the perfect compatibility you had with them, but there’s no telling if they wouldn’t cause any problems in the future!”

“I understand. So?”

“So we need to continue to monitor the process! Ideally, you should come back every day for a checkup, so that we can hook you up to the manametrics system and can compare and contrast your readings! Of course, this would require some investment…”

“What Master is trying to say is that we request extra funding for equipment,” Galatea cut in, and Mr. Plague Doctor nodded along so hard, I was afraid his beak would fall off.

Sighing, and waved them away and muttered, “Sure, do whatever you want.”

“Yesss!”

Ignoring Fred’s fist-pumping, my eyes were drawn to the masked mad scientist.

“We’ll strive to thoroughly document every development and to make sure your consciousness remains stable, of course. That said, if you could just sign this waiver while you still possess all your mental faculties, it would certainly help our peace of mind, and—”

“I don’t really have the patience for this right now,” I growled, and after a momentary pause, he hid the clipboard behind his back and backed away.

“I’ll assemble the requisition form,” Galatea stated a touch laconically and followed after the retreating weirdo, and without support, Fred also followed after them.

Needless to say, I could barely get a sigh through my teeth before someone new stepped through the doorway, though this time the people in question were a sight for sore eyes.

“Hi, Chief,” Judy greeted me while Elly closed the door behind them, and once she got closer, she casually handed over a bratwurst on a skewer.

“Thanks. Brang’s already at it?”

“It’s from the first batch,” my dear assistant explained, and then blew on her own barbecued goodness. “Be careful, it’s still hot. Elly already burned her tongue.”

“I just wanted to finish it before we came in here,” my draconic girlfriend sulked as she made her way over to my side and sat down next to me. I gently pushed her away a bit, so that I could move and make space for Judy on my other side, and once we settled down, the princess rested her head against my shoulder.

In the meantime, Judy also sat down, followed by a quiet moment filled with delighted sighs on my left and incessant blowing on my right. It didn’t last long though, as the princess soon poked my side to get my attention.

“Hey, Leo? Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, I’m just an ever-so-tiny-bit totally mentally exhausted.”

“Be careful with your skewer,” Judy warned me and readjusted the way I was holding it. “You’ll get grease on your clothes. White stains easily.”

“Thanks, Dormouse.” For emphasis, I planted a quick peck on the top of her head, and then mirrored the action on the princess as well, in the name of equality.

“So, what now?” Elly inquired after a delighted chuckle. “Are we going to talk about the Narrative?”

“That’s the plan.” Judy very carefully touched the bratwurst she was carrying with the tip of her tongue, but it was apparently still too hot, as she proceeded to blow on it a few more times before she added, “We had a whole morning to consider things, and I think I have a good idea of the current plot.”

“That makes one of us,” I grumbled as I bit into my treat, and while it was definitely still very hot, after my recent vegetarian meals, I was starving for some meat protein.

“Then let’s get started!” Elly exclaimed and tried to entwine her fingers with mine on my free hand, but before we could get anywhere, the door suddenly opened again, revealing.

“Ue-sama! Look!”

Ichiko burst into the reception room and fell to one knee, her arms pointing towards the open doorway, like a showman presenting a new attraction. A second or two later Odango Girl also rushed in, trying to do her best to mirror her pose, except on the other side of the doorframe.

“Look, Brother Leonard! We did it!”

Just as she said that, a third person appeared at the entrance. Mountain Girl (based on the context, I was pretty sure it was her) was wearing a literal white bed sheet tied around her waist and shoulder to vaguely resemble a toga, a pair of steel-insert work boots, and a featureless silver helmet without a visor that completely hid her face, which I recognized as one of the prototypes Fred made in the process of trying to replicate the enchantments of the Knights’ gear. Its completely featureless, matte white surface was a little disconcerting, but not nearly as much as the fact that this was all she was wearing at the moment.

Then, as if to explain what happened, a certain Celestial girl stuck her head through the door and declared, “I helped too!”

Blinking slowly, I exhaled a shallow breath, and after counting to ten, I handed my half-eaten bratwurst over to the princess, and grumbled, in a low voice, “Let’s put the discussion on hold for a minute. This won’t take long…”