The Simulacrum - Chapter 74~ Part 4

It was around half past eight in the evening when I reappeared in my living room without even bothering to announce my arrival. I didn’t exactly need to either, as the only other person in the room was the unnecessarily energetic little girl glued to the TV. She was watching a nature documentary about meerkats by the looks of it. I could’ve used my sister as an anchor as well, but she was really immersed while drawing something, and I didn’t want to bother her.

Anyhow, I sat down in my usual chair and took another bite out of the ad-hoc hot dog I put together using the barbecued wiener Brang and Rinne made for dinner. Yes, that means they actually managed to start a barbecue party underground, and yes, it was the huntress’ idea. That woman was such a glutton I had no idea how she could maintain her figure. It probably had something to do with being a side character or an ex-protagonist or what have you.

“{What?! What happened?! Where are we?! How did we get here?!}” the fussy sword suddenly began to rain questions on me after remaining silent for a surprisingly long time, so I put it in my lap and popped the last bite of the grilled sausage into my mouth.

“It’s called Phasing, and it’s a thing I do,” I explained with my mouth half full, and after swallowing I added, “You’ll get used to it.”

As for why I still had Cal on me, it was a necessity. Since being in physical contact with the sword helped it heal my injuries faster, if only a little, I had little choice but to keep it around me as much as possible. My fancy new weapon was a little overdramatic at times, but as far as company was concerned, I had worse, and at least Cal was really forthcoming with their answers.

It was around this time that the tiny miko finally registered that I came home, and she instantly sprung to her feet and gave me a bow. She had her hair in twin tails, the result of Judy buying some hair accessories for her as well while they were out shopping, and she wore a loose long-sleeved shirt and baggy sweat pants in her usual red-and-white color scheme.

“Welcome home, ue-sama!” she greeted me, but her eyes were already fixated on the sword in my lap.

“{Is that the sister you spoke of?}” Cal inquired with a tone that was audibly guarded, so I promptly shook my head.

“No, she’s not.”

“Who are you talking to?” the foxy miko asked as she sidled over to me with a curious glint in her eyes, so I let out a shallow breath and told her:

“This is Cal. It’s a sentient sword, and I’ll be carrying it around for a while.”

“Really? Can he talk? Can he hear me?” the girl perked up, and if she was in her fox form, I was sure she’d be wagging her tail like crazy. When I nodded, she flashed a delighted grin at the blade and introduced herself with, “Hi Cal-san, I’m Ichiko! I can’t believe I got to meet another talking sword!”

“{Another?}” said sword echoed in my head, so I figured some more straightforward introductions were in order.

“Yes. She used to be sword too.”

“I got better,” Ichiko added in the company of a giggle, but I ignored her for the time being and continued.

“There was a bit of an incident regarding some misunderstandings and magical corruption and a crumbling enchantment, so I had to move her out of her old body and now she’s in a Chimera.”

“{You moved her out of— Wait, what did you just say? Chimera!? As in, the Chimeric Beasts of the Abyss!?}”

“Yes,” I answered with a nod, and Cal fell silent for a while.

“{I… still don’t understand. What’s the joke?}”

“There’s no joke. That’s just how things are.”

Following my answer, the sword fell silent once again, followed by the words, “{I feel that calling these ‘dark times’ is just no longer adequate.}”

Needless to say, I completely ignored their grumblings, which wasn’t hard considering that Ichiko in front of me was doing her best to gain my attention by giving me the puppy eyes treatment.

“Ue-samaaaa? Can I talk to Cal-san?”

“They can hear you already, but as for actually having a conversation… I’m sorry, but you don’t have the ports to connect, and without that, they can’t talk to you.”

The little miko let out a disappointed noise, and I figured that since the topic came up, it was as good an opportunity as any to summarize what I gleamed from my hours-long discussion with Cal.

First and foremost, my jest about supernatural USB ports turned out to be much more accurate than I could’ve ever expected. Simply put, the connectors on Knightly equipment were precisely that, but contrary to my expectations, they didn’t connect to the armors but directly to the wielding Knight. However, as with most connectors, you needed both a plug and a receptacle, and the latter turned out to be the Oaths themselves.

Let’s backtrack a little: according to Cal, when taking up the mantle of a title, a Knight must make six oaths. They are, in no particular order, the Oath of Protection, Loyalty, Temperance, Fortitude, Charity, and Valor. These are mostly self-explanatory, so let’s not get bogged down too much on their definitions.

Now, while these might’ve sounded like part of your standard troubadour-spun chivalric role-play, they were much more tangible than that. Each Oath was taken using a separate magical ritual that imprinted a separate port onto the Astral Body of the recipient corresponding to the separate connector on the weapons. Separately. Also, more on that whole ‘Astral Body’ thing later.

So, just to recap: there were seven magical USB ports corresponding to seven magical USB plugs, and when you put them together, you got a Knight that could rival a Draconian in power despite having no mana and being a run of the mill, if well trained, human. Now, it didn’t take a British detective in a deer-stalker hat to notice a small discrepancy there: seven ports, seven connectors, but only six Oaths. Doesn’t add up.

The thing is, according to Cal, there used to be an Oath of Fealty as well, but the Brotherhood didn’t observe it anymore and it’s only known to the King. It also didn’t take a genius to figure out how that may have something to do with the Celestials consistently referring to the Knights as ‘Oathbreakers’ and a failed experiment.

Now, here comes the annoying part: the reason why I couldn’t wear the full suit of armor I ‘recovered’, let alone a sword with it, was because my ‘Astral Body’ was damaged. This was apparently a ‘Celestial thing’, and while the chatty sword couldn’t give me a clear description of what it was, I had a hunch that it was probably the collection of records inside people I called a ‘soul’, or at least something metaphysically adjacent.

The way Knightly equipment worked required a very specific circulation of mana inside the body, which was governed by the Astral Body, or something. I was still vague on the details, but one thing was certain: the issue was that because of the ‘internal injury’, my right hand acted as a dam that interfered with this circulation. That was a right pickle, but Cal was really adamant about being able to heal my hand with time. It made sense too; if a single ‘internal injury’ was all it took to permanently take a Knight out of commission, it would be a bigger design flaw than spikes on a trampoline.

Anyhow, with these new bits of information on my hand, I could conclude the following: making a Knight break an Oath made them weaker because it meant they had one less port to plug their enchanted gear into, I already took those Oaths before my amnesia and I could therefore connect to Cal and my armor without any problems, and once my hand was healed I should be able to use my full Knight gear and then become totally OP, learn how to fire beams with my sword, and maybe even win against Brang in Dominance for once. Look out, everyone; my power level will soon be over nine thousand!

Stupid jokes aside, having access to some power boosts on top of my already existing repertoire would open up a lot of new possibilities. Let’s just hope that Judy was wrong on her assessment about the dreaded Narrative purposefully sabotaging things with my injury to keep me in check and I won’t run into any other roadblocks. On the bright side, at least the Celestials couldn’t exactly sabotage Cal like they did with my other prospective healers.

That… actually reminded me of something. Or rather, I had a nagging feeling that I was forgetting something important. It bothered me a lot, so tried to trace my train of thought backward, and when I finally pinpointed the source, I reflexively clicked my tongue.

Because of my long discussion with the sword, it totally slipped my mind that I promised Mike that I’d keep an eye on the class rep, just in case. I was sure she was fine, but a promise was a promise, so I figured I should put in a token effort, if for nothing else than my own peace of mind. As such, I leaned back, completely disregarded Ichiko poking the increasingly flustered sword, and closed my eyes for an impromptu Far Glance, only for them to pop open as I sat up straight again.

“Holy crap, what did I miss?” I hissed, startling the mischievous girl in front of me. After a moment of consideration, I unceremoniously handed Cal over to her with the words, “Please hold onto this for a moment. I need to concentrate.”

The moment Ichiko took the sword from me, I immediately focused my attention on using my Far Sight again, and a moment later I was inside a large office room, the kind with rows of smaller cubicles, or… well, I presumed it had those, but the place has definitely seen better days. Not that it mattered, as the broken partitions and office supplies scattered around were all tinted in the same hue of violet as the walls and the ceiling. I was, without a shadow of a doubt, in a Purple Zone. That was already enough to tell me that something had to go awry, and after quickly pivoting my point of view around, I soon found the class rep in the company of Josh.

They were both in their Magiforms, and on a second look I also noticed Ammy’s golem, Petra. For a moment I felt a little silly for missing the hulking thing, but in my defense, it looked quite different from usual. It had a part of its head carved out, and it was missing an arm, but since it was still moving, the damage obviously wasn’t enough to disable it. Speaking of damage, I couldn’t see any injuries, but both Josh and Ammy were breathing hard, and based on the degree of devastation surrounding them, it was obvious they’ve been engaged in combat for a while. As for the identity of their opponent…

“You’re, like, full of surprises and stuff!” a youthful voice exclaimed, and as I glanced over, my metaphorical eyes landed on a brown-skinned girl leisurely lounging on thin air, as if she was on top of an invisible bed. She was wearing casual clothes, including a top that had a neckline that plunged way deeper than it had any business doing, and tight jeans, which only made the fact that she was floating in the air even more bizarre.

“Why are you doing this?” Josh raised his voice as he stood between Ammy and the floating girl, and Sahi let out a derisive chuckle at their expense.

“Why am I doing this?” she echoed my friend while rolling around so that now she was lying on her back with her head hanging so that she could still look at the two. “Do I, like, really have to explain myself to you? You totally broke into a Magi property with the express purpose of stealing classified documents. Why shouldn’t I get in your way?”

Seeing their exchange, I could barely hold myself back from sighing. Yep, they were caught red-handed. I figured this would happen sooner or later, but it still came as a bit of a shock. I mean, on a narrative level, I would’ve expected this to be a much bigger deal, but instead it was just a background event. But then again, while it was like that for me, from the point of view of Josh, it was probably a serious situation so… maybe I was the background event peeking at the main one?

While I was considering the meta-implications of the events, Josh took a deep breath and stood his ground even harder with the words, “We’re not stealing anything! Those are important for Amelia, so we just want to keep them safe!”

I was just about to get up and Phase over, but Josh’s defiant comment made me pause in my track and focus on Far Seeing again. I was kind of joking a few moments ago (it’s my coping mechanism, bite me), but what if this really was an ‘event’? I mean, we’ve been training Josh for a while now in using his powers as the Chosen One of every supernatural race, so maybe this was a situation engineered for him to finally show off his progress? I mean, doing it against an Arch-mage was a little unfair, but as Sahi, Saahira wasn’t on the same power level as when she was in her proper body (or so she claimed in front of Lord Grandpa), so maybe they actually had a chance? If so, then my intervention could potentially rob Josh of an important moment of development.

As such, I decided to wait and see for now. In fact, on second thought, I figured this might end up pretty entertaining. Too bad I couldn’t eat popcorn while I was Far Seeing…

“Very important indeed,” Sahi responded a little late as she righted herself and casually floated around them while maintaining her distance. “Has she, like, even told you what’s in those documents?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Josh responded right away.

“Oh, but it totally does!” the floating girl exclaimed, closely followed by a giggle. “It’s a secret she didn’t want anyone to know about, but she was, like, waaay too slow and didn’t cover all her tracks and whatever, so we totally found out. That’s when I figured out that she was the one responsible for the missing paper and, like, I set this trap for you, and you totally walked into it!”

“A secret,” Josh whispered and glanced at Ammy over his shoulder, but the bespectacled girl remained completely silent.

Ah, that’s such a clichéd development! The antagonist is hinting at some kind of secret one of the heroes has, but they don’t say it outright, and because they remain silent, it creates all sorts of distrust and interpersonal conflicts. It’s not a bad trope, as the audience loves to craft all kinds of theories about these secrets, but I personally found it a little bit annoying. As in, it’s only a conflict because the accused never speaks the truth, and most of the time their ‘shameful secret’ ends up some tiny issue that no one actually makes a fuss about once it’s revealed at a suitably dramatic moment.

Apparently, this wasn’t that moment, as before Sahi could continue, Josh faced her again, clenched his jaw, and exclaimed, “I trust Ammy, so I don’t care about any of that!”

“Ah, but, like, does she believe that you don’t care?” the brown girl, who was for some reason once again floating practically upside down taunted him, but he was paying no attention to her, as he was too busy whispering to the class rep behind him.

“Listen, Ammy. I’m going to draw her attention and pin her down. Use the opportunity to get out of here and call for help.”

“You can’t!” she whispered back, but Josh completely disregarded her and instead immediately did one of those complex hand moves Snowy also used when casting spells. A blink of an eye later a ball of shimmering air formed in his open palm, but instead of throwing it at the floating girl, he aimed it at the ground between them.

I don’t know how exactly it did it, but the ball of air exploded (or maybe the floor did) into a large cloud of dust and debris, momentarily obscuring them from prying eyes, including my own. It didn’t last for long though, as Josh lunged through the impromptu smoke screen and aimed a straight punch at Sahi’s abdomen.

The brown girl stopped horsing around the moment the air-ball was thrown, but even though she was floating upright once more, Josh closed in on her too fast for her to react. The punch connected, but there was no reaction on her end. At first I figured Josh might’ve hit a personal ward, but on closer look, I noticed a large, ethereal hand clasped around my friend’s entire forearm. I wanted to take a closer look, but before I could do so, he opened his palm, revealing a smaller airball!

Okay, I’m not going to lie, that was pretty cool. I’ve never seen him do something like this during training, but by the looks of it, real combat brought the best out of him.

Even though he couldn’t move the arm with the translucent hand clasped around it, his open palm was now close enough where  Sahi had no time to react, and she was hit by the full brunt of the attack, staggering her (as much as someone who was floating in the air can stagger) while simultaneously releasing Josh from her grasp.

By the way, what was that transparent hand? Was it a spell? I didn’t see or hear her chanting, so that couldn’t be it… maybe some kind of other ability? Or a continuous spell she cast ahead of time? I really wanted to take a better look, but my observations were once again interrupted by Josh.

After landing from the last clash, he instantly sprung to his feet and dashed towards Sahi again. As he did so, I saw him pop a small capsule into his mouth, which I immediately recognized as one of the small edible containers we used to store blood samples so that he could transform without any of the girls being present. I only saw it for a moment, but it looked white, so… Draconian?

It was hard to tell, considering the Magiformer suppressed his physical changes, but the way he suddenly accelerated told me my hunch was probably correct. He closed in on the still unbalanced Arch-mage proxy and grabbed hold of her arm. By the looks of it, he was trying to grapple with her. That was a smart move. We already established that because of the way barriers and wards worked, most supernatural folks were weak to being grabbed and wrestled to the ground, and my friend was apparently about to exploit this weakness. I held my breath in silent anticipation, but I was regrettably let down when the previous translucent hand reappeared again and grabbed onto Josh in turn, keeping him at arm’s reach.

The two entered into a bit of a stalemate for a moment, where neither of them could overpower the other, but they couldn’t afford to let each other go either. It only lasted for a moment though, as it was abruptly broken by a red dot of light coalescing right in front of his face. Like, seriously, dude? Dragonfire at point-blank range? That was kind of unsportsmanlike.

However, just a second late,r I had to reassess my opinion when another invisible hand came out of nowhere and clamped over his jaw. Okay, now that was unsportsmanlike.

Things looked dire for a second, but then a new voice entered the fray with a frantic, “Close your eyes!”

“Ammy? What are you—?”

Josh’s muffled (and equally baffled) words were stuck in his throat a moment later when the class rep appeared in the floating girl’s blind spot and stuck her recently reforged magic staff at her face. It was her request to make it sturdier to avoid getting broken again, so I had Fred machine out an intermediate from metal, had Pip and Hrul put the finishing touched on it, then Gowan carved a basic array on it, and then I transplanted the broken staff’s enchantment onto it. The result was a surprisingly sturdy piece of work that could easily survive some abuse, so I naturally thought Ammy wanted to whack the floating girl with it, but the head of the staff stopped just a hair short and she exclaimed, “Lux!”

I was once again glad that I wasn’t seeing this with my actual retinas, as the searing light that followed in the wake of her magical command made the midday sun look like a tiny candle in comparison. This way, instead of getting blinded, I only flinched in surprise, but not so much that I would miss the large shape appearing from the left and lunging at the preoccupied Sahi in the mother of all shoulder tackles.

By the looks of it both the class rep and Petra used the same dust cloud that Josh kicked up to circle around the Arch-magess while she was focusing on Josh, and use the element of surprise to take her down. I had to give it to her, the idea was pretty good in theory, but it didn’t count on Sahi being domineering as hell.

Before Petra could make contact, its thunderous approach was abruptly halted by two more hands materializing out of thin air and grabbing hold of it, forcing it to stop in its track like it just hit a small mountain, sending cracks running across its upper body. I would’ve expected the still floating Arch-mage to get pushed back at least a little bit, but she remained completely steadfast even though she had no support and… wait a moment. On closer look, there was another hand clamped onto the floor in the opposite direction, so… five? She had five of those things?

No, scratch that. By the time I glanced back, she was holding Ammy up in the air by the collar of her Magiform, so that’s six! Considering two of them were enough to immobilize Draconic Josh and she could no sell a full charge from Petra with another two, at the same time no less… wow, that’s some bloody OP stuff right there.

“That was a totally valiant effort,” the floating girl cooed with a smile as Josh also lost his grasp on her and she proceeded to dangle him right next to the class rep, except in his case, it was by his jaw. That… couldn’t be comfortable. “I’m surprised you could put up this much of a fight, Amelia, considering what you are,” Sahi paused and glanced at the struggling guy in the grasp of her other translucent hand spell thing. “As for you, I’m, like, totally impressed! No wonder old Endy was so interested in you!” Josh remained silent and only defiantly glared at the brown girl, yet it only drew another giggle out of her. “You’re such an interesting boy! It’s too bad you got totally entangled in her little quest to hide what she truly is. Are you, like, really not curious at all about why she went to such lengths?”

Honestly, I was getting a little impatient. This was yet another ‘I shall taunt you’ moment common in the battle harem genre, and while I admit that even I was guilty of it every now and then, but in my defense, I usually prompted people to do it to buy me some time. What was the point of listening to her repeating her whole spiel again? Josh obviously still had some fight in him, so this was far from over. It was time for a heroic second wind! Come on, Josh! I know you can do it! Use the power of friendship! Trust in the heart of the cards! Believe in me who believes in you!

I waited. And waited. And then waited some more.

“Please, don’t…” Ammy pleaded in a weak voice, so I held my breath, even as Sahi let out another giggle, and…

Nothing. Josh did nothing. In fact, he looked like he was on the verge of losing consciousness from having his mouth and nose covered.

“Oh crap. There’s no second wind,” I blurted out as the realization set in, and before I knew it, I was already back in my living room.

“Oh? Ue-sama woke u—”

I jumped to my feet without sparing any words for Ichiko, rushed into the entryway to put on a pair of shoes and the first coat I could get my hands on, and then just as swiftly returned to the confused little girl’s side.

“Thanks for holding onto Cal, I have to go now,” I sputtered in a hurry as I grabbed hold of the sword and took a second to compose myself.

“{What is the matter, young knight? Did something—}” It was at this point that I unceremoniously Phased away, and a momentary beat later Cal exclaimed, “{It happened again! Where are we!? How did we get here!?}”

I didn’t respond to them, but instead I focused on the scene unfolding in front of me. Sahi was still floating, with the six magical hands around her, and because I Phased behind her, she was currently still unaware of my existence. The same couldn’t be said about Josh and Ammy, as the moment they noticed me, the tension visibly drained from their bodies.

The Arch-mage might have misunderstood this as them giving up, as she exclaimed, “In fact, this girl here is actually a—!”

It was at this precise moment that I put both my hands on Cal’s pommel and stabbed it at the floor in front of me, resulting in a sharp sound and a disapproving {Hey!}. I paid no attention to the latter, but instead followed it up by pointedly clearing my throat. By this point Sahi already turned around to face me, and once our eyes met, I dryly told her, “Good evening, Arch-mage Saahira. I came to… negotiate.”