The Simulacrum - Chapter 77~ Part 3

“Do we really need snacks for an emergency meeting?”

I considered my question entirely reasonable, yet my girlfriends were looking at me like I was some kind of weird space-alien.

“They are entirely necessary,” Judy stated with absolute certainty, and she even opened another pack of breadsticks to punctuate her point. “Snacks keep your blood sugar levels high so that your brain could operate at maximum capacity, helping you focus. It’s quite self-evident.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Elly agreed, probably just on principle. Either that, or she was a little peckish, as she already had a bowl of popcorn in her lap.

“Definitely. You really need to keep up with the cutting edge of nutritional science, Chief. For example, did you know that corn is both a vegetable, a whole grain, and a fruit? At least technically.”

“All three of those are good for you,” the princess declared with an ear-to-ear grin and threw an especially big piece of fluffy white popcorn into her mouth for good measure.

“Technically,” my dear assistant stressed, and it sounded suspiciously like a disclaimer at the end of a commercial condensed into a single word.

I figured that arguing about this was entirely pointless, so I dropped the topic like it was a hot potato and belatedly opened our meeting with a sigh.

At the moment it was only the three of us in my room, with the girls sitting on my bed amidst a small pile of party foods and me in front of them on my swivel chair. No, wait. I also had Cal in my hand, so that makes four… well, not ‘people’ per se, but it was four of us all the same.

“Before anything else, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. Today I met up with the Unicorn Knight, aka the new transfer student, Penelope Pendragon.”

“{Oh? So the line of Pendragon continues to this very day. Such a small yet wonderful speck of light in these dark times.}”

I, naturally, completely ignored the comment of the melancholic sword.

“She’s also my sister in one way or another, and she hates pretty much every girl around me.”

Elly nodded along with my words as if this was the first time she’d ever heard this. My other girlfriend, however, raised a single hand, followed by a curt, “Actually.”

“Actually what?”

“I actually never had any problems with her. We even talked once and she was surprisingly friendly.”

“{Ah, indeed. The Pendragons always had a great eye for people. Young knight! You should listen to your sister and get engaged to Lady Judy instead!}”

“I’m dating both of them, so it’s a moot point,” I whispered to the nosy sword before turning back to Judy. “How come this is the first time I’ve heard about you making contact with her?”

“It was brief. We only ran into each other in the restroom,” she explained.

“It’s good to hear that she wasn’t hostile, but you should be more careful in the future. She’s not exactly the most stable individual I know, so you should steer clear of her until the whole Knight situation is resolved.”

“Ah.” All of a sudden, Judy let out a crestfallen noise, followed by an equally dejected expression spreading on her face in an imperceptible yet very definite fashion. “To think that the day came when you of all people would tell me to be more careful, and I couldn’t laugh it off. Oh, how the turns have tabled…”

“I think you mean ‘the tables turned’,” Elly attempted to correct her, only to freeze up a split-second later and exclaim, “Oh no! That was on purpose, wasn’t it? Did I ruin a skit again?”

“It’s not that big a deal,” my dear assistant tried to calm her, but my draconic girlfriend had none of it, and she shook her head so hard her hair all but whipped around her face.

“No, wait! I can fix this! I’ve been training specifically for an occasion like this!” I was tempted to ask what she meant by ‘training’, but I never got the opportunity to get a word in, as she was murmuring under her breath just loud enough for me to head. “Think, Eleanor! What were we talking about? It was knights, and safety, and tables, and… Ah, I got it!” After exclaiming so, she snapped her finger and pointed at me. “Even if the tables turned, it doesn’t matter, because it’s a round table!”

Her exclamation was followed by a short beat that also felt unusually long, to the point she looked a little nervous.

“It wasn’t perfect, but I appreciate the effort,” Judy abruptly stated in an altogether too serious tone, and she even offered a breadstick to the visibly relieved princess. “Well done.”

Elly bit onto the offered snack without a moment of hesitation or apprehension and immediately devoured it without ever touching it with her hands in a display that reminded me of a great white shark. Seeing the two of them getting along like this was admittedly a little heartwarming, and the princess’s chuckles were always music to my ears, yet I couldn’t help but frown at the moment.

“Is it just me, or are you guys really not taking this emergency meeting seriously?”

My question dampened the cozy mood a bit, which was a shame, but also inevitable. My girlfriends shared a strange look with each other, and ultimately it was Judy who answered my question.

“It’s because the emergency doesn’t seem to be too serious. If it was, you’d be more intense.”

“That’s the right word,” Elly agreed on the spot. “When things are truly dangerous, you’re much more focused, kind of like a honey-badger facing off against an entire pride of lions.”

“An unusual analogy, but surprisingly fitting. I approve,” said Judy, and then immediately continued Elly’s train of thought like it was her own. “Right now, you only look mildly annoyed. That tells us that whatever happened is troublesome, but you’re not too worried about it, so we aren’t too worried either.”

“… I don’t really know how I feel about you guys psychoanalyzing me like that, but it’s a tangent that’s completely unimportant right now. Could I at least ask you to pretend that you take this seriously?”

They both nodded, so I closed my eyes for a moment to gather my thoughts and simply continued my explanation right where I left it off.

“Since the Knight girl called me out for a private talk, I decided that I’d be straightforward with her. I mainly wanted to gauge her reactions and to make sure she understood the situation.”

“Does that include me?” Judy interjected.

“No, I never got the chance to get that far. She already flew off the handle when I told her about Elly and Snowy and, this is the important part, she challenged me to an Arbitration.”

“What’s an Arbitration?” the princess inquired right away without even waiting for the customary dramatic silence to settle.

“A kind of ritualistic duel between two Knights to settle a dispute.”

“That could be either really bad or really convenient depending on the details,” Judy mused aloud with an ever so slightly raised brow asking which one was the case.

“The details are why Cal’s here.”

I casually raised the sword to my eye level, and they didn’t need much more in terms of prompting to let out a weary sigh.

“{I believe I have already told you all about Arbitration, young knight.}”

“Not enough, it seems,” I scoffed as I forcefully shook the blade, much to my girlfriends’ silent yet apparent amusement. “She challenged me without giving me any terms or deadlines. That tells me that there have to be some rules she thinks I must already know, so I’d appreciate it if you enlightened me.”

There was some obligatory grumbling about ‘dark times’ and ‘no respect’ and ‘back in my days’, but once they got it out of their system, Cal obediently began the explanation.

“{If there’s no prior agreement in place, an Arbitration takes place three days from the date of the challenge.  It is so that both parties would have the opportunity to call upon their witnesses and make their preparations.}”

“Witness? What witness?”

“{During Arbitration, both parties must have a witness to examine the chosen venue and observe the duel to prevent dishonorable tricks or conduct.}”

“You said ‘must’. Does that mean I’m required to bring a witness along?”

“{Yes.}”

“Do they have to be able to fight?”

“{Traditionally, yes. They must be able to intervene if necessary.}”

“Tch.” Well, there went my plan to bring Judy along. “Understood. What about the ‘venue’ you mentioned. What are the rules about that?”

“{It is decided by the challenged party, and they must inform the challenger about the location at least one day ahead of the date of the duel.}”

Finally some good news. That meant that I could at least have the home field advantage.

“What about the actual duel? Does it have to be a fight with swords or is there some wriggling room?”

“{I’m afraid the rules of Arbitration specifically demand that both the challenger and the challenged must do battle using the equipment bestowed upon them by the Brotherhood.}”

“So there’s no way we could resolve this with a game of poker. There goes my plan G.”

“{‘G’}?”

“I have a lot of plans,” I stated offhandedly, and only now did I notice that the girls were looking at me expectantly, so I gave them the short version of Cal’s side of the conversation.

“Who do you want to bring as a witness?” Judy asked right away, and a long moment of thinking later I had no choice but to weakly shrug my shoulder.

“Elly and Snowy are out of the question, as it wound just trigger the Knight girl. The same goes for any other Draconians. Ammy and Angie are not exactly melee-oriented, while the Fauns would also cause too much trouble with their presence so… I guess that leaves me with Josh.”

“You forgot about Rinne,” the princess pointed out, but I shook my head.

“I didn’t. She’s just my backup option, in case Josh doesn’t want to get involved. Considering how things went awry every time any kind of physical conflict was involved, I don’t want to leave anything to chance.”

“You have a plan.”

“Indeed,” I responded to Judy’s comment, but since both of them were giving me expectant looks, I had no choice but to let them down by putting an index finger in front of my lips. “Sorry, I can’t tell you the details.”

“Is… Is it because I’m bad at keeping secrets?”

Elly sounded really dejected there, so I hastily used the same hand to wave away her concerns.

“Oh, no no nonono. It has nothing to do with that. It’s just… Let’s just say that after getting burned so many times, I came to the conclusion that so long as a plan is openly discussed in advance, it never, ever goes without a hitch.”

“Now that you mention it, there is a trope for that.”

“Of course there’s a trope for that. There’s a trope for everything,” I said with a subtle roll of my eyes, but Judy didn’t seem to mind my tone.

“Is… it okay to discuss this in front of the sword?” Elly questioned a touch uncertainly, and Judy gave her the exact same answer I would’ve.

“It’s not like it can tell anyone else about it.”

“That’s a good point,” she granted and turned to me with curious eyes. “So? What’s this trope?”

“I don’t know the name of it off the top of my head, so ask Judy for it later, but the gist of it is that the more a plan is discussed in the open, the more likely it’s going to fail catastrophically.”

“I see, but… Why?”

“Let’s try this,” Judy proposed, apparently trying to lead the princess to the conclusion instead of outright telling her. “Imagine that you’re watching one of those episodes of that werewolf hunter show Angie loves so much. Now imagine that at the beginning of an episode, the protagonist describes exactly what’s going to happen in the rest of the episode as an elaborate plan, and everything would go precisely as she said.” Elly nodded along, so Judy finished with the question, “Now imagine that the exact same thing is explained, but instead of the protagonist, it’s told to you by a friend sitting on the couch next to you. What do we call that?”

“Oooh! I get it! It’s a spoiler!” she exclaimed with a beaming smile, and now it was Judy’s turn to nod along. “But wait… How does that work in real life?”

“I have no idea, but at the bare minimum, I’ll make sure to only tell the people who are going to be directly involved, and only at the very last moment, so that I could minimize the chances of it getting subverted.”

“You could try writing the plan down and hand them out right before you want to put it into action.”

I weighed Judy’s proposal, and gave it an ‘I’ll give it some thought’ grunt before focusing on the main topic again.

“Let’s put the plan we’re not going to talk about aside, and focus on the duel for now. So, under ideal circumstances, Josh would be my witness, with Rinne as the backup. Next issue: as the challenged one, I’ll have to decide on the location. Any ideas?”

“The park,” Judy proposed right away. “It’s available 24/7, relatively secluded at this time of the year, and it’s familiar terrain.”

“I agree with Judy,” my other girlfriend added, and that pretty much settled that question. Now there was only the biggest elephant in the room we had to deal with.

“Three days from now, in the park, duel with full gear. Sounds straightforward, but there’s one big issue. Cal?”

“{Yes, young knight?}”

“What did you say, how long will it take for you to heal my hand?”

“{Considering the progress we’ve made, I believe it will only take about two months, give or take a few weeks.}”

“Okay, now let’s narrow it down a little: how long would it take to heal my hand to the point where I could don my whole armor and use a melee weapon with it?”

“{That… It’s hard to say for certain, but I believe it would take at least three weeks to restore the most obstructive damage in your Astral Body, but if you channeled mana in that state it would only cause further damage. If you wish to use your armor without potentially crippling yourself in the process, it would take at least a month and a half.}”

“So three weeks at the least, two months at most,” I stated aloud for the benefit of the girls. “That’s slightly more than three days, isn’t it?”

“{Well… Yes, young knight. It is. Why is that even a question?}”

I proceeded to ignore the sarcastically challenged sword and turned to the girls again.

“In other words, I would have to duel her without using my full suit of armor and its comprehensive physical enhancements, and with only one arm to boot, while she would have access to her whole arsenal.”

“That doesn’t sound very fair,” Elly muttered under her breath, while Judy looked to be considering things a tad more thoroughly.

“How much of a difference does that suit of armor make?”

“I can’t say for sure, but even only wearing the cuirass, the greaves, and the helmet provides a substantial boost both in physical strength, speed, and reaction times. I imagine wearing the whole thing and letting the various pieces boost each other would increase the effect even further, so I would be at a distinct disadvantage.”

“It’s sounding more unfair by the second,” Elly reiterated her previous sentiment.

“So even if you’re bigger, she might have both the speed and strength advantage because of the armor,” Judy concluded, and a moment of consideration later she added, “I think your best course of action would be to abuse your ability to freely teleport and hit her from her blind spot.”

“Uugh…” I grunted as my hand automatically rose to massage my temple. “There’s a small issue with that. You see, I can’t Phase in front of the Knights. If I did that, it would connect me to my Bel persona, and it would torpedo any kind of peace talks. I… might’ve gone a bit too overboard with antagonizing them.”

Judy remained silent for quite a while, but then her shoulders very slightly slouched when she said, “So you’ll have to duel someone who’s going to have a physical advantage over your due to their magical gear, while you are injured, and while you can’t even use your overpowered ability to level the playing field. This duel could only get more unbalanced if you had to do it blindfolded.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” the princess agreed, Judy nodded, and I sighed, in that order. “Do you really have to fight her? Can’t you just not show up to the duel?”

“{Don’t listen to her, young knight! If you purposefully abandon an Arbitration, you could not only break your Oath, but may even lose your qualification as a member of the Brotherhood!}”

After listening to the panicky and altogether too loud yells of the sword in my lap, I redoubled my temple-rubbing efforts, yet despite that, I could already feel the onset of a headache.

“Apparently, I can’t. Now, technically I didn’t have to ‘win’ per se, due to the aforementioned plan we are not talking about, but losing is not an option either.”

The girls didn’t argue, and we soon fell into an unusually long silence that stretched out for several minutes, with the only noise in the room coming from Elly occasionally crunching a piece of popcorn or two between her teeth, and doing so with an almost comically solemn expression. Judy was also serious, but she looked more troubled than anything, and as for me, I was feeling caught between a rock and a hard place. I had to accept this duel, otherwise my plan to use Cal to force a ceasefire would be jeopardized, but in my current state, but without my usual ace in the hole, I wasn’t sure I could win. I’ve yet to see the Knight girl in action, but she could keep up with Rinne for a short time even without her gear, and the other Knights referred to her as a genius, so she obviously wasn’t a pushover, and fighting her with one hand and only using my partial armor-boost and my dodging reflexes… I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t entirely confident.

I was still thinking in circles when, unexpectedly enough, the princess came up with a proposal.

“So, correct me if I’m wrong, but the issue is that you have two separate handicaps, right?” I nodded, so she continued with, “One is your injured hand, the other is that you can’t use your powers without linking you to that alter ego with the mask. Am I still right?” I nodded again, so after a brief moment of hesitation, she said, “In that case… which one is easier to resolve?”

“I… think healing my hand is more feasible,” I admitted, though a little reluctantly. “The Celestial healer I told you guys about is still on the island, but I can’t really take his offer, because it would mean I’d have to sacrifice my most important source of intel, and—”

“Hold on, Chief,” my dear assistant abruptly called out to me with a look of revelation in her eyes. “I have a solution.”

“Ooookay. I’m listening.”

I might have sounded just a touch apprehensive, as Judy’s lips bent into an actual, honest to goodness perceptible wolfish smile. That… was simultaneously fascinating and just a little scary, but I tried my best not to show it on my face as I waited for her explanation.

“You see, Chief, I think we might be able to use one of your problems to solve the other one…”

Following those words unfolded a simple yet effective plan that was right up my alley… and one that I obviously won’t say anything about. I wouldn’t want to spoil anything, now would I?