The Simulacrum

In the end, Ammy didn't stay for too long, and after I shared a few anecdotes about what happened at the resort (and after she made me swear about four more times that I would talk to Lord Grandpa), she left without too much hassle. In retrospect, I felt a little guilty about not bringing her along in the first place. The only reason why she was left out was because I knew she already had some plans with Mike, but thanks to that stupid letter, he ended up on our doorstep anyway. But then again, it was mainly hindsight speaking, so I didn't dwell too much on it. At most, I'd just have to make sure to invite her next time, which should be… well, the obligatory beach episode was half a year away at best, so I'd have a lot of time to plan it out. Though again, I wasn't even sure Timaeus's summers were even warm enough to swim in the ocean, so there was a good chance I would have to improvise.

That said, it was all mostly beside the point. With how things were progressing at the moment, I doubted we'd have the chance to have another vacation any time soon, so it was probably prudent to focus on more pressing issues instead. However, before anything else, I had to unpack my bags. That took about half an hour, during which Snowy also came home, just as I finished and was carrying the laundry over to the washing machine.

"I'm home," my sister announced when she walked into the living room, and I greeted her from the top of the stairs. "Ah. Do you need help?"

"Nah. I'll just put these into the laundry basket, and then I'm done."

Despite my answer, she still hurried upstairs and helped me unload anyway. Snowy was a treasure, as always.

"We have some laundry too, so I'll fire up Betsy right away!" That was the name of our washing machine, and no, I still had no idea why it was called that. I was ready to leave her to it, but just as I was about to turn on my heels, she called after me. "When is Penny coming home?"

"That's… actually a good question," I said, turning back. "Why? Do you miss her already?"

I was half-joking, considering that the two of them were practically glued together for the past couple of days. We had a similar situation going on with the girls, and while I reached the point where I could comfortably say I loved them to bits, after being joined at the hips for days on end (no innuendo intended), having some 'alone time' felt like a breath of fresh air.

Still, my sister considered my words like they were completely serious, and explained, "It's not that. We agreed to try something once we came home, but then I was invited by Angie, and I don't know if she still wants to do it or not."

"You could always call her on the phone, you know?" I pointed out, and she looked at me like I was some kind of genius. More importantly, her comment reminded me of a curious little question. "But speaking of Angie, where did the two of go? You left without saying anything."

"Oh, that?" Snowy responded while her hands automatically stuffed the washing machine. "Do you remember that time when she asked for advice about… um… getting closer to Josh?"

"Yes. I think I told you to tell her to be blunt about it."

She nodded and snapped the door of the machine shut before she turned to me with a beaming smile.

"It worked, so she wanted to thank me by treating me to a cake at a confectionery."

"… Figures."

I had no idea how our resident friendly neighborhood Celestial could maintain her slim figure with a sweet tooth of that size, but I figured it could be chalked up to main character privileges and didn't dwell on it.

"She… also tried to ask about other things related to… doing that, but it's private, so I don't think I should talk about it."

"It's fine," I said and reflexively rubbed her head. I wondered; was her being an Abyssal Seducer, who was getting shy whenever the topic of sex came up, considered 'gap moe'? Did I have to update her profile in my documentation again?

But speaking of which, I still had to put all our onsen-episode-related observations to electronic paper, so I cut our customary head-patting session short.

"I still have lots of stuff to take care of, so I'll be in my room for a while longer. If you need anything, you can find me there." She nodded in acknowledgement, and I was just about to turn around for a second time when I remembered something else, and added, "Also, I'm going to visit the arch-mage in the evening, so when you call Penny, ask her if she needs me to teleport her back home before I leave."

"The arch-mage? Is… Is it something serious?"

"Don't worry about it; it's just a courtesy call," I told her in the company of my most reassuring Big Brotherly Smile ver.6.2 (we went through a lot of upgrades, didn't we?) and headed back to my room, this time for real.

After closing the door behind me, I crouched behind the desk to turn on the power and then pressed the button on the front of the PC. While it booted, I put away the bags and returned all the lewding supplies to their proper place inside my nightstand. By the time I was done, I was greeted by the login screen, and in a few short seconds, I was sitting in my swivel chair and loading up the secure browser I used to access the Celestial Hub.

Before I would start working on the observation records, I figured it was best to check the current state of the Hub first. Another quick login later I was greeted by the familiar, minimalistic interface, which made the bright red exclamation marks around the PM button and the Recent Changes list look downright glaring. In a sense, that was their purpose, but if I could, I would've replaced them with something less conspicuous anyway.

Anyhow, I started with the PMs, and it didn't take long to skim through them. About half of them were asking database-related questions from the newly appointed moderators, but considering the dates, I figured they already solved them, or some of the old guards did it for them. Speaking of said old guard, I got a message from MoroseMoose, telling me to contact him once I finished moving base. It was the cover story for my absence during our vacation, and while I was sure he was only asking out of concern, I put the message away for now.

While at this point I was one hundred percent sure that the Celestial higher-ups didn't suspect any foul play, it was best to avoid getting complacent, so to make sure nobody would link Admin's absence to the four days Leonard Dunning spent at a hot spring resort, I planned to wait a couple of days before I would reappear on the site. My administrative privileges giving me an incognito mode was useful for situations like this.

As for the rest of the PMs, they were mostly just some of the more prolific users congratulating me on my promotion, which meant that, despite the Hub getting locked down due to the turmoil in the Celestial hierarchy, gossip was still spreading the same as always. Most of these were innocent, though there were a few covert and at least one fairly shameless attempt at bootlicking, but in any case, since I wasn't back 'officially', I ignored all of them equally and moved on.

Now, the next thing to check out was the Recent Changes list. Thanks to the template I used to cobble the site together, it had a handy function in the database that let me mark entries as 'watched', and any time anyone edited them, I would get notified. I reserved this to just a few documents pertaining to me and the island, and considering the unexpected letter Mike gave me, I figured that my own entry getting some kind of update was a given. After all, while most of the Hub's services were restricted for the common users, there were quite a few privileged accounts to whom the rules didn't really apply and were still able to peruse the database. What I didn't expect, however, was that my whole file was deleted.

It wasn't a sloppy job either, as scrolling through the other notifications told me that not only the file and database entry were scrubbed, but every single entry referencing me or my activities on the island was redacted as well. Hell, the entry of the Draconic Federation went as far as to replace every instance of my name with 'the Oathbreakers' unknown leader'. This was all kinds of fishy, so it warranted a deeper look.

First off, while the editing history of the entries was also wiped clean, that alone told me that it had to be done by Moose, as he was the only one I gave full reign over the database. He was a by-the-books type of person, and he wouldn't have done something like this on a whim, which meant that he was most likely ordered to do so by one of the higher-ups. Since I, as Admin, was officially the 'Deputy Director of Clandestine Services', an upper-mid spot on the Celestial totem pole, there were plenty of people with the authority above mine to do that. My hunch said the person responsible for this was most likely the proper Director of Clandestine Services, my direct superior I've never seen or heard of ever since I was surprise-promoted a while back.

More importantly, completely removing someone from the database, especially someone as prolific as a certain Leonard S. Dunning, sure as hell wasn't standard procedure. It was troubling enough that I almost considered abandoning my plan and directly asking Moose about what happened, but I ultimately decided against it. There was a good chance he was operating on a need-to-know basis and couldn't tell me anything new anyway, and so it wasn't worth breaking my cover over.

Honestly speaking, lately the Hub became more of a hassle than it was worth, and the only thing it consistently told me about was how little I knew about the internal workings and plans of the Celestial high command. One of these days, I definitely had to take another trip into the Elysium and try to mark at least one of the shady council members I'd caught talking with Jaacobah that one time. They seemed to be both knowledgeable about what was going on, as well as sufficiently nefarious, which made them just the kind of people I had to pay attention to.

But speaking of the Celestial special agent, it's been a while since I last checked on him, so I figured I might as well hit the iron while it was hot and Far Glanced his way. To my surprise, I found him in a completely new environment, among a couple of new faces, all of them dressed in high-tech armor sets that, predictably, covered way too little skin.

In practical terms, they looked similar to the ancient Greek style equipment of the guards I'd encountered the last time I ventured into the Elysium; forearm- and shin guards, a breast plate, and helmets with those plumed crests that looked like mohawks, all of it made of a matte yellow metal. I knew that they probably relied mostly one their magical barriers to defend themselves against damage, but the impracticality of their gear still didn't sit well with me. Case in point, one of the female agents/soldiers/officers/whatever in the back had a gap in her armor to show off her navel. What was even the point of wearing a chest plate when you did that?

Putting my continued annoyance over the impracticality of the supernatural folks' combat outfits aside, I focused on the situation itself, and after a few minutes of observations, I had to conclude that they were doing something similar to riot-police training. Breaking down doors with magical doodads, moving together under the cover of magical smoke grenades, shooting dummies with magical guns firing magical arrows… All in all, a fairly sensible set of training exercises made infinitely weirder by their equipment only covering half their bodies, the open-faced hoplite helmets, and their long white capes routinely getting in the way of the action.

Adding two and two together, I figured they were some kind of spec-ops team, and they were preparing for an operation, but that was as far as I could gather, since they remained remarkably tight-lipped from beginning to end, only barking and responding to orders as the situation demanded.

"Well, that's another thing I need to keep an eye on in the future," I grumbled as I returned to my body.

In conclusion, the Celestials were definitely on the move, and I needed more information if I wanted to out-plan them. In other words, I absolutely needed to make that trip to the Elysium, and soon. Not today though; I already had a bunch of things to do. Such as writing those observation reports.

Another cursory glance later I minimized the browser and opened up the hidden folder with all the documents related to the Simulacrum and what we learned about it. For the next couple of hours, I put on some music, dutifully organized my own notes, combined them with the text file that Judy sent over, and by the time I finished, there was one inescapable conclusion I had to reach: while it was nice, the hot springs arc didn't achieve the effect we were hoping for.

It didn't put a proper stop to the other plot threads running in the background, and the number of onsen-related tropes we encountered wasn't especially high, nor were they particularly impactful. The only major development it introduced was the finalization of Josh's and Angie's relationship, which was… Actually, wasn't that really important?

Sometimes it was easy to forget, between all the crazy stuff going on around me and all the planning I had to do to work around the nebulous Narrative's latest whims, but Josh was still the protagonist. Could it be argued that the whole point of our hot springs episode was to allow him and Angie to become a 'proper couple'? After all, in the visual s Judy always used as a template when talking about her route-theory, it wasn't uncommon for the early parts of a heroine's individual story to have a honeymoon period. A sort of calm-before-the-storm episode for the main characters, to act cute and/or have a few sexual encounters (depending on the genre) before the proverbial shit would hit the proverbial fan.

If so, were we influenced into orchestrating this arc, or was the Simulacrum simply taking advantage of our efforts? Seriously, as annoying as the Celestials' plotting was, I would've taken them on any day over trying to make heads or tails of our narrative. And no, I didn't mean the capital-N-Narrative, but just the regular, trope-regulated ebb and flow of cause-and-effect within the Simulacrum. The former was its own can of worms I still didn't really want to touch unless absolutely necessary, especially when the latter gave me enough headaches already.

In the end, I added this to my notes as well. I would have to discuss this with the girls tomorrow, I reckoned, but for the time being, I was content with just writing the idea down along with all the other observations. Such as the odd and seemingly one-sided UST between my sisters (of which I still wasn't one hundred convinced, despite Judy's insistence), the just as odd budding friendship between Naoren and Mountain Girl based entirely on centuries-old East-Asian literature (side-note: Rinne was apparently not only the head of the handicrafts club in her high-school days, but also an honorary member of the literature club, because of course she had the time to do all that while monster-hunting), and the still ongoing rivalry between Josh and Zihao.

It was getting hard to keep track of all of the relationships, even if I only considered the ones with visible evidence, as opposed to all the random ships Judy told me about, but that's why I had these notes, to begin with. All in all, I'd spent quite some time jotting down everything, and it was past four in the afternoon by the time I more-or-less finished everything up. Penny still wasn't home yet, and Snowy didn't call me over either, so I figured I didn't need to Phase her home.

Despite the days steadily getting longer, we were still in the middle of January, so the sun set fairly early. While the day-night-cycle had little significance to me, in the end I decided I might as well head over to talk with Lord Grandpa while there was still light outside.

First things first though, I had to make a few preparations. Step one: grab something to eat. While we had a big breakfast before leaving the resort, it's been nearly half a day since then, so I was getting a bit peckish. The invisible ninja maids kept our fridge stocked with fresh produce, whether we were around or not, and I soon settled on making a few grilled cheese sandwiches.

It wasn't exactly the most luxurious of meals, but while I didn't want to brag or anything, I was a bit of an expert when it came to making them, and in a few short minutes, the first pair was already sizzling on the stove.

"Snowy? Do you want grilled cheese?" I called upstairs, out of courtesy.

"Thank you, but I'm fine," my sister's muffled voice answered from behind her closed door. "I ate too much at the confectionery."

"Your call."

Saying so, I turned the sandwiches over in the pan, and then packed the rest I prepared, just in case, into aluminium foil and stocked them aside in the fridge. In the meantime, my snacks were ready, and while I cleaned up after myself, they cooled enough for me to wolf them down. That took care of my metabolism for the time being, so the next step was to clean up a bit and change my clothes.

As much as I initially loathed the whole 'Blackcloak' moniker, by this point I resolved myself to just embrace it and use it to my own advantage. As such, after putting on a slightly more businesslike pair of trousers and a sweater-and-shirt combination, I draped one of my many woolen black long coats over my shoulders. Since I had no plans to stay outside in the cold, this one wasn't particularly thick and only reached down to my knees, but I figured it would still complete my trademark appearance. The girls said the whole 'stylish black longcoat' thing suited me, but personally speaking, I liked the kind of tailcoat I wore as Bel better.

But putting my fashion gripes aside, I needed one more thing before I headed out, and after crouching down by the nigh-stand, I retrieved Cal from under the bed. It might not have been the best practice to keep my enormously important kingmaker magic sword there, but I kind of got used to it during the past couple of days, and I just automatically tossed them under there.

"{Are we returning to the stronghold, young knight?}"

I presumed they meant the not-so-secret-anymore base, but I shook my head.

"No, not yet. I'm going to visit the local arch-mage first, and I need your support."

"{Are you about to attack him? Should you not bring along your equipment then, young knight? Masters of the arcane arts of the Magi are not to be trifled with! In fact, I recommend you reconsider your course of action and—}"

"I'm not planning to attack him, that's not why I need you," I cut them off before they could work themselves up even more. "As for my equipment…"

That actually made me pause for a moment. I obviously wasn't going to wear my armor, because that was just asking for a misunderstanding, but I did have an alternative. While I focused all my efforts on the Knights' Uniformers in preparation of their big reveal during the tournament-arc, it didn't mean I forgot about making one for myself. After all, I was technically a Knight as well, with my own Oath-receptacles, so there was nothing stopping me from wearing and using one myself. Of course, it was just a prototype, because I was still waiting for Gowan to finish preparing the base plate I asked for in order to make my very own custom Uniformer, but it was technically functional…

…

But to get it, I would've had to Phase to the base, and then fix up the enchantment arrays I left half-finished the last time I worked on it, and then while I was there I was guaranteed to get held up by Brang showing off one of the knives he made, or someone in the research division would ask for help with one of their pet project, and it would all turn into a big hassle, so…

"Nah, there's no need for that. It's not like Lord Grandpa would attack me or anything."

"{… Young knight. I believe this is what Lady Judy often refers to as 'jinxing it'.}"

"Oh, hush, you," I chided the naggy sword in my hands and then turned to the nearby wall and raised my voice. "Snowy? I'm leaving for a while. Take care of the house until I'm back."

"Okay! Stay safe!" my sister answered from the other side, and after hefting Cal over my shoulder, I promptly disappeared from the room.

Even though it was a Saturday, Lord Grandpa was still holed up in his office inside the underground School complex. While I could certainly just Phase in on top of him and call it a day, the whole point of this excursion was to peacefully discuss things like reasonable adults, so I opted for the more traditional approach. Once I arrived at the designated neighborhood marked Placeholder's house, I hopped across a fence, circled around the fancy wall surrounding Blue Cherry High, and then entered through the wooden gate at the back of the campus. Unlike the main gates, through which we usually entered on school days, this one was always open, so whenever I wanted to visit Gowan to exchange some pleasantries and enchantment work with him, I always used this route.

Speaking of the portly Scottish artificer, I seriously considered dropping by the Artificer's Lodge within the School to see if he had anything for me, but my plans were torpedoed the moment the doors of the elevator opened at its destination.

"Dunning."

Armband Guy was standing right in front of the elevator, and he gave me a flat greeting accompanied by a skeptical look directed at the sword hanging from my side. I pre-scouted the place before coming down, so I knew he was in the School, but I didn't expect to run into him the moment I arrived.

"Hello, Pascal."

When I stepped out of the cabin, there was a bit of a standoff between us. Critias's culture was strangely averse to handshakes, so I wasn't surprised by him not offering a hand after meeting for the first time in weeks, but the apprehensive look he was giving me clearly expressed the fact he didn't welcome my presence at the moment.

"What brings you here at this hour?"

"'This hour?' It's not that late, you know?" He remained completely stoic, so after shrugging, I added, "I came to pay a visit to the old man."

"And you brought a sword with you," he pointed out, so I raised Cal to show that I wasn't trying to hide them.

"As a matter of fact, I did." A short beat later, I exhaled a shallow groan. "Oh, come on. Don't look at me like that. I'm not here to pick a fight; quite the opposite, really."

"So you brought your sword specifically not to start a conflict."

"Yes. Precisely." He remained visibly unconvinced, so I shook my head and walked past him with the words, "Just think of it as an experiment to keep me calm and civil."

Pascal didn't say a word, and I expected that he would enter the elevator cabin, but he turned on his heel instead and followed after me. When I glanced over my shoulder to give him a curious look, he blandly stated, "I just remembered that I also had some business in the office of the Lord. I hope you do not mind if I tag along."

"Why would I?"

With that, my suspicious tagalong and I made our way to the annoying old coot's study. The sturdy double-winged doors were imposing as usual, though the notion that I knew for a fact that the complex interlocking system of wards covering their surface was fragile enough to be broken on accident certainly detracted from their majesty. Though again, I was literally the only person on the island who could do that, so maybe my view on things was a little skewed in this regard.

Anyhow, once we arrived, Armband Guy didn't even let me announce my own arrival and cut ahead of me, just so that he could knock first.

"Lord Endymonion?"

"Did you not say that you were heading home for the day?" the unmistakable voice of the arch-mage answered from the other side, sounding genuinely irritated.

"I did, but on the way, I met Leonard Dunning. He is here to pay you a visit."

"Is he?" There was some kind of commotion on the other side, but it only lasted for a short while. "I do not believe he made any appointments."

"He is here all the same."

This time, there was no response, and this whole exchange was pretty annoying to begin with, so I forcefully cleared my throat.

"Please stop stalling. We don't have all day."

Another beat of silence followed, then a disgruntled grunt, and then, at last, the wings of the door began to move. Right away, my gaze landed on the old man sitting behind the uselessly large desk at the back of the room, and I could already feel the familiar yet just as irrational instinctive irritation wash all over me. For now, I forcefully bottled it down and walked inside without a word.

The arch-mage's office was the same as always. Discounting the missing liquor cabinet, everything else was at its usual place, and while it was most easily seen on the enchanted walls surrounding the chamber, the air itself was also brimming with the colorless, ethereal glow of magic. Maybe even more than usual, I surmised. Was the old badger doing some spellcasting before we came in, I wondered?

In any case, I unabashedly walked right up to the desk and locked eyes with the owner of the room. Lord Amadeus Endymonion was even more haggard than the last time I'd seen him, with the dark circles around his eyes turning into an unhealthy shade of purple, and his face looked like it gained a couple dozen new wrinkles in the past few weeks. This time, he wasn't wearing his Panama hat, but his beige-suit-and-dark-wizard-robe combo was the same as usual.

"Evening. Before we begin, can you say something infuriating," I addressed the man without any pretenses, and showed off Cal, to avoid any misunderstandings. "I'm doing something of an experiment, and I need it for calibrations."

"… I have to say, your newfound leadership position did not improve your skills in the art of diplomacy one iota."

"Thank you, that's very accommodating of you," I responded with a grin before focusing on the sword in my hand. "Cal? Can you please do that circulation thing that Naoren taught us the other day?"

"{Under these circumstances?}" I only nodded, and after an exasperated sigh, they answered with a tired, "{I shall do as you ask, young knight.}"

They barely even finished speaking when I could already feel the flow of mana heading to my chest area. I let Cal do the regulation and the guiding, and once it entered the designated mana vessel, the stream quickly completed its first circulation. As it did, I could feel a sudden sense of ease spread through my whole body. I waited for a second or two, just to be sure, before I turned back to Lord Grandpa. The effect was… not perfect, as I could still feel an intangible sense of impatience claw at my thoughts just from being in his vicinity, but the calming waves of relaxation provided by the meditative circulation did help to alleviate it, if only a little.

Overall, I couldn't exactly call it a success, but it was better than nothing, and with some mental discipline, I figured it would allow me to maintain a more or less civil conversation with the arch-mage.

"Are you quite finished?"

"Yes. I didn't want to keep you waiting, but I had to give this one a try."

The old man eyed me skeptically for a second or two, and then he theatrically took a small bottle of mineral water out of one of the desk's drawers and took a swig from it.

"If your goal was to demonstrate that you are indeed one of the members of the Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines, you need not do it in person. I had no reason to doubt the news in the first place."

"No, this was for something else entirely," I corrected him, and he might've expected me to actually explain myself, as he looked quite annoyed when I turned back and gestured at Armband Guy instead. "Are you staying?"

"Is the topic of your conversation in regards to something I must not hear?" he asked back, which made me turn to Lord Grandpa again.

"Good question. Does he already know that the whole Assembly is coming to the island to say hello to us?" He nodded, in the company of an exasperated grunt. "In that case, I suppose you might as well stay. Make yourself comfortable or something."

That was supposed to be a stray comment, but Pascal took me seriously and brought a chair over. While he sat down at the side, roughly at the same distance from both of us, Lord Grandpa put his bottle away and directed a displeased scowl at me.

"In regards to the current situation, how much of it are you aware of?"

"Just that the Assembly is freaking out about the Draconic Federation, and they are coming to the island to posture and show everyone they are the biggest tomcat in this neighborhood."

"Your interpretation is both brash and only surface level deep, but not entirely inaccurate," the old Magi grumbled and linked his fingers on the table. "Allow me to be frank as well and ask this: what are you intending to do about this?"

"Why would I do anything?" I blurted out, and it was easy to read the surprise off his face. "This is a political dispute between the Assembly and the Draconic Federation. It has nothing to do with me personally."

"I am afraid you are quite mistaken in that regard," he told me plainly, with a face sourer than distilled lemon juice. Then, before I could get a word in, he followed it up with a groan. "Leonard. You are certainly one of the… no, there is no need to mince my words; you are definitely the most outstanding member of your generation. You have talent, influence, and power, and your station within this newfound organization of yours would likely make you something of a peer of mine, yet you are young. Too young. You simply do not understand the intricate ways of the world yet."

I was pretty sure he gave me a speech similar to this one in the past, and I could even faintly recall that back then, I had a hard time not rubbing his nose into the fact that I knew waaay more about the strings the world danced to than he could ever imagine. This time, it was slightly easier to resist the urge, so I only waved at him to continue.

"Large, established organizations are, at their core, still made up of people. Men and women who had to spend their entire lives working hard, currying favors, and often employing questionable and underhanded means to reach the stations they occupy. I am no different, and that is why I can understand how my peers in the Assembly think. It was due to this reason that, for the past several months, I did my best to conceal your activities and… escapades, from all prying eyes. It was as much for your sake as it was for the safety and peace of Critias."

"Oh, come on now," I interrupted a touch indignantly, but after taking a deep breath, I quickly tempered my outburst into a more level-headed, "Don't act like you're some good Samaritan who was secretly looking after my best interest the whole time. We both know that you did everything in your power to keep the Assembly off the island just to protect your own hide and cover your tracks." Taking another deep breath, I collected my thoughts a little, and after reminding myself that I was supposed to aim for some kind of collaboration with the old man, I further softened my point with a strategically absent-minded, "That said, I doubt my actions were that bad for your image. I mean, it was out of your control, and who would blame someone for an earthquake or a tornado?"

"The fact that you had correctly identified yourself with a natural disaster gives me a faint hope that you possess at least a modicum of the capability for self-reflection," the old man sniped at me in response, but before I could return the favor, he unlinked his fingers and tapped on the table. "Listen to me, Leonard. As the appointed arch-mage of Critias and a senior member of the Assembly, I would, without a doubt, receive extensive scorn for my inability to foresee and prevent your unnatural rise to prominence in its early stages."

"Unnatural?" I echoed him with one brow raised high, and he sharply exhaled through his nostrils, as if my reaction was amusing.

"Is it not? As I have just explained, rising to the pinnacle of a vast and influential organization requires years, nay, decades of relentless pursuit, using personal favors as ledges and contending peers as stepping stones. It is a cruel, arduous process every single senior member of the Assembly had experienced. Now imagine that you are one of these senior Magi, who sacrificed so much to achieve their current esteem, and you see a youth only a fraction of your age rise to meet you in but the span of a few short months. Would you not consider that unnatural?"

"Maybe," I granted him, and before I could add anything else, he all but slapped the table.

"Do you see now, Leonard Dunning, King of Dragons and Knights? Do you see now how everyone would view your achievements with deep-seated suspicion and would search for any and all explanations that could rationalize the impossible situation in front of their eyes? You cannot stay blind to this truth: the Assembly is not mobilizing its forces because they wish to keep this Draconic Federation of yours in check, but because they had already concluded that your rise is abnormal. Since it is abnormal, it must be the result of a plot by some prominent power, and if so, they are convinced the only reason for such a design to exist is to undermine their own power and authority they worked so hard to achieve. In other words, whether such a grand conspiracy exists against the Assembly or not, and whether you are the centerpiece of it or just a victim of circumstances, it matters little; so long as the other arch-mages believe so, you will remain the center of this storm, whether you think it concerns you or not."

In the wake of the old man's monologue, there were several seconds of silence, during which all I could do was blink and wonder exactly how I was supposed to react to all this.

"I… kind of tuned out and need to rearrange my thoughts a little, but while I do that… please tell me people don't seriously call me 'King of Dragons and Knights'…"

My response sent the arch-mage on a loop for a while, but in the end he told me, "I have heard that moniker on several occasions."

"Goddamit. Why do you people keep attaching more titles onto me!? I already have a hard enough time keeping them all under control!"

Lord Grandpa's brows slowly descended into a disapproving scowl, and hissed, "I am afraid you really were not paying attention to my words if that was the only thing you are concerned about."

"No, I paid attention, I just tend to address the things that really annoy me first," I shot back and inhaled deeply to center myself. "So, just to summarize your point, the Assembly is made up of power-hungry paranoid schemers, and since they view the world through that lens, they are now freaking out because they think I'm part of some kind of supernatural super-conspiracy." After a momentary beat, he nodded, so I continued with, "However, I couldn't help but notice a few curious word choices here and there. It almost sounded like you know better than them."

"I could hardly not do so, when I have experienced all of your exploits first hand, and know for a fact that your personality would not suffer being a pawn in the game of someone else."

I really, really wanted to ask about his impression of me, but it was best to stay on topic, so after getting my thoughts in order, I did just that.

"All right, so I think we're now clear on the Assembly's agenda. Come to the island to discover my connection to this conspiracy and how the Draconic Federation relates to it. Then, they are going to be disappointed when they discover that there's no such thing. What do we do after that?"

"We?" Lord Grandpa asked back, and this time it was my turn to frown at him.

"I came here with the express purpose to discuss how to treat the Assembly's mobilization and prevent the situation from deteriorating. Wasn't I clear on that?"

"You never outright said that," Armband Guy noted on the side, earning himself a scoff.

"Even so, it was very heavily implied." Turning back to the old man, I leveled the question at him again. "So? What do we do?"

"Are you asking me to cooperate with you?"

"Why would I need to ask anything? Aren't you all about keeping Critias safe and peaceful? It's also what I've been doing since the very beginning, so we should be on the same page already."

"If so, your track record is appalling."

"Says the kettle to the pot," I responded with a cheeky grin. "That means we have even more in common. All the more reason we should cooperate on this to prevent the island from becoming a supernatural battleground."

The arch-mage remained tensely silent for a long time, but I didn't mind. It just gave me more opportunity to do the whole meditation-circulation-thing. It was kind of working.

"You appear awfully flippant about the prospects of all-out war," he noted dourly.

"To be fair, I'm kind of used to this sort of thing. For the past couple of months, I've been going from one deadly dangerous conflict to another, so you can't really blame me for getting desensitized."

"I am not blaming you, but I do think you are not fully aware of what you are dealing with." When I didn't respond right away, Lord Grandpa's face became pensive, and before long he turned to Armband Guy. "Pascal. Please go ahead and prepare the Nexus Chamber."

"The Nexus Chamber? Are you sure, my Lord?"

"Yes."

Before I could get a word in, Pascal all but jumped to his feet, and by the time he got there, the doors were already wide open to allow him to pass through.

"What was that about?"

I didn't even try to hide my misgivings, but the arch-mage didn't seem to care as he stood up and stepped over to me.

"I wish to show you something. Come, walk with me."

I still wasn't one hundred percent sure what was going on, but I figured I might as well indulge the old man. I was also a little curious, as while I had observed the School complex through Far Sight numerous times, this was the first time I'd ever heard of this 'Nexus Chamber' place. It sounded like some kind of well-kept secret, and I was always a sucker for those, so I grudgingly followed after him.

After leaving his office behind, we headed deeper into the institute. Since it was a weekend, there were only a few placeholder Magi idling around, and they gave us a wide berth when they saw us coming. I had no idea how far we were walking, but since the previous conversation was on hold, I figured I might as well bring up something else to pass the time.

"I'd like to ask something." Turning his face at me, the look in the arch-mage's eyes said he didn't expect me to speak up, but he soon gave me the go anyway. "I was planning to hire Peabody. Are you okay with that?"

"You wish to hire him?" he asked back, sounding downright flabbergasted.

"That's the plan. You know that I have my own research division, right?" He looked at me like I just stated the obvious. "Friedrich told me Peabody used to do research about homunculi, and he thinks we have the tools to let him complete it, but since he was obviously working with you on something similar, I figured I'd first ask if it's fine with you if I poached him."

"What makes you think he was doing any kind of work with me?"

He played dumb, so I flatly told him, "The two homunculi around you? Well, the two that I know of, but I think that's already enough evidence to figure out what happened."

At first, he only frowned at me, but then when we reached a stairwell and headed down, he finally blurted out, "Archibald can make his own decisions. If what you can offer him might grant him even a sliver of a hope to complete his magnum opus, I dare not stand in his way."

"Great. You're unusually obliging today, aren't you?"

"And you are only mildly infuriating," he shot back.

"As opposed to?"

"Mind-bogglingly infuriating," he spat out, and I couldn't help but chuckle at him, at least until I remembered another tangentially related topic.

"But speaking of homunculi, while I realize this is really not the right time for it, but after this whole thing with the Assembly cools down a bit, I'm planning to do something about the classification of homunculi. If I wanted to petition something like that, where should I start?"

Instead of answering my actual question, Lord Grandpa looked at me uncomprehendingly.

"I'm talking about the fact that they are un-people'd."

That finally jogged the gear in his head, but it then resulted in yet another frown occupying his face.

"I fail to see how doing so would do more than cause heated arguments, and it would not resolve any of the consequences arising from their lack of true souls."

"Let me worry about that part, will you?"

He grunted in something that resembled approval, but before I could ask about where to start with the paperwork again, we arrived at a narrow corridor with a single metal door at its end, with Armband Guy waiting right next to it.

"The room has been prepared for use," he told us the moment we arrived, and opened the way for us to enter.

I was curious what this was all about and peeked inside, but at first glance, the whole place was empty, save for the thick ambient mana suffused in the air. That was both disappointing and kind of confusing. I was expecting some kind of secret project, or maybe a magical doomsday weapon, but by the looks of it, all we had was an absurdly spacious square chamber with a bunch of lights embedded in the concrete walls.

While I was looking around, Lord Grandpa passed by me and gestured to follow after him, and with some hesitation, I complied. For a moment, I wondered if maybe the insides of the room were magically concealed in order to hide them from prying eyes, but I instantly realized that I would've most likely just seen through that with my magic-o-vision. Sure, there was a haze of magic in the air, yet it felt more natural than the one in the study, and didn't seem to conceal anything. But if not that, then what was the arch-mage trying to show me.

"This is the deepest chamber of our School," he told me out of the blue, drawing his attention back to me. "By consequence, it is also naturally closest to the Ley Line Nexus upon which our School was constructed."

Just as he said that, I heard a scraping noise, and realized that Armband Guy just shut the door on us. Suddenly beset by a sense of foreboding, I tentatively asked, "So… What exactly do you want to show me? There's nothing here?"

"Am I not in front of you?" he answered back with a borderline cocky smile, and before I knew it, the whole place flashed in inverted colors before it settled into a familiar hue of purple.

"… You can't be serious."

"I most certainly am," Lord Grandpa answered with his arms behind his back, and then after uttering a few syllables that sounded like butchered Latin, his feet left the ground and he gradually rose into the air until he was looking down on me. "As I have told you, while you have certainly faced many hardships in the recent past, you are woefully unaware of the power the arch-mages of the Assembly wield, and the potential destruction you may face when faced with one. As such, I consider it a necessity to provide you with the opportunity to experience it first-hand, and hope that the understanding would serve to temper you."

"{… Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is one of those, 'I told you so' situations, young knight.}"

Prompted thusly, I glanced down at the sword on my waist, and with an equal amount of trepidation and exasperation, I pulled it free of its scabbard with the words, "Shut it, Cal. Not a word."

"{I will not, young knight!}" the sword in my hand protested, but I ignored their voice in my head and assumed a defensive posture.

Based on the blowing, swirling magical haze around the stupid old bastard, I had a feeling he wasn't kidding, a notion that was further attested by the soft warning my sixth sense was continuously sending me. It didn't warn me of any immediate danger, but it was consistently keeping me on edge, and my whole body tensed up in preparation for what was to come.

Of course, that presumed that I would play by the arch-mage's rules, and as always, I still had the option of Phasing away and pretending it was all some kind of illusion and I was never really—

"So this is indeed your real body. It is quite a relief. For a short moment, I was dreading to appear foolish, but it seems it was a gamble worth taking."

"What?" I blurted out in response, and Lord Grandpa spread his hands, accompanied by one of the most punchable smiles I'd ever seen on a face, which meant…

"Cal? Did you stop the circulation?"

"{Worry not, young knight! I have already stopped all unnecessary activities and prepared your body for combat! There's no need to thank me.}"

I had many a colorful comment I could've given in response to that, but then my danger sense suddenly flared up, and my upper body automatically leaned to the side. Not a blink of an eye later, a crescent-shaped wave of blue light sailed past where my left shoulder was just a moment ago, hitting the wall far behind me and gauging a sizable gash into the concrete.

"It was about half as powerful as the formula would have dictated. More or less as expected," the smug old man muttered as he let his hand down, his two extended fingers still flickering with colorless light. "As you can see, the proximity of the Nexus affects the stability of my spells just as much as it hampers your ability to cast your illusions. I reckon we can call that a fair handicap."

"Fair my ass!" I exclaimed and pointed at the cut on the wall. "You could've taken my bleeding arm off with that!"

"But I did not," Lord Grandpa responded with the same self-assured smile and floated a little higher. "I was confident you would easily avoid a spell with such a straightforward trajectory. The real demonstration begins now."

After pausing, he rapidly chanted a string of syllables that sounded something like 'slublakrluflubbus', and after another eye-sore of a light show, a large, gnarled staff with golden inlays and a fist-sized blue orb embedded into its head materialized out of thin air and landed in the man's outstretched hand. He hefted his new weapon, as if familiarizing himself with a weight he hadn't felt in a while, and then pointed it at me.

"There is no need for concerns. I promise I will be reasonable, so use this opportunity to carve the experience of facing an arch-mage of the Assembly into your mind and bones without any reservations!"

"Bullshit!" I blurted out, though the last syllable was overpowered by the roar of a cloud of flame surging out of the ball on the tip of the staff.

"{It's a spell that affects a wide area! Avoid it, young knight!}" I didn't have time to complain about useless advice, as I was too busy trying to suppress my instinctive reaction to just Phase out of the way. Lacking a better solution, I dived to the left, barely avoiding the flames scorching the spot where I stood. "{Well done! Fret not, for I shall continue to offer my guidance, and confer the wisdom I have accumulated over the centuries, so you can face this mighty foe! This is the reason for my existence!}"

Cal was unusually hyped up by the situation, and a small corner of my mind wondered if he was getting high on the dense mana in the room. Fortunately, the larger part of my mind had its priorities straight and focused on analyzing the situation while leaving my survival in the hands of my trusty dodging reflexes and danger sense.

Ducking under another burst of flames, I considered the first question: how much of my powers could I reveal in this situation? Lord Grandpa already implied that I shouldn't be able to use illusions, my go-to-excuse to explain my teleportation shenanigans to the uninitiated onlookers, and he sounded damn sure about himself. It apparently had something to do with the Nexus under our feet, and while I didn't fully understand what was going on, I had an inkling that if I tried to pull the 'I was never really here' card at this point, it would retroactively undermine every previous occasion I blamed on illusions.

I not only used that explanation with Lord Grandpa, but Jaakobah as well, and since I was still in the process of fully separating myself from my Bel persona, the last thing I needed was to get the arch-mage suspicious about my powers and start tugging at the frayed edges of my cover. Of course, this consideration didn't take precedence over my life, but so far, the old man was only throwing fairly predictable moves at me, so it was fine.

The next issue was my mobility. Since I didn't plan for combat and didn't bring any defensive gear, it meant I had to keep my head over the water with sheer agility. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done when I was wearing a pair of street leather shoes that weren't exactly designed for high-octane footwork.

"{Look out, young knight! Your foe is preparing for a grand spell!}"

"I can see that already!" I growled back and assumed a high guard stance.

"{The Magi is still chanting his spell! By attacking him now, you could interrupt his channeling, and open him up for follow-up attacks!}"

"I never asked for a tutorial!"

Even putting that aside, Cal's comment was kind of moot, considering at this point Lord Grandpa was hovering more than three meters high in the air, his head nearly touching the ceiling. At best, I could maybe poke the soles of his feet! Phasing could've solved that issue, but then again, it was off the table for the moment. What else did I have?

"Ah, right. Phantom Limbs," I muttered under my breath. I was so startled by the sudden development, I nearly forgot about them.

"{Quickly, young knight! Use your beam attack to interrupt him before it's too late!}"

Putting aside the fact that I had no such ability, I had more important things to think about, so I refrained from responding and instead focused on how to use my Phantom Limbs in this situation. While I could've just flailed them around, like normal, and cut all incoming spells into ribbons, I had no idea how to explain what I was doing to Lord Grandpa afterward, which brought me back to the previous 'don't raise suspicion' point.

Turning that around, how could I use them while still looking natural, and something a famous Chimera Slaying King of Knights and Dragons and Whatever Else could reasonably use? I didn't have to think long, and I managed to extend my two intangible limbs in parallel to Cal's blade, just in time for the old bastard to release whatever big spell he was weaving.

In but a second, the air in the room dropped by at least a dozen degrees. Behind the floating man's back, a dozen or so bright blue magical circles materialized from nothing, and they had a bunch of large icicles growing from their centers. Seeing those brought a small trauma from the not-so-distant past to mind, but it was only a fleeting sensation, and by the time the bloody things started flying, I already reaffirmed my grip on Cal.

The torrent of icy projectiles came at me all at once, but despite how dangerous it looked, my danger sense was only giving me a medium-grade forewarning. The reason was simple: this spell apparently worked on a shotgun principle, firing a whole lot of missiles in a broad area, making avoiding them all nearly impossible. However, in the reverse, it also meant that so long as I didn't panic and remained still, I only had to strike down a handful of ice spikes coming my way, and that's exactly what I did.

While I didn't have the full boost my armor set provided, combining Cal's support with my own sixth sense made the process relatively simple. The first wave of icy projectiles only had three that would've hit me if I didn't hit them first, and while I wasn't sure I could've done it with just the sword alone, the moment my Phantom Limbs touched them, the frozen missiles lost all their momentum, making swatting them out of the air even easier. The second wave had six icicles that would've hit me, and I cut down five one after the other before getting out of the way of the last one, and then the last wave, which looked way bigger than the first two combined, somehow only had four dangerous ice-bolts in it.

All in all, defending myself from the barrage felt almost like I was playing some kind of rhythm game, and not even a particularly hard one. Of course, that didn't mean I came out of it scot-free; while I avoided all the attacks that could've caused injuries, I had to ignore a few grazing hits, and while they didn't draw blood, they left a few bruises on my legs and side. More alarmingly, since I didn't have my full suite of physical enchantments, deflecting just a handful of those icicles left my hands sore, to the point where I was worried that if there were a few more of those barrages, my grip could've slipped.

Luckily for me, by the looks of it, that spell took a lot out of Lord Grandpa, as he not only didn't launch another salvo, but he even descended a little closer to the ground. That was something that didn't avoid Cal's notice either, and they sounded downright excited by the situation.

"{Amazing display, young knight! While you had failed to interrupt the Magi's spell, you have done well to weather his attack! Truly commendable! Now, strike him down while he's disoriented! Attack him with your beam attack for massive damage!}"

"I still don't have anything like that, and he's not a giant enemy crab!" the indignation burst out of me, and it finally took the overly enthusiastic sword aback for a moment.

"{No, of course not. He's an arch-mage of the Magi. I thought you already knew."} If glares could hurt, the annoying sword would've been screaming under mine, but they were apparently incapable of self-reflection, and continued on anyway. "{I understand that the weight of the situation might have caused you to make such a mistake, but I will not judge you for it. While the chances of victory are slim, as defeating a Lord of Magic within his own domain is a monumental task scarcely likely to ever succeed, you must never give up! So long as the power of determination blazes in your heart, there's no—}"

Ignoring the incessant and unwelcome pep-talk coming my way, I heeded my sixth sense's warning and sidestepped to the left, avoiding another of those crescent-shaped waves coming my way. On this occasion, however, the old man didn't stop at one, and while rapidly chanting, he chained one attack after the other.

This time, I didn't dodge, but instead I lashed out with the sword in my hand, if only to shut them up for a moment, and parried each incoming wave as they came. It kind of felt like we were long-range sparring, except since this time the projectiles weren't corporeal, there was little to no impact on my hands after contact with my Phantom Limbs instantly canceled the crescents out. It still resulted in lots of clanging noises and a whole lot of magical lights, but at this point, I was used to the useless spectacle.

After he finished his combo, the old man rose back into the air and floated back while simultaneously releasing a large ball of fire my way. When it covered about half the distance between us, it abruptly morphed into an angry face, which was made slightly funny when I sliced it in two vertically. To my surprise, it turned out that Lord Grandpa used the cover of the fire-head-thing to fly even further back than I thought, and he already released a barrage of pointy red missiles at me. They flew in curved trajectories, and while I could swat out the first few of them, I simply couldn't move my hands fast enough to take care of it all, forcing me to start moving while simultaneously parrying the incoming magic missiles.

This barrage barely even ended when I noticed that the old man was casing another spell, and in a moment, a couple dozen dinner-plate-sized magic circles materialized all around me, creating a whole bunch of fiery pillars that raised the ambient temperature right back up after the ice barrage. Then, to make things even worse, the fire columns started moving around in eclectic, spiraling patterns.

"{Look out! The Magi is channeling his spell again! If you interrupt him now—}"

"Seriously, is this a video game boss fight?! How many more stages are there?!"

"{Focus, young knight! This obviously isn't a game! This is reality!}"

Once again, I had a colorful expletive on the tip of my tongue, but I had to ignore it in favor of the fire pillars swirling around me. Dodging them wasn't too difficult, but it was very tiring, and since I still had no idea how I was supposed to beat the old man while keeping all my trump cards close to my chest, I wanted to preserve as much as my stamina as possible, so…

…

Wait.

Was I supposed to win here? I thought I was joking (it was my coping mechanism, bite me), but wasn't this pretty much one of those 'unwinnable RPG battle' scenarios my redhead sister occasionally complained about while playing on her phone? Here I was, alone and unprepared, facing off against one of the (allegedly) most powerful people on the island, inside his lair, where he had an infinite supply of magic and he kept throwing spells at me like it was candy on Halloween night. Could it be that I wasn't actually supposed to win this, but serve as one of those 'learning experiences', where the hero would have to face the fact that there were much more powerful foes out there, and motivate them to train harder or something? Or was I conflating that with a shounen manga cliché?

In either case, this might've been a Narrative-directed event aimed at me, and I wasn't half happy about it. The question was, how should I deal with it?

If my memory served right, I might've read on the trope site that if the hopeless boss fight was scripted enough, then even if the player won the battle, the scenario would still continue like they had a massive defeat. While I was half-tempted to break my rules, Phase up to Lord Grandpa, and paddle him into a pulp with the flat of Cal's blade, just to see if he would then act like he squarely defeated me once he regained consciousness, I figured that satisfying my bile curiosity should take a lower priority in this situation.

What else then? Well, in the mobile RPG that Penny was playing (despite constantly complaining about it), she got annoyed because an unpopular side-character had to come in and save the party multiple times, just to show off how great she was and how big her boobs were. Her words, not mine.

That more or less fell in line with what I knew about these hopeless boss fights: you either had to lose, or you won, but the game still pretended you lost, or after surviving for some time, a supporting character would show up to save your skin. The first option obviously wasn't going to happen, because there was no way in hell I would pretend to lose to this annoying old codger, while the second option was also out of the question. I mean, I technically could win, or at the very least make the bloody wizened bastard regret he ever came up with this idea, but there were long-term consequences to consider, and I wasn't sure that beating up the local arch-mage just before the Assembly was about to come to the neighborhood to pick a fight was a good idea.

That left me with only option three, which meant… stalling for time.

"So, just keep doing what I've been doing up until now, huh?" I muttered under my breath between cutting off one of the heads of the large nine-headed water snake the old man summoned.

"{No, young knight! I told you, you must interrupt the channeling!}"

"Cut it out, will you?"

Cal huffed and puffed, but I was too busy with beheading the liquid creature in front of me to care, and just as I got rid of the fifth head, it dissolved into purple mist, which was soon carried away by a large, localized whirlwind that enclosed me while the arch-mage kept throwing yellow lightning bolts at me. I had no idea whether those were made of real electricity or not, but last I checked, swords were conductive, so I opted for dodging them instead of blocking. Luckily, unlike real lighting, these were pretty slow, so I had to pay more attention to not getting caught up in the purple whirlwind than those.

Like that, we went through all the elements one by one. After lightning, it was a big rock conjured up from the floor, then dozens of whips made of water, followed by a small blizzard combined with metal spikes exploding up from the ground, and then it was back to fireballs and those crescent-shaped magical attacks.

While certainly stressful, things were still relatively manageable. What I could, I cut. What I couldn't, I dodged. It was by no means easy, but nothing was as dangerous as the first icicle barrage. I had bad compatibility with those, it seemed.

Then, just as I was about to get worried that my hunch was wrong, and I would have to keep up this song-and-dance routine until the old man got bored, we were both startled by all the colors suddenly getting reversed for a split second. During that time, the ravaged purple room disappeared, only to be replaced by its pristine realspace version, and before we could even say a word, the only door leading into the chamber was forcefully torn off its hinges by a pair of ethereal hands.

However, I didn't even have time to exhale a sigh of relief over my bet paying off when no less than four other disembodied glowing hands flew into the room and grabbed me. My danger sense didn't warn me, so I was taken by surprise, which soon manifested in a yelp when I was yanked through the door and into the corridor outside.

"Oh gosh! Leonard! Are you, like, injured? Quick, let me see you!"

Before I even landed, a certain youthful ex-arch-mage was already running in circles around me like a panicked mother hen.

"Saahira? What is the meaning of this?" Lord Grandpa raised his voice as he walked through the ruined doorway, finally deciding to join us on the ground. Speaking of which, Sahi's hands finally let me go and I nearly toppled over by the suddenness of it all. Thankfully, Pascal was also nearby, and he helped me steady myself. Beforehand, the adrenaline kept me going, but now that it was over, I suddenly realized that I was heaving and sweating like a horse.

Anyhow, before I could thank him, my attention was yanked over to the brown girl. She was currently dressed in a hodgepodge of casualwear and only wearing one slipper, and she was raising her voice while thunderously glaring at the old man under the eaves.

"Oh, don't you 'what's the meaning of this?' me! Like, are you totally out of your mind?!"

"No, I assure you I am not. More importantly, what are you doing here?"

"Like, what do you think? Paz called me on the phone and told me everything!"

"Pascal?" the old man questioned his protégé, but he stubbornly refused to look his way and pretended to inspect my nonexistent wounds. I, for one, was more curious about how he even got a phone signal here, but then again, it wouldn't be the first time Critias's mobile phone network was more mystical than actual magic.

"Hey! Your eyes, over here!" Sahi waved her hand in front of the arch-mage's face, and two of the ethereal hands mimicked the gesture behind her. "I'm, like, still talking to you! What were you thinking endangering our golden goose like that!?"

"Your true thoughts are leaking out," Pascal noted blandly on the side, still not looking up from me, and the brown girl rolled her eyes in return.

"Like, Leonard isn't small-minded enough to care about something like that, right?" Before I could get a word in, she immediately continued with, "Of course I'm right! So, are you going to explain yourself any time soon?"

"I simply demonstrated the power an arch-mage wields to our young friend, so that he would understand the full scope of the current situation. You could consider this but a form of guidance."

"Bogus! I could totally feel the mana veins shaking! You were totally trying to kill him!"

"No, I have not, though I admit had to show much less restraint than I had originally planned." Pausing, he turned to me, and tapped the butt of his staff against the floor, as if pondering what to say next. "I must say, you have handled yourself admirably. The skill you had demonstrated certainly proves that your reputation is not ill-deserved. However, I must warn you against considering this a victory. What you had witnessed was but the power of a single arch-mage, dampened by the proximity of the Nexus, and while you certainly thwarted my attempts at cornering you, you could not even raise a finger against me in return. Remember that a conflict with the Assembly would mean facing several Magi with powers similar to mine at once."

This was yet another of those 'I-don't-know-if-I-should-laugh-or-cry' kind of situations, and while I was really, really tempted to go through with that whole paddling-idea all over again, my better judgment managed to keep me in line. I promised Ammy that I would play nice and not antagonize the elderly son-of-a-bitch more than strictly necessary, so I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"Yes, yes. You're veeery scary. I'm still shaking in my tiny little boots," I grumbled and rolled my shoulders before turning to each person in the hallway, one after the other. "Pascal, thanks for taking the initiative to call her. Sahi, thanks for the intervention. Old bastard," I paused here, and theatrically sheathed Cal before uttering, "I hope you're aware that, one of these days, I'm absolutely going to get you back for this. Not today though. I'm exhausted, I need a shower, and I'm already tired of looking at your annoying mug in general, so I already went home while you were monologuing. In other words… bye."

And then, punctuated by a wave of my hand, I Phased right back home. It was the only way I could think I could get the last word in, but I also wasn't kidding about the things I said. My clothes were both tattered, singed, and drenched in sweat, and my feet felt like they were on fire, so I absolutely needed that shower and some rest.

"{It was a wonderful display, young knight! While I am somewhat disappointed that you did not follow my instructions, the way you held out until the bitter end was truly admirable!}"

"Yeah, sure," I answered on autopilot while making my way up the stairs, and as usual, Cal wasn't able to read the mood at all.

"{Do not feel down! This battle might have ended with a draw, but you still have room to grow, while that Magi is past his prime! So long as you do not let your fire die out and train diligently, I can promise you that next time, we shall be victorious!}"

"Yeah, sure."

Still not getting a clue, Cal started blabbering about training routines and mastering my beam attack (whatever the hell that was), but I tuned them out because something else caught my ear. As I walked past my sisters' room, I was startled by a pained hiss, followed by a strange moan.

"Ow! I told you to be gentle!" Penny whined from behind the closed door, followed by my other sister apologizing.

"S-Sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you, but this is the first time I do this with a girl, so I'm inexperienced…"

"Ah… D-Don't worry. We can take it slow and… erm… keep experimenting until you know how to do it right."

"Are you sure? I might end up hurting you again?"

"That was just a scratch! Don't worry about it, I can endure it. Also… when you started doing it, it actually felt warm and a little good, and—"

My patience lasted this long until I couldn't bear it any longer and knocked on the door.

"Hey, you two. Keep the innuendos to a minimum, would you?"

After a momentary beat, Snowy answered first.

"Leo? I didn't think you would be home so early."

"Well, me neither, but I had a sparring match against Lord Grandpa, and now I'm in dire need of a change of clothes and a—"

Before I could finish, there was a thump on the other side of the door, and it was soon thrown open, with my abyssal sister looking quite panicked.

"Wait! Close the door! Close the door!" my other sister whined on the bed. She was lying face down, without wearing anything from the waist up, and yet instead of covering up her back, which had a network of softly glowing lines on it, she grabbed a pillow and buried her head under it.

In the meantime, my other sister got even more agitated, probably due to my tattered appearance, so I ignored the redhead on the bed and turned to her again.

"Easy there, sis. It looks worse than it is."

"You always say that!" she complained and patted me down, starting from the shoulders. "Are you injured anywhere? Do you need bandaging? Or should I call Angie?"

"What? What's going on out there?" Penny's muffled voice asked from under the pillow, but we both disregarded her.

"No, I'm really fine," I told her, but since she still looked concerned, I decided to divert her attention by asking, "Say, what were you two doing?"

"Oh, that?" Suddenly going from fretful to awkward, Snowy put her hands behind her back and sheepishly told me, "Penny said I could practice drawing Sigils on humans on her. It's… harder than I thought."

"Figures," I murmured under my breath and gestured toward the bed. "You can continue in moderation, just please try to keep the embarrassing pseudo-lewd noises to a minimum."

"Brother, you jerk!" my knightly sister yelled at me, rising slightly from the bed, yet the moment our eyes met, she buried her face under the pillow again.

"I'll… try to be careful," Snowy told me a touch sheepishly, but then she recalled something and waved a finger at me. "If you need help, call me anyway, or I'll tell Judy."

"… Are you seriously threatening me with my girlfriend?"

"I'll call Elly too!"

"… Fine. Point taken."

She hummed, satisfied, and then finally closed the door and returned to their experimentation or whatever. In the meantime, I decided to head to the bathroom right away, and on my way there, the previously silent sword hanging on my side suddenly spoke up again.

"{It is quite heartwarming to see how close your sisters are, isn't it, young knight? I believe the excursion to the inn with the hot water springs was a great opportunity to deepen their familial love and friendship.}"

"Nothing gets past you, huh?"

"{Why, thank you. As a matter of fact, I do take pride in my observation skills. Why, just the other day…}"

"Yeah, sure," I muttered and continued to undress while listening to Cal's humblebragging. Honestly, while I had little problem with them until now, on this day I felt like I finally began to understand why they were stuck in that stone.