Information control is paramount to a successful coup. The more information one had, the better the countermeasures to the enemy's moves and smaller the amount of power necessary to fully conduct it. An absolutely powerful creature could take over the planet or bring it to extinction. One with perfect information could engender a revolution by just crushing a leaf at the right time on the right spot, or even less than that. Neither extreme truly existed. I had no doubt that if I truly threatened the entire pantheon, they would pool their resources and build a creature that could track and kill me perfectly. And perfect information, omniscience, requires time travel by definition. The amount of information to process was just impossible without it, according to an extrapolation of Landauer's Principle [1] regarding the maximum amount of bits a computation could consider.

But for our little school takeover, what control we could exert over the information was more than enough.

I planted demon body parts, grimoire pages, cursed tools. After purging Virturia of its demonic cultist plague - and it was a plague - I had the biggest collection of demonic paraphernalia in the world. The knights and Academy guards found those with a bit of difficulty but Mirina guided them with telepathic hints from me. In a day, we had the teachers we wanted to be removed from the Academy imprisoned.

All I needed to do was to put the Academy in competent and reliable hands. I had the perfect candidate. But before that, I had to visit Marisol.

----------------------------------------

Her room was crowded. After I knocked, a teary-eyed Marisol pulled me inside into a tight hug. "Haru! We're so sorry!" She sobbed.

Behind her, the other four girls gave me sympathetic smiles. Phyllis, Camilla, Melania, and Jocelyn all waited for their turns to hug me and give me words of support. I felt guilty for orchestrating such a ruse but it was for Windemere that I did that. Reining in the Academy and purging corruption from this august institution was the second step in this treacherous game of cat-and-mouse. Funny how Fat Felix and Shudra came to mind.

"Would you guys listen to my tale?" I asked with upturned eyes. They had tears but not for the same reason as my peers.

And here is one of the reasons I loathed this game of Royalty. Lying to my friend and classmates was just horrible. For the sake of the Academy and Windemere by consequence, it had to be done. But as Izaro said, "To remain in health, one must cauterize necrotic flesh."

I burned through all my glib to give the girls the heart-rending, edge-of-your-seat rendition of being captured and turned into a sacrifice for demons. Apricot witnessed one such ceremony so I just put myself in the place of the victim. I've seen the bound Demon Lord underneath Virturia. The girls brought in chains by the newly-appointed [King]. For a brief time, I was them. The terror in their eyes was mine. The despair of the slave girls in Virturia's Royal palace, awaiting their turn to be murdered as an offering to pure evil.

The girls cried. I cried with them and apologized with my inner voice. For Windemere. For their own future.

To change the subject away from me and ease the mood, I offered them some confections, "I have some pastries from the [Princess] if you want some!"

----------------------------------------

We ate and the subject changed. Marisol rated the boys in Class but with only six, it was not easy. The other chipped in with their opinions and they quickly paired Marisol with Niccolo only because of their relative height.

"I don't fancy Niccolo," Marisol said. "He's too boorish. The problem with half-dwarves is that they're half-grumpy. See, Haru is grumpy half of the time, but the other half she's a delightful tease, so it compensates."

I just glared at her. Marisol poked her tongue out at me.

"But that only happened after she awakened. It was like her kitsune side was hidden all the time we stayed at the orphanage."

Camilla, the cat-kin half-elf, perked up. "Hey, Marisol, is it true that the temple of Zacheia let boys and girls sleep together?"

The sultry half-Eleon snorted and chuckled, "Sleep? We barely slept, with all the worship we dedicated to the goddess!" She declared with a clean face.

Camilla and Phyllis nodded.

"And by worship, she means getting ravished by them," Melania explained to a puzzled Jocelin.

That was Camilla's cue to grasp my forearm, "And you, Haru? Did you also worship the Goddess at night?" She asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Nah," Marisol answered for me. "As the years went by, the kids moved away from the dorm hall room, but Haru never left the middle once she reached it. It was at the bottom that the fun started," she declared slapping her own butt and yelping. "Anyway, she doesn't like--"

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Before they delved further into my personal life and preferences, I interrupted, "Enough about me. C'mon, tell me about your personal stories. Why are you in the Academy?"

Camilla stared at me with a knowing smirk.

"I want to be the strongest magical knight!" Phyllis the Lamia jumped at the opportunity. "My inspiration is [Princess] Lakerta, the last surviving lamia of a hidden kingdom off the coast of the Scorched Continent! There's a rumor she was the daughter of [King] Locksley! Because she had the same fairy companion as His Majesty! And now, I heard that… Eek!"

She covered her mouth with both of her hands. It seems our little snake-lady was about to talk more than she should. Nenandil was with the Lamias, getting them prepared to counter the dwarven insurgency. But she told the lamias to keep her presence a secret. I did a piss-poor job of hiding her presence and some legends speak of the fairy that followed Locksley, Rosewise, and Lakerta everywhere, sometimes even Duchess Nagini.

The stories about the ice train were the most reliable since we both used our magic to move it, Nenandil making the rails and me propelling the train. Oh, such nostalgic feelings.

"Haru! Why are you grinning like that?" Marisol asked me.

"Oh, just some things I've read about the strong Lamia knights," I misdirected. Phyllis preened with pride. "I think you have a good idea, Phyllis. The lamias are too focused on defense in their {Snake Fortress} form, but they lose mobility. That exposes them to some counter-strategies. But if there's a knight that can use both long and short-ranged attacks, it would cover that weakness."

Phyllis pounced me with her eyes sparkling. She also kind of smothered me with her ridiculously large chest. Lamias were always well-endowed, a trait that helps them draw in men's attention. "Haru! I didn't know you were so knowledgeable about my kind! That's amazing!"

Oh, the guilt.

Worse, Marisol was staring at me like the cat that cornered the mouse. Phyllis was on the attack, holding me with her tail.

"Phyllis…" This lamia lacked some basic awareness.

"Yes?" Yup. Totally oblivious to what she was doing.

"Are you going to 'snake fortress' me now? In front of everyone?"

She noticed the girls blushing around us, chuckled, and let out a sultry hiss, "Maybe?"

"Maybe! Maybe, she says!" I grabbed the tip of her tail. Lamias nowadays wore skirts, probably to fit in with the general population. I believed it wasn't common knowledge the truth about the end of their tails.

"Naughty girl. Stop wrapping yourself around me or I'll punish you," I said as I tapped one of her spurs.

"Eek! Sorry!" She slipped her tail out of my hand and unwrapped herself. Phyllis slithered to the corner of the room, holding her tail against her chest and hiding her beet-red face.

"What just happened?" Melania, the wolf-kin that wanted to fuse {Sorcery} and {Wizardry} together showed a great amount of interest in Phyllis's reactions.

"It's a secret!" I poked the tip of my tongue out at the wolf girl. "You want me to keep it a secret, Don't you, Phyllis?"

The lamia squealed, covered her face with her hands still holding her tail, and nodded.

"What's on the tip of her tail?" An overbearing Melania insisted.

I stood and put myself in front of Phyllis. "Don't harass her."

Camilla's calico cat ears flickered. "Oh, that's right! I remembered now! It's her p..."

I jumped on the cat-kin girl and pushed her down. "Don't!"

Melania growled. "Oh, the little vixen likes to play rough. Get her, Camilla!"

"Damn, you're strong!" The pinned cat-kin grunted.

I leaned in and whispered, raising a small bubble sound barrier around our heads. "Don't tell them about Phyllis' tail. Can't you see how scared she is already? Go there and talk to her. I'm going to keep the other three from hearing you."

Camilla nodded. I released her and she went to talk to Phyllis. I moved the barrier with her.

"What's wrong with you three?" Melania asked.

Jocelyn Trinity was the cool beauty type, she didn't move from her place and calmly watched the scene with an amused smile. Marisol was excited, probably rooting for something naughty to happen. And Melania was honestly concerned.

"Phyllis is a lamia. When they come of age, their bodies go through many changes and it affects their mood. They don't have periods like us but they do have extreme mood swings."

"Like us," Marisol snorted looking at me. "You had an emergency activation, didn't you, Haru? I doubt you had your first period yet."

"No comments," I grinned at her. With the corner of my eye, I saw Jocelyn look at me a bit surprised.

"That's no fun!" Melania grunted. "At least tell us, have you ever kissed someone?"

My breath caught. "Where did that come from?"

"If you were used in a demon summoning and avoided the far end of the dormitory at the orphanage, you're obviously a maiden," the wolf-kin pointed out. "So, have you kissed?"

"No, Haru hasn't kissed," I revealed this tidbit about myself in the third person. "Unless my father or the [Saintess] count."

"They don't," Melania and Marisol said at the same time.

"You asked about us, then Phyllis monopolized you. I must confess," Melania approached. "I find you very intriguing. Some primal thing in me tells me I should like… trust you."

That was probably the effect of the half a dozen social Perks I had that were affecting her passively. [Matriarch], [Royalty], [Queen Bee], and so on. Phyllis's reaction might be something not caused but encouraged by these very Perks.

Well, shit.

Now that I thought of that, the one least affected by it all was Marisol. Maybe I should heed Rhenius' advice and assume that if I'm not actively pushing the Perks and Abilities down their throat and forcing them to take tests, these passive effects were just part of what I was. But if they combined to create a harem MC aura, I would be mad at them.

Distracted from my thoughts, I was startled when Melania grabbed my nape and kissed my lips. "There! Taken!" She giggled and let go after a couple seconds. Perplexed, I didn't react. "I think I broke her," the wolf-kin smirked with an air of mischief.

A whistle rang through the whole dorm. "Oops. Party is over, girls. Time to go to sleep," Marisol announced. "I want all of you out of my room. I can't get another reprimand from the dorm manager."

We gave our goodbyes and I slipped out of the female dorm into the night campus. Finding a dark spot, I slipped into the Ethereal. I went back to Vugh Tarim for the night, and by the morning, after having breakfast with my father, I traveled to Pekothas.

----------------------------------------

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle - There's a minimum amount of energy required to change 1 bit of information. That, multiplied by the information necessary for a ominiscience is more than the energy available in the universe, therefore, impossible.