PART 1

I had many hectic days in the past, but this one was easily in the top three. I had to fight a stupid off-brand Chimera, rescue Josh and Angie, the latter turned out to be the reincarnation of the Celestials' long-deceased cult leader, and I even had to participate in a parade! All in all, I was feeling sick and tired, so I felt like I entirely deserved a bit of downtime.

Case in point, a pleased breath escaped my mouth, entirely involuntarily, as I was lying on the princess's bed without my shirt on.

"Can you go a bit lower?" I asked, and my draconic girlfriend let out a high-spirited grunt.

"On it!" There was a moment of silence as I felt her hands move, and then she exclaimed, "Wow! You're really stiff down here!"

"I can't exactly help it," I grumbled and moved my hips a bit to give her better access. "Can you do something about it?"

"Of course I can!" she exclaimed and flexed her fingers. "A good squeeze should do the trick!"

"Are you doing that on purpose?" came a deadpan question from our left, and I raised my upper body off the bed so I could face Judy.

"The easily misunderstood innuendos? Yeah."

"It's fun!" the princess backed me up and then resumed her massage. She was straddling me, and currently working on my lower back. As for my dear assistant, she just came back from taking a quick shower. She said it helped her think, and who was I to question her methods?

In any case, she walked over to the side of the bed and sat down. Like the princess, she was wearing her pyjamas, and her hair was still visibly damp. She was conspicuously staring at my bare back, and I was just about to think of another weird innuendo-laden comment when I was knocked out of my thoughts by a sharp spike of pain.

"Ow-ow-ow! Easy there, princess!"

"Hm? Was I too rough?" She removed her elbow from the small of my back and rubbed the spot with her fingers. "This is how I always massaged this part for Dad when I was little."

"I'm not exactly as firmly built as your father," I grumbled, and my words drew a strange sound out of Judy.

"Don't sell yourself short, Chief. You are hard in all the right places."

That made me raise my head from the bed again and squint at her.

"Are you serious, or were you just joining our game?"

She answered with a flat, "Yes," without missing a beat, and after a long pause, she graciously explained, "I was half-serious. You have gained a not-insignificant amount of muscle definition since you entered the Elysium."

"Ah! So it wasn't just my imagination!" Elly exclaimed on my back and slid her hands across the skin over my shoulder blades. "Look at these!"

"The trapezius?"

"Isn't that a little higher? Somewhere over here?" the girl on my back muttered a touch uncertainly and massaged my shoulders.

"Then the rhomboids," Judy concluded, and she also poked my back.

I tried to ignore them for the moment and considered their words. While it was true that I wasn't lazing about in the past couple of weeks, I wasn't exactly doing any hard bodybuilding routine either. Sure, I trained with the Praetorian Guards from time to time, but that barely worked up a sweat. Alternatively, it could've been the influence of having two magical swords pumping me full of mana day in and out, but I didn't think that was the right explanation either.

If I had to bet my money on it, I would've said it was yet another side-effect of absorbing a portion of Polemos's records. While I called it a 'soul' for ease of understanding, the rainbow-coloured yarn ball at the core of every person wasn't as simple as a seat of consciousness. It held records of a person's entire existence beyond their thoughts and memories, including their entire history, their connections to others in a web of cause and effect, and as I'd discovered when I 'healed' mom-in-law, even their physical body.

Could it be that taking a few stray fragments of Polemos into me affected my physique? And if so, how would housing all of Deus affect Angie? Granted, her situation was subtly different from mine, but it was something worth looking into.

In any case, my lack of reaction emboldened the girls, and the way they were poking my torso was steadily getting out of hand.

"Since Judy's here, should we get started?" I asked as I turned around, causing the princess to tumble to the side and land on her many pillows with a soft 'poof' sound.

"Let's," my dear assistant agreed with me and reached for her phone.

In the meantime, Elly sat back up and looked me over.

"Did I help?"

"Yeah, it's a bit better," I told her and circled my shoulder for show. It hurt quite a bit, but I didn't want to disappoint her, and she flashed a satisfied smile at me.

To be blunt, while her massage was pleasant, it did little to alleviate the muscle pain all over my body. It was the (in retrospect obvious) result of overexerting myself to cut down the Colossus, and my ever-chatty weapons have already chewed me out for it. By their accounts, I had to look forward to a few days of intense muscle fever, and Cal insisted that I should not tweak the output of my Leoformer so impertinently in the future, lest I wanted to end up crippled in the long run. I didn't think it was that bad, but I promised them all the same if only to make them stop nagging me.

Anyhow, once I sat up, the girls took their usual spots next to me.

"Breaktime's over. Let's get started."

"A moment," Judy interrupted me just as I was about to get going, and reached over to the other side of the bed. She grabbed my discarded shirt and handed it over to me. "Please put this on first."

"Why?"

"You're distracting."

She answered without hesitation, and after subtly rolling my eyes, I accepted the shirt.

"Oh, fine."

My response apparently displeased her, as she let out a nasal huff.

"Would you be able to have a serious discussion if I was naked from the waist up?"

I wanted to point out that it wasn't exactly the same, but I didn't want to get bogged down in a quarrel over something so silly, so I hummed along and buttoned up, ignoring the sickeningly sweet smile Elly was giving us.

"All right then. I think we can get started now, right?"

"That's right!" the princess nodded with unbridled enthusiasm, while my dearest assistant only raised her phone and undid the screen lock.

"Just to summarize the current situation at face value," she began without looking up, her fingers casually tapping on the device. "Contrary to our expectations, Angeline is the reincarnation of Deus, but Joshua absorbed some of her powers, and now they are both stuck in the Elysium with you."

"That's the gist of it."

My agreement drew a thoughtful hum from her, and after a few seconds of typing, she finally looked me in the eye again.

"With this new development, I believe we have a much clearer picture of the Angeline Route's structure."

"Can I say it?" Elly cut in, and she didn't even wait for Judy to nod. "So, we already knew that Polemos had a crush on Deus, right? But Angie is Deus, and she's Josh's girlfriend, which means that since you're Polemos, it's a love triangle!"

"Precisely," my other girlfriend agreed with a belated nod. "If we presume that the Angline Route's core was the love triangle, everything falls in place relatively neatly. The Narrative tried to force you into the role of Polemos, because without him, there's no third corner."

"I think that was abundantly clear, yes." I might've sounded a little impatient, and Judy even even-so-slightly raised a disapproving brow at me. "I mean, I think we should focus on the more important details."

"Such as?" Elly inquired, and I only just noticed that she moved behind me on the bed and started massaging my shoulders again.

"Such as whether Josh absorbing some of her Deus-ness was intended by the Narrative or an unforeseen complication."

"You also have to consider the possibility of whether it wasn't the other way around," Judy pointed out, making me contemplate the option for a moment.

"I don't think so. I checked her soul, and Deus's records seem to be an integral part of her."

"In that case, we have to consider two things," Judy spoke absently, her fingertips once again dancing on the screen of her phone. "First, let's figure out if this outcome was the result of Narrative influence. You said that your theory was that Joshua permanently absorbed Angeline's powers through churning butter, right, Chief?"

"Yes, that's the idea."

"In that case, we can infer whether the Narrative intended it to happen or not based on circumstantial evidence. Namely, did the Narrative actively try to sabotage their ability to take a roll in the hay?"

"It's that harem thing, right?" Elly interjected by poking her head over my shoulder. "You know, the thing you told me about! How, in romance stories with harems, something would always conveniently interrupt people before they could confess or kiss or… erm… how did it go? Ah, right! Grope for trout in a peculiar river!"

"Oh? I haven't heard that one yet," Judy noted, sounding unnecessarily impressed.

As for me, I thought long and hard about the topic and ultimately shook my head.

"I'm not entire sure. I've seen evidence of potential Narrative Influence going both ways, first by making Josh ultra-dense, and then by setting up the scene for them to get it on."

"But in the end, they were encouraged to make the beast with two backs, weren't they?" Elly barrelled on, earning another impressed hum from my other girlfriend.

"In that case, I have a hypothesis."

"Already?" I blurted out in surprise, and Judy immediately launched into it.

"Based on the evidence presented so far, I think this is how the events were supposed to unfold: Joshua and Angeline would start dating, and they would eventually put the banana in the fruit salad. Joshua's ability to draw power out of the bodily fluids of people with supernatural ancestry would draw on Angeline's powers, which would unseal Deus. In the meantime, the Chief would've been taken and imprinted with the memories and Personality of Polemos, so when Deus would emerge from Angeline, he would've taken her away and started the love-triangle plot."

"A solid hypothesis, and it would explain why their attempts at doing the matrimonial polka were sabotaged until the 'plot' progressed to the right stage," I granted her while rubbing my chin. "If that was the plan, I guess it went wrong in three places: I didn't become Polemos, Angie only had her inner Deus unsealed after she was kidnapped along with Josh, and Josh somehow ended up with a part of Deus himself."

"We already know how the first part happened, and if your presence as Polemos was as vital to the Angline Route as I suspect, there is a good chance you were under Narrative influence at the time as well. As for the two of them being kidnapped by another Celestial faction, I believe that was the Narrative trying to course-correct, because you didn't kidnap Angeline on your own."

"Question," I cut in, raising a finger in the process. "In your hypothesis, I, or rather Polemos, would've taken Angie once she awakened as Deus. How come that part didn't happen?"

"Maybe because they did it too much?" The princess noted a touch absently, and when we both turned to her, she let out a startled little noise and hastily explained, "I-I mean, I have a hypothesis too!"

"I'm all ears."

Hearing my encouragement, she took a deep breath.

"Do you remember that 'beta couple' thing you told me about?"

I naturally nodded. What she was referring to was a relatively common trope in romance stories, where there would be one or more secondary couples besides the main characters. For example, a bickering boy and girl trapped in a state of will-they-won't-they, who were friends with the protagonist, would get together shortly before the main couple, serving as a sort of example or encouragement to them.

Looking at it objectively, we technically fit the bill, and our unusual relationship certainly had an impact on Angie and Josh. Especially the former, as I could still vividly recall her unsubtly trying to ask me about how to angle for a polifidelous relationship, back when Josh's relationship with Snowy and Ammy was much more ambiguous. It didn't come to that, but it showed that she was considering it as an option, so from that angle, we did serve the role of the beta couple.

"You see, we are doing a lot of… um…" The princess snapped her fingers twice in frustration, but ultimately had to turn to my other girlfriend. "Judy? Support?"

"Muffin stuffin'," Judy responded without a moment of thinking.

"Yes, that! We've been doing it a lot, and started just around the time the two started going out!"

To be precise, it was exactly on the same day, but I didn't split hairs.

"So, since the 'beta couple' is supposed to influence the 'main couple', maybe we were the ones who caused them to do more corn grinding than planned?"

I could hear Judy whisper something about it being 'another new one', but I disregarded her and considered the princess's idea a bit more closely. If I thought about it, I have actively encouraged the guy to take their relationship to the next level, and I even provided him with the 'tools' necessary, so to speak, during our artificial hot-springs episode.

"Let me see if I got this," I spoke up, fingers still pinching my chin. "The core of your idea is that we influenced Josh and Angie to do way more doughnut glazing than they were supposed to, which led to Josh absorbing too much of Angie's powers, to the point he took in some of Deus."

"Either that, or he was always supposed to ingest some of Deus's powers, but he ended up gorging himself so much that it interfered with Angeline's ability to manifest her inner Deus on her own," Judy continued to theorize using Elly's idea as a springboard. "You did tell us that Angeline went on a rampage only after Joshua transformed into a Celestial on his own, and she remained the dominant personality afterwards."

"It's a pretty good Watsonian explanation," I noted, and as if just remembering that her job was to propose the Doylist solutions, Judy hastily tapped on her phone, looking for something.

In the meantime, I rustled Elly's hair to congratulate her for her contribution, and by the time I was done, Judy also found what she was looking for.

"I put together a flowchart," she declared, and I could hear my phone buzz on the nightstand. It was too far away, and I didn't want to move, so she just showed it to me on her screen instead. "It's a prediction of how the rest of the route is supposed to unfold from here on out."

"It looks complicated," Elly noted, and I completely agreed with her on the subject.

"I tried to take as many variables into account as possible," Judy told us and pulled her phone back. "You can browse it later, but in summary, there are three things to keep an eye on from now on, as they will decide the direction of where the plot will likely go from here."

"I'm listening."

I didn't need to prompt her, but I did it anyway, just to show that I was listening.

"The first variable is Angeline. Right now, she's the dominant personality, but if Deus comes to the forefront, it would catalyze romantic drama between her and Joshua."

"Obviously."

"The second variable is Joshua. Since he absorbed part of Deus's powers, he could also have a portion of Deus's personality in him. Having two Deuses at the same time could result in political turmoil, which is another prime source of drama."

I could've pointed out that we had that already, but I didn't want to interrupt her.

"Lastly, we have the love triangle angle." She paused and looked me in the eye. "Chief. I know you are tired of me saying this, but don't NTR Angeline."

"Oh, come on, Dormouse!"

"I'm serious," she doubled down with the tiniest of frowns, and for once, Elly backed her up.

"That's right! This en-tee-aar thing is really bad!"

"I know, and I'm not going to seduce my friend's girlfriend," I stressed, but my girlfriends didn't relent.

"You say that now, but you were already caught in the web of the Narrative once, so you have to be on the lookout for it, in case Deus would try to put a move on you."

While she looked entirely serious, I couldn't help but let out a throaty laugh at her idea.

"Oh, please! Listen, Dormouse. The one with an unrequited love was Polemos. Emphasis on the unrequited part. If anything, Deus would be mighty miffed from finding himself in a girl's body, and the last thing on his mind would be to make any advances on me. I mean, on Polemos. … You know what I meant."

"Don't underestimate the Narrative," Judy warned me, and when I didn't react, she sulkily added, "Just so you know, if you end up cheating, I'm prepared to become a yandere and stab you."

I was pretty sure that was supposed to be a joke, but to my surprise, the princess reacted to her declaration much stronger than I did.

"You can't do that! It's almost as bad as the en-tee-arr! No dere is allowed!"

"Princess, the 'dere' is the good part," I pointed out.

"In… In that case, no 'yan' is allowed within the same sentence as any 'dere'!"

I wasn't entirely sure she completely understood the terminology, but she was earned enough to make just click her tongue and utter, "Fine. In that case, I will only—"

She was probably going for another joke, but then we were interrupted by someone knocking on the door.

"Milady? May I come in?"

The three of us shared a startled glance, and everyone jumped into motion.

"J-Just a moment!" The princess called out and grabbed my white jacket from the foot of the bed.

Meanwhile, Judy snatched my phone up from the nightstand, and by the time she handed it over, I already slipped into my shoes.

"I'll see you tomorrow, with more data points," I whispered to her as I accepted the device, slipped it into my pocket, and planted a quick kiss on her lips.

After repeating the same process with the princess, and hastily donning the jacket, I gave them a wink and promptly disappeared from the room. We could have continued the discussion for a while longer, but it was a fine point to cut things off, as I would've had to study Judy's flowchart and ascertain a few things with our main couple first anyway.

"Gah!"

In the meantime, a certain easily startled guy let out a gasp when he noticed I was standing behind him, and for a moment it seemed like he would throw a punch. It was only when his eyes focused on my face that he let out an irritated sigh and dropped his fists.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you!?" Raven Boy complained loudly, and I flashed a deeply innocent smile.

"I have nooo idea what you're talking about." I let a silent beat linger in the air of the hideout's common room, and then asked, "Did you get them?"

"Yeah, they're over there," he grumbled and pointed at the table, or rather, the white plastic bag on it.

Not exactly the most dignified way to carry around a pair of high-magitech devices, but I imagined he was pressed for time.

"Good job. No one saw you, right?"

"Of course not," the guy huffed and puffed, but then his eyes caught something and waited until I finished inspecting the Magiformers in the bag before clearing his throat. "Where have you been before you came here?"

"Hm? I paid a visit to the girls to discuss the new developments. Why?"

With a wry smirk, he pointed at my stomach.

"Your buttons are off."

I glanced down, and just as he said, the buttons of my shirt were in the wrong holes, making the whole thing lop-sided. In my defence, I was paying attention to Judy's theorizing at the time, so a small mistake like that wasn't that big of a deal.

"Showoff bastard…" Agrawain whispered under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear, turned on his heels, and walked out of the room before I could respond and clear up the misunderstanding.

Though again, did I even have to? Not to mention, who the heck cared about what he thought? He was just pent-up and jealous because he didn't have an awesome girlfriend, let alone two.

While pondering so, I picked up the bag, and honed in on Josh's dot in the Elysium, ending my round-trip for the night. Yet, even as I was about to Phase away, I couldn't help but feel a little bothered. As the King of Knights and leader of the Ordo Draconis, it was my role, nay, my duty to help the Knights with their troubles. While Raven Boy was still high on my shit list, he's been relatively well-behaved, so maybe I should help him out. Valentine's Day was just around the corner, so should I set him up on a blind date with a nice girl that matched him perfectly, I pondered.

Like that, I left Critias, with the room softly echoing the words, "I should ask Brang where I could find female Fauns…"

PART 2

Gazing through the large windows in front of me, I watched the sun slowly rise above the horizon of the Elysium. It wasn't just the beginning of a new day, but a new month as well. If I wanted to be cheeky, I could've even added 'a new era' to that list, lampooning this whole Deus situation, but I was way too tired for that. My eyes lazily swept the landscape in front of me, and I let my mind wander and ask obvious questions. Such as, was that a real Sun?

For all intents and purposes, it couldn't have been, considering that this was an artificial pocket dimension. But then again, was the 'real' Sun of Critias real, considering that it was inside some kind of giant simulation? Considering that Naoren and company literally came from China, and all the stories of globe-trotting the Knights often reminisced about, I became fairly convinced that the rest of the world had to exist outside of the island in some shape or form. Still, I sincerely doubted the Simulacrum had an actual big ball of nuclear fusion eight-point-three light minutes away from us simulated as well.

Whatever the truth might have been, the 'suns' inside and outside the Elysium were synced up perfectly, and as the first day of February arrived, I couldn't help but wonder about the seasons next. Logically speaking, the Elysium was an artificial space, a bubble of facsimile reality floating in a sea of imaginary numbers of what have you. While its shape mirrored the island of Critias, it was all created artificially, and as far as I understood, the whole system was maintained by the Mana Wells.

But if so, then why did this place have a winter? Wouldn't it have been way more efficient to maintain pleasant spring weather all year round, with regularly scheduled rainfall and all that? Kind of like one of those domed cities one would find in some sci-fi stories.

…

Actually, on second thought, the weather in here had been considerably milder than on the 'outside'. Sure, the air was cold, but there wasn't a speck of snow, and I wasn't sure the temperature ever fell under the freezing point. Was that intentional? If so, why didn't they go the whole mile? Alternatively, was it a side-effect of copying the day-night cycle of 'realspace'? Was the temperature drop due to the shorter days? But if so, it once again brought into question why the designers of the Elysium wouldn't 'fix' this by tweaking the time the artificial sun would stay over the horizon.

Unless, of course, they couldn't do that, and it was one of those Purple Zone kind of restrictions, like how the lighting in them always reflected the real world. Now that I thought about it, Snowy did mention that in order to move in or out of the Abyss, they had to tunnel in from a Purple Zone, because it was 'closer' to the Abyss. Did the same apply to the Elysium as well? And if so, could it be that the sun I was looking at was the real one somehow shining into the pocket space the same way light and radio waves could travel into a Purple Zone unless it was specifically restricted?

That was a lot of things to consider, but I could hear some movement from the bedroom, so I reined in my wandering thoughts, though not before pinning another mental note on my mental notice board about looking into whether we had an observatory on Critias. Failing that, I figured I could probably order a fancy backyard telescope. Using it might even serve as a good date with the girls, so it would kill two birds with one stone.

Meanwhile, the door opened, and Angie cautiously stuck her head through the gap. Once she noticed me by the window, her lips bent into an insecure smile and she waved to get my attention.

"Morning, Leo. Where's the toilet?"

"Over there." I pointed at the other side of the living room with my thumb. "You can flush by touching the orb over the toilet bowl."

"Thanksies!"

Without any further ado, she rushed over to the bathroom, before I could even ask her about how she was faring. She was still acting like herself, which was a little reassuring, but it was best to be vigilant. I still wasn't sure if her 'inner Deus' was going to be a body-snatcher, a second persona, or more of a personality-bleedthrough affair, so I resolved myself to watch her closely in the coming days. It would inevitably cause the Polemos fragments in the dark recesses of my mind to act up, but if anything, that just helped me pinpoint and suppress them even better, so I didn't mind it.

"Hey there," Josh's voice also greeted me as he shuffled out of the bedroom, with an especially bad case of the bed-hair, and after covering up a yawn with his hand, he rubbed his eye and added, "Good morning."

"Same to you." I stepped away from the window and walked over to him. "Did you sleep well?"

"As well as I could," he responded just a touch sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck. "Angie fidgets a lot in her sleep."

Since I had no use for it, the two of them had spent the night in my bed. They were hugging each other even while they slept, and they were bloody adorable, though I wasn't going to say that out loud. That said, despite his complaints, his complexion looked much better than it used to be the day before.

"The important part is that you got some rest." I gestured for him to follow after me, and we moved over to the table in the middle of the living room. "We're going to be busy for the next couple of days, so try to make the best of every breather you get."

"Oh, joy," he grumbled, but then his eyes opened wide when he finally noticed the items on the table. "Hey? Are those our Magiformers?"

"Yeah. I had Agrawain collect them."

He looked like he had many questions in mind, but before he could ask any of them, his girlfriend returned from the bathroom and raised her arms over her head, stretching her back while simultaneously yawning without covering up her mouth. Her Deus outfit, while not as flimsy as her 'baseline' Celestial transformation, still hugged her curves, and I could hear the guy by my side gulp by reflex. I had no idea why though; until five minutes ago, they were literally sleeping under the same blanket, so it felt a little silly to be titillated like that.

More importantly, this whole intermezzo reminded me of something, so I asked, "Still can't undo your transformation?"

The Celestial girl froze mid-yawn, and a momentary pause later she let her arms down and shook her head.

"Nope. It's still stuck," she admitted a tad sheepishly, but then her face brightened up. "I don't mind it though! I think it looks cool! Do I look cool?"

"Yep," Josh responded without thinking, drawing a delighted chuckle out of her. She even spun around in place to give us a better look, but as much as a certain corner of my mind was urging me to point out she was more 'cute' than 'cool', I had more important things to talk about.

"Do you feel anything out of the ordinary? Discomfort, strange urges?"

She put her index finger on her lower lip, and after thinking for a while, she let out an ambivalent sound.

"It's… eh, I guess? I mean, my head still hurts a little, but it's not that bad. As for discomfort…" She paused here, considering her words carefully. "I do feel a little strange. It's like… I'm constantly feeling like I'm forgetting something, but I can't remember what it is about. Also, when I look at you, there's this strange sensation. It's not bad, but… It's weird."

"That's probably the Deus part of your brain," I noted, doing my best to sound detached. "Try to ignore it for now."

"Okie-dokie."

Her response was way too easy-going, considering the circumstances… but then again, it was Angie we were talking about, so I would've been more worried if she started acting solemnly.

She walked over to our side by the table, and by the looks of it, she was also about to comment on the Magiformers when my shadow rippled and Rinne jumped out of it. Since the bed was occupied by these two, and she found the couch too uncomfortable, she slept in my shadow, all the while wearing her full gear, including the helmet. Speaking of which, she took it off, revealing a case of helmet-hair that put Josh's cowlick to shame and gave me a shallow bow.

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"Good morning."

"Good morning, Ms. Yamako," the childhood friend couple greeted her back at once.

It was most likely conditioned into them by her serving as their PE teacher for the past couple of months, but their polite attitude towards her never ceased to be strange to me. Or was I the strange one for treating her so casually? Maybe they just weren't exposed to her kookiness enough to know better, I surmised as I nodded at Mountain Girl and gestured towards the table, drawing everyone's attention to the Magiformers for the third time.

"Let's get things rolling, shall we?" I picked up the first Magiformer and gestured for Angie to give me her hand. "I spend half the night working on these, so let's find out if they work."

The moment I clasped the oversized magitech watch around her wrist, Angie's whole body shone with a bright light, and after a moment, her Deus outfit got replaced by a simple white dress partially patterned after the former. It wasn't anything fancy, but I figured she would have an easier time moving around without the weird shoulder plate and the half-cape. I had no idea how she even managed to sleep with those on her…

"Oh, wow!"

She sounded genuinely delighted by her appearance, and lifted her skirt to look at the heelless knee-high boots I added, replacing the sandals of the Deus outfit.

"These first-generation Magiformers don't exactly have a lot of memory, but I also jury-rigged a nightgown into it. I'll show you how to switch them later."

"Really? That's sooo awesome!"

While she was busy with her new clothes, I handed the other Magiformer over to Josh.

"Did you change mine too?"

"Yeah. Yours was by far the biggest headache," I admitted, and once the guy put it on, his outfit automatically transformed.

"Whoa! Hey, I haven't even taken any capsules yet! Why did it activate?" he complained, sounding disoriented and muffled at the same time. The latter was caused by the helmet on his head, and it took him a second to realize he was wearing it. "What's this?"

"It's your disguise," I told him, and tapped on the forehead area of the faceless helm, a carbon copy of the one Mountain Girl was wearing just a minute ago.

As of now, his 'costume' consisted of a pair of trousers, a segmented light cuirass over a dress shirt, a long cape, combat boots, and an assortment of vambraces and greaves. All of it was white, as usual, and in practice it was just a more refined and form-fitted version of Mountain Girl's outfit, which had also gone through some minor tweaks and refinement compared to the initial version Ichiko and Odango Girl made for her.

"Do I really have to wear this?" Josh complained while trying to find the latches securing the helmet to his head, and I nodded without the slightest shred of hesitation.

"In public? Absolutely. While the top brass of the Celestial Directorate will probably realize that it's you under it, I doubt they would try to advertise it. It's also important to stay on brand."

"On what?" he blurted out the moment he finally got the helmet off and gulped in some fresh air.

"Rinne's cover story is that she's my Arbiter, and as far as everyone's concerned, she's just a loyal subordinate who appeared out of thin air after my arrival to the Elysium. We are going to do the same thing with you, and then claim that this kind of thing is normal. Deus is back; therefore she automatically gets a faceless, silent guardian as well."

"I like the sound of that!" Angie chirped in, apparently done admiring her own clothes and she moved on to inspecting Josh. "Wow! This actually looks super cool!"

"You… think so?" The guy's response was unexpectedly bashful, and he followed it up with an equally awkward, "You're also pretty. Ah, I mean, your dress is pretty!"

"Oh… erm… Thanks."

While the two of them were flirting like I wasn't even there, my eyes were drawn to the fourth person in the room, despite her relative lack of presence.

"… Are you pouting?"

My question made the obviously pouting young woman let out a huff.

"Rinne isn't pouting. Rinne is only pursing her lips in dissatisfaction."

"That's the same th—" I automatically retorted, but swallowed the second half and took a deep breath instead. "Let's ignore that. Why are you dissatisfied?"

"Leonard-dono shouldn't mind."

"… You can't say that while glaring at me like that. It tells me it's something I really should mind." She didn't say anything else, so I had no choice but to guess. "Are you mad because his outfit is based on yours?"

I still got no answer, though based on how she was now extra-pouty, that apparently wasn't it. However, before I could try again, my attention was drawn back to Josh.

"Hey, Leo? I've got a bit of a problem."

"What is it?"

He pointed at his armpits.

"This breast-plate thing is digging into my side here and chafing a bit. Can I take it off?"

"No need. Give me a second."

Before he could respond, one of my phantom limbs already entered the arrays of his Magiformer. Honestly speaking, the enchantment became a bit of a mess, and it was all due to the helmet. As I have already mentioned, these original Magiformers were relatively simple devices compared to the later Uniformer and Leoformer iterations, with much less 'memory' in them, so to speak. The magically enhanced school uniform, with its wards and secondary functions, was already about as much as it could contain, so adding the helmet, with its see-through enchantments and its built-in links to the rest of the Knights' equipment system, was too much for it to handle at the same time.

I didn't have the luxury to deconstruct and rebuild the whole enchantment from the ground up either, since I had only a single night to get it done, so I had no choice but to fit everything together as best as I could. Thankfully, once the 'technical' part of the process was done, things like modifying the shape and design of the already existing outfit were easy as pie, and after some phantom limb wriggling, I exited the enchantment space.

At the very same moment, the guy's whole body flashed with colourless light, and he let out a startled gasp as the outfit reset, meaning the helmet disappeared from his hands and was back on his head again.

"Oh, come on, man!"

Ignoring his protests, I asked, "How's the fitting now?"

"Are you talking about the…?" He swung his arms a few times, even going as far as to twist his torso left and right, and let out a surprised hum. "Huh. It's actually much more comfortable now."

"Wow!" Angie exclaimed and patted Josh down with visible excitement. "This is so awesome! Penelope and the others already told me you could change how their uniforms looked, but I didn't know you could do it on the fly like this! It's so convenient!"

"Yes. It is very convenient," Rinne noted, and after registering the sulkiness in her voice, my brain finally made the connection.

"Are you pouting because you have no Uniformer?"

"Rinne wasn't pouting," she insisted, but didn't deny my deduction.

"Listen, Mountain Girl. I would be the happiest if we could put a Uniformer on you, but it's not that simple. These two have their barriers acting as a power source, while the Knights have their Oaths to create the mana circulation necessary to operate their uniforms. You have neither of those, so we would either have to carve some Oaths into you, or adapt the system to your weird yin-yang energy thingie, and we don't have the time for either of those right now."

"Rinne understands. That's why Rinne isn't pouting."

I had many a retort right on the tip of my tongue, but I once again swallowed them and told her, "Once things calm down a little, I promise I'll figure something out for you, okay?"

That immediately made her perk up, as much as she tried to hide it under a stony façade, but then my attention was grabbed by my friend waving his hand at me.

"You forgot to answer my first question."

"Your first question?" I repeated after him, and just like with Rinne, I could feel his frown on my skin despite the helmet covering his whole face. "I'm drawing a blank. Could you repeat it?"

"Why did this thing activate when I didn't take any blood capsules?"

"Oh, that? It's… actually a good question." Pausing, I took a closer look at the guy, then at Angie, and shrugged. "I can't say for sure yet, but if I had to make an educated guess, it's because you two are sharing the same power source. Since her barrier is active, it's probably stimulating yours as well."

"But… that would mean I'm still transformed?"

"Most likely. You're just lacking the Deus guise, but you're probably still a Celestial."

"Maaan… That's messed up."

I had no idea what was so messed up about it, but I didn't bother to argue, especially since Angie's eyes were practically boring into me at the moment. I turned to her, yet even before I could ask her what it was about, she beat me to the punch with an excited glint in her eyes.

"Hey, Leo! Listen! You can use your super-special-awesome enchantment savant powers to change how Josh looks on the fly, right?"

"… Yes, but—"

Before I could object to the whole 'enchantment savant' thing, she barrelled on.

"And you said my Uniformer now has multiple outfits, right?"

"Yes, though the nightgown has no enchantments. That was the only way I could fit—"

"That's not important!" she cut me off, sounding more thrilled by the second. "This is super-amazing! Think about it! We can revolutionize the fashion industry with this!"

"We?" I blurted out, and she nodded repeatedly, completely oblivious to the nature of my response.

"Yeah! Just imagine! Instead of buying new clothes, you could just modify your outfit in your magical doodad, and bam! Feeling like a little bit country today? Just have a cowboy hat! A little bit rock-and-roll? You can instantly have a leather jacket and a cool band T-shirt! People would love it!"

"Are you talking about the Celestials?"

"Sure! And everyone else too!" Lost in her own hype, she suddenly let out a loud 'A-ha!', as if just realizing something obvious, and snapped her fingers. "Do you know how you can download stuff from the internet? What if we made something like that, but with magic, and then people could download new outfits into their Magiformers instead?"

"Slow down." I mimed a karate chop on the top of her head, and she let out a distressed sound even though I didn't even touch her. "You do remember that regular people have no access to magic, right?"

"We can just ask the Magi to help with that!" she insisted, apparently too attached to her pet idea.

"And you think the Celestials would just let that happen," I uttered with a small mountain of incredulity, but she shrugged me off.

"What do you mean? I'm Deus! They will do what I say!"

There was a long silence hanging in the air after her declaration, and after taking a long breath, I lowered my voice and asked, "Where did that come from?"

"It's… um…" She fidgeted for a while, only to finally utter, "I'm not sure. I think I just got too caught up in the moment, and… you know?"

Sighing, I sternly told her, "Pay closer attention to your thought processes, please. As for what you just said…"

I glanced at Mountain Girl, and then my shadow on the floor, and without any need for words, she put her helmet on and melded into it at once. Once the ripples on the floor disappeared, I turned to Josh and Angie and carefully wrapped them up in my phantom limbs.

"I'm afraid Celestial politics aren't as simple and straightforward as you'd like to believe."

"But isn't Angie something like their messiah?" Josh interjected, sounding genuinely baffled. "Are you saying they wouldn't listen to her?"

"As I just said, it's more complicated. You two should learn a bit more about how things work around here before hatching any grandiose schemes." I stared at Angie when I said that, and she let out an embarrassed chuckle in return. Rolling my eyes, I put my hands on their shoulders. "Let's start by giving you a tour outside the tower, shall we?"

PART 3

"Uaaah! Look, Josh! Look! It's so pretty!"

Josh followed the direction Angie was pointing with her arm fully extended, and let out an ambivalent grunt.

"It's… something, all right," he responded, sounding profoundly unenthusiastic, but his girlfriend didn't seem to mind.

I had to give it to her though; the white tower dominating the horizon looked impressive indeed in the light of the morning sun. Or sun-simulation, but let's not get bogged down in that topic again.

The four of us, including Mountain Girl, were leisurely making the rounds around Glaukós, the settlement surrounding said tower. Or at the very least I was about seventy percent sure that was its name. That's what Mike's father called the spire in the middle, and nobody ever referred to the community of the lower-caste Celestials using proper nouns, so I made an educated guess.

"The mountain there looks really familiar," Josh noted, his eyes aimed squarely at the island's center. "This place really is a copy of Critias, huh?"

"At least topographically speaking," I granted him, and he let out a thoughtful hum.

"So… is this place the equivalent of Timaeus?"

"Nah! We're inland!" Angie declared before I could get a word in. She was unexpectedly hyped by the tour, and while she was initially surprised by the stark difference between the inside and outside of the tower, it only lasted for a few minutes before she got caught up in the adventure and forgot about everything else. Just like she did at the moment. "Ah! Look, guys! A horse!"

"Careful!" Josh tried to warn her, but she guilelessly skipped over to the horse drawing the single-wheeled cart on the road. It was a wooden construction pained in multiple shades of blue, with large spoked wheels and two placeholder Celestials sitting at the front; an older man and a pre-teen boy, most likely his son.

"Good morning!" she greeted the pair on the cart with a radiant smile and gestured at the large, brown-and-white stallion. "Can I pet him?"

The man's face slackened, and it wasn't at all surprising. He was about as placeholder as one could get. Yet, their brain freeze only lasted for a second before his eyes landed on me, and opened wide as saucers. Did he recognise me, I wondered? That also wouldn't have been surprising, considering I had my mug broadcasted on the sky screens just the other day.

His gaze jumped back and forth between me and Angie, and another short round of the thousand-yard stare, his lips bent into a servile smile.

"Of course. He's very docile."

Angie didn't even wait to hear the second half of his response, and she was already all over the horse, patting its nose and scratching its ears.

"Wow! He's so big!"

"Don't just approach other people's pets like that," Josh grumbled, but while I couldn't see his face due to the helmet, his tone told me he was also interested in the horse. "Remember what happened the last time with the poodle?"

"Poodles are pricks, but this guy is super-nice. Right?" She beamed at the horse, and after a suitably long comedic beat, he stuck out his tongue and licked her on the cheek. "Wha—?"

After the first surprise, she began giggling uncontrollably. It was a warm, tinkling laugh that made me feel all kinds of cosy emotions, which I then immediately kicked out through my mind's back door and exhaled hard. Keeping my inner Polemos from acting up wasn't hard, but it was certainly tiresome.

Closing my eyes to center myself, I took a couple of deep breaths and resumed my observations of Angie, this time from a much more objective standpoint. Despite the shock of her kidnapping and the revelation that she had a ticking time bomb called 'Deus' inside of her, she remained remarkably carefree, as seen by her hugging the horse's face in spite of Josh's warnings.

So far, her inner Deus hadn't acted up yet, and I still wasn't entirely sure what its 'type' was. The first time he surfaced, I thought it was a body-snatcher-style persona, but I wasn't so certain anymore. Only one thing was for sure: the two weren't distinct parallel personalities that could talk to each other, which was incidentally the one I would've preferred the most. That way, I could've at least interrogated Deus for info, and it might've even let us resolve the situation faster.

Speaking of the 'situation', I was once again reminded that I didn't really know what that would be. According to Judy's theory, it should've been a classic dramatic love triangle, with Polemos wedging himself between the main couple of the 'Angeline Route'. Unfortunately (except not really), that potential plot was already derailed beyond recovery. I wasn't Polemos, Angie wasn't fully taken over by Deus, I had no reason to hit on her, and Josh couldn't even mount a rescue operation for a big climactic finale, because he was already here, and was too busy trying to separate her from the overly affectionate horse.

"But I wanna pet him more!"

"You played with him enough already, and you're inconveniencing these people!"

"Muu!"

What even remained of the potential original plot, I wondered even as Josh managed to drag his girlfriend back to my side?

The setup was still kind of there, but unless the Narrative used its influence to actively flex its chops and make Angie/Deus develop a crush on me, the love triangle was dead in the water. Hell, let's unpack that a bit further: neither our friendly neighbourhood Celestial nor the Elysium's ancient cult leader had any reason to have any romantic interest in me.

The former was rather obvious, as she'd been pining over the guy next to her for most of her adolescent life. As for the latter, the main thing about the relationship between Polemos and Deus was based on the phrase 'unrequited love', which was… semi-surprising, I supposed? Popular history always said that the Ancient Greeks were pretty gay on a cultural level. While the memory fragments embedded in the dark, spiderweb-ridden recesses of my mind didn't say anything definitive on the topic, I doubted the thing stopping Polemos from making a move on Deus was any sort of stigma.

"Hey, Leo? Why isn't anyone flying?"

"Because it's prohibited," I responded to Angie off-handedly, still deep in my thoughts.

"What? That sucks! I thought I could finally fly around all I wanted! This is so lame!"

"Can't you do something about that?"

Josh's question was probably aimed at me, but his girlfriend must've misunderstood, because she pumped her fist.

"You're right! I'll go and change the laws! Free flight for everyone!"

Ignoring the fired-up girl, I focused inwards again. So, if it was about incompatible orientations, would putting Deus into Angie's body change that? As far as Polemos was concerned, it didn't really seem to matter. Maybe it wasn't as much that he was swinging for the same team, but rather that he had a 'single-target sexuality' mentality. That was a relatively common trope, so I could see it come into play here.

There was still one thing I had to consider though: how was the original love triangle supposed to resolve itself? After living in this world for half a year, I was pretty sure the Simulacrum wasn't running one of those subversive, super-depressing stories where everyone would end up dying or separated or insert-other-sad-fate-here. It meant that the Narrative's plot probably had some kind of happy ending in mind, and with all the romance tropes floating around in the ether, there was no way in hell that it wouldn't involve the solidifying and ultimate resolution of Josh's and Angie's relationship.

So… how was that supposed to happen with Deus around? Would he be suppressed? Expelled? Destroyed? Or maybe he would turn into one of those brain-roommate-type characters living rent-free in Angie's head? Whatever the ultimate resolution, there had to be some way for it to happen… but what if my involvement in general, and breaking the love triangle in particular, would mess that up? What if the original plot was supposed to have some kind of hackneyed resolution about the power of love and friendship giving Angie the power to overcome Deus? Or give Josh the power to suppress him?

I had no way to know yet, but it provided me with yet another dilemma. Should I just keep watch over these two, making sure they stay safe while hoping that the original plot would man up and give them a happy ending, or should I just do what I did best and start working on subverting the hell out of whatever the Narrative threw at us and do things my way? Decisions, decisions, decisions…

"Leo? Earth to Leo? Are you listening?"

"Yes?"

By this point, the horse and its cart were long gone, and while nobody dared to approach us, the settlement slowly came to life as more and more placeholders began to follow their morning routines, opening windows and moving about.

"You were zoning out," Josh responded in her stead, but before I could tell them that I was just deep in thought, Angie beat me to the punch.

"Hey, Leo? Why is this place so weird?"

"… Please be a bit more specific."

"I mean this!" She waved both her arms around in her best drunk seagull impression, and when I only raised a brow at her, she stomped her feet. "You know what I mean! Like, this village is very nice, but why is it so…"

"Primitive?" Josh supplied the end of the sentence, only to receive a pout for his trouble.

"Quaint! I wanted to say quaint!" One huff later, she turned back to me and resumed her animated gesturing. "Do you get what I mean? I mean, I like the horsies, but why are they using them? This is the Holy Land of all Celestials and we have cool crystal towers and everything, so why are these guys dressed so plainly and live in old houses like that?"

She pointed both of her index fingers at the rustic peasant house on our left, and I couldn't help but blink in surprise. It certainly wasn't intentional, but during our meandering tour around the settlement, we somehow ended up right next to a very familiar place. How did that happen, I wondered as I crossed my arms and put a finger under my nose?

Was it a coincidence? Or did the Narrative set this up? Did we run into the horse cart here just to stop us near this house? And if so, what was the reason behind it? Was it important? Was it part of some kind of grand narrative ploy? Or was I just being paranoid?

This was precisely the reason why I hated thinking about things on a Doylist level. Once I started, it was impossible not to see the shadowy hand of the nebulous Narrative behind the most inconspicuous and innocent of events and circumstances, and it inevitably led to getting mired in a swamp of 'what if's, 'if so's, and chronic indecision.

"Leooo! You are zoning out again!" Angie complained aloud, so I turned back to her and inhaled sharply through my nose.

"The vast majority of the Elysium's inhabitants are farmers."

"I get that, but why don't they have trucks and combines and stuff?"

"Because Deus said so," I told her flatly, and after a long beat, her mouth hung open and she forcefully shook her head.

"No way! That's silly!"

"Doesn't make it any less true."

"Nope. I'm not listening," she declared with a pout and even crossed her arms with a huff. "This is Elysium! The Holy Land! There's no way people here would live like this! Stop pulling my leg and tell me what's really going on."

"I already did." My answer didn't please her at all. By the looks of it, the image of the Elysium she had in her head clashed way too hard with the reality in front of her eyes. Just as I was wondering what to say to convince her, my gaze was drawn back to the house on our left, and my eyes descended into a displeased frown. Was this what it was about, I wondered, but soon shook the concern out of my head and gestured for her to follow after me. "Let's ask the locals then."

Despite her previous show of defiance, she immediately fell in line next to me, and our conspicuously masked escorts followed behind us.

"Can we just barge into someone's home?" Josh whispered behind me, so I glanced over my shoulder and flashed a reassuring smile.

"Don't overthink it."

In the meantime, we walked past the fence and reached the heavy wooden door. I knocked on it without any reservation, and after just a few short moments, it opened to a crack, revealing a young boy with a bowl cut. His eyes opened wide when he saw me, and somehow widened even further when I smiled at him.

"Good morning, child. Are your parents home?"

It was only a rhetorical question, considering that I had them marked ages ago, and I had already felt around for their red dots before walking over to the entrance. The kid on the other side froze up for a second, but instead of locking up or showing any of the usual placeholder reactions, his mouth opened into a smile that threatened to split his face and he exclaimed from the bottom of his lungs.

"Ma! Pa! T-The Lord A-Achoon is hewe again!"

Did he just bite his tongue in his hurry? In the following seconds, we could all hear a commotion on the other side, and at last, the door opened wide, revealing a heavy-set, middle-aged man with a well-groomed beard and a face that was constantly swinging between panic and reverence, like the world fastest emotional pendulum.

"Welcome, Lord Archon," he greeted me and was about to get down to his knees. I expected something like this to happen, so I reached out to stop him. He was startled by my hand on his shoulder, and when I shook my head, he rose back onto his feet. "I… must apologize for our disrespect."

"What disrespect?" I uttered in mild amusement and patted him on the shoulder. "I didn't introduce myself, and yet you still welcomed me in. There is no reason for you to be ashamed."

The man looked like I just lifted a millstone off his back. He exhaled a heavy breath, and only then did he register the curious girl and the two helmeted escorts behind me, and he tensed up again.

"What… brings you here, to our humble homestead?"

"I was just showing my friend around, and she wanted to ask a few questions about how life is in the Elysium."

"H-Hello. Nice to meet you," Angie did her best to greet the owner of the house, but his nervousness must've rubbed off on her, as she had a hard time maintaining eye contact.

"May we come in?"

"Y-Yes! It's an honor!" the man yelped and hastily got out of the way.

The inside of the house was just as I remembered. The air was heavy with an earthy scent mixed with the fragrance of herbs. In the back, the man's wife was standing with a bent back, staring at the ground and not daring to look our way, while their son was hiding behind her skirt, yet at the same time also staring at us with sparkling eyes. Well, at least one of them had a good impression of me, I surmised as I walked inside and the rest followed behind me like a line of ducklings.

"How… may I address our esteemed guests?" the man sputtered, doing his best to sound dignified, no doubt trying his best to imitate how he thought a good noble host would act.

I have to say, I was fairly impressed. The last time I'd seen him, just before Director Mensah came here to pick me up with his entire entourage in tow, he was barely more than your average placeholder, yet he was showing quite a lot of development. Was the development of placeholders speeding up, or was he a special case, I pondered?

"I'm…" Angie tried to answer, but she choked up, unsure how to introduce herself.

"She's a friend of mine. Please accept that for now."

"As you command," the man nodded and turned to the ramrod-straight Mountain Girl and the considerably more fidgety Josh beside her.

"She's my Arbiter, and he's—"

"He's my Justicar!" Angie cut in with a delighted grin, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"Don't I get a say in this?" Josh grumbled behind me, but his voice was muffled by his helmet, so I doubted anyone else could hear him.

As for the title, the plan was to introduce him as Angie's Arbiter, to mirror Rinne, but she was adamant that he should be called something else to avoid confusion. I had a feeling she just didn't find the word 'cool enough', though I had no idea why she considered 'Justicar' any better. I didn't want to argue though, so I ultimately nodded and gestured in their direction.

"As she said. Now, if you have any questions to the people of the realm, you should ask away."

"O-Okay…"

She didn't sound very confident, but when Josh stepped up beside her and whispered something into her ear, she clenched her fists and showed a determined expression. I figured they would do fine on their own, so I quickly sunk back into my thoughts again, and this whole scene presented me with yet another topic to consider.

It was the political landscape of the Elysium, and Angie's impact on it.

I had already stirred things up a lot, but now that I could observe her reactions to the enforced agrarian idyll lifestyle of the Malakim, I could use that to speculate a bit. Out of the three head directors, Tsephanyah and his Reformists were the lesser of three evils from the very beginning. That didn't make them the 'good guys', but at the very least he was by far the most surface-level amicable out of the three factions.

Not only that, but he was the one who 'discovered' Polemos, as well as the first one to directly contact Angie and Josh in person. In narrative terms, he was obviously set up as the main supporting character and core Celestial ally in the 'Angie route'. Not only that but Angie's gut reaction to the state of affairs outside the towers fell perfectly in line with his ideology about uplifting the Malakim as well.

So, since the love triangle plot was thrown out the window with extreme prejudice, could that mean that the main plot has shifted to the potential Celestial Civil War instead? We had most of the cards already on the table, so it wasn't out of the question. The only real wild card that remained was Deus himself, but I couldn't do much else than operate under the worst-case scenario and make a few contingency plans.

"You grow olives? Are they tasty?"

"They're bitter."

"Really? Yuck!"

"But, but grandma makes pickled olives, and they are good!"

"Pickled olives? Sounds strange."

"But they are really good! I swear!"

Glancing over, I saw that Angie's unbridled positivity had already broken down the walls of the family, and she was having a lively discussion with the young boy. They seemed to be having fun, and while Josh's body language told me he was bored out of his skull, he dutifully stood behind her and listened to the conversation.

In any case, they didn't seem to be about to stop any time soon, and I was also getting a little tired, so I broke up my pondering session by closing my eyes, and triggering my Far Sight, hoping that I would catch something plot-relevant, incriminating, or failing that, at least mildly intriguing.

PART 4

"This is insanity!"

For the sake of punctuation, the bespectacled chief director slammed his fist on the table. The sound of the impact echoed impotently in the familiar meeting room, and the other man sitting across the table soon cleared his throat. It was a familiar scene, a clandestine congregation between Mensah and Tsephanyah, with the only exception of foregoing those ridiculous cowls for once.

The silence following the younger man's outburst lasted remarkably long, but at last, he ran out of patience and set his elbows onto the table before burying his face in his hands.

"Are you quite finished?"

Tsephanyah's words were snide, but his tone was anything but that, and when the other director didn't respond, he also placed his elbows down to mirror his posture, just without the facepalming.

"It must be a bad joke. A terrible comedy," Mensah groaned and lowered his hands. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he didn't get a wink of sleep, and his mouth was set in a quivering line. "The second advent of Deus should be an event worth a red-letter day in the calendar, so why? Why did it have to happen this way? Out of all the millions of mortals, why did it have to be someone Polemos personally knew?"

"The odds were staggering, but there's not much we can do about it at this stage."

Tsephanyah's disinterested voice made the flames in the bespectacled director's eyes blaze once again.

"Yes, we can! We have to separate them, as soon as possible!"

"And how do you propose we do that?"

"I don't know! That's the problem!" Mensah fumed, his fists shaking and ready to pound the poor table all over again. "Polemos was bad enough alone, but if she indeed is Deus, there is no way we can openly go against them, but we can't leave them together either!"

The blonde Reformist director's eyes narrowed into a displeased squint.

"You are too focused on separating the two, Dolion. Shouldn't we focus on more pressing matters first, considering the—"

"There is no such thing!" Mensah burst out and slammed his hand down once more. "We can't allow Polemos to exert his influence on Deus while he… she is vulnerable!"

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'?! He openly colluded with Bel of the Abyss!"

After hearing his colleague's latest outburst, Tsephanyah exhaled a measured breath and placed both his hands onto the table.

"Dolion. There is an idiom I'm not usually very fond of, but I believe it aptly describes your current situation." He levelled a dispassionate gaze at the man and continued in a soft voice. "I believe it goes like this: Let the one not living in a glass house cast the first stone."

That… was obviously a mish-mash of two completely different sayings, yet the other director immediately understood his intent and his brows descended into a furious glare.

"Are you accusing me of something, Acacius?"

"There is a difference between an accusation and pointing out the truth," he responded with a deep frown of his own. "Or are you denying that you personally conspired with one of the noble houses of the Abyss?"

"That is different! Only a fool wouldn't try to exploit and undermine their enemy!"

"So you say, and expect the benefit of the doubt, yet you are unwilling to give the same courtesy to Polemos," Tsephanyah pointed out, his expression inscrutable.

"… On whose side are you, Acacius?" the younger director growled, his balled-up fingers turning white and his eyes thundering, but the other man remained unmoved.

"I'm on the side of our people, as always."

"You know what I meant by that question. Answer it."

Tsephanyah remained silent for a couple of seconds, but at last, his body language relaxed and he simply stated, "Unlike you, I did not rise to my position through fiery rhetoric and ideological support. I did so by carefully maneuvering the treacherous waters of the Directorate, and in that process, I've developed an eye for people." He closed his eyes for a second, and it was hard to tell whether he was reminiscing about something, or steeling himself before concluding his point. "When I look at Polemos, I see a dangerous individual. A harbinger of change, who cares not for our order. Alone, he was a raging river; a power that could carve the landscape, but could still be steered or dammed up with effort. I believed we had time to do just that, and tame him, but now he's no longer by himself. With Deus, we are facing not a flood, but a tidal wave the likes of which we've never seen before."

"And that's why I'm telling you they have to be separated!"

"And in turn, I'm telling you it's impossible. We have neither the authority nor the means to do so," Tsephanyah countered, his measured voice never rising above an exasperated monotone. "We have been too complacent in our power and influence, Dolion, but we are powerless in front of the wave that's coming. So, to answer your question, let me say this: Only a fool would try to stand in the way of a tsunami, and I'm no fool."

"Hypocrite!"

Mensah's hiss made the older director flinch for the first time, but his demeanour soon returned to his previous, laidback state.

"Aren't we all?"

"… So it has come to this." All of a sudden, all the previous ire drained from Mensah's voice and he let out a long groan and stood up, ready to leave.

"Dolion." Hearing the other man call after him, the bespectacled director stopped in his tracks and met his eyes. "Think hard about what's the best. Not just for us, but all of Elysium. We might not be able to stop the wave, but that doesn't mean we cannot ride it."

Mensah let out an ambivalent grunt in response and turned on his heels. He left the room, followed by the gaze of the other director until he closed the door behind himself, and only then did the tension drain from Tsephanyah's shoulders.

All of a sudden, he looked about a decade older, and his expression practically screamed, 'I hope I put my money on the right horse'. I watched him a bit longer, just to see if there would be any further development, but when he also got up and left, I Far Glanced over to Mensah, to see his side of the aftermath of the meeting.

The younger director seemed to be even more shaken than his more experienced colleague, and I just caught him talking with a younger Celestial woman dressed in an elaborate office lady ensemble. She wasn't familiar, so she most likely didn't have an important position.

"… to pry, but… is it true? Is Deus truly walking amongst us?"

Even as they walked, Mensah directed an exhausted frown at her.

"Yes. Yes, she is."

"She?!" The most-likely-secretary lady responded in a high-pitched voice, and then sputtered, "W-What are we going to do now, sir?"

"… I don't know yet," Mensah admitted, and the two of them soon entered into an elevator.

Since the two of them remained silent after that, I figured I should check on the third corner of the Celestial power triangle, and so I soon shifted my point of view to Savir. The moment I arrived, I was welcomed by cacophonous noise, with dozens of people frantically shouting and running around.

My eyes beheld a… well, I had no idea exactly what I was looking at. At a glance, it was kind of reminiscent of one of those open-plan offices I'd seen in movies, with rows of wooden desks and office chairs in a large, undivided hall. Between those, Celestials dressed in deep blue robes were running around like chickens in a coop that just got visited by a fox. Some of them were empty-handed, or frantically poking at things that looked like three-dimensional computer screens projected into the air by marbles embedded in the desks. The majority though were rushing around, carrying all kinds of items in their arms, from simple sheets and ledgers to rolled-up parchments and even an abacus of all things.

All of that, combined with the rows and rows of huge filing cabinets lining the walls, some of the only accessible by ladders, made me think this was some kind of archive… but then I looked up, and saw the enormous stained-glass windows, the carved columns holding up the ceiling, and the painted classical sculptures and reliefs all around. Then, if all of that wasn't strange enough already, at the very back of the hall, on a raised red marble platform, stood an enormous golden throne in the shape of three pairs of folded angel wings studded with enormous jewels.

In front of that was an equally large desk of some sort, carved of the same red marble as the platform. It was currently covered in all kinds of documents and parchments, providing a stark contrast with the dozen or so light blue holographic panels floating in the air above it, complete with the familiar scanlines and everything.

Behind those, sitting on the above-mentioned throne, sat Director Savir. Her expression was stern, but her eyes were frantic, skipping from one panel to the next, and her hands were similarly trying to keep up with whatever she was trying to jot down onto the empty pages in front of her.

"Ma'am Director! I found the precedent in the three-seven-three-dash-B case!"

"Good job. Put it over there," she responded tersely, and the Celestial scribe placed the parchment onto the top of the growing pile on her left. "Where's that Legacy Requisition Form?"

"Sorry, ma'am!" I voice responded from the top of one of the ladders. "I can't seem to find it!"

"Look harder!" Savir yelled at the poor guy, her voice easily overpowering the background noise. "We need that for the twenty-three-hundred-dash-K!"

"I… I'll check the deprecated form cache!"

She let out a grunt and picked up one of the parchments. After skimming it, her mouth widened into a mirthless smile, and she muttered, "Just you wait Leonard…"

That was kind of ominous, but I couldn't exactly figure out what she was trying to do yet, so I continued to observe her. Unfortunately, even after close to twenty minutes, I was no closer to the answer, but every once in a while, I caught her whispering things along the lines of '… just because you're strong…' and '… even Deus can't ignore this…' and, maybe most sinisterly, '… you'll experience the full might of two millennia of Celestial bureaucracy…'

That last one was even followed up by an ominous chuckle, but it didn't take a PhD to figure out that she was plotting something. That was nothing new, but the avenue seemed to be rather novel. In any case, I would've most likely continued to observe her, if not for someone poking my side to get my attention.

Turning over, I found Mountain Girl looking at me, and when she was sure she got my attention, she silently gestured towards the window. Glancing over, I let out a shallow sigh and turned back to Angie and Josh.

While I was busy spying on the three biggest variables, she managed to wiggle her way into the good graces of our hosts, and she even received a jar of pickled olives she was currently sharing with the little kid. The owner of the household and his wife looked upon the two of them affectionately, their previous apprehensions completely melted by her sunny smiles, while Josh was doing his best to play the role of the dedicated bodyguard by standing behind her.

Of course, she didn't completely forget about the original goal of our visit, and after chatting with the Malakim, she finally accepted the obvious state of affairs of the Elysium. I supposed there was no harm in letting her digest that on her own, so I didn't interrupt their talk, but it was time to move on.

"Your attention, please," I called out to my friends, maintaining my Polemos persona, and for some reason that caused Angie to giggle uncontrollably. Ignoring her, I vaguely gesture in the direction of the entrance. "Our escorts arrived. We must take our leave."

"Escorts?" the Celestial girl echoed me and came over to my side, half-empty pickle jar in hand.

For the moment, I didn't explain anything, but focused on our hosts instead.

"We thank you for your hospitality and honesty."

"It… It was our honor, O Second True Archon Lord Archon…" the man sputtered, obviously nervous, and his wife once again lowered her gaze, not daring to look me in the eye. Maybe she was shy?

"You're welcome!" The same couldn't be said about the little boy, and she flashed a toothy smile at Angie. "Will you visit again? I'll introduce you to Bukephalas next time!"

"I'd love to, but…" Angie glanced at me, and when I didn't respond, her shoulder drooped and she muttered, "I'm afraid we're going to be busy for a while."

The smile on the kid's face withered at once, but he didn't say anything. In the meantime, Josh also noticed the commotion outside, and tried to get my attention by subtly bumping into me with my shoulder.

"I know." After whispering so, I gestured to Angie and addressed our hosts one last time. "Farewell."

Before the people outside could get any funny ideas, I opened the front door and walked out, and Angie automatically followed after me while waving behind her. However, the moment she faced forward, she let out a shocked grasp.

"Lord Archon, sir!"

The loud voice of armour guy made her shudder again, and even Josh tensed up. I gestured for them to calm down and faced the four Praetorian Guards and the hundred or so 'volunteer guards' lined up on the street.

"Who are these people?" Angie whispered to me, sounding a little scared of the sudden display.

"Just my honour guard," I told her without any pretences. "You'll get to know them soon."

After an odd huff, it was Josh's turn to whisper, "I don't like the way they are looking at me…"

At first, I had no idea what he was talking about, but then on closer look, I noticed that armour guy, wetsuit chap, hammer lad, and uniform bloke were all subtly eyeing him. I imagined they would be suspicious of the new guy, but instead, they looked expectant and maybe a little… competitive?

"Huh…" I murmured, causing Josh to tense up even more.

"What?" When I didn't respond right away, he repeated, slightly louder, "What? You know I hate it when you do this!"

"It's nothing," I responded offhandedly and took a step forward. "I just realized you might get to know these guys quicker than Angie would, that's all."