PART 1

It was time for that feeling again.

I have encountered this situation a couple of times before, when, after a particularly tumultuous period, returning to mundane, everyday life suddenly felt uncanny.

"Brother! Hurry up! We'll be late!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked as I walked down the stairs, feeling slightly unbalanced. My school bag felt strangely unfamiliar in my hands, and while I couldn't have a growth spurt at this age, my usual uniform was feeling tight. Not suffocatingly so, but still uncomfortable, as if it was half a size smaller than it used to be. Ignoring the mild discomfort, I stopped in my tracks to take out my phone and check the time. "It's not even seven yet."

Penny, already wearing her coat over her winter uniform, stood at the bottom of the stairs and was giving me a disapproving look.

"We promised to gather everyone and go to school together! We have to get going, on the double!"

"Ease up, kiddo. We'll just meet up on the way as usual. Nothing to get so worked up about."

She was still frowning at me, but I focused on my other sister instead, who was also wearing her coat and was engaged in a conversation with an unusually dishevelled Tajana. She had the panda-eyes, and from what I gathered, she had a hard time sleeping under the same roof as me. It probably had to do with the whole 'scary reincarnated Archon' image I was playing up in her presence, though I didn't care enough to directly ask her or to ease her worries. If anything, her being wary of me meant she would behave herself better, which was a good thing. Considering that I was looking forward to another busy day, I didn't exactly have the time to pay much attention to her.

That said, I felt obligated to say something, so waved at the two of them, and I soon got their attention.

"Let's get going before Penny gets wrinkles on her nose from frowning so much."

"I won't! And I don't frown that much!" my knightly sister protested, drawing an amused giggle out of Snowy.

I was more focused on the young spymaster though, and after a long beat, I smoothly turned my head to face her and locked eyes with her.

"Behave yourself while we're away."

"Y-You don't need to tell me that! I always behave myself!"

She huffed and puffed, but I didn't give her more consideration than strictly necessary and headed to the front entrance to put on my outdoor shoes and coat. By the time I was dressed, my sisters were already on the other side of the door and waiting for me to join them, so I gave a nod to the cloaked Hrul (it was his shift today, and he came to the entranceway to see us off) before heading out myself.

"Ah, finally!" Penny exclaimed once I fell in line with them. At first I thought she was still going on about being late because of me, yet the relieved smile on her face spoke otherwise. "I finally feel like everything's back to normal, how it should be."

"So I wasn't the only one who thought that," Snowy commented with a smile of her own, and after a short beat, they both burst into giggles. I didn't get it, so it was probably some kind of inside joke… but the fact that these two were at the point where those were a thing also made me feel oddly happy, so I smiled along with them.

We headed down the familiar streets and rounded the usual corners. Our first destination, before anything else, was Judy's house, and while the street lights were still on, the sun was already lighting up the horizon. While in terms of the calendar, we might have been still in winter, between the longer days and the melting slow, I could already feel that we were at the tail end of it.

That made me wonder: Critias, while distinctly Western in the cultural and architectural sense, had a couple of Japanese influences wedged in here and there. In Japanese stories, especially in the school life and romance genres the Simulacrum already leaned towards, having a picnic under the blooming cherry trees was something of a classic trope. It was called 'sakura viewing', if my memory served right, and while it was fairly ubiquitous, I never bothered to look into whether it was one of the cultural tropes that we had on the island.

There were a whole lot of cherry trees in Timaeus, that was for sure, and our school in particular was surrounded by a small forest of them. Heck, it was named after cherry trees, so the idea that we would have a local equivalent of 'sakura viewing' didn't sound too far-fetched to me. One thing was for sure though; whether it was a thing or not, with this weather, we had a bat's chance in hell to see a single cherry blossom by Valentine's Day. It was a shame, because if we did, I could've used that as an impromptu date venue for the occasion. I was sure Judy would've appreciated it for the research value, but alas, I couldn't do anything about our climate.

But speaking of my lovely assistant, she must have been keeping an eye on the road for our arrival, as she waited until the moment we were right in front of their fence to come out. To be fair, I couldn't blame her. While the temperature was above the freezing point, I couldn't exactly call the air balmy.

"Good morning," Snowy greeted her before I had the chance, but my girlfriend barely acknowledged the presence of my sisters and beelined right to me, grabbing hold of my arm as if afraid that I would poof out of existence if she didn't clutch onto me.

"Good morning, Chief," she greeted me in her usual, deadpan voice, and then immediately buried her face into my chest. "I was missing this so much."

"Me too!" Penny declared, but when Judy turned a questioning gaze at her, she hastily sputtered, "A-Awawa! I meant going to school together, not holding hands! W-Why would I want to hold hands with Brother, anyway?"

"… You see, kiddo, it's because of these random tsundere lines that everyone keeps misunderstanding you."

"What are you talking—?"

Before she could finish her response, there was a new voice joining the fray as Judy's mom walked out to the front porch. Unsurprisingly enough, she was very consistent with her appearance, wearing a pink apron over her casual clothes and carrying a kitchen utensil in one hand. This time, it was a pair of heat-resistant black plastic tongs, and she used them to wave at me, both her mouth and eyes smiling in delight.

"Leonard! It's been ages! How have you been?"

"Good morning, Mrs. Sennoma," I greeted her back with a wave of my own. "I've been away for a while, but now things are back to normal. I'm happy to see you are healthy as always."

"Oh, please!" she giggled and dismissed me with a gesture of her tongs. "Why are you so formal? Just call me mom-in-law, like you do to Emese." Before I could respond she put one hand on her hip and the tongs on her lips, and let out a thoughtful hum. "How about you join us for dinner tonight? Let's catch up!"

"Mooom," Judy responded with a drawn-out moan. I had to give it to her absurdly youthful mother; she was one of the very, very few people I knew who could get a genuinely non-deadpan reaction out of her. "I told you, Leo is busy right now. Don't impose on him."

"She's right, I'm afraid," I spoke apologetically. "As much as I'd love to taste your cooking again, I'm swamped with schoolwork and other obligations at the moment. Maybe next week?"

"It's a promise!" she declared resolutely and twirled the utensil in her hand. "Give me a day's notice, and I'll whip up a feast for you! The cubbies can come too!" That referred to my sisters, and while they were taken aback by the offer, they soon nodded in agreement, causing Judy's mom to smile warmly at them. "I won't hold you up any longer. Have fun at school, Sunshine!"

Mrs. Sennoma punctuated her goodbyes by blowing a kiss at Judy (or at least, I sincerely hoped it wasn't me), and closed the door behind her, leaving us momentarily stumped.

"Your mom is certainly something," I noted, and my girlfriend let out a muffled noise. Her face was still buried in my chest, though this time, I felt it might have been due to embarrassment. I had no idea why; most people would've probably loved to have a ball of positive energy for a mother, but I guess they were just incompatible.

In any case, I held Judy close to me and we started walking. Contrary to my expectations, everyone remained silent, and even Judy was wordlessly resting her head against my shoulder with a blissful expression (by her standards). Like this, we rounded another two crossroads, and as if we rehearsed ahead of time, we encountered the other half of our group right about the halfway point between my house and the school.

Josh, Angie, and the class rep idled together at the edge of the sidewalk, while my dear draconic girlfriend didn't wait for us and approached us first.

"Hi, everyone!" Her greeting was as energetic as I expected, and the moment she was in arm's reach, she immediately grabbed hold of my free arm and rubbed her cheek against my shoulder with a sigh. "Ahh! Everything is right in the world again!"

"You're being melodramatic," I told her, but it didn't stop her from rising to her tip-toes and planting a peck on my face. Her lips felt especially hot on my cold cheeks, and as if she just remembered something, Judy let out a flat 'Oh, right,' and mirrored her action on my other cheek, making both Elly and my sisters giggle at the sight.

Even while horsing around like that, our legs didn't stop, and we soon reached Josh and his… well, I used to call them the 'entourage', but it was hardly appropriate at this point, was it? Elly was with me, the class rep was already dating Mike, my sisters were off the table, and Josh was one hundred percent tied to Angie, both on a mundane and metaphysical level. The days of the oblivious harem protagonist and his many female friends felt like a distant memory, but I couldn't say I was particularly dissatisfied with how things turned out.

The same couldn't be said about a decidedly haggard-looking Joshua, but to be frank, I had a feeling his dissatisfaction had little to do with the dissolution of the battle harem group interactions.

"Morning," Angie greeted us with a toothy grin, looking extra-lively next to her fatigued boyfriend. "You guys look adorable!"

"Same for you," I teased her back, pointing at the way she had her fingers interlinked with her boyfriend's, and she let out a bashful titter.

"Good morning, everyone," the class rep greeted us next, and by the way she was looking at me, I had a feeling she had something to say to me. I decided to get ahead of whatever was on the tip of her tongue.

"In my defence, I tried really, really hard to be nice to Mike, but he was stiff as a wooden plank the whole time. I'll try to be nicer next time."

Ammy blinked in surprise and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"Did you develop the ability to read minds too?"

"Nah, I just know how yours work," I answered with a cheeky smirk, and she shook her head.

"I wasn't going to complain though; he sounded really happy on the phone last night." She paused for a moment, apparently unsure if she should ask in the open, but in the end, she did so anyway. "Also, what is this 'quest' you gave him?"

"I think he's overselling it a little," I replied, this time without the smirk. "I just asked him to pick up a mutual acquaintance of ours. You know? Because I'll be at school today?"

"So you really did ask Moose to come to the island," Judy noted on my right, and I had no choice but to shrug.

"I told you."

"I wasn't sure you were serious. I'm also not sure we need another Celestial agent on the island."

"Another one?!" Josh blurted out, sounding downright mortified. "Don't we have enough of them already?"

"Boo! I'm a Celestial too, you know?" his girlfriend poked him in the side. "Don't be a bigot!"

"I'm not a bigot! I'm just fed up with all of them giving me the stink eye for dating this airhead over here!" the guy exclaimed and poked her back. "As if I didn't have a rough enough time with my parents already!"

"Oh, oh!" As if waiting for the topic to come up, Elly raised her hand to get Josh's attention. "How did it go? Did they take it well?"

"No, of course they didn't!" Josh continued to gripe with his free hand on his forehead. "I had to spend half the night explaining all this supernatural crap to them, just to give them the context, and by the end of it, even I was confused by the whole thing, and all of it took so long that I completely forgot to bring up the prize money. Or to tell them that we're dating!"

"Wait. Your mom and dad don't know?" the class rep's ears perked up at once, and the rest of the girls were following on her heel.

"You kept it a secret? Why?!" Penny exclaimed, sounding outright mortified, and even Snowy looked startled by the revelation.

"I didn't keep it a secret, I was just waiting for the right time to tell them!" Josh defended himself with the same line he gave me before. "Except now that I didn't get around to it after everything else, they will think that was trying to keep it a secret from them, and then I won't hear the end of it."

"Here, here, buddy." Angie let go of his hand and patted him on the back. "It'll be fine. At most, your mum will just make you wash the dishes for a month. It's no big deal."

"If it's no big deal, then help me out!"

"I can't. I have Deus hands now. I have to keep them soft and pretty for the sake of all Celestials, so I can't wash dishes."

"… Is that going to be your go-to excuse for everything from now on?" Josh asked with a skeptically raised brow. "By that logic, I can't do the dishes either, because I have twenty-seven percent 'Deus hands' too!"

"In that case, you can do seventy-three percent of the dishes."

"And what about the rest?"

While the two slowly descended into one of their customary little spats, the class rep signalled me to pay attention to her again. When I turned to face her, she readjusted her glasses, and asked, "This new Celestial agent. Does Grandfather know about him?"

"No, but he shouldn't be bothered by him. He's not a big deal, yet."

"Yet?"

"The Chief is doing one of his schemes again," Judy noted.

"Really? What is it about?" Elly inquired, eyes full of expectations, but I had to let her down.

"I'm not one hundred percent sure either," I admitted just a touch reluctantly. "It all depends on how competent and trustworthy Moose ends up being in person. I hope he'll score high on both metrics, but to be honest, at this point, I'd take any Celestial not suffering from chronic backstabbing disorder in a heartbeat."

"And then?" the princess pushed me further, resulting in a shrug.

"I'd delegate some stuff to him, so I can focus on my own thing."

As expected, just a mention of the word 'delegation' made my draconic girlfriend smile with glee. The same couldn't be said about the class rep.

"So, you are using Michael to get in contact with an agent you want to use for some non-descript 'stuff', without the notice of the rest of the Celestials on the island. Did I get that right?" I didn't respond in one way or the other, but she still let out a thoughtful hum and concluded with, "You really are a Celestial, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?" I blurted out, but she remained stone-faced.

"It all makes sense in retrospect. You have strange abilities, you scheme all the time, you advanced your agenda by making deals, pitting factions against each other, or subjugating them through surgical strikes, and you remained hidden in the shadows until you were ready to reveal yourself. It all checks out."

She nodded to herself and stared me in the eye, but when I still didn't respond and only gave her a flat stare back, she quickly became visibly flustered.

"Erm… Leo? That was a joke. Please deny it."

"No, no. What you said actually makes a lot of sense," I admitted. "Not the Celestial part, but the rest was more or less spot on."

"Ammy isn't good at teasing people," Elly noted with a stifled chuckle, causing the class rep to turn on her heel.

"We should get going, or we'll be late!" she declared and then dragged the childhood friends along. For the record, the two of them were still debating what they would do if he got sentenced to the grievous punishment of 'dishwashing', but I was happy to see them so relaxed, so I didn't mind.

But speaking of which, there was something that had been bothering me for a while. Or rather a lack of something. Where were the Praetorian Guards? I was expecting at least one of them to loiter around us, probably dressed in a stereotypical spy trench coat and pretending to read last week's newspaper, but there was nary a sign of them anywhere. However, whatever foreboding feelings I had were soon washed away when the princess and Judy started talking about today's classes, and while listening to them, we soon reached the gates of Blue Cherry High.

Once again, I was hit by that strange feeling of discrepancy. As I laid my eyes on the large building at the top of the hill, I couldn't help but feel out of place. Yet, the sensation only lasted for a second or two, and by the time we were welcomed by Armband Guy at the gates, it had mostly abated into a faint nuisance in the back of my mind.

"Good morning." He greeted our whole group as one, and then he specifically singled me out and uttered a deadpan, "Dunning," after that.

I nodded back at him and was just about to ask him why he didn't have the incognito arch-mage glued to him this morning when he gestured towards the gymnasium attached to the main building.

"The special assembly starts in fifteen minutes. Be sure to be there on time."

"Special assembly?" I echoed after him and glanced at the class rep, but she seemed just as stumped as I was. As such, I turned back to Pascal. "What's it about?"

"The new staff," he answered with audible distaste, and suddenly the last puzzle piece fell into place.

"Oh crap," I groaned under my breath, and if my hands weren't occupied by my lovely girlfriends, I would have buried my face in them. "Why do I feel like our peaceful school life just went down the gutter?"

PART 2

Stepping into the gymnasium, we were hit by a wall of noise, like a wave at the seashore washing over a sandcastle. In front of our eyes, hundreds of placeholder students were idling on the basketball court taking up the majority of the gym floor. Nobody was organizing them, yet even at a glance, it was obvious that the individual classes tried to stick together, even while being squeezed in like sardines in a box.

Pressing through the crowd, my sisters soon rubbed off our group once they found their class, and by the time we reached the spot where our classmates congregated, the class rep also left us, no doubt to find Lord Grandpa and ask what this was all about. Once we stopped, I could take a better look at the far end of the gymnasium, where a familiar podium was set up under the basketball hoop. It was the same one our principal used to give his last riveting speech before the cultural festival, and while I could see a couple of chairs set down near it, they were currently left unoccupied.

But speaking of the cultural festival, not five seconds after we came to a stop, I was lightly smacked on my back.

"Hey there, Leonard! You're still alive, eh?" a lively voice called out to me, and when I turned to face him, I found Steven Jackson… or was it Jack Stevenson? One of the two.

He was one of our classmates, one of the guys who helped with the assembly of the stage before the concert, and one of the more developed placeholders. The only issue was that, after not seeing them for a couple of weeks, I had a hard time linking their names and faces together. By the looks of it, I would have to start learning them all over again.

In any case, that didn't mean I wouldn't respond, and after the first surprise, I greeted him with a nonchalant, "Morning. Why wouldn't I be alive?"

"I've heard you were pretty sick. Something about being stuck in the hospital for two weeks or whatnot," he answered just as casually and looked me over from head to toe. "You look better than expected."

"It was just a flu," I told him, but then Judy poked me in the side with her elbow and followed me up.

"And it had some complications. Thankfully, the Chief is hardy, so he fully recovered."

"Very hardy!" Elly doubled down on my other side and flashed a smug little smirk. I didn't get it.

"Glad to hear that," the guy whose name I still wasn't entirely sure about responded on autopilot, and after a beat, he craned his neck. "Oh, the old man is here. It should be starting soon."

Following his gaze, the three of us focused on the podium. Just as he said, Lord Grandpa was just about to take the stage. He looked rather dour, even more so than usual, and seeing the people now occupying the chairs behind him made me share his sentiment. For once, he wasn't wearing his robes over his khaki suit, and opted for a much simpler business casual ensemble, as if trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible.

"Good morning, children," the old coot greeted the congregation, his amplified voice, coming from the large speakers in the corners, rising above the noise floor of the student body. It still took several seconds for the murmurs to die down, time which he spent messing with his tie and repeatedly clearing his throat.

At last, once he deemed the level of the chatter 'good enough', he began in earnest.

"I welcome you back with some good news. Some of you might have already heard, but Blue Cherry High applied for a government grant during the winter, and our application was judged favorably."

"Grant?" Josh whispered behind me, just loud enough for me to hear, but before I could respond, Elly beat me to the punch.

"Probably a cover story," she summarized, and we focused on the old man again.

"Along with a generous donation from Feilong Capital International, we now have the funds to finance many of the new developments we have been holding off for years. First and foremost, after consulting the Department of Education, the school board decided to expand our teaching staff. Please welcome Mrs. Talvipäivänseisaus, henceforth in charge of art classes of all grades."

I had to admit, I was pretty impressed by how smoothly he managed to say her name. Also, for the record, that was definitely Lord Taika, although she looked markedly different than usual. Gone were the heavy, fur-trimmed robes and the wide-brimmed witch hat, and in their place, she wore a startlingly sensible business casual ensemble with a knee-length pencil skirt, a silk blouse, and a woollen cardigan. She was still sticking to her theme colours though, with all of them being mostly white, including the rims of her rectangular glasses. I was pretty sure she wasn't wearing those until now, so they were probably just for show.

"Oh, my," a familiar voice sounded nearby, and when I looked over, I found the creepy quartet standing not far away from us.

"Comrades," Mr. Bowl Cut whispered with unnecessary gravitas. "I believe we are witnessing the birth of a new Goddess!"

"We are truly blessed," Mr. Spiky agreed with tears in the corners of his eyes.

Then, as if they rehearsed it ahead of time, all four of them glanced my way, and showed various levels of saltiness, no doubt thanks to the girls still attached to my arms.

"So you're back, huh?" Mr. Crew Cut noted with audible distaste. "Did you enjoy your stay in the hospital?"

"Don't be rude," Mr. Bedhair chided his 'comrade' with a frown. "He was hit by a car, you know?"

"I was?" I blurted out in surprise, but they didn't seem to be paying much attention to me anymore, and instead all eyes were on Lord Grandpa again.

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"In the same vein, allow me to introduce Mr. Walker, who shall take over foreign language classes starting today."

That was Lord Barnabas all right, and the man gave a polite bow to the student body. He looked the same as usual, just without the cape over his blazer. But putting that aside, what was that about being hit by a car? I wanted to ask, but the creepy amigos apparently couldn't bear to look at the three of us and sidled away while I wasn't paying attention to them.

"Last, but not least, please welcome Mr. Réchúiseach, who shall henceforth be responsible for your literature classes."

The last of the three sitting on Lord Grandpa's left gave a lazy wave to the group. Lord Gulliver was slightly more presentable than usual, with his face cleanly shaved and his unruly hair tied back into a small ponytail, and I had to admit, he did give off an easygoing literary hipster vibe.

I was just about to wonder where the last arch-mage was when Lord Grandpa made a vague gesture to his left, at someone I couldn't see because of the crowd, and he stated, "I would also like you to familiarize yourself with Mr. Ambrose Aristotle Terach from the Department of Education. While he will not be teaching you, you will have plenty of opportunities to meet him on campus during the coming months."

Oh, okay then. So Lord Ambrose either didn't want to teach, and they couldn't shoehorn him into any subject, so he was given a different cover story. Neat.

"Staying on the topic of the teaching staff, I am pleased to inform you that Ms. Yamako has officially returned from her sick leave, and she is ready and eager to resume her duties as your physical education teacher."

In response, Rinne rose from her seat on the right of Lord Grandpa, and she received a shockingly thunderous applause. The incognito arch-mages also received some customary claps during their introductions, but it was nothing compared to the outright ovation Mountain Girl got. Was she way more popular than I thought, I wondered even as she sat down and the old coot turned an ever-so-slightly sour glance at the man on the last chair.

"Finally, as many of you eagle-eyed youths have no doubt already recognized, our beloved school nurse, Mr. Peabody, was torn between his work here at Blue Cherry High and certain personal obligations during the past several weeks. It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that, unable to reconcile them, he decided to temporarily vacate his position at the school. Until his return, please welcome our substitute school nurse, Mr. Arpachshad." Even though Lord Grandpa gestured to him, Jaakobah, wearing a white coat two sizes too big over a business suit, only nodded at the crowd. "Mr. Arpachshad is a certified medical professional, so if you ever encounter any medical emergencies, you may turn to him with the same trust you have shown to Mr. Peabody."

There was a wave of murmurs running through the crowd, and I thought this would be the end of it, yet the old man remained on the pulpit and waited for everyone to calm down. It took a while.

"Hey, Leo?" Angie got my attention by pulling on the back of my school uniform jacket. "Aren't those the you-know-who from back then? You know? From the banquet?"

She whispered so loudly, in order to be heard over the background noise, that she might as well not even have bothered with it.

"Yes, the arch-mages," I answered in a low voice, just to match her.

"And they're going to teach us?" she muttered, clearly shocked by the development.

"That means now we have…" Josh interjected, only to fall silent and furrow his brows. "Five? Five teachers? Isn't that number kinda low for a high school?"

"You're asking some dangerous questions, buddy," I told him with an approving grin, but he apparently didn't get it, and before we could get anywhere, Lord Grandpa ran out of patience and cleared his throat directly into the microphone.

"I have one last announcement to make." He waited until the gymnasium was mostly quiet again, and then made a beckoning gesture to his left, then to his right. After a few short seconds, a group of familiar faces, if currently dressed in unfamiliar getups, walked out of the crowd and lined up in front of the podium. "Part of the government grant the school received was allocated to increasing the security of the campus. As such, the school board negotiated a long-term contract with Praetorian Guards Inc., a well-known international security firm, to safeguard you, as well as the properties of the school."

In unison, the eight people in the front stood with their legs apart and did a Celestial salute. It was pretty sure this was rehearsed ahead of time, because there was no way they could ad-lib something like that. More importantly though, they looked very different from usual, wearing dark blue overalls with tactical vests, as well as matching baseball caps with 'security' emblazoned on them in bright yellow letters.

However, while they were a bit more uniform, they somehow still managed to retain their individual quirks. Midriff-woman, for example, wore loose trousers and a sports top instead of an overall, showing off both her shoulders and her belly, while armour guy wore a black face mask and a pair of large, mirrored sunglasses you would see on a stereotypical 80s cop, effectively hiding his face as usual. Together with the tactical vests and all the handcuffs, pepper spray, and other related paraphernalia hanging off them, they gave a distinct, 'overcompensating mall cop' vibe.

Even more bafflingly though, they weren't the only group. On the other side of the podium, a group of Squires, led by the unmistakable bulk of Duncan, stood ramrod straight. They were all wearing third-generation, mass-produced Uniformers, and their black-and-white military dress uniforms contrasted hard with the outfits of the Celestial guards.

"We have also contracted Constable LLC, and they will be responsible for patrolling the neighborhood around Blue Cherry High. Both security firms are here to ensure your protection so that you can continue your studies in peace and safety."

Once they were introduced, Lord Grandpa launched into a long speech, but by this point, most of the students already tuned out. Including myself, as I was busy listening to the weird gossip coming from our left. It was where one of the other classes congregated, and while I didn't know any of them, they apparently knew me.

"Isn't this a bit too much?" a greenish-haired girl asked without even attempting to keep her voice low, and a guy standing near him mechanically shrugged. Apparently, they still weren't completely developed yet, because that was peak placeholder behaviour.

"It was only a question of time. Haven't you heard what happened to Leonard Dunning?"

"He was in the hospital, wasn't he?" another guy answered without even waiting for the guy to finish.

"I've heard that he was in a car accident," the first girl said, and another girl joined the conversation.

"From what I've heard, it wasn't an accident, but someone purposefully sabotaged his car."

"Oooh…!" the other three let out an impressed sound, while I couldn't help but scratch my head.

However, as tempted as I was to walk over and ask them, the morning assembly wasn't over yet, and I had to wait for Lord Grandpa to finish. By the time he did, the small group moved out of sight, and as soon as he said the last word, the student body started to move as one, like when an avalanche starts with a whole snow sheet sliding down the mountain at once, and it carried us with it before we could even protest.

"Did you know about this?" Josh, now in front of us due to the way the crowd turned around as everyone headed to the exit, asked over his shoulder.

"No. I gave Jaakobah and Rinne free reins, but I didn't expect they would cook up something like this overnight," I admitted, and my friend let out a vexed groan.

"Man, we'll be constantly under surveillance, won't we?"

"The surprising thing is that we weren't until now," Elly pointed out, and looked baffled by everyone else's reactions. "What? Everyone here is very important."

"True, but I think Joshua will need some time to get used to the attention," Judy noted, and my friend responded with yet another, somehow even more displeased groan.

"It's less about the attention and more about the Praetorian Guard looking at me like I'm a criminal if I'm as much as holding hands with Angie."

"Well, they'll just have to deal with it," his girlfriend declared, and for emphasis, she grabbed hold of his arm in a mirror image of how Judy and Elly were holding onto me.

"I'm also a bit worried about these rumours," I spoke absently, and my lovely assistant glanced up at me.

"About the car accident?"

"What else?"

"Don't worry about it," Elly told me with a giggle. "People are always going to gossip, and the more popular you are, the more they'll gossip about you."

"Since when was I that popular?" I blurted out, just as the flow of the crowd funnelled us into the entrance hall with the shoe lockers.

"It would be more accurate to say that your portfolio is closely linked to some of the best-performing stocks on the school market," Judy told me with a straight face.

"… Are you making a stock-market spoof?"

"It's not a spoof, it's an analogy," Judy retorted and gently pinched my cheek.

"Fine, fine. Analogy it is. So, how are my stocks?"

"Doing mighty fine," she declared and let go of my face. "Your recent acquisition of the Elly conglomerate, as well as the hostile takeover of the Yamako corporation both raised interest, and many are invested to see how high your shares could go."

"Oh, that sounds nice," I noted with a smile, playing along. "What about these two?"

Gesturing at Josh and Angie, the girls blinked in unison, but Judy soon came up with an answer.

"Angeline Holdings has been generating bullish sentiment for a long time, and now that she entered a mutually beneficial partnership with Joshua Industries, it successfully reined in the bearishness associated with his previously fly-by-night attitude on the market. Overall, associating with their stocks is unlikely to damage your portfolio."

Honestly speaking, I was getting a bit lost in her jargon, and while I could roughly figure out what 'bearish' and 'bullish' meant in context, it still left me a bit unbalanced. Did she learn about the stock market during her stay at the Dracis mansion, I wondered?

"What about my shares in the Dormouse firm?" I said the first thing that came to mind, just to keep things rolling.

"Ever since the Christmas concert, Judy's stocks are on the rise," the princess cut in, finding our discussion amusing.

"However, our subsidiaries suffered a downturn due to the disappearance of Leonard S. Dunning Incorporated," Judy continued, and just the fact that she bothered to use my non-existent middle name told me she was in a good mood. "I believe the best way to stop any further decline is by a capital injection from the holding company."

"Which is me," I noted, and then after a pause, I asked, "Was that an innuendo?"

"Wow, Chief. You have such a dirty mind."

"… That doesn't sound very convincing when it comes from you of all people," I pointed out, earning me a giggle from the princess. However, before we could continue, I was suddenly addressed out of the blue.

"Hello, Dunning."

We just reached the first floor, and it took me a second to find the person who called out to me in the mass of students. However, there weren't many people who called me by my surname, and since it wasn't Pascal this time, by process of elimination, it had to be the tall, black-haired girl with the same red arm-band around her upper arm. By the looks of it, she was part of the disciplinary committee, and I could vaguely remember her from the 'The Gathering' incident with the four creepers and their stupid auction.

"Hi?" I greeted her back, unsure about her name. I was always bad with names, but in her case, I wasn't even sure we'd been introduced, in the first place. It didn't stop her from approaching us though.

"I see that you have been discharged from the hospital," she noted as she looked me over. "To think that you would get caught up in a car chase. It must have been terrifying. The public morals of Timaeus are truly in the dumps." She sighed, and before I could get a word in, she turned on her heels and added, over her shoulder, "It's a good thing the principal hired all that security. Hopefully, it will stop anything like that ever happening to one of our students."

As if her whole goal was to deliver those lines, she turned away and walked down the crowded corridor without waiting for us to respond.

"What the heck was that?" Josh blurted out, and it was only at this point that I realized that during the shuffle through the corridors, he and Angie somehow ended up behind us again.

"Wow, Leo… You were in a car chase, and you didn't tell us about it?" Angie… well, I hoped she was only teasing me, but the way she was looking at me, I couldn't be one hundred percent sure.

"I wasn't, and this rumour thing is getting out of hand," I grumbled, and we headed upstairs. However, one thing that this unknown committee member said struck an idea in my head. "Speaking of the security though; I know I gave a carte blanche and everything, but… why Duncan?"

"Do you mean, 'Why is Duncan the one who got sent here as an Ordo Draconis liaison?'" Judy corrected me, and I nodded with a grunt.

"Probably because he's the least busy," Elly guessed, and on second thought, she was probably right.

Roland and Arnwald were pretty much running the organization in my absence, while Morgana and Agrawain were in charge of keeping an eye on Sir Percival's prison. Penny was… well, Penny, but also already a student here, so by process of elimination, Duncan was the only one without any prior responsibilities who could be dispatched on a mission like this. It all made perfect se—"

"Hey, Leonard!"

My train of thought was interrupted by Sahi and Armband Guy. The two of them were camping out in front of our classroom, apparently waiting for us. The incognito arch-mage made her way over to me, practically knocking over everyone in her way. By the way, calling her the 'incognito arch-mage' was no longer descriptive enough, considering now we had four more of them in school. Should I call her the 'rejuvenated arch-mage', I pondered? Or just go with 'ex-arch-mage'?

In any case, I couldn't come to a decision during the short time she was approaching me, and once she stood in front of me, she declared, "Endy wants to meet you!"

"… Right now?"

"What she meant to say was that the Lord is requesting your presence after school hours to discuss School security," Pascal reiterated, and the brown girl nodded with a satisfied smile as if she did it herself.

"Like, now we delivered the message, right?" She crossed her arms, and after a beat, she raised a brow and asked, "Hey, Leonard? Like, what were you doing on a cruise ship?"

"What was I doing on a what?" I blurted out, but she remained poker-faced, despite my obvious confusion.

"Like, that's totally what I've heard. That you were, like, on a cruise ship that totally sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and you were like, totally wicked and tried to save the passengers, but then you totally fell into the water and, like, you suffered from hypothermia and you were in intensive care in a hospital for, like, weeks." Pausing, she raised a brow and whispered. "Was that your cover story? Isn't that, like, a bit too bogus? Like, why didn't you go with something simpler?"

"I did! I have no idea where all of this is coming from!"

"Really?" Losing interest, she shrugged and grabbed Armband Guy. "Oh well, good luck with that. We totally have places to be, so, like, buh-by!"

With that, the two of them walked down the stairs the way we came, leaving me completely befuddled, and judging by the expression of the girls and the childhood friend couple, I wasn't the only one. Nevertheless, I did my best to shake it off and power my way to the classroom. It was right there, and once I was back in my usual seat, I figured I'd have all the time necessary to digest all of this.

Once we were inside, Judy detached herself from us first, along with Angie. The two of them were sitting at the front, while the rest of us were near the back of the class, and once I found my desk and sat down, I immediately let out a lung-rattling groan, much to my draconic girlfriend's amusement in the seat in front of mine.

So, just to summarize: the number of teachers in Blue Cherry High tripled overnight, and we'd have the arch-mages in the school, probably to keep an eye on us. Similarly, the Praetorian Guards and our Squires (or should I call them 'Constables' now?) were on security duty, and I could already see all the shenanigans that would cause in front of my mind's eyes. Disagreements in authority, stepping on each others' toes, nobody being able to understand Duncan and thinking he was taunting them… the new vectors for drama were endless!

And then, Jaakobah somehow supplanted Peabody as our school nurse. For some reason, out of everything, that was the thing that annoyed me the most. Adding to and complicating our school lives was one thing, but removing one of the first people I've ever met in school? It was like taking a column out of the Parthenon; sure, it wouldn't collapse, but it just felt like something was fundamentally lost. Though again, I was partially to blame, I imagined. It was my secret project that keept the portly nurse busy, but while I rationally understood that, it still left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

All in all, I had a feeling our school lives would be considerably more eventful than they used to be, and it was a feeling I couldn't shake even when Mrs. Applebottom, in her one set of clothes and her usual hairdo walked in, bringing a sense of stability into the classroom both in a literal and the psychological sense.

"Good morning, children," she greeted the class with a smile, and once everyone quieted down, her eyes landed on me. "Let's all welcome Leonard back from his long absence. It's good to have you back."

I flashed a modest smile, and while I wasn't happy about being in the middle of attention, sitting here, in class, on a sunny Monday morning still made me feel—

"It must have been scary, being the only survivor of a plane crash, but I want you to know that I'm glad that you are back with us!"

— more confused than ever…

PART 3

"Pardon the intrusion."

I spoke on auto-pilot as I entered the nurse's office on the ground floor, without even bothering to knock beforehand.

"Oh. It's you, Lord… I mean, Leonard Dunning," our new school nurse snapped to attention, only to belatedly greet the rest of my company. "Welcome."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Arpachshad," Elly returned the greeting with a polite smile, while my dear assistant only nodded and ever-so-slightly raised a brow at the other occupant in the room. Mountain Girl was in the middle of scarfing down one of those instant ramens, and hastily hid the paper cup behind her back, as if embarrassed by it. Which, by the way, she definitely should've been, considering that as a teacher, she had an outrageous eighty percent discount in our needlessly fancy cafeteria, but I digress.

It was the tail end of the lunch break, and we came to visit the nurse's office with various things in mind.

"How are you settling in?" my draconic girlfriend continued to converse with Jaakobah, and he seemed rather taken aback by her attitude. What he didn't know was that, since he was the one who healed my hand a while back, he was categorized as a 'good guy' in the princess's book, and she was immediately willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"I have to admit, when I accepted the Magi's suggestion for a cover identity, I wasn't aware it was so involved. I'm also unfamiliar with some of the equipment related to the job, but I should manage."

"Equipment?" I echoed him, and the dour agent pointed at the wooden mallet on top of his desk.

"Until now, I was under the impression that I was familiar with mundane medical technology, but even so, I'm afraid I have no idea what this item is used for."

"Oh. That takes me back," Judy noted with just a hint of wistfulness. Of course, Jaakobah was hardly able to recognize it, so he only stared at her questioningly. Unfortunately (for him), my girlfriend refrained from any further elaboration, and headed to the back of the room, to the closer of the two neatly set medical beds.

Meanwhile, Rinne used the time nobody was paying attention to her to finish up her ramen and stealthily disposed of the cup into a nearby trash bin. She then walked up to me like none of that just happened, and cleared her throat to get my attention.

"Leonard-dono? Rinne has a report to make."

"Then do so," I prompted her, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Rinne attempted to trace back the rumors about Leonard-dono to their source, but so far, Rinne was unsuccessful in finding their origin."

She was talking about the weird and varied gossip floating around in school, mostly concerning the reason behind my month-long absence. They were just way too over-the-top to be explained by the rumour mill. I mean, for goodness's sake! There was a story saying that I wasn't hospitalized, but had a fatal car accident, and I was replaced by the winner of a lookalike contest set up by the Critias equivalent of the CIA to avoid panic. According to the classmate telling me about this, there were clues about what truly happened on the upcoming Dragon Prodigy album cover on Ouroboros or whatever, and I couldn't convince her otherwise. Not that I was trying really hard, considering I was too busy cringing, but still.

In any case, I was about seventy-nine percent sure someone was having fun at my expense by seeding these rumours, so I put Mountain Girl and the Kage ninjas on the case. Of course, I didn't expect her to show any results in half a day, so I wasn't holding it against her, yet by the looks of it, she took her 'failure' personally."

"Don't worry, Leonard-dono! Rinne will turn every stone and pebble until Rinne finds the perpetuator!"

"Perpetuator?" Jaakobah echoed her, looking at her sideways.

"She meant 'perpetrator'," I came to the rescue, and the man let out a soft hum.

"Huh. I see. So you have difficulties expressing yourself in our language. Was that the true reason behind your silence in Elysium?"

"No, of course not!" Mountain Girl protested with unusual fervour. "Rinne already told Jaakobah-san that Rinne didn't speak because of Leonard-dono's orders. Rinne has no problem with the local vermicular."

"Ver… mi…?" my guard captain repeated after her, but when he couldn't make head or tails of her, he glanced at me, obviously asking for help.

"It was supposed to be 'vernacular', I think." After a beat, I turned to Mountain Girl and added, "You aren't helping your case."

Rinne let out a displeased huff, but instead of responding to me, she continued to argue with the phlegmatic man in the white coat. I didn't pay much heed to them anymore though, as my attention was drawn to my girlfriends, or to be specific, Elly's uncontrollable giggles.

The two of them were sitting side by side on the bed and engrossed in discussing something, only looking up when I was right next to them.

"At least the two of you are having fun," I noted a touch absently, and I was rewarded by another chuckle from the princess.

"We're reminiscing," Judy told me, her deadpan voice mixed with just a hint of amusement.

"Now that you mention it, the nurse's office holds a lot of memories for us, doesn't it?"

"It sure does!" Elly stretched out her right leg and waved her feet left and right. "This is where I fell for Leo, you know?"

"Wasn't that on the rooftop?" I asked, but she shook her head.

"No. It was here. After we fell down the stairs," she declared authoritatively, and let out another giggle. "I was sooo mad at you back then, I didn't even notice I had a crush on you!"

"The Chief certainly has a talent for that," Judy noted with a shallow nod.

"Making people mad, or making people lo—?" I wanted to ask, but then I bit back the last word, and instead said, "You would just tell me 'Yes', right?"

"You know me," my dear assistant responded with an actually visible smile.

In the meantime, the princess got her giggles under control and grabbed her hand. I didn't know why; it wasn't like she was about to run away.

"So, what's your memory? Did you also fall for Leo here?"

Judy's face slacked for a long beat, and then she shook her head.

"No. I can't recall a time when I wasn't in love with the Chief." Hearing that, Elly smiled so sweetly at her that I was afraid she would give us cavities. Yet, my other girlfriend let out a troubled sigh and told us, "My memory is from when I collapsed after having an existential crisis all night."

"Oh, I remember that." I crossed my arms and put a finger on my chin. "It was because I threw you in the deep end too soon. Sorry about that."

"You already apologized for that, and I'm over it." I thought that was the end of it, but then she added, in a tone that was infinitely approaching being cheeky, "I also got a date out of it, so it wasn't all that bad."

"Ah, your date in the amusement park!" Elly nodded sagely, as if figuring that out was hard, and then her brows descended into a frown. "That wasn't a good memory for me."

"Was it because of the haunted house? Where you punched an animatronic vampire?" I asked, and she flushed beet red.

"A-Awawa! Don't remind me of that!"

"Ah, Chief. She did the thing," Judy pointed out, one finger literally aimed at the princess's face.

"I've heard. They are so rare nowadays."

I sighed theatrically, for extra emphasis, and Elly used her still-outstretched leg to poke me.

"Stop it, you two! Stop teasing me!"

"We only do it because we love you," I said, but then I had to let out a hiss. "Ouch. Careful, princess. That hurt. Why are you only focusing on me, anyway?"

"Because Judy is fragile," she answered after lightly kicking my knee one last time.

"She's right, you know?" Judy agreed, and the two of them nodded in perfect harmony. However, the light-hearted atmosphere soon took a turn for the serious when she linked her fingers in her lap and exhaled hard. "I wasn't entirely honest before. I'm not completely over it."

"The existential crisis?" I blurted out, and she nodded.

"Lately, there's been this sense of… unease." Judy sounded unusually earnest, and it caused the princess's head to cool down in record time. At last, she let out another sigh, and explained, "I can hardly put into words how happy it makes me to have you back, Chief, but I also can't shake off the feeling that your return signals the beginning of the last act of the Angie Route."

I reflexively glanced over to Rinne and Jaakobah, to make sure they weren't listening in, but the two of them seemed to still be bogged down in an argument about linguistics. Nevertheless, I lowered my voice, just to be safe.

"Yeah, although I have no idea how it will play out."

"I'm more worried about what comes after," Judy continued soberly. "Once the route is over, it will necessarily have an ending, and we have no way to tell what will happen after that. Let's say Joshua and Angeline will have their happily ever after, complete with a final CG image with the words 'FIN' written on it in a cursive font. What then? Will the Simulacrum keep going? Will the 'story' continue, or will the whole world get wrapped up and return to the main menu, metaphorically speaking?"

"Uh. That's a heavy subject," Elly muttered, but then she shook her head. "But we can't know for sure if that will happen! Maybe things will just go on but without the Narrative."

"That would be, arguably, the best-case scenario," I noted, nodding along, but Judy remained pessimistic.

"But that's the problem. We can't know for sure. While we have made progress in understanding the Simulacrum, at the end of the day, it remains a black box. We still don't know why it exists and what it does, so we can't be sure that once it wraps up, it won't just get reset and erase all of us."

"Sure, just like how we can't be sure that a solar flare won't hit us tomorrow and wipe humanity off the face of the Earth," I argued back, but at the same time, I got down to one knee and reached out to grab Judy's hand. "The difference is, we can't do anything about a solar flare, but the Simulacrum? That's something else entirely. If push comes to shove, at least you can bet on me stopping any potential universal reset, or die trying."

"I would personally prefer if neither of those things happened," Elly interjected, and Judy also nodded in agreement.

"You know what? Let's do this," I proposed, still on one knee. Normally, those words in this context would've implied there would be rings involved, but that was for later. Instead, I reached out to Elly and squeezed both their hands. "Let me make sure things are stable on the island first, and once we've got some breathing room, let's focus on the Simulacrum itself for a while. Do you remember what I told you a while back about the best way to combat existential dread?"

"We collect data and construct hypotheses because we are uncertain. Being uncertain about our existence is scary, so we are combating this dread by taking the thing that makes us uncertain, observing it, picking it apart, poking its innards, putting it back together, and ultimately attempting to figure out how it works. Then it’ll no longer be uncertain, and thus we’ll have nothing to fear."

For a solid five seconds, I wasn't entirely sure how to react, but once I managed to take my mouth off the floor, I whispered an impressed, "That was more or less word-for-word…"

"I don't forget anything, but I especially don't forget anything that you say," my dear assistant told me as she squeezed my hand back, and yet it was Elly who had a dopey smile on her face and let out a soft 'Dawww!'

"Shouldn't have expected any less from you." With those words, I stood back up, and proclaimed, "My words still stand. If the world makes you uneasy, just say the word, and I'll take it apart for you."

I considered that a pretty dramatic moment, which of course meant that the Simulacrum was probably obligated to undercut it by making my phone ring at this very moment, and the guitar solo of my ringtone definitely didn't fit the mood of the scene.

Nonetheless, I didn't let that set me back, so after I slipped my hands out of the girls' grasps, I theatrically added, "After I'll take this call. You hear that, world? You're not off the hook just yet!"

That got the expected reaction, at least from Elly, and after another beat, I reached into my pocket and accepted the call.

"Hello, Mike. Is there a problem?"

"N-No! Not at all!" The hapless Celestial's voice on the other side was nearly drowned out by the background noise of a crowd, and made nearly unintelligible by the sound of a loud announcement, calling people to gate seven or what have you. "We're here, at the airport!" he yelled, trying to be heard over the cacophony. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Moose's plane landed without issues, right?"

"Yes! He's right next to me! We are waiting for the luggage! What should we do after that?"

"I gave you operation funds, didn't I? Take him to a restaurant, have a hearty lunch, and bring him up to date."

"R-Roger! I'll do that! We'll meet you in the evening!" There was some commotion, and then I could hear Mike yelling, "Look, there's a big green bag! Over there! Is it yours?" before he cut the line.

I was just a tiny bit worried about the situation with those two but decided to ignore it for the time being. I had a bad habit of trying to micro-manage everything and then missing much more important developments in the process. I should just trust Mike. He got this. Or so I hoped.

Anyhow, I pocketed the phone and turned back to the girls. To my immense relief, I found the previous sombre atmosphere completely vanished into thin air. Elly, in particular, seemed to be excited about something.

"Sorry for the interruption. What did I miss?"

"We continued the previous topic," Judy answered, and that made me raise a brow.

"About the ending?"

"No, the previous previous topic," Elly stressed. "About the places with the most memories."

"Oh, that makes more sense," I mused, and after some thinking, I spoke the first word that came to mind. "The roof?"

"Yes!"/"There's no contest."

My girlfriends spoke at once, and Elly barely managed to stifle a laugh.

"I can't wait for the weather to get better and we could eat lunch outside again!"

"The only part I'm not looking forward to is preparing the lunch boxes," Judy noted, and suddenly the princess was looking at her like she was a space alien.

"Why? That's the best part!" She clenched her fists with starry eyes. "Making a lunch box with the boy you like in mind, and then eating it together, is the pinnacle of school romance!"

"Is it? I never put that much thought into my lunch boxes," Judy admitted, and once again, the princess gave her an odd look.

"It's because you only make sandwiches. You should branch out," she pointed out, and my dear assistant looked as stumped as if someone told her it was high time she finally learned how to fly by flapping her arms really hard.

"But the Chief likes my sandwiches. Right?"

That was clearly aimed at me, and responding with anything other than a hearty nod would have been high treason, so I didn't even attempt it.

"That doesn't mean you can't try something else! I know you can cook well," Elly insisted, but then unexpectedly added, with a smug smirk, "I mean, not as well as me, but you're pretty good."

At once, my dear assistant's eyes narrowed, and this time, I didn't even need to add 'by Judy's standards' at the end of the sentence.

"Was that a challenge?"

"Maaaybe?" the princess responded with the same, oddly cute smirk. However before they could've gotten any further than that, Mountain Girl called out to us.

"Leonard-dono? The next class is starting soon."

She pointed at the large, fancy clock on the wall. It was branded with the mascot of a pharmaceutics company or something (I never looked into it), and just as she said, there were less than ten minutes left of the lunch break. Normally, that would have been plenty of time, but in this case, things were a little different, and it was related to Rinne as well.

"Let's go, girls. We'll have to change," I paused and looked at our resident highly-visible-ninja-cum-PE-teacher. "So, what's the plan for today's class, teach?"

Mountain Girl looked downright startled by my question. Or was it the tone? In either case, she cleared her throat and told me, "Joshua-san requested basketball."

"… Of course he would," I whispered with a mounting sense of trepidation. I was pretty sure his goal was to use his newfound Deus-ness to have a leg up on me on the playing field. He was weirdly competitive about that, for some reason. "Oh, well. Let's not make him wait then."

With that, we bid our farewell to the incognito Celestial Prefect, and left the nurse's office, all the while I did my best to pretend I wasn't paying attention to my girlfriends' increasingly competitive boasting about their culinary talents. No matter how I looked at it, I had a hunch I would soon be forced to become the judge in yet another instalment of the old 'love interests compete in cooking' trope. Oh, how I wished all the troubles the future undoubtedly had in store for me were so wholesome…