Part 1

"Chief. You don't have to do this."

"No, Dormouse. I must!" I declared not-at-all overdramatically and struck a very natural pose in the middle of my room, with my head thrown back and a finger on my temple. "It is a sacrifice I must make myself! I can't ask any of you to do it in my stead. It would be just unethical."

"No, I meant that literally," my dear assistant insisted with the deadpannest of deadpan reactions. "We have already done this experiment."

"That was back then, and this is now," I explained patiently, yet she was still unconvinced. "Look, this is the quickest way to figure out if my hypothesis has legs to stand on or not. Yes or no?"

"Yes."

"Exactly. So don't try to stop me!" Saying so, I unbuckled my belt and grabbed my trousers at my waist. "This is for the greater good! Or at the very least, for my peace of mind!"

Judy continued to eye me with a distinct and almost tangible sense of exasperation, and noted, "It seems like spending the afternoon at the bowling alley did help to ease your depression."

"What depression? I wasn't depressed, just a bit tired and overwhelmed." I realized that I was sounding a touch too defensive there, so I quickly changed the subject. "But yeah, it was fun. I'm not sure it was fun enough to make it my officially designated hobby yet, but it's nice. And the restaurant had pretty good pizzas, to boot."

"So I've heard."

"Do you want to come with me next time?" I proposed on a whim. "I mean, just between you and me, Sebastian sounded a bit lonely, so I was planning to tag along with him next weekend anyway."

Once again, my lovely assistant eyed me through ever so slightly squinted eyes, as if I just said something wildly uncharacteristic.

"Since when are you getting along with von Fraenir well enough to feel concerned about him?"

"I… don't know?" I admitted and would've probably shrugged if my hands weren't still grabbing my waist. "I guess we just grew on each other. Time can do weird things like that." However, since I got reminded of my pants, I quickly shook off the side-tangent and looked at the door. "All right. That was enough foreplay. Let's get on with the experiment."

"For the record, I'm not taking any notes."

Ignoring Judy's dismissive attitude, I cleared my throat and locked my eyes on the entrance. "I feel like changing my clothes, but I'm not sure I properly closed the door. It would be really embarrassing if someone walked in on me while I was undressed, but what are the chances of that, am I right?" I held my breath for a second, then winked at my skeptical assistant and loudly declared, "Oh well. Here I go. Everything will be juuust fine."

At this point, I unceremoniously let my trousers go and they slid down to my knees, revealing the silly koala-print boxer shorts I specifically put on for this test. Eyes locked onto the door, I waited for the other proverbial shoe to drop. And waited. And waited some more. And…

"Chief, please pull your pants up," Judy called out to me, followed by a soft grumble. "It's distracting."

"What? I didn't know you have something against koalas." Seeing that her patience was rapidly running thin, I raised my palms in surrender. "Fine, fine. Seriously though, normally Penny should've already burst through the door at this point or—"

'Something', is what I would've said, if my attention wasn't drawn to the faint sound of hinges turning. Except, it wasn't the door, but the window.

"Leonard-dono! I bring urgent—!" Mountain Girl, with one foot on the windowsill, called out to me, only to freeze the moment she noticed the pants around my ankles. Her eyes darted over to Judy, and then after a long beat she added, "Is Rinne interrupting?"

Ignoring her, I snapped my fingers and pointed an index at her.

"Ha! See, Dormouse? I told you those annoying rules of comedic timing were still in effect!"

"Rinne… doesn't understand."

"Don't mind that." Judy got up from the bed and walked over to the window. "Come in. The air is cold outside and the Chief is going to catch a cold."

Still slightly confounded, Rinne hopped inside and my girlfriend closed the window behind her. In the meantime, I pulled up my trousers with my lips locked in a grin hovering somewhere between self-satisfied and relieved. While this was about as far from a rigorous scientific experiment as it could get, as far as preliminary findings were concerned, it confirmed my idea that while the Plot was in shambles, the Simulacrum (or maybe even Narrative-me himself) still enforced the common tropes.

While that might've sounded problematic on paper (and if the class rep was here, she would've probably started interrogating the subject from the direction of free will and predestination and whatnot), but as far as I was concerned, it was a good thing. I was really overwhelmed by the notion that I would have to take over the job of Narrative-me without all the required secondary superpowers. I mean, I did have those but…

Okay, time out. What are 'required secondary superpowers'? It's mostly a thing in superhero comics, but it's applicable in other contexts as well. For example, let's say we have a speedster character. Someone who can move really, really fast. That doesn't intuitively sound like one would need complimentary superpowers to make it work, but let's look at it from a physics perspective.

First off, they had to be super-tough, or at the very least have a way to mitigate air resistance, otherwise they would just get shredded by it. And talking about shredding, they would need to simultaneously be able to ignore friction, otherwise they would burn up from moving too fast, but at the same time they needed to have super-friction on their soles to be propelled to those speeds without losing traction. Not only that, they had to be able to change its intensity depending on their speed, and it also had to work in a way that it neither ripped pieces out of whatever material they were running upon nor turn their feet into minced meat.

In other words, even the seemingly simplest superpowers required other powers to be practical, or to function at all. In this context, what Narrative-me was doing would be categorized as a sort of reality-warping superpower, and for it to work as advertised, it required other, similarly extraordinary powers. To manipulate events and circumstances to the degree we'd already seen in the past, it needed the ability to be aware of all of the surrounding conditions all the time, aka; omnipresence. On top of that, all of that information had to be processed in real-time, which was already bordering on omniscience, but I'd argue that in order to manipulate things effectively, the ability to extrapolate all of that information into reliable predictions was also necessary.

So that's, what? Three required secondary superpowers just to get Narrative-me's reality-warping shenanigans off the ground? Needless to say, I didn't have any of those. Until now, I was low-key freaking out about how I was supposed to fill in Narrative-me's shoes, but if the Simulacrum was still enforcing tropes as necessary, it put everything into a new perspective.

This way, I could use my knowledge of tropes as a crutch to help set up certain scenarios and sub-plots, and while the Simulacrum itself took care of the nitty-gritting details, I could fully focus on the big Plot and the bigger climax. Or at least so I hoped.

On second thought, maybe I shouldn't put all my eggs into a single basket just yet. Mountain Girl showing up at this specific moment could be a coincidence after all. It wasn't very likely, but it was better to be safe than sorry, so I would have to repeat the experiment a few more times under different conditions, just to make sure.

But that reminded me… what exactly was her deal again?

"Say, Rinne?"

"Yes, Leonard-dono? At your service!"

"Why did you come through the window of all things?"

Before she could respond, Judy looked up from her phone (she said she wouldn't be taking notes, but she sure as heck looked like she was doing just that) and said, "I believe you claimed it was a jinxing-induced gag."

"No, I meant that in a Watsonian sense."

"… Rinne still doesn't understand."

With a shake of my head, I focused my full attention on my highly visible ninja.

"I asked why you used the window instead of the front door."

"It's because there's an urgent message for Leonard-dono," she stated as if that explained her behaviour.

"Which is?"

"Naoren-san told Rinne to ask Leonard-dono if Leonard-dono could meet Naoren-san tomorrow morning, because Naoren-san wanted to discuss something personal with Leonard-dono."

As usual, her dogged refusal to use any pronouns made untangling her sentence a bit tricky, but once I did, I let out a short breath and buried my face in my palm.

"You guys do realize that phones are a thing, right?" Mountain Girl nodded at once, looking at me as if I was asking something dumb, and she even pointed at the one in Judy's hand. "That's not what I… You know what? Never mind. Tell him that I'll visit him tomorrow, around lunch-o-clock."

"As Leonard-dono commands!"

Not even waiting for me to say anything else, she threw the window open and leapt off without even bothering to say goodbye. Slightly baffled, I stepped up to the windowsill and yelled, "And tell him to buy a damn phone too!", and then closed it behind her.

"In conclusion, the Narrative is still nominally active," Judy noted without much enthusiasm.

"Fortunately, it seems to be the case."

She let her phone down and looked at me funny, punctuated by the words, "I never thought I would ever hear that from you."

"Context is always king," I responded with a sort of faux-profundity and walked over to my PC. "Anyhow, what were we talking about before the experiment?"

"The Submerged Ones, and how you may or may not be related to the concept," she responded diligently, skipping over to my side and clicking on the text file on the tray. The same one I sent over to her in the morning. "This part."

"Yep. This is my biggest bugbear at the moment. I'm getting a clearer picture on the Emergents, but I still don't quite understand what these guys are. In the context of the world itself, I mean." Looking at my notes, I clicked my tongue. "Besides that I have to somehow stimulate them, and that's apparently going to complete the Crowned Coalescence's grand plan. Which, mind you, I know nothing about."

"Welcome to the club, Chief." Ignoring her subtle dig at me, I waited to see if she had something more constructive to say. After some thinking, she did just that. "Based on the transcript of the discussion you had with the girl, as you call her, she seemed to consider you something of a peer, but 'young'. Could it be that you're a Submerged One already in the process of emerging?"

"Nah, that's too simple. Antidramatic, even," I told her, and my dear assistant frowned at me. Not 'frowned by Judy standards' either; it was a bona fide, genuine, one hundred percent home made frown I'd only seen once in a blue moon on her face.

"These Emergents exist outside of the Simulacrum, so I doubt their metaphysics are beholden to the rules of dramatic storytelling."

"My bad, that was the wrong word," I retreated, as this wasn't a hill worth dying for, and tried to explain it from a different perspective. "What I was trying to say is that the situation of the Submerged Ones is more complicated than that. It's like… they aren't 'people' in the sense we understand, but kind of part of the fabric of the Simulacrum itself. I seriously don't think that any one individual in the Simulacrum can just magically ascend into a higher plane of existence and become a star-person or outer-god or multi-dimensional-consciousness embedded in space-time or whatever."

"Hold on for a moment," Judy stopped my train of thought, and highlighted a portion of the text file on the screen. "According to your current hypothesis regarding yourself, you have some kind of super-ego Leo, and you, other-you, and Narrative-you are all reflections of it. Maybe this super-Leo is a Submerged One?"

"I… no, I don't think so."

My response didn't fill her with confidence.

"Why don't you think so?"

"It's just… Just trust me on this one, okay? It's…" I wanted to say 'more complicated than that', but that would've be just reiterating an already vetoed argument, so I shook my head and cut the sentence there.

"Okay."

That was surprisingly easy, so I blurted out, "Okay?"

"You're the one in tune with the extra-Simulacral entities and metaphysics, so if you say so, I have no choice but to trust your judgement." Even while speaking, she casually added a few lines to my notes corresponding to what we just discussed, and then turned to me. "Anything else to add?"

"Not right now. I think it might be best to interrogate The Girl a bit more before trying to come up with further theories."

"Agreed." With that, she saved the file, and then immediately sent a copy to her own e-mail address. I looked into it, but cloud-based file sharing was still in its unstable, stone-age level infancy, so this was still the best way to share documents at the moment. Then, she turned to me, and narrowed her eyes. "But speaking of the girl…"

"The Girl," I corrected her.

"I just said that."

"No, you didn't capitalize her name."

"… How can you tell?"

"I just can, okay."

She eyed me for a moment, and then let out a dramatic sigh. Once again, not the 'by Judy standards' variety, but a proper one. Was my girlfriend getting more expressive or what?

"Oh no." On the other hand, her delivery was as deadpan as ever, so… the more things change, the more they stay the same? Let's go with that. More importantly, she pretended to swoon, and added, "My boyfriend became a verbal grammar national socialist. I must call Elly and we much stage an intervention before it's too late."

"Oh, ha, ha," I grumbled and poked her on the forehead. "I'm not a grammar nazi, I'm just telling you that's her name. It's supposed to be capitalized."

"In spoken language," she deadpanned at me again, disregarding the fingertip pressing against her noggin.

"Yes. The language of the Emergents is all kinds of screwy like that. I told you about this."

"Fine. Point taken," she finally relented. "I still don't know how you can say you can tell the difference though."

"It's all about intent," I answered vaguely.

She apparently deemed that tangent finished, as she looked me in the eye, her expression dead serious.

"Returning to the previous topic, I just want to remind you that just because she's an unfathomable entity existing outside the Simulacrum, it doesn't mean you shouldn't uphold the anti-harem countermeasures we developed."

I had a feeling she was just teasing me, but I responded in earnest anyway.

"Oh, come on, Dormouse! I'm not going to flirt with The Girl!"

"You say that, but we have already established in the past, based on observational data, that you're an expert when it comes to accidentally flirting with the opposite sex."

"What? Okay, just saying 'opposite sex' is already kind of sketchy when it comes to Emergents, being star-people and all, but there's no way I would flirt with her, accidentally or otherwise! I mean, for god's sake, she looks like a—"

"Hiii!" We were both startled at once when an orange-fringed hole suddenly appeared on the other side of the room, and a twin-tailed girl poked her head through. "Sorry for interrupting, but I just wanted to tell you that the ****************** is doing a ****************** to look for traces of ********************, so it's probably best you don't try to contact me for a while. I'll drop by once the coast is clear, okay?" I nodded, and The Girl let out a chirping giggle before giving us a cute wave. "Gotta go! I have a meeting to attend, so bye-bye!"

And with that, she disappeared back into the hole in reality, and then said hole also collapsed with a soft popping noise. The silence in the room was positively deafening for the next couple of seconds, but after the first shock, I turned the finger still on Judy's forehead towards the place where The Girl disappeared.

"That. She looks like that."

"… I see." Judy sounded even more deadpan than usual, which was her way of hiding her surprise. "What did she say? I couldn't quite understand."

"The Predator Moon is planning to do something like a security sweep looking for the Crowned Coalescence in the Simulacrum," I translated, and she nodded, though not looking any less unbalanced by the experience. To ease the mood, I joked, "Hey, so… Do you think this counts as an interruption based on the unwritten rules of comedic timing?"

"If it does, it would mean the Emergents are also beholden to those rules, which is… troubling. In a metaphysical sense," she answered me, eyes still glued to the spot where the hole used to be, as if expecting that The Girl would pop up again.

On a whim, I let my hand down and put an arm around her instead, pulled her to me so that our sides touched.

"Not as troubling as the way she keeps popping up, eh?" My dear assistant finally looked up, but her expression said she was more confused by my comment than anything else, so I clarified, "I mean, it's kind of disconcerting how she can just show up, at any time, completely unannounced like that, right?"

"… Chief. We need to work on your self-awareness."

PART 2

The night was short yet tiring.

No, that wasn't some kind of sneaky innuendo about how I was engaged in the ol' matrimonial polka with Judy all night. In fact, after watering down The Girl's sudden appearance with some additional mind-bending discussion and a rather hilariously bad movie I kept in talon for an occasion like this, she went home without any further hiccups.

That was the beginning for me. Since the princess did her best to stop me from 'working', in a very broad sense of the word, I had some catching up to do. I started by checking on our potential antagonists with Far Sight, but there wasn't much to see. The assassins were still locked up tight under the local School, the Chief Directors were still under house arrest and (Savir unsuccessfully trying to pull some strings notwithstanding) on their best behaviour, while Crowey and his posse were currently still trapped in a stalemate with the other Abyssal noble houses and couldn't respond to the news of Tajana's Fauns getting captured.

In other words, the most likely sources of hostile plot developments were all inert at the moment. Of course that didn't rule out the possibility of a new bad guy entering the scene from behind the curtains, but without a Plot (and Narrative-me pulling the strings behind the scenes), a surprise villain showing up at this point was highly unlikely.

Following that, I also checked on my friends, allies, and acquaintances (in that order), but there wasn't much to see there either, so I soon moved on to other, more material matters. After Phasing over to the underground base, I had a late evening discussion with the homunculus team, and we agreed that, now that the proverbial sword of Damocles was no longer hanging over our heads and we had some leeway, there was no longer any need to rush the project. As such, the expected completion of the body was pushed back by almost a month, but in return, Peabody and Fred promised me that they would provide me with an amazing end result. Whatever that meant when it came to homunculi, I wasn't entirely sure, but I took their words for it.

As for Sahi… we'll get back to her later.

Anyhow, once I was done with that, I holed up in the corner of the main workshop dedicated to the enchanting tables, and I spent most of the night working on artifacts, big and small. Those had a habit of piling up on my desk, both in the literal and figurative sense, as my expertise was not only in demand for the homunculus project, but many of the other Research Division members would send me artifacts for examination or tuning up with specific requirements in mind.

Most of it was easy, routine work related to projects I gave them. Repairing Oaths, manufacturing new Knight equipment, researching Chimera magic immunity and Josh's weird powers and how they could be put to practical use, stuff like that. Yet, there were others that made me wonder what some of our mad scientists were cooking up in their workshops. I had a feeling that another surprise inspection was in order, lest we would have another mini-shoggoth incident on our hands. Not that Pudding-kun hadn't proven his usefulness since then, but that's beside the point.

Much more importantly, there was a very specific artifact I prioritized, and it ate up most of my night. By the time I finished and checked the clock on my phone, it was almost eight in the morning. Sheesh.

"Like, you're totally pulling too many all-nighters."

Blinking, I turned to the brown girl wearing a white lab coat. She was working on something on a workbench not too far from mine, her hair tidied up into a large bun and her eyes focused on the round brass plaque in front of her. It kind of looked like an old-timey astrolabe, but instead of the stars, it had a version of the Vitruvian Man etched into its surface. It was also subtly glowing, meaning it was another artifact, one that I hadn't touched yet.

"I'll have all the time in the world to sleep when I'm dead," I answered jokingly, and she let out a soft huff without looking up. In fact… "Wait… Are you still sulking?"

"I'm totally not," she denied it, but if anything, it only made her sulk harder.

"No, you totally are," I spoke absently as I pocketed the finished artifact on my bench and fully turned to her. "Are you still mad about what happened on Monday?"

"Mad? Like, why would I be mad? Did you do something that would totally make me mad?"

"No, but when you're pouting like that, trying to deny it like this is kind of silly," I pointed out, and she finally looked at me.

"I'm not mad, I'm just… Argh! Gag me with a spoon!" She threw her hands into the air, giving up all pretences, and glared at me. "Like, last time, I totally missed fighting a dragon, but it's like, fine! She's like totally a kid, so it's fine. But then this time you not only had, like Colossi, but Angie went like totally Deus-mode too! Like, seeing either one of those would've been totally wicked, but you didn't even think about calling me! That's just sooo bogus!"

"… You know, most people usually don't throw tantrums for not being called into an active combat zone."

"Most people are lame," she responded swiftly, only to then hastily add, "Also, I'm totally not throwing a tantrum!"

For a seventy-something-year-old grandma, she was pretty childish, wasn't she? I would've liked to believe it was her young body influencing her mind, but then I remembered how she acted before her permanent transfer and… Some people just remained young in spirit, huh?

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Anyhow, after stomping her feet to emphasize that she definitely wasn't throwing a tantrum, she crossed her arms and huffed with the kind of schoolgirl-indignation that completely fit her apparent age.

"Next time, make sure you call me!"

"Next time what?"

"Like, next time when a totally legendary existence of the World of Mystics shows up! Like, what's the point of being young and powerful," she paused and brought out a pair of her semi-transparent magical hands, probably for illustration, "if I don't get to use them?"

"I think we're kind of running low on legendary existences though," I pointed out, but she just put one hand on her waist and made a weird wave with the other, mirrored by the magic hands behind her.

"Like, who are you trying to fool, Leonard? Didn't we just confirm that Bel of the Abyss is totally the Abyssal Emperor?"

I eyed her for a while, and seeing that she was entirely serious, I slowly shook my head and responded with, "Fine. If we ever fight Bel head-on, I'll call you."

"Wicked!" She flashed a daredevil grin at me and then flexed a bicep with her other hand resting on top of it. In other words, she struck the Rosie the Riveter pose, and her summoned hands once again mimicked the gesture behind her. "I'll totally show him what's what! Just you see!"

"Yes, yes."

Despite my unenthusiastic response, Sahi continued to grin at me right until I bid my farewells and left the workshop with meandering steps. Seriously though; why was I surrounded by weird people wherever I went? Was I something of a weirdness-magnet? I knew that normal people with normal motives and normal aspirations existed in the Simulacrum, so why was it so hard to meet them?

While pondering so, I went through the usual route and routine. I said hi to Brand and the Fauns, I checked out the morning exercise of the Ordo Draconis Squires and finally arrived at the reception room with the teleport closet. Without further ado, I Phased over to my next destination, and before long, I was standing on the balcony of a familiar apartment building in Lorci.

"L-Leonard!" I only needed to knock once, and Michael was already frantically trying to let me in, fumbling with the glass door of the balcony. "You should've told us you were coming!"

"What? Is Admin here?" another voice came from further inside, and Moose poked his head into the living room. He had a mug in one hand and a croissant in the other, meaning he was probably just eating breakfast in the kitchen. "Let him in already."

"I'm doing that!" Mike whined and finally managed to unlatch the door, allowing me inside. "H-Here you go."

"Thanks. Sorry for showing up out of the blue like this, but I have some business with Michael."

"With me?" the hapless Celestial muttered, his expression vacillating between expectant and anxious.

"Really?" Moose spoke absently as he fully walked in, wearing fluffy slippers and an equally fluffy bathrobe over a metal band t-shirt. His long hair was also a bit messy, so he probably got out of bed not too long ago. He finished up his small croissant, and after swallowing it, he absently scratched his head. "I thought you would be here for a status report."

"Is there anything to report on?" I asked, one brow raised high, and after some thinking, he shrugged.

"No, not really. Things are going smoothly."

"Suspiciously smoothly," Mike added, earning him a frown from the big guy.

"I told you there's nothing suspicious about it. People have been waiting for Polemos to put his feet down, and they are just doing their best to please him now that he did." He glanced back at me and added. "By the way, did I tell you that 'I told you this would happen' yet?"

"Not today, no," I responded just a touch sourly, and the guy grinned at me.

Ignoring his attitude for the time being, I had to admit that I shared Mike's apprehensions about everything going too smoothly in the Elysium. I knew that Tsephanyah had already prepped the Reformist faction to curry favours with me and prepare for reforms (it was a bit of a 'nomen est omen' kind of situation, now that I thought about it), but even the Unorthodox faction had thrown their full weight behind me, and as for the Orthodox… Those guys were just weird.

The majority of them were still entirely loyal to Savir, yet despite our numerous and well-documented clashes, both in private and in public, they proclaimed their loyalty to me as well and somehow saw no conflict of interest there. Not just that, the current consensus in the Elysium wasn't that 'Polemos got fed up with the Directorate's shit and clamped down on them', but that 'Polemos found the Directorate too inefficient, and he's now reorganizing it to make it better'. Hell, according to Judy's deep dives into the Celestial Hub's forums, the prevailing sentiment wasn't that I made a power-grab, but that I found the Chief Directors lacking and I was perfectly in my right to teach them a lesson.

Seriously. The average Celestial's pseudo-religious zealotry was creeping me out a bit.

But putting that aside, things were finally getting to the point in the Elysium where I could try enacting some proper changes, so one of these days, I would have to go in there and decide what to do with the Directorate and the three head honchos once and for all. I was already booked by Naoren for today though, so for the time being, I moved the entry a bit higher on my new and improved mental priority list, only to then put it out of my mind with a shake of my head.

"We'll get back to Celestial business another day. For now, I have other things to attend to, and more importantly," I turned to Mike and gestured for him to come closer. "I have a mission for you."

"Y-Yes! I'm ready to serve! Your wish is my command, and your command is… also my command, I think!"

Despite his spirited words, the guy's expression was anything but enthusiastic. If anything, he looked afraid. Just what exactly did he think I would ask of him, I wondered.

"Stop looking like I'm about to tell you to invade the Abyss on your own and listen to me." Channelling my inner Polemos did the trick, and he immediately stood straighter. Reaching into my pocket, I fished out a ring and pressed it into his palm. "Give this to Amelia for me."

"A r-r-ring?!"

The blonde Celestial's eyes opened wide as saucers as he stared unblinking at the small, silver metal band in his hand. It was made of stainless steel, lacking any frills or plating, but because it was polished up a bit, it still looked pretty good. It was one of the 'practice rings' I got Galatea to make me when I started working on the real deal that I gave to my girlfriends. Since it already had the right base enchantment on it, I only had to tailor it to the class rep's specifications. It still took quite a while, and it wasn't as solid of a job as the ones on my girlfriends' fingers (those took about twenty work hours, each, not counting the time dilation in the enchantment-space), but it was good enough.

"Lord… I mean… Leonard… I mean…" Mike stuttered and sputtered like an old two-stroke engine running on badly mixed fuel. "W-We aren't really… erm… Our relationship isn't quite t-there yet, but if you command it, I will—!"

"This isn't an engagement ring," I cut him off before he could get more worked up.

"O… Oh?"

Seeing the utter confusion on his face (and the absolute amusement on Moose's), I rubbed my forehead and gestured with my other hand for Mike to listen closely.

"I'm sure you've noticed, but I've been consulting with Amelia regularly over the past couple of days."

"Y-Yes?"

"She asked me for a defensive artifact the other day, but if I just gave her a ring, it would not only lead to misunderstandings, but it would also be wildly inappropriate."

"Right…" At last, a light of understanding bloomed in his eyes, and he nodded. "So you want me to deliver it to her?"

"Exactly."

"So… it's not you commanding me to get engaged with her."

"Do you seriously think I would give you an order like that?"

"N-No!" This was the point when Moose couldn't hold back his chuckles anymore, and Mike glared at him. "Raz! Stop it!" He hastily faced me again, and added, "I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a misunderstanding! That's all!"

Sighing, I dismissed him with a wave of my hand.

"Whatever. She'll know what this is about." I sent a quick glance at Moose to see if he had anything to add to the conversation, but he was too busy trying not to laugh at Mike's expense, so I concluded my visit with a flat, "I'll come by one of these days and we'll have a proper talk. Carry on."

With that, I turned around, walked out to the balcony, and placed a foot on the railing. My cover story had always been that I flew here while hidden by my Celestial Illusion magic or whatnot, so the guys in the living room didn't even bat an eyelid when I disappeared from their sight. Normally I would've Phased right home, but seeing Moose scarf down that croissant made me a little peckish, so I first stopped by a local pastry shop I sometimes visited when I was in the neighbourhood.

All in all, that diversion took about ten or so minutes, and then I was ready to Phase back to my room… except I noticed something peculiar when I got ready to do so, and I ended up amending the destination into my house's dedicated teleport closet instead.

The moment I opened the door, I was welcomed by a loud 'A-ha!' from the living room.

"There's the criminal!"

Blinking, I closed the door behind me and levelled a rather unamused stare at the Celestial girl kneeling backwards on the couch and pointing an accusative finger at me.

"Hi, Angie. What are you doing here this early?"

"We came over to play," her boyfriend, also sitting on the couch noted as he looked over his shoulder. "You weren't home, so Lily let us in."

"That's not important!" Angie declared with an over-exaggerated huff. "You must answer for your crimes first, traitor!"

She clearly wasn't serious, but I couldn't quite figure out what she was on about. At least until I noticed a familiar main menu song coming from the television, and I connected the dots.

"Is this about the game console?"

"Well, duh!" she responded and pointed at the white box under the TV. "You had a next-gen system in your living room, and you never told us about it! This is treason of the highest order!"

"Easy there, dumdum," Josh chided her with a hand on the top of her head, and then pushed her down into a more normal sitting position, just in time for me to circle around the sofa.

"I'm not a dumdum! You're a dumdum! And this is serious!" she sulked, and after falling silent for a few seconds, she slouched her shoulders. "Aw. Not even Grandpa is on my side!"

Whatever Deus had told her had completely dispirited her, and I didn't quite know how to react. I still needed some time to acclimate to this whole 'Angie-has-the-literal-man-in-her-head' situation, so for the time being, I focused on Josh.

He was wearing a hoodie and jeans, and looked perfectly healthy even though his left arm was still in a sling.

"How's your injury?" I asked without reservations, and he shrugged, looking just a touch tired.

"Itches like a bitch, but I'll live." He glanced at his shoulder and circled his head in place of a shrug. "In retrospect, I got damn lucky that I wasn't shot in a vital spot, or this would be even more annoying."

"It wasn't luck, but chosen one privilege," I noted jokingly, and he rolled his eyes.

Choice of words aside, it was good that Josh's shoulder was healing. While we knew it from the start that the bullet the belligerently French assassin used to snipe at them was a specialized anti-Celestial armament, it took us a few days to realize just how absurdly tenacious it was. Its ability to specifically pierce Celestial Barriers was obvious at a glance, and so was its capability to hinder healing Hymns, but as it turned out, it was even trickier than that. Case in point, while Celestial healing magic could be used to close the bullet wound, after its lingering effects dissipated, the curse carried by the bullet would 'unwind' the effect and cause the hole to open up again.

Luckily, this specialization also played to our advantage. Just like how the Magiformer's wards were effective for absorbing most of the bullet's impact, Magi healing spells could also work around the curse. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it still meant that Josh's injury would take a couple of days to heal instead of a couple of weeks.

Of course, I could've sidestepped that whole issue by just getting rid of the curse, but it was embedded into Josh's records the same way it happened with Emese's old wound. While I no longer had any 'plot device' designations to hold me back, I had to admit, I've been a bit squeamish about touching souls ever since the retcon, so I decided to just let the curse dissipate and Josh's wound heal on their own.

"Just rest a lot, and you'll get better soon," I told him off-handedly and got ready to sit down, but stopped when I saw him wince. "What?"

"You know, my wound is the least of my problems right now."

"… Do tell," I prompted him, and my friend responded with a sigh through clenched teeth.

"I'm worried about Bel of the Abyss. He's not only dangerous, but he now knows about…" He glanced at Angie, then at his own chest, and then back to me. "You know? The whole soul-sharing thing? It just makes me feel uneasy."

"Don't worry about that."

Despite my best efforts to reassure him, my words had little effect on him. On the other hand.

"Right! Don't worry, Josh! We've got this!" Angie declared with entirely unfounded confidence and pumped a fist. "Even Grandpa Deus says so! We beat him last time, so we can just beat him again!"

At first, I wanted to point out that I was pretty sure Deus and Polemos didn't 'beat' as much as 'tricked' Bel of the Tenebrous Flames, but this wasn't the right time for that. Especially when Angie immediately moved on and pointed at me.

"So let's stop worrying about him, and figure out what to do with this traitor in our midst!"

"Are you still on about that?" Josh blurted out, mirroring my sentiment, and his girlfriend exhaled a confident hum.

"Of course! We're fire-forged comrades! How dare he keep his console a secret from us?"

"Technically, it's Penny's console, not mine," I pointed out, and she dismissed me out of hand.

"Hum! Semantics!"

I was just about to ask if they even got permission from my sister to use her game console when I realized something. Or rather, the distinct lack of something.

"Speaking of which, where's everyone?"

"Lily said they went to the mall to buy some new clothes for that woman living in your guest room. Tatiana, I think?"

"Tajana," I corrected him, and I just belatedly realized that her dot wasn't nearby either. I hurriedly Far Glanced at her, and to my mild surprise (and relief), I found her window-shopping with my sisters and Morgana on a relatively busy in-doors shopping aisle.

Now that I thought about it, after the muffin-incident the other day, Snowy asked me in private if we could 'loosen the leash' on Tajana, so to speak, and while I gave her my blessing, I didn't think they would start by arranging a shopping trip right away. Still, she was surrounded by three trustworthy individuals, so I doubted she'd try to run away. Who knew? Maybe Snowy's plan to have her switch sides wasn't far-fetched at all.

"Don't change the subject!" Angie exclaimed and pointed a controller at me. "Grandpa Deus tells me you always do that when you're at a disadvantage, and that I shouldn't fall for it. Now, pick up your weapon, and we shall duel!"

By weapon, she probably meant the aforementioned controller, and when I took it from her, she let out a theatrically sinister chuckle and grabbed the other one that came with the system. I looked at her, then at Josh, and finally connected the dots.

"So all of that was just to get me to play with you?"

"My fingers aren't back to one hundred percent," Josh commented a touch sheepishly. "I'm not quite fighting-game ready yet."

I wanted to point out that we could play something less button-mashy, but then I saw him smile at his excited childhood friend, and I swallowed back the words. He was obviously indulging her by not getting in the way, so who was I to throw a wrench in that? I was free until noon anyway, so we had lots of time to try out the other games Penny bought for the system later.

As such, I flashed a daring smile, pressed 'Start', and after picking our Super Bash Siblings characters, I… lost four matches in a row. Did I ever mention I wasn't that good at this particular game?

Oh, who cared! It was a Sunday morning, and three friends were playing video games and having fun together. That was good enough.

PART 3

"You know, I didn't expect that we would be having Italian," I noted a touch absently, and my host flashed an amused smirk.

"Why's that?"

"I don't know. In retrospect, it makes sense that you wouldn't want to eat Chinese food all the time, but… I guess it's just the environment. Don't mind me."

Naoren let out a smiling hum and resumed to elegantly take a bite of his ravioli. I had the same on a tiny plate; judging by the dozen or so different dishes on the table, we were supposed to sample them instead of just eating our fill with a single plate. Or so I gathered, at the very least. I got a bit too immersed in horsing around with the childhood friend duo, so I ended up late for my meeting with the young Feilong patriarch, and I didn't get any memo about the table etiquette of the occasion.

In my defence, I said I would come by 'around lunch-o-clock', but I didn't mean that I would come for lunch. Since it was Sunday, and so the council of the Draconic Federation wasn't in session, our meeting place wasn't in the Dracis mansion, but the pagoda-style hotel in Critias's small but vibrant Chinatown. Naoren and his clan members had been staying here since they first arrived on the island (from what I could gather, the Feilong family literally owned the place), and once I turned up a bit late, I was quickly ushered into the penthouse at the top floor and seated in front of the bespectacled patriarch.

But speaking of him, despite the fact that Mountain Girl claimed our meeting was urgent, and he had to tell me something important in person, he wasn't in any hurry to do so. If anything, the slow and methodical way he ate his pasta made me think he was dragging his feet about something. I contemplated whether or not I should just cut to the chase, but since I was the guest, it would've been rude to hurry him like that.

For the time being, I just enjoyed the food and the small talk that came with it.

"I'm glad to see that you're in better spirits than the last time we met," Naoren noted and took a sip from the fancy wine glass next to his plate. As usual, I refrained from any alcoholic beverages, but I didn't mind him drinking in moderation.

"I finally managed to catch my breath a bit," I noted absently, trying not to sound over-dramatic. "The past week was rather tiring."

"Especially for you," he said with a knowing look, and added, "Thank you for your hard work."

"Don't mention it, though it's not like you've been sitting on your laurels either," I pointed out, and he let out a soft chuckle.

"True, but it's mainly due to your relentless efforts that we could avoid a three-way diplomatic disaster between us, the Assembly, and the Celestials. It was no mean feat."

"Oh, stop it. You're making me blush," I jested and finished up my plate. The moment I ate the last of my pasta, a young woman in a traditional Chinese silk dress showed up, seemingly waiting for the opportunity, and she immediately switched my plate out for one with a slice of lasagna on it. "Erm… Thanks?"

She smiled politely and then disappeared as swiftly as she came. She wasn't the only one; since we started eating, I've been seeing similarly dressed servants (or at least I figured they were servants) moving in and out of the room the same way, though they were only catering to Naoren until now.

"I've heard Lenore put in considerable effort to have you relax, so I wonder if it's appropriate to discuss political matters right now."

"Nah, I don't mind," I said with a shrug and cut into my food. "I'm fine, and as for Elly's efforts, it was more about trying to find me a suitable hobby."

"Oh? Did you?"

"Eh? Sort of." I shrugged again and tasted the lasagna before amending, "I decided to accompany Sebastian on his bowling practice, but I'm not sure I would call that a 'hobby' yet."

"I've heard the Esteemed Elder enjoys the sport. Do you believe he would mind if I also joined the next time you engage in it?"

Was he trying to get closer to Sebastian, I wondered. In any case, I had no horse in that race, so I told him, "You can ask him, but I don't think he'd mind."

"That's good to hear." After that, we remained silent for a minute or two as we ate, until Naoren suddenly posed an unexpected question to me. "If you're looking for a hobby, have you considered learning an instrument?"

"… Where did that come from?"

Before responding, he gracefully wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin and levelled a good-natured gaze at me.

"I believe Lenore remains rather interested in music, does she not? Wouldn't learning a musical instrument complement your interests?"

"It would in theory, but to be honest with you, I'm musically illiterate," I admitted between bites, and the bespectacled patriarch rubbed his chin in response, as if I just posed a challenging trick question to him.

"In my opinion, it's never too late to start learning. If you so wish, I can introduce you to my family's guzheng instructor. If nothing else, she could teach you about music theory."

"Excuse me, but what instructor was that again?"

"Guzheng," he repeated, and before I could ask for clarification, a pair of nearly identical-looking servant women entered the room, as if triggered by the word.

One of them was carrying a foldable stool, while the other had a wide wooden board in her hands. After the first woman set the stool near our table, the other one kneeled down and set the board (which appeared to be a stringed instrument) upon it. It was some kind of zither, from what I could see, but again, I wasn't exactly well-versed in this topic, so I could be wrong.

It was only when she started plucking a mellow melody on the strings that I realized she was wearing fingerpicks on most of her fingers. They were made of some white material, and while my first guess said 'plastic', seeing how this was some kind of traditional instrument, I would've bet on it being something fancier, like ivory. In any case, I figured this was the 'guzheng' Naoren mentioned just then, and after listening to her playing, I shook my head.

"Sounds pleasant, but I don't think I'm cut out for something like this."

"I understand. If you ever change your mind, my offer still stands." Naoren sounded genuine, so I didn't have the heart to tell him that if I ever wanted to learn an instrument, it would've been something more applicable to the princess's tastes, like an electric guitar or something. In any case, he shrugged off my refusal and asked, "What were we discussing beforehand?"

"You mentioned something about politics."

"Ah, indeed." He stopped to take another sip from his wine, his gaze unfocused and listening to the melody in the background. It didn't last long, and after shaking it off, he levelled a serious pair of eyes at me. "As I mentioned, I personally do not wish to burden you any further, but as the patriarch of Clan Feilong and the Second Seat of the Draconic Council, I feel obliged to inquire you about something."

For the record, those 'Seats' he just mentioned were just honorary titles. Abram was the First Seat, mostly because the council was meeting on his turf, Naoren was the Second, I was the Third, while the representative of the Albion family was the Fourth, and so on. They didn't mean anything (other than literal seating order around the pulpit), and whenever I wasn't around, Arnwald or Roland would fill in for the Third Seat. Yet, Draconians were sticklers for hierarchies and titles like that, be they from the East or the West, so these 'seats' were slowly getting enshrined into the organization's pecking order. But I digress.

"Shoot," I prompted him, and he put his utensils down and linked his fingers on the table.

"You have been rather evasive about this question in public, but I must ask, and I hope you can answer me truthfully: what are your plans with the Celestials?"

That was refreshingly direct, and after some consideration, I decided to be straightforward with him.

"Things are still a bit muddied over in the Elysium, but once the new government is in place, I'm planning to open diplomatic channels to both the Draconic Federation and the Assembly."

"I… expected as much," he noted a touch hesitantly. He probably wanted to ask how 'opening diplomatic relations' made sense when I was already sitting on the Draconic Council, but decided against it. It was a good call, because if he did, the best answer I could've given him was a shrug. "But speaking of governments, what exactly are you planning?"

"I'm still working on it, but I'm probably going to bring back the office of the three Archons, and reform the Directorate into a parliamentary body with some separation of powers and related theory. Think of something along the lines of a constitutional monarchy."

"… Wouldn't that mean you're giving up some of your authority over the Celestial state? Is that wise?"

"Don't worry. It's probably the safest and most sensible option."

In retrospect, omitting that 'probably' from my sentence would've been more convincing, but there was no point crying over spilt milk. I did have my reasons for this course of action though, even if their Doylist nature made it hard to explain them to Naoren.

Put simply, merging with other-me gave me some insight into the workings of the Simulacrum's lore, as well as its mechanics. In easy-to-understand terms, the Simulacrum preferred thematic variety in all matters. It was kind of like one of those writing conventions turned into universal rules, such as that no two people would have the same last name, lest it would confuse the audience.

In that sense, the Simulacrum wanted variety, and that applied to the various factions as well. Pulling the Directorate under the control of the Draconic Federation was probably a bad idea, both on the Doylist and Watsonian sense, meaning I had to rebuild them into something different and unique for the sake of… well, maybe not 'drama', but 'diversity'?

We already had a slew of government systems for the supernatural folks; the direct meritocracy of the Assembly, where the strongest arch-mages became the leaders, the feudal aristocracy of the Abyss, the Draconic Federation was shaping up to be some kind of nepotistic plutocracy (which didn't sound too flattering, but it was the truth), while the Ordo Draconis was a tiny absolute monarchy with me at the helm.

On a side-note, yes, I've been reading Angie's political theory books. What gave it away?

Now, the issue was that the Celestial Directorate used to be something of a minoritarian oligarchy, and trying to change that was tricky. Considering the circumstances, there were only three real options: lean into the military's support, and turn the place into akin to a military dictatorship, leverage the religious reverence of the public to establish some kind of despotic theocracy, or take a step back and try to find a balance between the authority of the Archons and the rest of the government in something resembling a constitutional monarchy.

Needless to say, the first two options were right out. Not only because they were way too much hassle (I couldn't be expected to do all the governing myself while I had all of this meta-nonsense to take care of), but they were also a bit tasteless. I mean, I was already a bit iffy about being a 'King of Knights', even if it was mostly something in name only, so trying to become a despot was something I wanted to avoid like a plague, if only for my own peace of mind.

Ideally, I would've fully shifted the Elysium's government into a representative democracy and called it a day, but because of the theocratic angle (and the Simulacrum's expectations), I was pretty sure it wouldn't have worked out without some zany and wholly unnecessary shenanigans. Maybe it will in the distant future, once the Celestials mellowed out a bit. For now, the plan was to stabilize the realm, put reasonable people in charge, and then have Angie/Deus take the helm of them as soon as she was ready. Only after that would I retire and wash my hands of the whole affair. But again, that was for way later, and I had much more important things to worry about right now. Like Naoren's next question.

"What's going to happen to the Celestial Intelligence Network and its operations?"

That was a tough one, and I took a gulp from the glass in front of me to buy myself some time to think things through before responding.

"They're… or I suppose we are going to continue operations as before."

"Is that so?" He looked skeptical, almost disappointed. Maybe he was expecting that I would say they would get integrated with the Draconic Federation, I wondered. "Does that also include their suppression and sabotage activities?"

"Yes for the former, maybe for the latter." That made him readjust his glasses, clearly stumped by my answer, so I resolved myself to elaborate. "There was a big conspiracy amongst the mystic folks to assassinate Angie because they were worried that once the CIN no longer maintained the masquerade, it would upset the status quo and cause chaos all over the world, right?"

"Yes, so I've been told."

"Then the solution is simple," I spoke confidently, and just as I finished up my lasagna, another maidservant appeared to switch out my plates. I waited for her to leave, and then theatrically raised a fork into the air. "As the first official act of the new Celestial government, I'll have them declare that they will continue to uphold the rules and maintain the masquerade. Better yet, we can have a treaty involving the Federation and Assembly. If we all agree on this, it should keep tempers in check."

"I mean… it sounds reasonable, but…" Naoren was looking for the right words for a few seconds, but then he finally gave up and concluded with, "I believe it would be best if we informed the Assembly and started drafting up the relevant legislation as soon as possible."

"I already told Lord Endymonion about this, so the two of you should be on the same page. You can try contacting him if you'd like."

Sighing, he shook his head and absent-mindedly poked his pasta with his fork.

"I shouldn't have asked. I should have known you would somehow find new ways to increase our workload."

"Hey, don't look at me as if I'm some kind of workaholic," I objected with just a hint of righteous indignation. "I would like to leave all of this behind me as much as you do and have a fun beach episode with my girlfriends, but it's something that has to be done."

"What was that? Beach episode?"

"It's a long story, and not entirely relevant. You'll see." He accepted my words at face value and finished up his dish. I waited until another servant switched out his plate for a small pile of neatly arranged spaghetti, and then asked, "Was this the 'urgent reason' why we needed to talk today?"

"No, actually. It's…"

He fell silent, and after some fiddling, he took out a small, octagonal wooden box from one of his pockets. It reminded me of a music box, and it was faintly glowing with colourless light, telling me it was an enchanted object. He placed it onto the middle of the table, and when he opened it, there was a small, white stone carving inside depicting some kind of horned animal. I figured it was made of jade, but before I could take a closer look, I was startled by a wave of magic light washing over the table and forming a bubble around us.

I had no idea what it was, yet I stilled my phantom limbs, lest I interrupt its activation. In a few seconds, I was shocked by how quiet everything became. In particular, I could see the woman plucking at her zither just a couple of steps away from us, yet it made no sound.

"Why the sudden secrecy?" I asked with squinted eyes, and my suspicions grew tenfold when the young patriarch awkwardly pulled on his collar.

"It's a topic I… do not wish to leave this table. Regardless of your response."

"Oookay, you're building this up quite a bit. What's this about?"

He took a deep breath and looked me in the eye.

"Leonard… No, Brother. You might not know this, but I have been spending a considerable amount of time in the company of Lady Rinne."

"Yes, I noticed."

"You have?" He looked genuinely surprised by my answer, but if anything, it only served to make him more confident. "That makes this conversation considerably simpler. She is a fascinating woman, and after getting to know her better, I wish to deepen our relationship." He was looking at me expectantly, but when I didn't react in any way, he amended, "In a… romantical sense of the word."

"Yes, I figured. So?"

"I'm asking for your permission," he uttered a touch awkwardly, making me feel self-conscious in the process, because it almost felt like I was the one acting weird.

"Why would you need my permission? She's an adult."

"She's also your chief retainer," he pointed out, sounding like he thought it was a trick question. "It is common sense to inform you of my intent and ask for your blessing to avoid any potential… misunderstandings between us."

Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding? Was he under the impression that I was romantically interested in Rinne? Nah, that couldn't be it. But then what? Maybe it was one of those cultural difference things, I figured. Or he might've genuinely thought that if he tried to pursue Mountain Girl without my consent, it would be considered a breach of trust. Like trying to poach her from my employment or something. I wasn't sure, and the situation was weird enough as is, so I didn't want to make it worse by directly asking him about his motives.

"It's all right. Go right ahead," I told him, and his face lit up like I just lifted a huge weight off his shoulders.

"Are you certain?" When I nodded, he let out a relieved sigh and wiped his forehead. "This went much smoother than expected."

I had no idea what he was expecting, but in any case, he hastily closed the lid on the unusual privacy artifact and pocketed it, effectively ending this line of conversation, and we soon returned to inconsequential small talk instead.

At this time, this exchange didn't seem particularly extraordinary. The UST between Naoren and Mountain Girl was so obvious that I even considered it one of the more obvious sub-plots of the Simulacrum, so him openly coming out and telling me about it wasn't that significant. Or so I thought. I should've known better, but that's a story for another day.