PART 1

Two days passed in the blink of an eye, and it was in the late afternoon that I arrived at the base with my girlfriends, through the usual means.

"Come on, Dormouse. Cut me some slack, please," I pleaded half-seriously as we exited the teleport closet, but my dear assistant remained adamantly sulky.

"Sorry Chief, but it'll take a while for you to live this down," she stated, extra-deadpan, and turned to face me. "You have broken the one rule."

"No, I haven't," I denied on the spot as we came to a halt in the middle of the reception room. The three of us came here right after school was over for the day, so we were still wearing our uniforms. Our bags were left at my place, with Rabom and Tajana, since everyone else was here already. "I will break it in the future, but I haven't yet."

"Does that make a difference?" Elly asked, and while it might've sounded accusative, I was sure she was just genuinely curious about my answer. Yet, before I could respond, Judy turned on her heel and shook her head.

"No, it doesn't. There's no excusing time travel."

"I'm pretty sure I'll have a really good reason for doing this," I told her, trying to sound convincing, but when she still didn't budge, I changed tactics. "Not to mention, it's not time travel in the strictest sense of the word. We're just living through a retcon."

"A distinction without much of a difference," Judy huffed, so I shifted tactics again and stepped up behind her to give her a shoulder massage. She gave me a disapproving look, telling me she knew what I was trying to do, but she didn't shy away from my touch.

My girlfriend momentarily placated, I had no choice but to exhale a shallow sigh. I expected that she would react like this (heck, I wasn't a huge fan of my future-self mucking up my present either), but I didn't foresee that Judy would continue to sulk about it for two whole days. Fortunately enough, it felt like she was only doing it on principle, so we didn't have any major arguments over it or anything. Not that I could do anything about it even if we did; the Bel played by my future self was completely out of my control.

"Can't you just track down this future you and have him properly explain everything?" Elly asked the obvious question. I didn't blame her for it; I was more surprised it didn't come up in conversation until now.

"I can't. I have no mark on him. Heck, I don't even know if I can mark him, with him being me and all that."

"What about the assassins?" Judy asked, sounding a bit more mellow. Yay for the therapeutic effects of shoulder rubs.

"I didn't mark any of them either," I answered on autopilot, and then added, "Well, except for the French guy, but he's still in Magi custody."

"Which begs the question: Did he not take him along with him because he knew that he was the only one you marked, and wanted to keep you in the dark?" Judy asked, but before I could respond, the princess already formed a hypothesis.

"Wasn't that on purpose? He did tell Leo that spoilers were a no-no."

"Which is just a fancy way of saying that I should keep my nose out of his business before I accidentally break the time-space continuum," I joked, but then paused for a beat and added, "Now that I think about it, if this is an ongoing retcon where I'm manipulating the past from the future, is it even possible for me to cause a paradox, even if I try?"

"Don't try," Judy snapped at me at once.

"That was just a rhetorical question."

Judy slipped out of under my hands and turned around to poke me in the chest.

"Chief, I know you. You say it's a rhetorical question now, but the moment you could try, you would do it just to see what would happen, and then before anyone could do anything about it, we wake up in a universe inhabited by sentient marmots."

"Why marmots of all things?"

My question fell on deaf ears, and Judy poked me again.

"Don't change the subject. Promise me you won't try to cause a time paradox just out of curiosity."

"I won't do that even without a promise. I may be a bit impulsive from time to time, but I'm not that reckless."

Especially when I wasn't entirely sure how time worked even after all the mind-bender explanations from future-me. Anyhow, my dear assistant looked me deep in the eye, and after locking gazes for a few seconds, she let out a resigned breath.

"Good enough for now."

"You're being too negative again," Elly spoke, sneaking up behind my other girlfriend to knead her shoulders where I left off. "Leo's insistence on pessimism is rubbing off on you."

"They do say that couples start to resemble each other with time."

Elly giggled, while Judy only levelled a dispassionate gaze at me and stated, "In that case, why don't you try to resemble us more instead of the other way around?"

"Sorry girls, but I think it's too late for me to become lovely." This time, even the corners of Judy's mouth twitched a little, so I capitalized on the opportunity and changed the direction of the conversation by pointing at the door. "How about we move along? I've finally managed to arrange a meeting with Yseult this evening, so we should get things done here first. I don't want to be late."

"Fair enough."

Following Judy's response, Elly stopped rubbing her shoulders and the three of us headed out. The moment we entered the main hall, we were welcomed by one of the many copies of Pudding-kun, as if waiting for our arrival.

"What's up, little buddy?" I scooped the mini-shoggoth up into my arms, and it let out a pleased purr.

"I think he just missed you," Elly spoke casually and poked the ball of flesh, and when it grabbed onto her fingers, she let out an amused chuckle. "He's cute."

"I don't know what you're seeing in him," Judy noted a touch sourly, but when Pudding-kun turned its single eye to her with a pleading look, she soon gave up and carefully petted it.

Like this, the three of us made our way over to the lounge area first, where I parked down the girls in the company of Brang, doing his bartender routine. Lately I'd been seeing him handing glasses more than doing weapon maintenance or training.

"[May thine day shine bright, Blackcloak,]" he greeted me with a smile and was patiently waiting for my response, all the while the girls took their usual seats by the bar counter.

"The same to you." He was still looking at me intently, so I figured some small talk was in order. "How are things going in the base?"

"[Most satisfactory, I must say.]" Even as he spoke, he prepared a pair of glasses for the girls, without them having to utter a word. "[I abhor to state it, but if there's but one matter most vexing, it is the young ones who had yet to swear themselves to thine person.]"

He was talking about Tajana's Fauns. I personally saw no problem with keeping them locked up as long as it took, but maybe because he shared a sense of kinship with them, but Brang had been really adamant about recruiting them into our ranks. Either that, or they just needed more hands doing maintenance around the base. Last I heard, they were going to fully remodel Galatea's room, including a wooden floor and a walk-in closet, but that was none of my business, so I left them to their own industry.

"I can't do much about that," I told him with a shrug, my eyes already drifting towards the training grounds. Blinking, I returned my attention to him and added, "It's not like I can force them to do it. If they don't mean it, the whole thing is meaningless."

"[Aye. Which is why thou should come to an agreement with the diminutive one.]"

He was referring to Tajana. It was a nickname, from what I gathered, he gave her when she was still a little kid. It was easy to forget, but Brang was older than modern democracy, and he had served dozens of Lords of Inanna over his tenure as the Scout-General of House Inanna. Maybe it was because of this that he was so flexible about pledging his allegiance to Snowy (and indirectly to me), sticking to the spirit of serving the noble house instead of the more by-the-letter approach Tajana's retinue took.

"You know that Snowy is still working on her. Don't rush it."

The old Faun let out an ambivalent grunt, and then lightly shrugged.

"[These old bones simply wished to remind thine self of the matter of those younglings. I did not intend to hasten thy decisions…]" He paused, his ear twitching as he was looking at my reaction, and seeing that I remained passive, he added, "[However, I admit it would swell my heart with pride to see the ranks of the Faun of House Innana-Dunning grow.]"

"Oh, fine." Giving up, I showed my palms. "I'll consult Snowy, and if she says it's fine, I'll ask Tajana to switch sides along with her retinue. Are you happy?"

"[I'm but thine humble servant, so how would I dare to impose myself upon thou,]" he began with a shallow bow, but then his expression cracked and he flashed a toothy grin. "[But since thou inquired, aye, I'm certainly elated.]"

The princess grinned at us in the background, even though she could only understand my side of the conversation, while Judy only looked mildly impatient. I figured it was best not to keep them from their drinks any longer. I still stuck around and made some small talk while Brang prepared their usual non-alcoholic cocktails (seriously, he made like thirty recipes at this point), and only when the girls settled into one of their light-hearted non-meta discussions did I say my temporary farewells and headed to the training grounds.

Even before I reached there, I could hear some strange sounds coming from that direction. Also, a few jets of flames nearly reached the ceiling, followed by hasty apologizing. It wasn't until I was right next to the ring that their source came into view.

"Ah! Sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" Ammy cried out in horror and rushed over to Morgana's side. The Gorgon Knight seemed unfazed, looking at a singed lock of hair pinched between her fingers.

"Don't worry about it." She let go of the tuft and turned back to the class rep. "I was planning to trim my hair one of these days, and it was my fault. Not facing you while wearing my Gorgon armor was clearly an oversight on my end."

Despite her words, Ammy looked crestfallen and didn't even notice that I was there until I was standing right next to her.

"How's the training going?" I asked in a chipper voice, and she immediately froze up and turned a wooden smile at me.

"E-Everything is fine… I just had a little… miscalculation, that's all!"

She sounded entirely unconvincing, but I didn't want to rain on her parade, so I just nodded along. After the discovery of her being the Conduit of the Grimoire, Ammy was caught up in a whirlwind of attention. I couldn't figure out why future-me went out of his way to get all the arch-mages involved in the discovery. My initial guess was to make sure the incident couldn't be swept under the rug, but my current theory was that it was some kind of 5D chess move to ensure they would pester her so much she would run away from home and try to test her powers here, where I could see her.

The thing that really tipped the scale from one theory to the other was the fact that it was plain impossible to hide her status at this point, courtesy of the two orbs still circling around her head even as we spoke. Much to her chagrin, as they didn't leave her alone even when she slept, floating over her all night long. Case in point.

"Ah, get out of the way!" she lightly hit the lazily levitating marble ball that stopped between the two of us, and the two orbs rapidly circulated for a few seconds before settling down again… except this time it was the other one that was in the way. "I hate these things!"

"Sometimes the mantles we bear come with unforeseen consequences, but it is our duty to soldier on and bear the burden," I said, trying to sound as profound as possible, and for a moment I was afraid she was going to hit me next with her staff.

"Stop joking around! They really are inconvenient." She was just on the borderline of a legitimate pout, but then she remembered something and her expression softened. "Mike said they 'look cool' though, so I guess they aren't all bad… It's just he's not the one who has to live with them."

"Speaking of which, did you get any benefit out of them?"

"No." She sounded downright heartbroken. "I thought that since I'm now the Conduit, maybe I could use other spells, not just Petra and basic utility incantations, but…"

Her words trailed off and she glanced at Morgana's signed hair. In turn, she pointedly glanced at the benches at the far end of the training field and…

"Holy moly, how come I didn't notice that until now!?" I exclaimed when my brain processed the burned, warped wreck.

"I-It was another miscalculation! I will compensate you for the damages! I swear!"

From what I gathered, Ammy's biggest issue wasn't power, but control. By using her staff as a medium, she could summon her golem, but only because it was the one spell she practised her entire life. Even so, based on the enchantment arrays of the staff, Petra was originally supposed to be human-sized, and it was due to the volatility of her magic that it became such a hulking construct.

Conversely, if she tried to use any other spell of that complexity, it would result in an explosion. One would be tempted to think that would be a good thing (it is technically in the ballpark of a fireball, after all), but the problem was that the spells were just as likely to explore in front of her as they were in front of the target. Because of this, Lord Grandpa must've been convinced that her inability to control complex magic was a result of being a homunculus, which was as good as saying she was defective. That also explained her hang-ups about that topic, but I digress.

Due to how magically challenged she seemed at the moment, there were some minor misgivings about her ability to control the power of the Grimoire, so for the past two days, she's been diligently training here. I had a subtle hope that, by narrative fiat, becoming the Conduit would've magically fixed her problem, but it didn't seem to be the case.

"Uuuh…" She let out a groan and waved the orbs away. "I swear, I feel like I'm on the verge of a breakthrough. It's as if I could just reach out and grasp the problem, but every time I feel like I've almost got it, it just eludes me." She glared at the marbles and continued in a soft voice. "I really thought these things would have some function other than annoying me all day, but I can't even begin to grasp the power of the Grimoire through them."

"Makes sense," I spoke off-handedly, noticing a few new faces coming our way. I waved to them and then returned to the conversation. "The whole point is that you need all three Keys to access the Grimoire, right?"

"Yes, but…" Ammy shook her head. "At this rate, it'll take at least a month before I could get my hands on the third one."

"That long?"

"The arch-mage of the School of Ottawa isn't on good terms with Grandfather, and she's been claiming that she's currently occupied by a dispute with the School of Boston over a juristic matter. Unless the rest of the Assembly officially orders her to come here, she's going to drag her feet, and that will take a meeting in Glasgow and an official announcement and… Maybe it will take longer than a month. Until then, I'll have to live with these things."

"I'm sure you'll get used to them in no time."

"That's not the problem." Ammy reached for her glasses. "How am I supposed to attend the school with—?"

"Ya-hoo!" Before she could finish, a certain energetic Celestial rushed to our side and came to a screeching halt right next to her. "Hi, fellow habitual truants!"

"It's not 'habitual'! I don't have a choice!" Ammy griped, while I just flashed a smile at the girl.

"Hi, Angie. You got here fast."

"Yeah. I wanted to beat you here for once, but I failed again," she answered with mock dejection, at which point her boyfriend casually karate-chopped her on the top of her head.

"Don't be a dummy. Leo can teleport, so there's no way we can get here quicker when we're riding the bus up the mountain."

"Boo! Where's your spirit of competition! You should relish the challenge!"

She stuck out her tongue, but Josh wasn't looking at her anymore and faced me instead.

"What's today's menu?"

He obviously wasn't talking about food, but our training schedule. He's been pretty adamant about starting our training arc (even if he didn't know that's what it was), so I arranged a simple training regimen for the two of them. Nothing major; mostly just stamina exercises combined with some teamwork drills.

"Wow! Josh, look over there!" Angie pulled on the guy's sleeve before I could respond and pointed at the ruined benches. "Ammy finally did it!" She turned a pair of sparkling eyes at the resident Magi, making her visibly reel back. "Did you finally cast your first fireball?"

"N-No… That was just a misfire."

Angie was taken aback, but only for a second.

"Wow! If your misfire causes so much destruction, imagine how powerful a real fireball is going to be!"

"It wasn't a fireball spell. I just wanted to summon a water burst to put out the fire caused by another misfire."

"R-Really?" Feeling awkward, Angie looked at Josh for support, but when the guy didn't respond, she squeezed out, "B-But since there's no fire, it means you must've succeeded. Yay?"

"How about we move this conversation along?" I proposed, and everyone agreed right away. "Okay, so here's the drill: Josh, do you have the spare shield I got for you?"

"Sure."

He reached into his bag and pulled out a metal cylinder. With a jerk of his hand, the two ends of it popped open, and a bunch of flimsy-looking metal strips burst forth. Some of them attached themselves to his forearm, while the rest formed two symmetrical semi-circles before the whole thing lit up, creating a large semi-transparent blue force field. Once it stabilized, Josh had a large circular concave shield on his arm, slightly less than one meter in diameter.

It was something I borrowed from armour guy, as he was the only sword-and-board type fighter I knew, and he happened to have a lot of spares. I was planning to get Josh specialized equipment later, but for now, it was good enough.

"I've brought my bow this time!" Angie chimed in, and with a twist of her wrist, the bracelet on her hand unfolded to create the familiar magitech bow held together by force fields and willing suspension of disbelief.

"Good. Ammy, please summon Petra."

"Okay." She went along with my request and only raised a brow once she already grasped her staff with both hands and began the summoning. "Why though?"

"It's going to be their opponent for today, and it should also help you. Maybe using a familiar spell will let you connect better to your floating marbles."

"Right, that's an idea."

"What about me?"

It was only at this point that I realized that Morgana was standing a few steps away from us all this time.

"Erm… Until my sisters arrive, you can take a break?"

"Okay." She nodded, but instead of leaving, she pointed a finger up. "If I may add, could you please mind the ceiling today?"

I followed the direction where she was pointing, and sure enough, there was a visible impact mark on the ceiling of the main hall. It was left by Angie's bow the day before, and while the structure had been repeatedly reinforced by Fred and his crew specifically for situations like this, the deep gash on the concrete was still disconcerting.

"Should we open up a Restricted Space?"

I shook my head at Josh's question.

"No. As Sunday's incident shows, you can't always rely on being able to do that in an emergency, and the whole point of this exercise is for you to learn how to work together while minding each other, your environment, and minimizing collateral damage."

"I get that, but…" Angie pulled on her invisible bowstring a few times, making the weapon's limbs bend back and forth and the vague outline of an arrow materialize and disappear over and over. She was listening to something, occasionally nodding along, and then she faced me. "For once, I agree with Grandpa Deus. Doing this first isn't meaningless, but if we want to defeat Bel of the Abyss, we need to practice how to fight with our full power!"

"We'll get there. I'm already in the process of arranging for a new training ground where you can let loose, but for now, you should focus on your teamwork."

"Okie-dokie."

She accepted that pretty quickly and trained her bow on the recently summoned golem.

"You focus on offense, I'll protect you!" Josh declared, stepping defiantly in front of Angie with his shield raised. After a long beat, the class rep lightly waved her staff, commanding Petra to move, and the two sides clashed.

As for me, I was a bit lost in thought after that previous exchange. Truth be told, while I said I was working on a new training ground, it was a bit of a misnomer. It would've been more accurate to say that, inspired by something future-me wrote in his message, I was trying to do one of those 'hit two birds with one stone' kind of deals, and I wasn't entirely sure it would work out yet. It was worth a try though, even if by doing so I imposed a hard time limit on myself again.

Spring break would start at the end of the month. By then, I was determined to resolve the villainess plot of my own making, corral all of the rom-com side-plots and developments into the background, and have the island in the best, most peaceful shape possible.

I could only hope that future-me wouldn't cause more chaos in the meantime, but as usual, I would flip that bridge once I got there.

PART 2

They say that time flies in good company. I was always in good company, which explained why a couple of hours disappeared down the drain like it was nothing.

Okay, that was being a bit over-dramatic; it wasn't time wasted by any means, but it wasn't anything big either. About half an hour after their sparring session began, my sisters also arrived. Penny was part of our 'training' after all, while Snowy was just tagging along, as usual. It was around this time that Roland also came around, so I quickly ditched the task of overseeing Josh's and Angie's training regimen to him, while Morgana took care of my knightly sister.

Like this, I was mostly just watching the guys on the training grounds duking it out, peppered with various sagely advice from their instructors.

"Angeline." Like that. Next to a row of scorched lines on the floor, Roland was currently scowling at the Celestial girl, and she was doing her best to make herself look small and pitiful. "What did I tell you about watching your aim?"

"B-But I did! Look, the arrow hit Petra!" She frantically gestured at the golem with a slowly disintegrating golden magic arrow as thick as my thumb sticking out of its head. "See?"

"Then what about these?"

Roland's scowl was getting close to an outright glare, and she shrunk back again.

"I… It was Grandpa Deus's fault!" She suddenly froze up and hissed. "N-No, I'm not shifting the blame! You said you could do it!"

From the sound of it, they were maybe trying to do some kind of division-of-labour kind of thing, where Angie was focusing on the bow and mobility, while Deus was using her mouth to sing some spells. That would've been really smart if they would've just stuck to some buffs or hindered the target, but Deus didn't seem to know (or want to use) anything other than big, flashy area-of-attack spells.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Hyah!"

In comparison, Josh on the other side of the field was doing pretty well for himself. Hiding his upper body behind the magitech shield, he blocked the stony fist coming his way with a solid clank. It staggered him for a moment, but he quickly regained his footing and readied his shield again. I told him that he should familiarize himself with using a shield in combat, and he did exactly that, tirelessly repeating this process. He was getting better at dissipating incoming force, and all the humming he did told me he was probably buffing himself, or using one of those healing arias he was so proud of a while back to recover his stamina.

Either way, it wasn't a riveting sight, but he was making slow yet steady progress. Even in the absence of his girlfriend, who was still being scolded by Roland. As for the third participant of this training exercise though, she was doing some rather peculiar things.

"Penelope, dear. I still don't think you're suited to this."

Despite Morgana's reasonable words, my sister remained steadfast and raised her weapon over her head. In her hands was a training sword usually reserved for the Fauns; its wide blade alone was nearly two-thirds as long as she was tall, with two fullers running down its length, ending at the simple cross-guard. We never checked, but by eye, I'd have said it weighed at least five kilos, and while it looked fine in the hands of Karukk or Hrul, it appeared extremely unwieldy when held by my little sister. And yet, she insisted on using it.

"But you're also using a flamberge!" she whined even as she swung the blade, and while it didn't quite disrupt her posture, it was easy to tell that she was straining to do it.

"Yes, but I've been training with it since I was young," Morgana tried to counter, but it only made Penny double down.

"I'm young! I can learn it!" She flashed a daredevil grin, and then lifted the blade again, holding it vertically so that the flat of the blade was in front of her face. "Hm… I wonder if we have something heavier than this?"

Morgana exhaled a resigned breath. This wasn't the first time they (or we, when I was around) had this kind of conversation, but Penny was just too adamant.

It all started when I gave Josh his temporary shield and told them that I was planning to make specialized equipment for him. My knightly sister snatched at the opportunity to request a new weapon of her own. Her logic was that she had a lot of speed, but she had too little stopping power, and while she learned a couple of so-called 'Mystical Kage Ninja Sword Techniques'™ from Mountain Girl, they were designed for two-handed swords. I would've been fine if she was just asking for a longsword or even an odachi like Onikiri, but she threw a curveball at us instead and chose the weapon she was swinging at this moment.

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised. There's a rather specific trope in battle shounen genres that we have yet to encounter in the Simulacrum, called 'Small Girl, Big Weapon'.

...

What? Not all tropes can get snappy names like Chekhov's Gun or Red Herring. Sometimes, it was Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Which was also a trope, by the way.

More importantly, while a trope like that showing up wasn't entirely unexpected, it still blindsided me a little. No one could blame me though; just because a trope was common in a genre, it didn't mean it would definitely show up in the Simulacrum's scenario. Case in point, we didn't have any kemomimi characters either. People with animal-features, I mean. Sure, we had Draconians, but they made sense and their transformations were for combat instead of fanservice, while there were no inexplicable dog-girls in sight. Heck, Ichiko was a literal fox-youkai, and even she didn't have a fox-ears when in human form, further illustrating my point.

Anyhow, while the decision itself probably wasn't motivated by either my subconscious Narrativistic influence or the Simulacrum's fundamental trope-pressures, for once I didn't care much. While she looked a bit silly with that weapon, it wasn't like one of those ridiculously oversized anime swords with blades as wide as a paddle, so I could let her have her way for once. It was well within my big-brotherly right to occasionally spoil her like that.

But speaking of brotherly duties, I turned to the girl sitting cross-legged next to me.

"How's it going, sis?"

"Hm? I-I think I'm doing fine," she told me without opening her eyes. She was barefoot and wearing one of the many, many spare sets of tracksuits from the base's storage. She had her legs under her, with her hands resting on her knees like some kind of yogi meditating on the great secrets of the universe. The first part was almost right about the meditation bit, but our concerns were a fair bit more mundane, even if wrapped in a supernatural veneer.

"Baby steps, sis. Baby steps."

"No, I really think I've got it this time," she insisted and opened her eyes to look into mine.

"Do you want to give it a go?"

Her previous confidence withered for a second, but when I flashed a reassuring smile, she took a deep breath and nodded. She stood up and handed over her Uniformer, then she took a few steps forward and turned to face me. She was still nervous, but after taking a few deep breaths she gazed at me resolutely and waited for my signal.

When I nodded, she inhaled deeply and her whole body shone with the bright, colourless light of mana. With a soft sound, I could see her clothes literally disintegrate in real time, though thanks to the light-show and the transformation only taking a second at most, there was no chance anything inappropriate could be seen.

"H-How… do I look?"

Snowy sounded meek, and while it would've been best to reassure her right away, I took my time to carefully examine. But first, a bit of context: unlike Draconians, whose transformed shapes were dependent on genetics and how they utilized their bloodlines, the alternative forms of Celestials and Abyssals were much more nebulous.

The appearance of transformed Celestials was, by all intents and purposes, all in their heads. I have seen and experienced this first-hand in the Elysium; part of the reason why the outfits of the various military branches and higher-ups were so diverse was because they often 'wore' their Celestial forms through the whole day, only undoing them before they went to sleep. When they did transform, their appearance was deeply influenced by what they considered themselves to be, and how it related to their roles in society.

For example, the average guardsman in a tower who never set foot outside Elysium would look at the statues and imagery of ancient-Greek-style soldiers depicting their ancestors, and when they transformed, they would unconsciously pattern themselves after them. People in CIEL, who were routinely working outside of Elysium, would look at human soldiers and law enforcement as examples of what a 'modern fighter' would be like, so their forms were closer to riot gear than togas and brass breastplates. And then there were the experts, like the guys in my Praetorian Guard, who each had very different specializations and their appearances reflected that.

However, these forms weren't set in stone. Case in point, Angie's original Celestial form was pretty much just a bedsheet plus some sandals and bracers, because she didn't know much about Celestial culture as a whole, so her imagination leaned into a more 'angelic' figure when constructing her form. However, when Deus awakened, that base was forcibly overwritten by his presence, resulting in a more complex and regal outfit.

Abyssals were a bit trickier, because of their mixed Draconian heritage making some of their aspects kind of 'hard coded', for lack of better words, but the particulars could still be tweaked. We couldn't get rid of the horns or the tail, for example, but with rigorous image training, we attempted to slowly influence Snowy's Abyssal form into something… Hm. Let's just say, something that wouldn't be on the front page of a fetish porn magazine, and leave it at that.

So, what were the results?

Right now, Snowy was wearing a black dress with a leather upper-piece and a frilly short shirt. On her feet were a pair of ankle boots over what kind of looked like latex long socks that reached up to her thighs, with matching elbow gloves on her arms. Her shoulders were left bare, and while the materials were still a bit questionable, she looked more 'gothic' and less 'bondage dominatrix' right now, which was enormous progress.

There was, one thing that kind of caught my attention though, and I couldn't help but frown.

"Why the belt buckles?"

I wasn't just nitpicking either. She had two buckles on her boots, one at the end of her stockings at her thigh, a short belt hanging from the actual belt on her hip, and she even had a belt buckle for the collar of her dress.

"Penny said… that belt-buckles are cool…"

Before I could get a word in, I was interrupted by my other sister elbowing her way into the conversation, her blade resting on her shoulder as he walked over.

"Did you call?" She grinned at Snowy and looked her over. "You see? I told you that you'll look cool!" She grinned, but then her eyes travelled down, and she simultaneously flushed and frowned. "B-Brother? Why is it that Snowy can have a combat miniskirt, and I can't? Is this discrimination? Favouritism?"

"No. Not to mention, this is hardly a 'mini' skirt."

"It's in the same ballpark," she continued to argue, but I disregarded her for the time being and focused my attention on Snowy again.

"You look great. We have come a long way. Now, if only we could make you a bit more regal and less like a JRPG protagonist, it would be perfect."

"No! Snowy looks great as she is!" Penny protested and hugged her with one hand (since the other was still holding her sword). "It looks cool. And cute! She's cute and cool!"

"T-Thanks, but mind the horn," Snowy tried to warn her, but my other sister scoffed.

"Don't worry, I'm caref— Ow."

And then she naturally bonked her head on Snowy's horn when she tried to hug her closer, and she nearly dropped her sword too. Go figure.

While my sisters were nursing their noggings, I also noticed that the sound of Petra repeatedly pummelling Josh in the background ceased. When I glanced over, I saw that he was being dragged away by his girlfriend toward the intact benches next to the ones Ammy accidentally blew up.

"Come on, let's practice fugue."

"Fine, don't pull. I wanted to take a break anyway."

Looking at the scene, and the still irate Roland, my bet was on the Celestial girl using the small commotion Snowy's transformation caused to slip away from his scolding and she picked up her boyfriend on the way so that Sir Griffon couldn't follow her.

The childhood friend couple sat down and, following Angie's lead, they started humming a tune together. I was unfamiliar with the song, but with each passing second, the air around them was growing thicker with the ethereal light of magic until it stabilized into a slow, measured cycle of waxing and waning following the beat of the song.

It was something I was quite familiar with. Celestials did it whenever they fought in a group, though I still didn't know if it had a proper name. Angie called it a 'fugue', but the one practised by the Praetorian Guards wasn't polyphonic, so I couldn't be sure. In any case, it was something of a group status buff that physically strengthened the singers, with the downside that they had to sing in the middle of the action to do it. That naturally meant there was no way to sing any other hymns or arias or whatever else at the same time, so it was a technique with some definite pros and cons. I liked it, just for that.

I also noticed that, since Josh left the field, Ammy unsummoned her golem and she was walking over to our side.

"Hm? You look good." That comment was naturally aimed at Snowy, and my sisters both smiled at her. Meanwhile, she turned to me and sighed. "I'm tired as a dog. Do you have something to drink?"

"I don't, but you can check out the bar. Judy and Elly are still there."

"I'll do that then."

With that short exchange over, I got up as well and checked the time. It was still a bit early, but since today's training session was apparently finished, I figured I might as well give everyone a debriefing and then head over to the mansion of the Albions (because yes, of course they also had a mansion on the island). It was at this point that something else came to my attention.

Even from here, I could hear the large metal door of the underground base opening up. There was nothing particularly strange about that; most people without convenient teleporting abilities used that to come and go, but the sound it made this time was strange. I decided to check it out, and when I left the training field, I was surprised to see Mountain Girl straining against the hydraulics-assisted metal door.

I thought it might be stuck, but when our eyes met, she finally stopped struggling and the door continued to open as usual.

"What's the commotion about?" Roland asked, following after me. Or maybe he also noticed the strange noises the door made and had nothing better to do. One or the other.

"I don't know. Maybe she's just in a—" 'hurry?', I wanted to say, but the moment she could fully squeeze through the opening, Rinne dashed over me so desperately it downright startled me.

"Thank heavens! Leonard-dono, you're still here!"

"Yes, I'm…" My mouth was ahead of my brain, and I only just noticed that her feet were muddy and she had all kinds of forest debris over her pantsuit, including a fresh green leaf sitting on the top of her head. "Did… Did you just run up the mountain?"

"Rinne had no choice!" She declared between heaves. "Rinne needed to talk to Leonard-dono right away!"

Her vehemence gave me a bad premonition, so I exhaled sharply and focused on her.

"Is there some kind of emergency?"

"Emergency? No. It's just that…" She hesitated, glancing at Roland and back to me. "It's just that Rinne needs to talk to Leonard-dono before Leonard-dono would talk to Albion-san."

"And you ran up the mountain just for that."

"Yes," she answered with a look at screamed 'Why is this idiot repeating something we've already established?'. However, she quickly caught herself this time, and changed it into a look that said 'Why is this respectable idiot repeating something that we've already established?' instead. Putting the nuances of her disparaging looks aside, she added, "Naoren-san told Rinne that Leonard-dono is going to try to convince Albion-san, but Leonard-dono can't do that!"

"… Is this something I should concern myself with?" Roland asked with a brow raised at me, and I hastily shook my head.

"Nah, I've got this."

With a sigh that sounded both relieved and annoyed at the same time, he gave me a salute and returned to the training area. Left alone (as much as that word applies to a busy great hall with multiple facilities), I gestured for her to continue.

"Okay, I bite. Why shouldn't I talk with Yseult? Do you want to work it out between each other, or something?"

"No. It's because Rinne is not a good partner for Naoren-san, so Rinne can't have Leonard-dono destroy Naoren-san's chance to—"

"Wait, hold on." I raised my palm to stop her. "Have we been here before? I think we've been here before."

She blinked at me and glanced around before giving me a 'Well, duh? This is the base.' kind of look.

"I didn't mean that literally!" I snapped at her and turned my palm into a finger. "What do you mean 'not the right partner'?! I thought we were over this!"

"Rinne is… flattered by Naoren-san's affection, but Rinne cannot return it."

"Why?!"

"Because Rinne is not ideal for Naoren-san, so Naoren-san should—"

"Okay, can you give me an actual reason? A proper one, without any self-deprecating idiocy?"

Hearing my ultimatum, she fell silent and glanced left and right before stepping closer and gesturing me to lean in. What was she about to say she didn't want anyone to overhear, I wondered. Curious, I did as instructed and she put a hand next to her mouth, whispering.

"Naoren-san is the head of a Ryu-clan."

"Draconian, yes."

"He must pay attention to the bloodline of his bride."

"Yeah. So?"

"Rinne isn't suitable."

I directed a flat gaze at her, and blurted out a deadpan, "Why?"

"Because of Rinne's Yokai bloodline."

"Your—!" I was about to explode at her, but then the word fully settled and my response warped into an astonished, "Your what?"

"Rinne's bloodline," she repeated, poker-faced, and after a long beat she added, "Rinne's grandmother was a bakeneko."

"… Are you serious?"

"Rinne never lies," she stated sternly, but then she added in a more awkward voice, "If Leonard-dono doesn't believe Rinne, Rinne… can show her neko form."

I started at her, unblinking, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never did. As such, I gently nestled my face in my palm and uttered a muffled, "Please tell me you're not a secret cat girl."

There was... no denial.

PART 3

Timaeus's Chinatown, as I semi-affectionately called it, naturally had a whole lot of restaurants serving allegedly authentic dishes from the Far East. After sampling some of them whenever I was in the area to visit the Feilongs' hotel, I concluded that either my taste buds weren't sophisticated enough to tell the difference, or their totally genuine food was no different from cheap takeout I could order for a fraction of the price.

There was no time to indulge in culinary experimenting today, but nevertheless, the alleys behind those restaurants were always a safe bet when it came to Phasing. I already marked a couple of placeholders in the area, so I just had to pick the most deserted and least conspicuous one. A second later, we materialized under the night sky, and as soon as we did, I turned to Mountain Girl.

"So let me see if I get this straight," I started, folding my arms. "So the reason why you were always looking for cats whenever we used to 'patrol' the neighbourhood while looking for the stray Chimera wasn't because you like the furry little critters, but because you can talk to them? Because of your ancestry."

"Yes," she declared solemnly, then amended, "But Rinne also likes them."

"What would a cat even talk about?"

"Leonard-dono shouldn't belittle cats. They are wise and fluffy creatures that see and hear more than one would think. Also, their paw pads are soft."

"Your true colours are showing. You realize that, right?"

"Rinne doesn't know what Leonard-dono means."

"Before you get any more engrossed in discussing cats," my dear assistant interjected, already holding her phone and typing. She waited for me to turn to her, and then she asked, "How many people can you Phase with you right now?"

"I'm not sure." My response made her raise a brow, so I gave it a bit more thought. "For someone small like you and the princess, one phantom limb is enough, while someone big like a Faun or dad-in-law would take two."

"I'm not small, you're just too tall," she objected, and my other girlfriend, who was quietly observing the alley around us all this time, rejoined the conversation as well.

"Compared to Leo, I'm sure everyone's small."

"You're making me out to be some kind of giant," I grumbled, but seeing that Judy was still waiting for the answer to her original question, I told her, "Right now I have about three dozen phantom limbs, give or take five, so I would say I can take about thirty people along. Why?"

"I was just reminded to update some records," she answered off-handedly, while the princess let out a thoughtful hum.

"Thirty? That means you could move all of us, the Knights, and your Celestial guards all at the same time…" She was counting on her fingers for a few seconds, then turned a pair of impressed eyes at me. "Wow. You're like a one-man invasion force now."

Rolling my eyes, I playfully poked my draconic girlfriend's forehead.

"And pray tell, who am I supposed to invade?"

She didn't seem to mind the poking and gave my question an undue amount of thought.

"The Abyss? Oh, and maybe if the Assembly gets too uppity in the future, we can just teleport into their headquarters in Glasgow and take it over before they knew what hit them!"

Ignoring her oddly specific reply, I glanced up at the darkening sky and gestured for everyone to follow after me. Speaking of everyone, I still wasn't entirely sure why the girls insisted they wanted to come along. While the official explanation was that they wanted to 'collect trope data while providing emotional support to Rinne', my gut told me Judy just wanted to be a fly on the wall and watch the relationship drama unfold, while Elly was simply tagging along because she didn't want to be left out.

Of course, I wasn't going to confirm my suspicions by asking them directly; I was just happy that something finally took my dear assistant's mind off the timey-wimey stuff and she was no longer sulking. In any case, we quickly made our way over to the hotel, and after going through the usual motions, we were soon inside an elevator. On our way up, my curiosity finally got the better of me and I couldn't help but ask.

"Rinne?"

"Yes, Leonard-dono?"

"If you can talk to cats, then can you tell me why they like cardboard boxes?"

Mountain Girl gave me a flat stare.

"That's a stereotype, and Rinne is now uncomfortable because of Leonard-dono's racer remarks."

"How is that…?" I started, but then pivoted to address something else, "And even if it was an offensive question, which it wasn't, wouldn't it be speciesist?"

"Rinne doesn't understand what that means, but stereotyping cats is bad. Cat's like all kinds of boxes, not just cardboard ones."

"Is that seriously the thing you're going to object to?!" While I would've liked to get to the bottom of this, our lift reached the top floor, so I shelved the discussion for now. "Let's untangle this later, and find Naoren first so we can resolve this before I meet with Yseult."

"Leonard-dono shouldn't. Rinne told Leonard-dono that—"

"Hush." I put a finger in front of her mouth to stop her and then pointed at the open door. "I'll see whether I have to talk to her or now after we fix this Poor Communication Kills situation."

"Oh, I know that one!" Elly chimed in with a grin. "That's a trope, right?"

"It sure is," Judy noted and poked her phone a couple of times. "Let's hope it's not literal."

"It can be literal?" the princess blurted out, her head turning to face my other girlfriend with her smile replaced by an alarmed expression.

"Depending on whether it's the cause of comedic, dramatic, or tragic irony."

Seeing that Elly was still anxious, I clarified, "She means that miscommunication can lead to dire consequences depending on what the misunderstanding is about. Not properly explaining who ate the last pudding and an innocent person getting accused isn't going to be as dangerous as failing to explain why someone's father was killed which then causes the child to go on a lifelong campaign of misguided revenge, or something."

"Oh, I get it now." The princess let out a pent-up breath, visibly relieved. "I thought it was literally literal. As in, someone would fail to explain something so hard it causes someone to die on the spot."

That was so off-the-wall that it even caused Judy to finally look up from her phone.

"How is that even supposed to work?"

"I don't know, but… You know? In the roleplaying game, didn't Angie say that a bard with a high enough charisma and a string of critical successes could convince someone that they don't exist and then they would just blink out of existence?"

"That's not how things work in real life," I responded in a level, deadpan voice.

It wasn't how things worked in the Simulacrum either. Or so I hoped.

Meanwhile, we reached the penthouse entrance, and for once, Naoren was already waiting for us.

"Good evening."

He greeted us in the doorway to his quarters. He obviously wasn't expecting visitors at this hour, because he wasn't wearing his usual high-collared and embroidered tunic suit, but a loose traditional Chinese robe. Not only that, but his usually free-hanging hair was tied up in a low ponytail and even the glasses on his nose were different.

"N-Naoren-san."

Did… Did Mountain Girl just stutter?

That was already strange, but then the young patriarch noticed that she was still dishevelled, even after cleaning up a bit at the base, and his brows immediately descended into a worried frown.

"What happened? Did you fight someone?" He walked over and inspected her closely. "Did you run into Lady Yseult? I told you that you should avoid her until Brother Leonard talks to her to resolve our misunderstanding." Seeing that she wasn't injured, Naoren let out a relieved breath and turned to me. "Speaking of which, have you met her yet?"

"No, not yet. We first have to make sure everyone's on the same page. Again." I emphasized the last word, and a beat later, I gestured towards the open doorway. "Let's get inside and talk."

"Certainly. However, my brother is here, so…"

On cue, Zihao appeared from the penthouse, looking at us with thinly veiled annoyance.

"Good evening." He gave us a martial artist salute I didn't bother to return and levelled a cold gaze at me. "I wish you would notify us ahead of time when you come over, instead of appearing out of the blue."

"Don't be disrespectful," Naoren chided his brother, but his words did make me send an unsubtle frown at him in turn.

"I would have if a certain someone would just finally get on with the times and buy a damned cell phone."

My complaint made Naoren nearly stumble and he forcefully cleared his throat.

"Never mind that. I'm sorry, Zihao, but our training has to wait."

"… I understand."

The younger brother got out of the doorway and we all entered in a single file before settling down around the table in the living room. It was only when everyone was seated that Zihao sent a skeptical glance at my hitherto silent girlfriends.

"I understand that Lady Yamako and…" He hesitated, but squeezed out, "… and Brother Leonard are here, considering my elder brother's tumultuous love life, but what are they doing here?"

"We're just here to witness this development," came the unabashed answer from Judy, and Elly enthusiastically nodded along.

"Yes! We'll witness everything, don't worry!"

"That didn't answer my question," Zihao frowned, drawing a sight out of his older brother.

"Please forgive him, Brother Leonard. We were in the middle of practicing cultivation, and my brother is still agitated due to the residual inflammation of his blood."

"Yes. His yin and yang are clearly in imbalance," Rinne noted, trying to sound sagely, and failing.

"Lady Rinne's eyes are discerning as always."

Or maybe she didn't fail? Or it was just Naoren being fooled by the pink goggles when it came to her? Either way, I tapped my finger on the table to get everyone's attention.

"Don't mind the girls. Let's just discuss what we came here for."

"Which is?" Zihao asked without a pause, and this time I appreciated his attempt to move things along, even if his sour expression was a bit annoying.

"Some new circumstances came to light that may or may not affect Naoren's engagement with this blockhead over here, so we came here to clear the air and make sure there aren't going to be any more dumb misunderstandings getting in your way."

"Brother Leonard, please don't insult Lady Rinne," Naoren spoke up the moment I finished my sentence, one finger already pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Is that seriously the one thing you're going to focus on right now?" He didn't respond, so I just moved right along, ignoring his objection altogether. "Long story short, Rinne here is now convinced that she's not a good match for you because of her heritage. I gather she didn't say anything about that to you yet, right?"

"Heritage?" he echoed me as he let his hand down. "No, I…" He turned to Mountain Girl and continued in a softer voice. "Lady Rinne? What is this about?"

She looked at me as if waiting for me to explain, but I was getting sick and tired of acting as conversation coach for these two, so I poked her leg under the table with my feet to get her talking. It took a couple of prods to get the message across, and after a tense beat (made slightly less suffocating by my girlfriends acting like an expectant peanut gallery), she finally turned to the man at the other end of the table. However, before she could get a word in, Zihao let out a scoff.

"I knew it. It really was about my brother's love life. Hmpf."

He crossed his arms and pointedly looked away, as if the far corner of the room was the most interesting thing he had ever seen, acting like a petulant child.

"Jealous?" I blurted out without thinking, and his eyes snapped back to me.

"No!" Then, after a long beat, came a much less over-the-top, "Okay, maybe a little bit, but that's not important."

"Correct!" I flashed a smile at him, and then poked Rinne under the table one last time. "Let's get to the important thing then, shall we?"

"Yes, Leonard-dono." She sounded eminently unenthused by this situation, but after taking a deep breath, she finally met the bespectacled patriarch's gaze. "Naoren-san… Rinne believes that Rinne is not fit to be Naoren-san's bride."

"But… Haven't we already discussed this before?" He sounded understandably confused by this development. "And what did Brother Leonard mean by your heritage? How come you never mentioned such a thing before?"

"Rinne forgot," she answered frankly, and if it was anyone else, I would've called bullshit. But then again, this wasn't anyone else, but our very own Mountain Girl, wasn't it? "It wasn't until Naoren-san talked about starting a family and children that Rinne remembered that Naoren-san is the head of a Ryu-clan, and so Naoren-san has to maintain the bloodline. Because of this, Rinne is unsuitable, because Rinne is one-fifth Neko."

"One-eighth," I corrected her, and she gave me an odd look. "You said your grandmother was a bakeneko, so that makes you one-eighth of that."

"No, because Rinne's great-grandmother on Rinne's father's side was a nekomata, so Rinne is one-fifth Neko."

"… That's just confusing," I admitted and waved my hand. "Never mind, sorry for interrupting."

She nodded and turned back to the mildly confused man.

"And that's why Rinne is not apparition."

"You mean 'appropriate'," Naoren responded on autopilot, showing that he had spent enough time with her where he caught on to her weird quirks. "But… what do you mean by 'neko'?"

"It's a class of yokai, and…" She trailed off, and after glancing between him, me, and the girls for some reason, she squinted her eyes as if saying that she made up her mind and faced Naoren again. "Rinne will show, and the Naoren-san will understand."

Saying so, she shut her eyes and grimaced like she was constipated. For a few seconds, nothing happened, but then I noticed a faint swirl of magical light around her head. After a few more seconds, there were some odd movements, and then suddenly what previously looked like just some odd tufts of her hair lurched up, revealing a pair of cat-like ears. They were triangular, pointy, and they blended in so naturally with the rest of her head that no one with working eyes would mistake them for one of those nekomimi headbands.

…

But wait. She also had her human ears, didn't she? How did that make any sense? Which one was she using to hear? And maybe most importantly, why was I so hung up on something this silly?

I didn't get an answer to any of these questions, and the conversation moved on without me.

"Does Naoren-san see now?" Rinne spoke in an unusually passionate voice and pointed and her trembling cat ears.

"Yes." It was only at this point that I noticed that the guy's eyes were practically shining, his face flushed and nostrils flared as he stared at her with rapt attention. Then, he reached over the table, and grabbed Mountain Girl's hands with the words, "I naively thought that Lady Rinne could not get any more lovely, yet I was proven wrong today."

"T-That's not the issue, Naoren-san!" she protested but didn't even try to pull back her hands. "Rinne's mixed bloodline isn't suited for the patriarch of…"

"It matters not." He squeezed her hands, and looked deep into her eyes, clearly doing that thing from romance manga where he would've been depicted with sparkles and illusory roses surrounding him on a full-page panel. "Before a patriarch, I am a man."

"But the elders of Naoren-san's clan won't approve!"

"Then to damnation with them! For Lady Rinne's sake, I'm willing to forfeit my position and live in—"

"Hold your horses!" This time I was the one who reached out, and I tapped Naoren's head with two fingers. The experience must've been too novel for him, because he completely froze up with eyes wide open. "You're working yourself up way too much over this."

"I'm not." He sounded just a touch sulky, which was also new. "I'm entirely serious in my determination to abandon my position as the patriarch of Clan Feilong if necessary and take Lad Rinne as—"

"And I'm telling you that you're putting the cart before the horse!" With a groan, I buried my face in my hands for a few seconds before inhaling deeply and looking up again. "Okay, let's start from the beginning. You're worried that the elders and other branches of your clan would object, right?"

"Yes."

His answer was refreshingly straightforward, so I let out an appreciative hum and tapped my finger on the table.

"And it's all about your dragon bloodline."

"Indeed."

"And you have Xiao, who's already adopted into your family and she's a literal dragon. You can't get a purer bloodline than that, right? The solution is simple then; just groom her as your successor, and then once she grows up, you can just abdicate your position to her. The title stays in the family, the clan gets a boost in prestige, and nobody will care about the 'purity' of your descendants, so you can do whatever you want and marry whoever you want."

"That's… an option," he admitted, looking like he couldn't believe he didn't think of this himself. Which, I was also a bit confused about. But then again, they say that being in love tends to tank one's IQ, and being in love with a cat-girl was probably even worse, though I couldn't say for sure, because I only had a sample size of one.

"But what if the elders…?" Rinne tried to say something, but I cut her off.

"Stop worrying about useless things. I've got your back."

She looked stumped for a while, but then her face flushed and she awkwardly faced Naoren again. She squeezed his hands back, and whispered, "In that case… If Naoren-san finds Rinne satisfactory, then Rinne would like to… request that Naoren-san doesn't break the engagement."

"I was never planning to do that. Ever," he declared with confidence. "If Lady Rinne would like to, I'm ready to effectively immediately designate Xiao Xiao as the next clan head and then step down to prove my sincerity to—"

"No, you bird-brain! I just told you that you don't need to do that!"

"Oh, right…"

Feeling a headache coming, I massaged my temple exhaled a heavy breath and turned to the girls.

"Say, I know they say love makes you dumb, but have I ever acted this dumb?"

I meant that as a joke to lighten the mood a little, but to my shock, my dear assistant nodded without an ounce of hesitation.

"Yes, Chief. Lots of times."

"Really?" She nodded, and while Elly didn't agree, she didn't deny the accusation either. "Huh."

Stumped, I leaned back in the chair, tuning out the awkward flirting of Naoren and Rinne, the whispering of my girlfriends, and the constant eye-rolling and scoffs of Zihao, and tried my best to recall if I even acted this silly and impulsive in the past. I was drawing a blank, but Judy probably wouldn't lie about something like this just to tease me, so… Maybe I was an unreliable narrator? Food for thought.