The Simulacrum

"Can we get started already? I'm starting to feel stupid."

"Ki-hi-hi! Don't worry, boss! Nobody's going to laugh at you!" my personal mad scientist tried to placate me, but I couldn't say it had much of an effect.

"We request further patience, grandmaster. There are calibrations to be done. None of us wants to repeat this experiment more than once today."

Galatea was reasonably more successful, and after an obligatory sigh, I shifted on my chair and patiently waited for them to finish fiddling with the equipment around me. Fred's workshop was more chaotic than usual (which said a lot) due to some last-second rearrangements, and as a result, I was currently sitting on a plain dining chair in the corner, surrounded by an anachronistic array of machines and stage lights. Some looked new and sleek, the kind of futuristic tech you would see in a sci-fi movie; all white curves, fancy tilting monitor arms holding even fancier displays, and a low, static hum. Pretty impressive.

Then, I galnced to my left, and there was an enormous, boxy machine the size of a wardrobe, covered in a bunch of flashing red, yellow, and green square lights and giving off freaking dial-up modem noises. Much less impressive, but not the worst. That title belonged to the even bigger device behind my back, with honest-to-goodness vacuum tubes, magnetic tapes, and something that looked like a freaking flux capacitor by any other name. Needless to say, it was the one I was currently plugged into via a tangle of multi-coloured wires attached to my limbs and my head. It was almost like I was getting an EEG examination, except all the electrodes were held in place by a huge wireframe hat that made my head look like a big mushroom.

"Task completed," Galatea said in a monotone voice and stepped away from the recording equipment. Behind her, there was a small, off-the-shelf webcam, a significantly fancier infrared camera, a significantly older 8-millimeter film camera, and finally, a significantly weirder floating orb consisting of a large, white, cartoonish eyeball surrounded a series of gears in concentric circles.

"Ki-hi-hi! Marvelous! Readings are within expected parameters, so we can get started!" Saying so, Fred got up from his seat behind the screens and stood between my spot and the recording devices pointed at me. "Hum. The lighting isn't quite perfect. Rabom? Can you move that one to the left, please?"

There was an affirmative grunt, and one of the blinding stage lights moved a bit, no doubt due to the Faun's contribution.

"Thanks, that's enough." Once he made sure everything was in order, Fred stopped for a beat, just long enough to theatrically tug at the lapels of his coat, and turned to the cameras. "Experiment six-oh-six. Topic: weird stuff related to the magical substrate of reality. The date... doesn't really matter. Go ahead, Boss; do your thing!"

After saying those words, he unceremoniously got out of the way and back behind the screens. I was pretty sure that wasn't proper experimental protocol, but to be fair, I had places to be and wanted to get this over with, so I refrained from speaking up and picked up the antique pocket watch from the small table on my left.

It had obviously seen better days, as it had a few dents, and the gold plating was flaking off here and there. The item itself was fairly unimportant though, as the subject of today's experiment was the softly glowing enchantment on it. Or to be precise, my way of interacting with it. It wasn't the first occasion we'd done this, though the experimental setup was obviously much more elaborate this time around.

Anyhow, I had to establish a baseline first, so I plunged one of my phantom limbs into the device, and soon I found myself inside the familiar, yet no less hard to describe, non-euclidian representation of the enchantment. It was a simple warding array, designed to monitor the user's immediate surroundings (read: approximately ten centimeters from their skin), and upon detecting a sudden influx of mana, it would deploy a flash-shield in a split second. It was a reactive magical defense tool, with a couple of limitations, but it already saved its previous owner's life a couple of times if Gowan, my main contact among the artificers of the Critias School of Magic, was to be believed.

It wasn't for combat use though; more of a safety device in case something went haywire in the workshop. That meant it wasn't particularly robust, and that's why I was asked to fix it after it had taken one too many hits. It was a fairly simple task, and that's why I choose it as today's subject for establishing my baseline readings before we dived into the real experiment. Reinforcing a connection here, rewriting some detection heuristics there, getting rid of the unnecessary parts... I'd been doing this kind of thing so much, it became second nature, and I was pretty sure I could fix ten such enchantments before I would get the first hints of a headache. As they say, practice makes perfect.

In any case, it only took me a couple of subjective minutes to whip the enchantment into shape, and when I exited into realspace, the considerably brighter glow around the watch told me I was successful.

"Done. How are the readings?" I asked while handing the enchanted device over to Galatea.

"Ki-hi-hi! Fascinating as usual, boss! Quick, let's start stage two!"

He didn't have to say that twice, as I'd already picked up the ugly green Christmas mug from the same table. It had a wide base, an eye-watering colour combination, and the most depressed reindeer in the history of the world printed on its side.

"Can I start?" Freed was too immersed in his readings, so Galatea gave me a nod instead, and I promptly stuck both of my standard-sized phantom limbs into the mug. In a matter of seconds, my vision was completely overtaken by a spiraling fractal of holiday-themed mugs filling my entire universe. Normally this was the point where I'd take a couple of measured breaths to calm my nerves, but since I was currently quite disembodied, I settled on a few seconds of motionlessness before searching for a suitable substitute.

I didn't plan to fully retcon this mug, as we were going on our hot-springs trip the next morning, and I didn't need the second coming of the mother of all headaches to spoil the day. At this stage, the goal was still just to establish some baseline readings, so I didn't spend too much time pondering on what to do next. Using my phantom limb, I picked one of the near-infinite mugs around me, and carefully overlaid it on top of the original until the two snapped together, simultaneously forcing me back into the real world.

Blinking, I took a closer look at my handiwork and was pleased to see that the sad reindeer was replaced by a deadpan orange cat wearing a reindeer costume. How original.

At any rate, there was no time to waste, so I held it out for Galatea. In the half-minute since I'd last seen her, she somehow managed to put on one of those crime scene investigator overalls and a pair of oven mittens, and she gingerly accepted the mug like it was a priceless artifact from a pharaoh's tomb that could crumble if held too tightly. I imagined her getup was so that the 'experimental sample' wouldn't get contaminated, but I still felt that she was overdoing it a bit.

More importantly, once she had it, she walked over to a device at the other end of the workshop, which kind of looked like a giant microwave oven (it even had a turntable and made pinging noises) and put it inside. Meanwhile, Fred exhaled a long sigh and took a sip from a bottle of mineral water on the desk.

"You know, boss, even though this isn't our first time, seeing you casually ignore every law of physics and mystics in the world to rearrange the molecular structure of a macro-object without a hint of mana-fluctuation is still so… wrong."

"Yes, yes, we've been over this," I grumbled, still feeling a little irritable due to the giant electrode scaffolding on my head making it hard to move. "Can I get started on the last stage?"

"Just a moment. Let me take a look at the readings first."

While I waited for him to do that, Galatea peeled herself out of the white overall as swiftly as she donned it and walked over to my side.

"Grandmaster? I would like to request a review of the prohibitions on my weapons systems."

"Not now," I responded in a low voice. "Not to mention, you've yet to provide a convincing argument for why you absolutely need your plasma disintegrators reinstalled."

"According to the records on my hard drive, I have made exactly thirty-seven highly detailed and nuanced requests so far."

"No, you made the same request thirty-six times, just using different potential threats they would be useful against, including aliens, giant ants, and the taxman. The thirty-seventh was just you repeating 'But I wanna' for ten minutes straight."

"My drives contain no such memory," she declared in a genuinely indignant huff, once again making me wonder if she really was as mechanical as she often claimed.

I had no doubt that she was going to keep arguing, but before she could get to it, Fred let out one of his trademark 'Ki-hi-hi's to draw our attention.

"Everything looks good so far! Let's go!"

He didn't need to say that twice. Without further ado, I used the third, comparatively stubbier phantom limb, and reached into myself. The moment I did that, all colours drained out of the world, and after a long yet short moment of vertigo later, I found myself inside the not-black lack of space I was already very familiar with.

I made it a habit to do this every once in a while, hoping to find the not-dark not-room and its enigmatic occupants again in search for some more potential clues about the nature of the Simulacrum we lived in, but so far I'd yet to be successful. Trying to actively search around didn't prove fruitful either, so after confirming that neither the stellar-people, nor their meeting place was around, I promptly returned to my body.

"Okay, I'm… done?" My words trailed into a confused mutter by the time I reached the end of the sentence, and looking at the completely blanched Fred, I couldn't help but ask, "Was there a problem?"

"… No offense, boss, but what the hell are you?"

He sounded genuinely rattled, but the best I could do was to answer his question with one of my own.

"Wasn't the point of this experiment to figure that out?"

"Yes, but…"

"Wait. Before anything else, do we still need all of this?" I gestured at my wireframe mushroom headgear, and Fred belatedly shook his head. "Great. Then can you tell me the details while taking it off?"

Galatea wordlessly moved in to comply with my request, and a beat later she was joined by Fred as well, while I waited until the every single electrode was off my head before addressing the elephant in the room.

"So? What got you so spooked? Are the readings off the chart or something?"

"No! That's the problem!" my personal mad scientist griped aloud and all but tossed the delicate testing tools aside. "That would at least tell us we need to get bigger charts! This makes no sense whatsoever!"

"What master means," the android cut in, placing her share of equipment aside much more carefully, "Is that the readings make no sense whatsoever."

"… Yes, I've got that," I murmured a touch irritated, and stood up. "Can you explain to me why they didn't make sense? Preferably in ten words or less."

"Processing." After saying that, she remained silent for several seconds, her fingers furling and unfurling as if she was counting on them. At last, she found a satisfactory answer, and said, "Please imagine the following scenario: Grandmaster divided zero by zero, and got an actual number. That's what happened."

"Close enough," Fred agreed in the company of a vexed grouan. "When working on enchantments, your readings are similar to watching a supercomputer crunching the numbers. Odd, but considering your capabilities, not completely outrageous. When you change the material composition of things on the fly, the readings are closer to the output of a quantum computer. It's not intuitive, but so long as you understand what you're looking at, it can be interpreted and makes sense. This?" For emphasis, he walked over to the machine at the back and raised a long, continuous strip of paper covered in dots, small holes, and something that looked like an EKG reading. "This doesn't make a lick of sense! We don't have a model for this!"

"What master means is that, according to these readings, you violated all known rules of logic, metaphysics, and epistemology."

"It would be impressive if it wasn't so fundamentally freaky," Fred continued to grouse, but then shook his head and added. "What exactly were you doing, anyway?"

"It's kind of hard to properly explain it without experiencing it yourself, but I'll try."

True to my word, I did my best to explain the space made of imaginary numbers, the not-dark not-room, and all my other past experiences relating to them. The mad science duo listened attentively, yet despite their best effort, neither of them seemed to fully comprehend me. Or maybe I was just bad at explaining it. To be fair, even I wasn't sure how to properly describe things like the sensation of moving by staying perfectly still and making the entire universe move around me instead, but I did my best anyway.

"I'll be honest with you boss; I can't even begin to develop an experimental protocol for this." Pausing for a beat, our resident mad scientist let out a sigh and rubbed his forehead. "When you told me you wanted to figure out the nature of magic, reality, and everything, I didn't think we would literally move beyond the boundaries of existence. Or that you could do it on your own, without any external help."

"Well, it's just something I do," I responded with a shrug, which might've touched a nerve, as Fred's face instantly flushed red and he began waving the previously mentioned long strip of paper again.

"You can't just do this! You should've imploded like a helium balloon at the sea floor!"

"But I didn't though."

"And that's why I asked just what are you!" Fred worked himself up quite a bit, but finally managed to catch himself, and took several deep breaths to catch his nerves. "Well, at least it doesn't seem like you know either, so there's room for some juicy discoveries. Who knows? Maybe I can even get a Trismegistus out of this! I mean, if I could ever make anyone believe half of this!"

"Explanation: the Trismegistus Award is a prestigious distinction granted by the Assembly. It is roughly analogous to a Nobel Prize."

"Thanks, Galatea. I was just about to ask," I said a touch absently before shaking my head and adding, "I guess we didn't learn anything new, huh?"

"We only learned how little we know," Fred stated solemnly. "I guess I have to start working on a brand new experimental protocol."

"You do that."

That was the end of it, and while we share a few more words of small talk, when the definitely-not-a-microwave-oven holding the holiday mug let out a ping and the duo moved over to check, I used the opportunity to bid my farewells and leave the workshop. In the end, Fred put it succinctly; the only new thing I learned today was that my abilities were even weirder than they appeared at first glance, which was saying a lot, considering even my most basic supernatural powers violated the magical common sense of this world.

There was little I could do about that, though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bothered by Fred's big question. Just what exactly was I? Putting all my titles (some more deserved than others) aside, I was a Knight, with all the prerequisite magical sockets for equipment to slot into, but I could also read Celestial Script, could instinctively speak an archaic dialect of Faunish, I may or may not got situational wings, and as far as I knew, I was the only non-Faun who could engage in Dominance, and those are just the crazy things that technically still made a modicum of sense in-universe. If we counted my ability to teleport, to remove-view people, to use immaterial tendrils to cut magic, tweak enchantments, and move souls around, not needing sleep, and being the first known person to break through the reality-filtering and realize we were in an artificial world running on tropes… Seriously, what the hell was I?

Of course, that was a rhetorical question at best, as I had no answer whatsoever. For now, I settled on 'Leonard S. Dunning', and moved along, as by mentioning Dominance, I just reminded myself that I promised Brang that I would spar with him before I headed home. Thinking so, I made my way over to the main hall and quickly found him near the training area. By the looks of it, he was overseeing some kind of drill involving the nameless Squires and the equally nameless Kage ninjas. First, the trainee Knights would do a series of swings, at the end of which the ninjas would appear from beneath their feet to deliver a follow-up strike, and then immediately dive back into their shadows.

It was needlessly fancy and impractical, but if Mountain Girl's fighting style had taught me one thing, it was that this world was more often than not operating on the rule of cool, and so long as something looked suitably fancy and high-impact, the universe would line things up to make it work, no matter how infeasible and ineffective it seemed at first glance. It annoyed me to no end, but again, it was something I couldn't do much about, and as far as it was only training, I could overlook it. As such, I held my tongue until I reached the Faun ex-general's side.

"[Ah. I greet thee, Blackcloak,]" Brang spoke up once I was in arm's reach and gave me a curt salute. I returned the greeting with a shallow nod.

"[I bid you to stand at ease, general. I hope health finds you in abundance like grains of sand on a shore.]"

The old Faun chuckled at my response, which made me wonder if I said something weird, but before I could ask, he turned to the men and women on the training field and did a couple of hand gestures. I've been trying to memorize the Faun's system of combat sign language, and I was pretty sure it meant 'Two more repetitions, then break'. He waited for the majority to nod in acknowledgement, and only then did he turn to me again.

"[Arth thou here to honor this old man's request?]"

"[Aye. The days of leisure are upon us, and before their coming, we shall contest our frames and wits by means of Dominance one last instance, for the path of accomplishment is paved by tiles crafted of repetition.]" I paused for a beat as I replayed the words in my head, but soon gave up and said, "What I was trying to say was that practice is the road to success."

"[Aye. I have heard thou loud and clear, Blackcloak,]" Brand responded with a toothy grin, followed by a less enthusiastic smile. "[I must confess, I feel the day at which hour I would no longer serve as thine opponent in battle draws nearer still.]"

"Yeah, sure. Say that after I manage to beat your specters without cheating."

"[I told thee before; using all thine abilities in battle could hardly be considered underhanded.]"

"I still think it does though, so I'll hold back on Phasing, as usual. Come, let's find a quiet spot."

The old Faun didn't seem fully convinced, yet he nodded all the same, and we headed to the other side of the training area. At the end of the day, there was nothing better for taking my mind off heavy subjects than fighting half a dozen copies of Brang at the same time. It was quite therapeutic and helped me cope with all the daily stressors in my life. Like the forming of a brand new supernatural superpower causing us to be sitting on a political powder-keg. Or Josh's chosen-one-status slowly but surely coming to the forefront and its potential consequences. Or whether playing my roles of Bel and Admin might've actually turned me into an Abyssal and/or a Celestial at the same time, and how that will affect my future prospects.

In conclusion: Damn, my life was weird. Also, damn, my life being weird was becoming normal. In other words, double-damn.

Part 2

Arriving home late in the afternoon, I unceremoniously plopped down onto my usual comfy chair and let out a long, content sigh. While training with Dominance wasn't too taxing, either mentally or physically, the sensation of all the tension trickling out of my body afterward still felt strangely satisfying. The fact that there was no urgent threat or grand plan to take care of also helped, as while our upcoming trip was technically for the sake of research, at this point, it was an open secret that we rather looked forward to just kicking back and unwinding, so there wasn't much to worry about there.

I already double-checked the reservations, packed my bags, and mentally prepared myself for my girlfriends' inevitable nightly assaults. Or rather, I was mainly worried about Judy, as she not only had a higher-than-average libido, but she was way more adventurous than either me or the princess. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing though; for the longest time, she had been worried about being just a post-character-development placeholder in a world of special snowflakes, so her having a unique quirk was actually pretty nice. I only wished she didn't pick the 'outwardly proper but actually really kinky' archetype, but hey, so long as she was happy (and I had the stamina), it was all good.

Anyhow, I spent a couple of minutes relaxing while musing about things like that, but while I wasn't in a hurry, I wasn't in a habit to waste time either, so I soon rose to my feet and headed upstairs. Having Pudding-kun, our convenient shape-shifting mini-shoggoth hive-mind, disguised as various objects around the house gave me free rein to Phase around the house wherever I wanted, but when it was just going upstairs, I still preferred using the ol' legs.

Once at the top of the stairs, I wanted to head to my room first, but my feet stopped in front of Snowy's door instead. There was some kind of commotion on the other side; hisses and yelps, combined with the occasional creaking of furniture, those kinds of things. For a moment, I internally debated whether or not I should just peek inside using Far Sight, but while I was the last person who could preach about respecting other people's privacy, peeping on my sister just out of curiosity was still a little iffy even by my standards. As such, I settled on simply knocking on the door.

"It's open," came the instant answer, followed by a panicked, "Awawa! Hey, that's not fair! I wasn't paying attention!"

More curious by the second, I turned the knob, only to freeze as the weirdness of the scene in front of me hit me like a tsunami wave of perplexity. Let's take the scenery in part by part, shall we?

So, first, Snowy. She was naturally in her room, and dressed in her maid cosplay to boot. That would've been mildly peculiar, but it was her hobby, so I was already used to it. What I wasn't expecting was to find my other sister in the room as well. Now, granted, during the past week or so, Penny all but officially moved into my house and expropriated the right side of Snowy's room (and bed, though it was a huge king-sized one that came with the house, so it was far from cramped), so her being here was less of an issue than the fact that she was also dressed as a maid! I figured it was one of Snowy's spare costumes, but as for why she was wearing it, I hadn't the foggiest of clues.

Then, just to make things even weirder, they were playing some kind of racing game on Snowy's PC, and each one of them had their own headset and controller too, which fiercely crashed with the maid aesthetic.

"What are you girls doing?" the question slipped my mouth, and it prompted Penny to finally pause the game and turn around on her chair.

"It's Want for Tempo: Skyline 4. It just came out last week, but look at that! This beast runs it like a dream!"

"That's nice, but that wasn't what I meant."

Reading the room, my Abyssal sister lightly cleared her throat and said, "It's… cultural exchange." Seeing that I didn't really get it, she hastily added, "We made a deal. I teach Penny about maids, and she teaches me about video games."

"It's a win-win!" my redhead sister declared with a toothy grin.

“Neat. More importantly, did you pack your bags?”

“Mostly,” my redhead sister answered a tad hesitantly. “I don’t have any swimsuits, but Judy said we’ll make a stop at the mall on the way there and I can buy a few.”

“Right. I suppose the other Knights don’t have them either. It’s not exactly practical combat gear.”

“T-That’s right! I’m sure the others also need to buy them! For sure!”

Penny’s agreement sounded just a bit too desperate, but I didn’t probe her, and instead turned to my other sister.

“What about you?”

“I’m good. I bought a pair when we went shopping with Angie last week.” Snowy answered with a reassuring smile, soon to be replaced with a troubled frown. “But… are you sure we’ll need it? Rinne said you usually go into a hot spring bath naked.”

“N-Naked!?”

Penny’s sound went up by about an octave in surprise and looked at Snowy like she just heard the most outrageous thing ever.

“That’s her version of Japanese onsen culture. We don’t know the customs here, so it’s best to be prepared.”

“Ah. I understand.” Snowy nodded, but the frown didn’t disappear from her brow at all. “What about mixed-gender bathing?”

“Wait, whaaat!?”

Ignoring my knightly sister’s outraged yelp, I shrugged.

“I have no idea, but it’s most likely a no-no. We’ll ask, just to be sure to avoid any embarrassing walk-in situations.”

Snowy nodded with a soft hum, while Penny’s eyes were still swimming, no doubt lost in some kind of strange imaginary scenario. In any case, since there wasn’t much else to discuss here, so I left my sisters to their odd, maid-themed gaming party and returned to my room.

First thing first, I turned on my PC and logged into the Celestial Hub. Ever since the internal hubbub among the Celestial leadership, the place had been much less lively than before. The forums were still semi-active, and the high-end top-secret files were still regularly updated, but that was about it. Since my unexpected promotion, I’ve been making sure to log in regularly and check every message, just to make sure ‘Admin’ wasn’t required to attend some super-secret meeting or the like, but so far my ‘duties’ as the official director of something or the other didn’t require me to do anything out of the ordinary.

After checking the new thread and approving a couple of editing requests, I glanced at my own file, but despite being at the heart of the newly formed Draconic Federation, the document wasn’t edited for the past couple of weeks. That wasn’t normal, but with the way the site’s functions had been restricted until things calmed down in Elysium, the Celestials’ unexpectedly agrarian little realm, it wasn’t particularly noteworthy either. But speaking of which, I leaned back in my chair and quickly Far Glanced at my mark on Jaakobah, only to come away disappointed once again. Ever since he was put under house arrest (though they called it ‘protective custody’), he’d been either working out, reading technical manuals, or disassembling and reassembling things, be they magical lock picks, magical surveillance devices, or magical guns.

Yes, guns. They even looked like a pair of oversized .44 magnum pistols a movie star would use, except instead of bullets, they fired slowly moving arrows made of light. I knew this, because the only three places the gaunt Celestial agent was allowed to visit outside his room were the toilet, the gym, and an in-doors shooting range.

All of it was pretty high-tech (even the toilet; it talked), which made the endless fields tilled by hand and farm animals outside the confines of whatever spiraling crystal tower nonsense he was locked inside all the more baffling. The fact that I couldn’t find any further information about this pocket-realm even though I’d spent about ten hours in total watching him naturally made it even more infuriating, but there wasn’t much I could do about that right now.

Returning to my body, I shook my head and grabbed the mouse again. If push came to shove, I was ready to Phase directly over to Elysium and do some snooping around in person, but all of that was for later. Right now, my first priority was to maintain my cover as Admin. Considering I wouldn’t be logging in for the next couple of days, I sent a somewhat official message to the same address where the news of my promotion came from, telling them that I needed to move to a more secure location and they wouldn’t be able to reach me for a few days.

After that, I wrote a couple of PMs. The first was to Morose Moose, and I told him pretty much the same. Since he was the sanest and most trustworthy member of my inner circle as Admin, I temporarily gave him some extra rights to act in my stead. My second round of PMs were for the moderator team, including W1NG3DN1NJ4, aka Mike, though in their case it was just a notification that I wouldn’t be available for a while.

Once I was done with all of that, I leaned back and let out a soft huff. Speaking of him, it’s been a while since the last time I checked on our resident Celestial asset, and now that I reminded myself, I figured a quick Far Glance wouldn’t hurt. A split-second later, I couldn't help but let out an amused hum.

Normally, the guy lived the usual life of a slightly introverted college student; attending lectures in the morning, studying in the afternoon, then gaming and watching shows in the evening, with waaay more emphasis on the last part. Around this time of the day, I would've normally found him in front of his PC, grinding his favorite low-poly MMO, so I was naturally intrigued when my disembodied point of view arrived at a small restaurant.

At least, that's what I first thought, but on closer inspection, I noticed a couple of oddities, such as the rows of book shelves all around the walls, and a couple of desks with CRT monitors attached to similarly old-school black PC towers. There were a couple of placeholders idling around, mostly reading books or conversing at the tables, but the place was by no means crowded. More importantly, Mike was sitting at a corner bench in the company of the class rep.

The two of them were sitting side-by-side, close enough where she could rest her head against his shoulders, and they were both reading their own books. Not only that, they were also listening to music while sharing a single set of earbuds attached to Ammy's phone. I'm not going to lie, the two of them looked cute as heck, the perfect image of a nice couple on a date comfortably spending time together.

However, putting all of that aside, I couldn't help but feel a little confused by this scene, and no, it wasn't the fact that we apparently had manga-cafés on Critias. By this point, I was more-or-less completely used to distinctly Japanese cultural bits and bobs just randomly showing up on the island and in our lives. It was just the Simulacrum being the Simulacrum. Instead, the thing that confounded me was why this cozy couple was hanging out here while reading mangas of all things.

Mike was one thing; I've seen the guy watch the occasional anime, and his favorite MMO shared the aesthetic, but Ammy? Since when was she into this kind of media?

…

Wait. That's the wrong question. Here's a better one: why was I surprised by this? Wasn't it perfectly plausible that she'd always been into this? I mean, just how well did I even know her?

I've known her exactly as long as the others, but now that I thought about it, we were never that close. Sure, I knew a lot of things about her, but even her quirkier traits, like her interest in psychics, turned out to be academic and just an extension of her being a magi. While I used Far Sight on her a lot, just like with the others, I never really looked into her hobbies before, and since Fred replaced her as my main source of information on anything magical, we didn't really interact much. She wasn't even going to come with us on the hot springs trip, so… was I accidentally marginalizing her in the group?

I mean, I was busy, so I didn't really notice, and she was also busy with her budding relationship with the guy merrily perusing a manga about ninjas by her side, so her drifting out of focus made sense. Still, the realization still left a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

Note to self: while it was too late to invite these two along now, after we returned from our research trip, try to get her a bit more involved with the group again. Maybe we could start a club at school or something? In any case, while looking at these lovebirds hanging out was diabetes-inducingly wholesome, I definitely had better things to do, so after a while, I returned to my body.

Exhaling, I stood up and grabbed the bottle of ice tea I stashed by the nightstand and drank most of it in one go. Meanwhile, I couldn't help but wonder: how did those two end up together anyway? Yes, Mike had a crush on the class rep since pretty much the first time they met in my living room, and she wasn't entirely indifferent either, but seeing them like that made me question the chain of events that led them there.

Ammy was supposed to be one of Josh's potential love interests, and those were usually immune to getting into another relationship unless it was the point of the scenario. The term was 'netorare', or NTR (for people allergic to vowels), and depending on how dark the story was, it could go from a type of love triangle to some pretty nasty stuff involving cheating and cuckoldry. In any case, the Simulacrum was pretty light-hearted so far (for which I'm shamelessly going to take credit), yet after Mike came into the picture, the Josh/Ammy thing evaporated almost instantly. Not that there were any serious indications for the ship to begin with, as it seemed to be little more than a mild crush on the class rep's side from the beginning, but it was still odd.

Now, here's the million Jen question: were there any Narrative shenanigans afoot here? Looking at it objectively, at least Mike was actively going for a relationship, and they apparently did share some common interests (aka, you don't just accidentally go to a manga-café to have an intimate evening date), so the two of them getting together made sense from a Watsonian perspective, but there were at least two potential Doylist ways we could look at it as well.

On the more positive hand, this could've been an example of the 'beta couple' trope. It's a situation where a pair of side-characters enter into a wholesome relationship ahead of the 'main couple', and their example would help push them forward and serve as something to emulate. In this context, Josh and Angie would serve as the main couple… which brought up two issues. First, Mike and Ammy started dating literally on the same day as our resident harem protagonist and his sweetheart, meaning they couldn't serve the role described above.

Now, while the relationship between the childhood friend duo was still a little rocky due to the transition from best pals to lovers, these two couldn't really serve as an example of a harmonious couple to them anyway, because the class rep didn't advertise things, so I wasn't even sure Josh knew she was dating someone yet. But even putting all of that aside, there was a much stronger argument for them not being the beta couple archetype, and it was that I existed. Sure, my polifidelous relationship wasn't exactly easy to emulate (or one that should be, outside of our convenient circumstances, really), but as far as wholesomeness was concerned, I knew for a fact that we were still in the lead by a mile.

So, let's say we already filled the 'beta couple' spot in the Simulacrum's trope bingo card. What then? Well, there was another trope that fit these two, and it was a slightly less flattering one. It's called 'pairing the spares', and as the name implied, it's about side-characters in a story getting paired up with little rhyme or reason, mostly done for either fan-service or to give them a sort of 'happy ending'. This usually didn't happen to potential love interests, but considering that Ammy had always fallen into the 'hopeless third girl' archetype, next to Angie's 'status-quo maintaining childhood friend' and Elly's 'status-quo shaking transfer student', the Narrative pushing her out of the race this way wasn't entirely unthinkable.

Or maybe, just maybe, I was overthinking this, and instead of any kind of Narrative influence, it was just the out-of-context-butterfly (read: me) flapping its wings and causing a scenario-tornado somewhere else. After all, if it wasn't for me, Mike would've probably never even met Ammy, let alone start crushing on her, and without me tolerating the guy due to knowing him from the Hub, the chances for the two of them to interact would've been sharply reduced.

Anyways, there was no way to know for sure yet, but as always, I preferred the Watsonian explanation over the Doylist one, so I patted myself on the back for being the best accidental cupid ever. Also, while I was thinking, I absent-mindedly drank the whole bottle. Ugh. My bladder's going to complain later, I reckoned.

Putting that aside, I scrunched up the plastic bottle and threw it into the bin before returning to the PC, where I'd already received a couple of answers to my PMs. I was planning to give a couple of extra tasks for Moose, but before I could get to it, I was interrupted by the sound of a doorbell ringing. I'd learned from experience, so instead of heading downstairs right away, I first entered into Far Sight and checked to see if it was a familiar face or not before I stood up.

Even though that only caused a few seconds of delay, by the time I left the room, Snowy was already moving down the stairs with a chipper "I'll let them in!", closely followed by my other sister after her. I already knew who it was, so I didn't rush, and I arrived at the entryway just in time to see Roland handing over a small bag to a mortified Penny.

"… some snacks too," the Griffon Knight said with an amused smile, then added, "This is certainly a new look."

"Hauuu…" my redhead sister whined, obviously not expecting 'uncle Roland' of all people to show up at this hour. "D-Don't tell the others!"

"About what? Your outfit?" he teased her while Snowy, ever the professional maidster, helped him out of his long grey coat. "It looks great on you. Was this the costume you wore at the school festival?"

"No, it's one of my uniforms," Snowy explained without the slightest hint of embarrassment. To be fair, being a maid was her hobby, and it wasn't the first time she welcomed a guest while dressed like one, so it wasn't unexpected by any means. My other sister, on the other hand, was apparently utterly embarrassed by the situation.

"Since you c-came to see brother, we'll go back upstairs!" Since my Abyssal sister didn't budge, she soon gave up the pretense and turned on her heels. In a blink of an eye, she was already halfway up the stairs, and after waiting for a beat, Snowy gave a polite curtsy and followed after her.

"I did not expect to see that when the door opened," Roland noted once the girls left the room, and after kicking off his boots he added, "As long as they are having fun, it matters little."

"I couldn't have said better myself. So? What do I owe the unexpected visit?"

"Unexpected?" he echoed me with a curiously raised brow. "In the morning you told me you wished to discuss something in private in the evening."

"Yes, but I was going to look for you. I didn't expect you to show up on my doorstep."

Roland seemed to be satisfied by the answer, and a slight shrug later he picked up a second, bigger paper bag from the floor.

"I was in the neighborhood, so I decided to visit you. It's killing two birds with one stone."

"True, I suppose." I gestured for him to come into the living room, and only then did I ask, "So? What were you doing in the city?"

"I was making preparations for tomorrow's team building exercise," he answered without reservations and raised the paper bag to nearly eye level. "I was told that drinking spirits while at a hot spring is tradition, so I bought a couple of bottles."

"Let me guess; Rinne told you that." He nodded, and I sighed. "Well, figures. Just keep it in moderation."

"Naturally." Roland flashed a thin-lipped smile, and we both sat down around the coffee table. Since he was here already, I figured I might as well discuss the thing I originally wanted to tell him, but before I could bring up the topic, he softly cleared his throat. "I have a few things to report. May I?"

"Um, sure," I said by reflex, and the Knight straightened his back in his seat.

"While the numbers aren't finalized yet, it appears the founding members of the Draconic Federation agreed to increase our yearly operation budget by nearly twenty percent over the initially requested amount. Sir Arnwald wants to put the difference into the recruitment drive, while Sir Brang wishes to expand the weapons workshop using the extra funds. Of course, the final word is yours in the matter."

"I'll look into it. Anything else?"

"Staying on the topic of enlistment…" Roland paused here, with a distinctly displeased expression, before saying, "Since we agreed to accept recruits from the Draconian clans, we have received nearly three dozen applications. They're mostly young members of various branch families looking for opportunities, but despite our best efforts, there was already an open conflict with an Ordo Draconis member today."

"Duncan or Raven Boy?" I asked reflexively, and the way Roland's shoulders slouched told me I hit the nail on the head.

"The former. There was an argument about rations, and a young Draconian man from an Albion branch family misunderstood him, thinking he insulted his mother."

"Was he?"

"It's hard to tell. Nobody could recall the exact words said after the fact."

"Well, it's Duncan we're talking about here…" I grumbled, earning a similarly annoyed hum from the man in front of me. "Injuries?"

"Only a few light scrapes. Dame Morgana was passing by and broke them up before things could devolve into a brawl."

"I don't want to say I told you this would happen, but I told you this would happen," I continued to grumble, but Roland shook his head at my comment.

"It is but a growing pain of a new organization. If we wish to integrate into the Draconic Federation and serve as an efficient force, we need to learn how to effectively cooperate with each other. Having Draconian members in our ranks should greatly lessen internal friction in the long run."

"Yes, yes. We already discussed this, and I gave my blessing," I told him a touch morosely. "It's still going to cause a lot of friction in the short term, but if you think you can deal with it, then by all means go ahead. Just please put Duncan on a short leash."

"I'll attempt to reason with him during the upcoming trip. It is the reason behind it, isn't it?"

"Among other things," I responded with an ambivalent shrug. "Anything else to report?"

"There are several other smaller issues, but it's not something for you to concern yourself over. We'll take care of them by tomorrow morning."

"If you say so, I'll leave it up to you." Here, I once again paused, waiting to see if there was anything else he wanted to say. He remained attentively silent, so I figured it was the best time to break the ice. First things first though, I Far Glanced at my sisters, and once I was sure Snowy was still consoling the mortified Penny in her room, behind closed doors, I let out a pent-up breath and looked Sir Griffon in the eye. "Listen, Roland. What I'm about to tell you is a secret, at least for now. I wanted to discuss this with you before anyone else, because out of all the Knights, you're the least likely to misunderstand, gloss it over, or try to strangle me on the spot."

"… Is it something regarding the Draconic Federation, or your position as the King of Knights?"

"Neither. It's a pretty complicated issue, but long story short… I'm Bel."

Roland was looking at me like he was waiting for me to continue the sentence, but when I didn't, his brows descended into an incredulous frown.

"Excuse me? Could you repeat that?"

"I said, I'm Bel of the Abyss. You know? The guy with the mask and the teleporting and everything."

"Yes, I know, but…" his words trailed off, and after blinking a couple of times, it seemed like he just reassembled a couple of puzzle pieces in his head. "Oh. That actually makes some sense."

I watched him closely, and while I expected him to get angry or confused, his intrigued eyes were just as disconcerting. Well, at least he didn't try to strangle me. That was a good start.

I waited for him to collect his thoughts, and after a few long seconds he uttered, "Can you explain everything in detail?"

"Sure, but it's a long story."

"We have the time."

Nodding, I took a deep breath and began a long, intricate tale that started with a chaotic situation, an idea that seemed clever at the time, and lots of frantic improvisation somehow creating even more chaos. Story of my life, really…

The living room had been eerily silent for close to a minute while I patiently waited for Roland to digest everything I'd just explained to him. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling just a touch apprehensive, considering the man's expression was getting steadily darker over time, but this was a bridge I had to cross sooner or later, so I figured it was best to rip off the proverbial band aid in one go instead of drawing it out any further.

Before long, Mr. Griffon let out a thoughtful hum and changed his posture, signifying that he was ready to talk.

"This is a lot to take in at once, so let me see if I understood everything right. You created this alter-ego as a disguise, then used it to keep us in check, and then you tried to frame him as a common threat to help the forming of the Draconic Federation."

"There were a couple of other things going on as well, but as far as this conversation is concerned, that's the gist of it."

"All right. So, now that we're on the same page, I have a few questions."

"Ask away."

After giving him the go, Roland shifted his posture again, leaning back with one arm crossed and one hand pinching his chin.

"First, we must make sure this information doesn't spread. How many people are aware of the fact that you're Bel?"

"Quite a few, actually." That was apparently an inadequate answer, so I hastily elaborated. "Judy and Elly obviously are. So are the Fauns, Rinne, and Ichiko. I already told you about my encounter with Raven Boy and Morgana, and—"

"Are their Squires aware?" Roland cut in, and I quickly shook my head.

"No, not directly, but they were told I was the one who ordered Morgana and Agrawain to pretend they were mind-controlled by Bel, so they should suspect a connection at the very least. Oh, and speaking of loose connections, Josh, Ammy, and Angie had seen me teleport around while wearing a mask. I talked my way out of that one back then, but they might also draw the obvious parallel."

"I see. Is there anyone else?"

"Well, Fred and Galatea helped make the costume, so they are also aware, and then there's Caledfwlch and Pudding-kun, but they can't talk, so they can hardly leak the secret."

"What about your sister?"

"Penny obviously doesn't know, and I haven't told Snowy either."

"The Feilong patriarch?" I must've looked as confused as I felt by the sudden non-sequitur, as he added, "You told me he conspired with you to create your alibi during the tournament."

"Ah, right. I didn't explain that properly, did I? You see, I told Naoren about what was going to happen, but I never explicitly told him what I was going to do, only that I needed to orchestrate the events from the shadows. So far, he doesn't seem to suspect that I'm Bel."

"So that's all of them. Next question: who are the people you interacted with as Bel who don't know your true identity?"

"You, for a start. At least until a couple of minutes ago, along with the rest of the Knights. Then there's the Feilong grand elder, his body double, and his bodyguards. Plus, you know, everyone present at the arena during the tournament interruption."

"Is there anyone among those who would suspect you?"

"I don't think so? The only two people I'd extensively interacted with were the grand elder and Xiao, and neither of them raised a fuss so far."

"True. There's no way they wouldn't try to use this as a bargaining chip if they were aware. Anyone else?"

"Let me see… There was this Celestial agent called Jaakobah, plus that time I went into the Abyss and I was seen by the spymaster of the Inanna house, but that's all, I think."

I intended those to be stray comments, yet the way Roland's face slacked at the mere mention of those events raised all kinds of red flags in my mind.

"Excuse me? You went into the Abyss?"

"Yes. I can teleport there the same way as I do everywhere else."

At this point Roland was giving me a genuine thousand-yard-stare, but it only lasted for a few breaths' time.

"That… Let's put it aside for now. What was that about the Celestials?"

"Oh, right. I kind of skipped over that part. You see, my right hand was injured before my Arbitration duel with Penny. It was this whole thing about Ichiko being trapped in Onikiri and being corrupted and me getting her out of there by putting her into a Chimera, but all of that's kind of irrelevant, so back to Jaakobah. You see, he wasn't just a super-secret Celestial agent, but also a healer, and they sent him over to make a deal with me in exchange to healing my hand, but I didn't have time for all that negotiating and politicking, so I used Bel to scare him into doing what I wanted, and while I was doing that, I made unsubtle references to a grand conspiracy I pulled out of nowhere just to unnerve him, and then—"

"Hold on. Please, hold on," Roland stopped me, one hand clasped around his forehead. "You didn't mention any of these events in your previous explanation."

"I… thought they weren't strictly necessary. I was under the impression this discussion was for coming up with a way I could reveal that I'm Bel to the others without anyone strangling me?"

"True, but the longer I'm listening to you, the more I feel like we have already passed the threshold where that is a reasonable thing to worry about," Mr. Griffon grumbled before sharply exhaling to center himself. "Please explain these encounters as well, without leaving out any details."

"Fine, fine," I mumbled, and then shortly launched into a long description of the events, how I might've accidentally caused a Celestial coup d'état with a couple of stray words, how I was caught red-handed by one of Crowey's subordinates while I was trying to cause havoc in the Abyss, and how my Bel persona somehow got mistaken for the second coming of the Emperor of the Abyss by the people living there.

Roland listened closely to my words, his expression constantly shifting from intrigued to shocked to completely unreadable, and once I finished recounting everything, he all but buried his face in his hands.

"Is that all?"

"Yes, I think so."

"You didn't leave any other major incident that could cause a significant political scandal, right?"

"Well… there was that one time I took one of the Assembly's Grimoire Keys, but that had nothing to do with Bel, and I've returned it to its owner already."

"Of course you did," Mr. Griffon responded as flatly a salt plain, and after another round of forehead-massaging, he whispered, "Give me a second."

I did so, and while he contemplated, I also couldn't help but realize that, when I put all my sneaky, weird, and sometimes coincidental exploits as Bel together like that, they sounded crazy even to my ears. It was just one of those situations where every link in the chain of events made sense at the time, and it only becomes obvious that things went off the rail when looking at things in hindsight. Or my standards were just out of whack. One or the other.

"All right, let's make one thing clear before we proceed any further," Roland jolted me out of my thoughts, and I gestured for him to speak his mind. "Are you an Abyssal?"

"No, as far as I know, I'm not."

"As far as you know," he repeated after me and pointed at my face. "You have amnesia. Is it possible that you're one without your knowledge?"

"I sincerely doubt it. Elly's folks did some kind of blood test before we started dating, and it said I was one hundred percent purebred human."

"Could it be mistaken? Or could someone fake the results?"

"I… have no idea. I've never seen the test results myself, but my in-laws trusted it without question. Why?"

Roland gave me an odd look and followed it up with a sigh.

"Leonard. It's blindingly obvious that you aren't human. We've already talked about this after your Arbitration with Penelope, but your physical capabilities are obviously superhuman, you are able to freely teleport as far as the Abyss and back, you could block dragon fire with your bare hands, and you manifested spectral wings while doing so. I don't know if you're an Abyssal, or something else entirely, but you're definitely something other than a purebred human, as you put it."

"I can't really say anything about the superhuman aspect, but blocking those beam attacks was just an application of my ability to dispel magic, and as for the wings, those are related to an entirely different matter that doesn't really factor into this discussion. Let's just say we're already looking into that, and it has little to do with being an Abyssal or not."

"If you say so." Needless to say, Roland wasn't entirely convinced by my explanation but didn't press the issue, at least for now. "In any case, the fact that you aren't human remains, in fact, a fact. More importantly, after hearing all of that, I have to strongly advise against telling anyone else about your second identity."

"It's more of a disguise, but… Wasn't the whole point of this talk to figure out how to do that?"

"I'm afraid it's impossible at this point. If we were only talking about your previous interactions with us, we might've been able to spin it in a positive light to diffuse any lingering hostilities. An act of benign deception for the sake of a greater good we couldn't perceive or comprehend at the time, or something to that effect. Unfortunately, with all the rest of your actions combined, this is no longer a localized ruse, but a wide-reaching conspiracy. The first rule of those is to keep the number of conspirators at an absolute minimum, and I recommend we follow it."

"Is it really that bad?"

"Yes, it is," he emphasized, on no uncertain terms. "This no longer concerns just us, or the Draconic Federation, but the Celestials and the Abyssals as well. We cannot be too cautious in this situation. There are already too many people aware of your dual identities, and if even just one of them betrays you, it could spell doom for not only you, but all of us. Speaking of which, can your current co-conspirators be trusted?"

I didn't like the way he was phrasing things, but since I was the one who involved him and asked for advice, I had no choice but to grudgingly go with the flow.

"The girls are obviously trustworthy. The Fauns are loyal to me so long as I take care of Snowy, so they are fairly safe too, and considering their personalities, the ninjas are also okay. I have a fairly strong hook on the science duo, and they like working for me, so I doubt they'd betray me any time soon, and as for the rest, they literally cannot communicate with outsiders, so they are as safe as they get."

"What about Morgana and Agrawain?"

"They cannot betray me, at least about this topic." Seeing the skeptical glint in Roland's eye, I hastily explained, "It's a side-effect of the tweaking I did on the Oaths the last time. Don't worry too much about it."

He was still eyeing me with skepticism, but ultimately pressed on without getting bogged down on this issue.

"Very well. While I doubt Penelope, Arnwald, or Duncan would willingly disclose your information—"

"Oh, wait, I wasn't precise enough," I cut in, now that I finally realized the source of our misconnection. "They can't do that either. I mean, none of you can."

"Another side effect?" Roland guessed with a frown, and I confirmed his deduction with a nod.

"It's why I was more worried about Duncan trying to beat me up than him spreading the news about my secret alter-ego."

"That… changes the equation somewhat, but whether we involve them in the conspiracy or not must wait."

Once again, I wanted to point out that letting them know was the whole reason why we were sitting here in the first place, but he continued speaking without allowing me to interject.

"As of now, the Celestials are fully aware that you're connected to Bel due to the way you used the identity when dealing with this agent you spoke of. We can't do much about that. On the other hand, we have to defuse the ticking bomb that is Joshua's group. You said they already know about your ability to freely teleport, right?"

"Yeah, though not to its full extent. I made a few excuses about how I require specific targets to teleport to, and that I needed a special artifact to teleport without them…"

I was about to continue my explanation, but Roland cut me short by pointing a palm at me.

"Specifics, Leonard. Specifics. What are these targets and artifacts you speak of?"

"Um… For the former, I said I could only move next to the Magiformers, while the artifact was to explain why I wore the carnival mask during your attack on the Dracis mansion."

"Oh? This might be actually beneficial to us," Roland stated with a thin-lipped smile that didn't reach his eyes. "For the record, as far as the Celestials are aware, what is the nature of the partnership between Leonard Dunning and Bel of the Abyss?"

"It's… supposed to be something of a trade. I said I gave him info about the modern world, and in exchange… well, now that I think about it, I didn't exactly establish what Bel gave me in return."

"Great. We could definitely use this. Here's the scenario I have in mind: Bel had no money with which to pay you, and he had no concept of what's valuable in the present time, so he offered to impart some of his abilities to you. This way, we can explain your capabilities, and we could claim the artifact you used at the time was something that belonged to Bel, explaining the similarities. While it's not air-tight, this explanation should hopefully placate your friends' suspicions at the very least. It also falls in line with the Celestials' expectations, so we kill two birds with one stone."

"Sounds… reasonable, I suppose."

Roland nodded, and then immediately launched into another idea.

"Next, we'll need to further establish Bel as an entity entirely separate from you."

"I've already done my best to do that," I pointed out, and Mr. Griffon responded with an approving hum.

"True. If your description of the events was accurate, the Celestials wouldn't suspect you, and so long as the Feilong patriarch doesn't stab you in the back, your alibi for the events that transpired during the arena is rock solid. However, we need to go even further."

"Such as?"

"It would be best if we could arrange a situation where Leonard Dunning and Bel of the Abyss could appear at the same time. If it was at the same place, even better."

"… You know, I can do many impossible things, but cloning myself doesn't happen to be one of them."

"No need for cloning when a body double would suffice," Roland told me with a shrug.

"I suppose."

He nodded, and continued in an impatient, almost eager tone.

"First off, we have to establish a hostile relationship between your two identities. Your attitude towards Bel during the conference after the tournament was a good start, but we need to strengthen that impression. Ideally, it would be best if we could have Leonard and Bel have an argument, or better yet, an outright fight in front of a group of credible witnesses."

"Sounds neat, but I have no idea how we could arrange that," I admitted, but my words didn't dampen Mr. Griffon's mood at all.

"We should ask Sir Percival once he'll finally arrive on the island. He used to work as a stage magician after his retirement, so I'm sure he has a couple of tricks up his sleeve." Once again, my blank stare was probably hard not to notice, as Roland soon paused and asked, "Leonard. You have informed Sir Percival about what happened, right?"

"I… can't say I have."

This time he remained silent and only blinked at me like he just heard the most absurd thing ever, culminating in another facepalm.

"Right, your amnesia. I keep forgetting about it." Letting his hand down, Roland shook his head and regained a semblance of seriousness. "Does that mean you've yet to contact him?"

"No. I don't even know how to do that."

There was another beat, followed by a shallow sigh.

"My apologies. I simply took it for granted that you would immediately inform him at the earliest opportunity, and it didn't even cross my mind that you wouldn't, or indeed couldn't. I should've realized it sooner."

"I don't think that's something you should apologize for, but—'

"In that case, I'll contact him tonight. Knowing him, it will take him at least a week or two to arrive at the earliest, so his arrival shouldn't interfere with the upcoming event at the resort."

I didn't know how to feel about this. On one hand, I felt ever-so-slightly mortified by the fact that this Sir Percival completely slipped my mind until now. On the other hand, I was suddenly feeling anxious about this ex-Knight coming to the island. After all, based on what I gathered over the past couple of weeks, he was not only the closest thing to a parental figure Penny and I ever had, but he was also somewhat… so to say… 'eccentric'. Needless to say, the last thing I needed in my life is another peculiar old guy, but I couldn't exactly avoid making contact with him forever either.

"Let's put the matter of Sir Percival aside for now," Roland proposed, and I agreed on the spot. "So, to summarize, for this conspiracy to work, we need to do four things. First, we need to firmly establish, for all observers, that Leonard Dunning and Bel of the Abyss are, without a shadow of a doubt, two entirely separate individuals."

"That goes without saying."

"Next, we have to ensure that the number of people in-the-know remains as small as possible. For this reason, I would advise against involving Penelope, Duncan, and Arnwald for now. As an added benefit, since Penelope is your sister, so long as she keeps denouncing Bel in public, it would help obfuscate your identity even further."

"Well, so long as it doesn't cause another misunderstanding. Like the last time."

Hearing my comment, Roland leveled a flat stare at me and said, "At the time, I was working with all the information I had available to me. Now I'm working with a considerably more extensive set of information. I do not accept any blame."

"I wasn't blaming you, just… Eh, never mind. What's part three?"

"For part three, we have to use the identity of Bel of the Abyss to his fullest. You've already laid down the groundwork for a wild card, and with careful application, we should be able to utilize Bel to keep both the Abyssals and the Celestials in check until we fully stabilized the Draconic Federation's foundations."

"So… Keep doing what I've been doing until now?"

"More responsibly, and with some oversight, but yes, that's the long and short of it."

"I can live with that. So, what's the last part?"

"This might be the most difficult one," Roland said in a heavy tone. "After all of that, we have to cover our tracks."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we need to find a believable way to get the freely teleporting, dragon-bullying, untouchable, potential reincarnated Abyssal Emperor out of the picture." He paused here, then gravely concluded with, "In other words, we have to somehow figure out how to kill Bel."