The Simulacrum

"Bye," my dear assistant spoke as she waved with a rare sense of enthusiasm in her voice.

"I'm not leaving yet!" my other girlfriend retorted while still clinging to my arm, an act which normally made walking difficult, yet in this case, it actually helped with my balance, so I didn't really mind. Anyways, Elly gave my other girlfriend a classic type-C glare and stated, "We are still not at our mansion!"

"Bye-bye. Take care," Judy continued her (fairly) passionate waving, undaunted by her words.

"I told you, I'm not letting go until we are at the gates!"

"Buh-bye."

"Leooo! Judy is bullying me," my clingier girlfriend apparently gave up on the idea of a direct confrontation, and instead she pleaded with me by employing the tried and tested puppy-eyes strategy. I would be lying if I said it had no effect on me, but I didn't let it show on my face. I mean, it's not like she was cute or anything.

"Stop it, you two," I chided them at first, and then tried to raise my arm to poke them in the forehead (my usual last resort when either of them was getting out of hand as of late), but since one of my hands was occupied by the princess, while the other held several fairly heavy paper bags, I wisely decided against the idea and instead I chose to divert their attention by telling them, "You are weirding out poor Snowy with your act."

"Are we?" my assistant questioned back, but before I could repeat myself, she sent what I presumed to be an inquisitive glance at the girl in question.

"U... Um... I'm fine, not weirded out at all, I think…" Snowy told us with an awkward expression while peeking out from behind the gigantic white bear plushy she was holding in her hands. More on that later.

"See?" Judy turned back to me with a triumphant... well, I wanted to say 'smirk', but it was more of a twitch of the corners of her lips, really.

"Snowy is just too polite to tell you," I countered in mild exasperation.

"If you say so," my dearest assistant gave a non-committal answer, but a moment later she faced Elly again and told her, in a voice that was even more monotonous than usual, "Oh look. We arrived. What a shame."

The girl holding my arm sent her another, obviously ineffective glare, but ultimately she let out a disappointed sound as we came to a halt in front of the familiar gates of her family mansion. As we did so, she finally let go of me... only to grab my arm again a moment later, and then she began rubbing her cheek on my upper arm.

"What exactly are you doing right now?" I asked incredulously while trying to keep my balance.

"I'm stockpiling some leonium for the rest of the day."

"… Okay, do I even want to know just what the heck this 'leonium' is?" I inquired with my incredulity level raised by a notch.

"You wouldn't get it, Chief," Judy told me while gingerly tugging at the blonde dragon girl's coat. "It's an inside joke."

"Since when do you two have inside jokes?" came my next question, which incidentally also signaled the maxing out of my incredulity-o-meter.

"Don't sweat the small details," my assistant gave me a non-answer as she finally got Elly to let me go. Well, okay, technically it was she who let go of me on her own, completely independently of Judy's usual limp-wristed efforts, but she still seemed satisfied with the results.

"Oh fine," my draconic girlfriend grumbled before she unceremoniously pushed the large paper bag into the hands of my unprepared other girlfriend, and then she faced me with upturned, expectant eyes.

"Goodbye kiss?" she asked in a voice that was both shy and a little coquettish at the same time. I have no idea how she managed, but it wasn't as if common sense had a really firm grip on her in the first place, so I just filed it under 'Yup, just as you would expect from our princess' and then tossed it into one of the dusty corners of my brain.

In any case, the moment she said that, I immediately leaned down and put a small peck on her lips, my decisiveness apparently surprising her quite a bit. It couldn't be helped though, as knowing my luck, if I hesitated even for a moment, it was practically guaranteed that a certain annoying butler would have shown up to 'accidentally' witness me getting really intimate with her young lady/charge/possible great-great-granddaughter, and then proceed to complicate my life even further.

After a second of shock, Elly finally let out a girlish giggle and tried to hug me again, only for Judy to drag her back with slightly more ardor, and not a moment too soon, as my knack to predict (and avoid) romcom situations was once again validated by the aforementioned butler showing up out of nowhere and opening the gates with one of those tiny, one-button remotes. That kind of made me almost smile for a moment. I mean, a dragon opening a gate with a remote controller. How silly is that?

But back to Elly: when she noticed him, the princess let out a disappointed grumble and finally stopped trying to glomp me. I was glad she had at least that much common sense, though I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't because she was aware that our relationship should be kept low-profile for a while longer, but because she was shy in front of good old Sebastian. Speaking of whom, in the meantime the butler walked up to us with his hands behind his back and his posture ramrod straight.

"Welcome back milady, miss Sennoma, and…" Sebastian made a face like he just bit into a lemon when it was my turn to be greeted, and then he casually ignored me and focused on the white-haired girl behind me. "What a surprise. I thought young miss Inanna was missing."

"Yep, she was. Past tense. She's with me now," I told the annoying bastard with a cheerful smile hiding my ire. "By the way, I'm happy to see you too, old man."

"The sentiment is not at all mutual," he answered with a small twitch in the corner of his eye. "What exactly are you doing here?"

"I just brought the princess home, as a gentleman should. Do you have any problem with it?"

"Not with that, but with you," Sebastian stated, and I had to give it to him, he didn't beat around the bush. "Your very presence around the Dracis mansion offends my sensibilities."

"Really?" I answered with a toothy grin that probably didn't look like a glower. Probably. "I don't know why, but that just makes me want to stay around more. Maybe I should move closer? Are there any vacant lots around here?"

"If there were, expect them to be burned to the ground before you could even think about moving there."

"Aw, that's not good. I didn't know there was an arsonist on the loose. Maybe I should move even closer. Like, move in with you. For safety."

The butler theatrically shivered at my words and said, with a face that seemed so bitter it could only be produced on purpose, "Your jokes are getting worse over time."

"I'm not joking," I told the old lizard with a toothy grin. "Hey, Elly? What would you say if I tried to move in with you?"

"H-Huh?" The princess only gave me a classic deer-in-the-headlights look for a while, but then her cheeks flushed in a familiar shade of crimson that I just realized I was missing a little, then she stammered, "Y-You can't! I have to ask my parents first!"

"Milady, please don't encourage his juvenile behavior," Sebastian mumbled while massaging his temple, somehow completely missing how weirdly she was acting. Though again, this was pretty much how she acted all the time just a couple of weeks ago, so maybe he was already used to it?

Either way, I let out a small chuckle and told her, "Nah, maybe later. We should get going before it gets dark. See you tomorrow, Elly!"

"Um, yeah! Bye!" she returned my goodbyes with a slightly timid wave.

Meanwhile, the old lizard shook his head and, to my surprise, directly addressed my other girlfriend.

"Miss Sennoma, please keep him on a short leash."

"Working on it," my assistant answered with a nod, making my eyes slowly narrow into suspicious slits, but she didn't seem to notice (or care), so I quit it and instead gave another wave at the tragically lonely looking dragon-girl staring after us from the other side of the gates. Honestly, while Elly was getting a little too clingy lately, now that she wasn't hanging on my arm, I was kinda missing her warmth. Not much, just a little. A tiny bit. At any rate, once we were a fair bit away from the mansion, I finally addressed the proverbial elephant in the room.

"Hey, Dormouse?" I called out to my dearest assistant, and she gave me a questioning look in return. "I was just wondering; since when are you on such good terms with the old butler?"

"Good terms? I believe we are simply familiar due to him observing me whenever I browsed the Dracis library." She momentarily paused, then she gave me a suspiciously innocently look and asked, "Why do you ask? Could it be that you are jealous?"

"What? No!" I denied.

"Oh?" Judy's expression became honest to goodness crestfallen for a moment as she muttered, "That's a shame."

"… You want me to be jealous?" I asked suspiciously, but my girlfriend openly nodded in return. "Why?"

"My vast research on relationships tells me jealousy is one of the signs of a passionate relationship."

"… Okay, first off, get better sources, as that is just silly. Secondly, I'd like to let you know that I would rather jump off a bridge than even consider being jealous of that old coot."

Judy gave me a weird look, and it seemed like she wanted to say something, but in the end she just clicked her tongue and muttered a quiet 'spoilsport' under her breath, at which I promptly shook my head, rolled my eyes, and extended my free hand towards her.

My dear assistant looked at me funny for a moment and then she asked, "Are you asking me to take Eleanor's place?"

"What? No," I grumbled while gesturing with my hand again. "I want you to give me the bags you are carrying."

"Oh," she said in a soft and overly disappointed tone, followed by a melodramatic sigh. "For a moment I thought my subtle insinuations finally made you realize our relationship is lacking intimacy. How silly of me. In the future, I will strive to get rid of such naïve thoughts."

"… You call that subtle?" I asked with raised brows, but my girlfriend kept sighing so hard it sounded like she had some kind of respiratory problem, so I let out a groan of my own and relented. "Fine, I get it! Do you really want to link arms that much?"

"A little," she answered shamelessly, earning yet another roll of the eye, at which she huffed and then added. "Chief, skinship is really important in a relationship. It's how you build up familiarity towards the more intimate acts between a couple, such as—"

"Fine, I get it!" I finally admitted defeat. "Once we get home, you have my permission to snuggle or whatever, just stop talking about this in front of Snowy! Are you happy now?"

"Yay," she… well, not exactly 'exclaimed', as she was still deadpan as usual, but I took it as such, after which she finally gave me the bags and so I continued on our merry way again, except four bags heavier.

Said bags, by the way, all contained clothes. After our not-at-all frantic exit from the school grounds (which earned me a particularly disapproving look from Armband Guy on the way out), we decided that since we were already outside, we should take care of a few problems.

First and foremost, following Snowy's lead, we returned to the high-class hotel where she and her brother were staying during their excursion from the Abyss. Now, while getting into the already vacated hotel room required some convincing, a bit of bribery, and a metric crapload of refuge in audacity, we actually managed to gain entry after a talk with the manager's manager. While all of the 'incriminating evidence' of Crowey's presence had been scrubbed, they thankfully didn't bother to bring back all of Snowy's clothes with them to the Abyss when they left. Unfortunately, while we could gather a few changes' worth, including her school uniform, most of them were of the skimpy variety she was wearing the first time we met. Needless to say, I was not going to let her run around in those during the winter, so after we finished packing what we could, our next stop was at the local shopping street, where I proceeded to buy my new housemate several new outfits, even though she was fighting against it tooth and nail.

Oh, right, speaking of housemates: since according to the others I have totally screwed up Snowy's chances of getting proper asylum at the Magi headquarters, and since I was already living alone, I was unanimously delegated by the gang to take care of Snowy for the time being, which naturally included providing shelter as well. Truth be told, that was my plan from the beginning, but getting the responsibility dumped on me like that was still a little frustrating.

In the end, I may have even overdone it a little, as I not only bought her clothes, but an electric toothbrush, a set of combs and hairbrushes, new school supplies, several pairs of footwear, multiple warm jackets, and other assorted winter wear, and a giant polar bear plushy, the last of which was specifically recommended by Josh of all people. Naturally, I had to carry most of these by myself, explaining the number of large paper bags in my hands.

The impromptu shopping spree ended just a little after five in the afternoon, and while it wasn't especially late yet, the others in general, and Josh in particular, complained that they'd been mentally drained by the day's events, so we decided to head home. This meant that I got grouped in with my girlfriends and Snowy, while Josh, Ammy, and Angie went the other way while still discussing the finer point points of the supernatural masquerade using analogies from the oft-referenced show about a teenage werewolf hunter, the irony of which wasn't lost on me at all.

Anyways, after we escorted the princess home, we headed straight to my house and we arrived without any interruptions on the way. Once we were inside, I finally put down the bags, hung my usual black coat on the hangers by the entrance, and rolled my stinging shoulders. Thankfully I had the good sense to leave the thermostat turned up, so the temperature in the living room was quite balmy. Speaking of which, by the time I entered there, Judy had disappeared somewhere (the toilet, I presumed) while Snowy was awkwardly standing by the sofa and she was alternating between looking at me with an expression that said she wanted to say something and then burying her head into the back of her plushy. It was a little weird, even by her standards, but I decided not to ask her just yet and instead let her collect her wits while I absent-mindedly sorted the bags into two piles of roughly equal weight.

Unfortunately, she didn't manage to do so under a minute, and since the silence was getting a little uncomfortable, I decided to lightly clear my throat to get her attention. Snowy winced, but instead of taking the opportunity to voice whatever was gnawing at her, she just hid behind her plushy again as if it somehow made her invisible. It was around this time I was slowly losing my patience, so I grabbed the bags again and told her, "I'll bring these to your room, and then we can—"

"I... I will get a job!" Snowy suddenly declared, throwing me off the loop for a moment.

"That was a bit of a non sequitur," I told her with a frown as I tried to figure out what she actually tried to say.

"I mean..." she stammered for a moment, the finally explained, "I will get a job and pay you back. For all of this. Rent too."

"Ooooh, so that's what you meant!" I reacted with just a hint of bemusement as I moved closer to her. "Don't worry about it. I'm in no need of money, and as for the rent, I have this whole house all to myself anyway, so one more person staying here won't even be an inconvenience. At least this way those empty rooms will finally have some use."

"But I..."

"Come on Snowy, no need to be reserved," I told her with an ever so slightly amused smile, then I gestured for her to follow after me. "Let's go up. You still need to unpack all of these, don't you?"

I didn't give her the chance to answer, as I immediately headed up the stairs, and while at first she only gave me a conflicted look, by the time I was halfway up, she quickly caught up with me, and she was standing by my side when I opened the door to the guest room next to mine.

The insides were pretty plain if I wanted to be honest. Kind of spartan, even. It was also naturally squeaky clean, no doubt due to the tireless efforts of the loyal invisible ninja maids. In terms of dimensions, it was exactly the same as my room, though it looked bigger at first glance because it only had a normal size bed, a small desk, a single wardrobe, and a commode. As for the color palette, the walls were pure white while the furniture were all a shade of dark brown that was just barely on this side of black.

In short, it wasn't a room that screamed 'girly' at first glance, but that was something that could be fixed with time. Maybe I should get her some new wallpaper? Oh, and some slightly less bland bed sheets. Plus one of those cat-shaped wall clocks with the swinging tail. I always found them amusing, but it would've looked weird in my room. It should fit right in here once we've done some remodeling.

"This is going to be your room," I told Snowy after I put down the bags. "Let's unpack your stuff."

"Okay..." she replied a tad uncertainly. First she put down her plushy onto the bed, then she looked around like it was a completely new environment, even though she was sleeping here the previous night. In fact, she was staring at every nook and cranny so intently it kind of disturbed me.

"So, what are you waiting for?" I asked her once my patience ran out, again, but she only shook her head.

"Just a moment. I'm… trying to commit the room to memory."

I'm not going to lie; if someone invented a machine that turned skepticism into electricity, my eyes would've been able to power half the damn island at this point.

"You are committing what to memory again?" I asked, just to make sure I heard it right.

"The room," Snowy answered while still scrutinizing the place as if she was a detective in one of those crime scene investigation shows. "I'm trying to make sure I would remember where all the furniture and items were."

"... Okay, I bite," I told her after it became blindingly obvious that she was so engrossed that my piercing gaze didn't even register for her. "Would you please tell me why are you memorizing the layout of the room?"

"Um..." She hesitated for a short time, then for some mysterious and slightly foreboding reason she appeared to be steeling her nerves before she answered, "It's so that when I leave, I can make sure I would leave it in the same condition as it is now."

I gave her a long, hard look to try and figure out if she was serious, but the way she was clenching her fists and looking at me with earnest eyes gave me little hope that she was joking. At last, I allowed my brows to ever so slowly furrow into the mother of all disapproving frowns, which seemed to finally take her sincere, if misguided, fervor down a notch.

"Snowy," I raised my voice, making her shudder, but I didn't really care at this moment. "You are being really obnoxious right now." She only hung her head at my scolding, so I disapprovingly shook mine and continued, with added emphasis: "You didn't even unpack your things yet, and you are already planning on how you should make the room look when you leave? Are you serious?"

"But... I told you I don't want to impose on you, so once I find a job I will rent a room and—"

"Snowy!" I interrupted her sternly, but I quickly toned it back when I added, "Please look at me when I'm talking to you."

For a couple of seconds she didn't react to my request, but then she took I sneak peek at me, and when she realized I wasn't glaring at her or anything, she seemed to become a little more at ease and she finally looked me in the eye.

"Good," I told her before I raised my right hand and then immediately placed it onto the crown of her head, eliciting a surprised yelp and a confused look from her. "I'm going to tell this one more time, so please listen closely. Can you do that?" I waited for her to nod, and I ruffled her hair a little in endorsement. "Great. So, let me stress this once and for all: you are not imposing on anyone. From this moment onwards, this is your room. I'm not renting it to you, I'm not letting you stay. I'm giving it to you. Everything in it is yours; you can do with them whatever you want. You can stay as long as you want. I won't ask for rent, I won't throw you out, and while you can leave if you want, I won't hear anything more about finding any kind of job. You are going to go to school like us, and you are going to have a fun and memorable school life with the rest of us whether you like it or not. Are we clear on that?"

I tried to make my voice a little more playful by the end, since Snowy was looking at me like she just found a white raven or an honest politician. Contrary to my best efforts, she just kept intently staring at me with those large, innocent, and slightly disquieting eyes of hers, so as my last desperate move, I rustled her hair again. That finally got a reaction out of her, as she blinked at me with what I presumed to be disbelief.

"I can… stay here as long as I want," she said instead of asking, earning her another head pat.

"Yup, that's what I just said," I answered with a toothy smile.

"And you take care of me?" This time it was a proper question, and after a moment of thinking, I actually nodded my head.

"Sure."

"But… why?" she finally asked the pivotal question, and I could only awkwardly scratch the base of my neck with my free hand.

"Do you want me to be perfectly honest?" I asked back, and she immediately nodded her head, so I told her, "It's because I feel responsible for your current situation."

"You do?" she asked, her voice practically dripping with incredulity.

"Yeah," I mumbled a little sheepishly. "I mean, think about it. I knew you were doing something fishy back at the school, and I knew Crowey was up to no good, but I never pursued either of those obvious issues. If I did, I might've gotten ahead of him, and then the kidnapping wouldn't have happened, and then you wouldn't have thrown an icicle at me, and then you wouldn't be in trouble with the Magi."

"That makes no sense!" Snowy suddenly and vehemently objected against my assertions with tears in the corners of her eyes. "None of that was your fault! You didn't do anything bad!"

"Not directly, maybe, but I am still guilty of inaction," I answered her with a soft voice as I continued to gently rub her head. "So, this time I decided to make sure that a certain awkward girl with a habit of acting like some kind of cheesy seductress wouldn't do something stupid out of desperation that I could easily prevent just by providing her shelter, sustenance, and maybe just a bit of security. Hence, we are here."

I flashed another optimistic smile at her as I waited for her next words, but those never came. Instead I noticed she was getting a runny nose, but before I could offer her a tissue, I was suddenly and unexpectedly tackled by her, her arms clamping around my ribcage like a giant vice and pushing all the air out of my lungs.

"Whoa, easy there, Snowy. I—"

"So that's where you were," my assistant said as she entered the room with the worst timing ever while carrying a tray with several mugs on it. "I brought some hot cocoa and..." Her words trailed off as she beheld Snowy clinging to me, then she added, in a dangerously flat voice, "Am I intruding?"

I promptly rolled my eyes at her and gestured for her to put down the tray and help me with calming the sniffling girl hugging me so hard I had trouble breathing. Just where did she even hide all that strength in that tiny frame of hers anyway?

Nevertheless, after a few short minutes of coaxing, during which at one point Snowy clamped down on my flabbergasted assistant for a change (which served her right, if you ask me), we finally ended up all sitting on the side of the bed, with the Abyssal girl in the middle, and each of us holding our own mugs.

Speaking of which, I still had my trusty 'I mug and Judy had her usual 'I one, which left Snowy with a generic white one from the kitchen cupboard. It bothered me a little, so I made a mental note to get her a matching one. Maybe for her birthday?

Actually, that reminded me of something, and I decided to ask it before something inexplicably wacky derailed our conversation once again.

"Say, Snowy?" I addressed the girl adorably blowing on her hot cocoa.

"Yes?" she responded after a quick sniffle.

"As I recall, Ammy's grandpa said you have no ID right now. As in, not just that you don't have papers, but that you don't exist in any registers. Is that true?"

She gave me a questioning look, probably wondering where the question came from, but after a short while she nodded in the affirmative.

"We really need to fix that if you want to stay over," I told her before taking a sip from the mug in my hand to collect my thoughts, "Or rather, considering I kinda already took responsibility for it in front of Lord Grandpa, 'I' have to fix that."

"You reap what you sow," Judy spoke like she just said something really profound, but then she cocked her head to the side and added, "Also, did you just call the local arch-mage 'Lord Grandpa'?"

"I sure did," I answered her with an irreverent smirk, but then I shifted my attention back to the other girl. "I was wondering where you got your papers when you and your brother came out of the Abyss in the first place. Did you go to a government office?"

"Um..." Snowy hesitated for a moment, though instead of unwilling, she seemed to be rather unsure. "I don't know," she finally admitted and averted her eyes. "After we arrived, we went to the hotel right away, and then brother left on the next morning. When he came back, he just handed me the cards. I know he talked with someone, but I don't think he was a government official."

"If that's how quickly he got them, I can pretty much guarantee he didn't go through the legal channels. Maybe he contacted some kind of document forger?" I ventured a guess, but she only hung her head even more in response.

"I don't know," she repeated in an apologetic voice. "I really don't know. Brother didn't tell me anything that wasn't strictly necessary to accomplish the tasks he gave me. I don't even know who he—" At this point she abruptly paused with an expression that said she just received some kind of revelation. "Wait, I have an idea! Uncle Brang was with him, so he should..." she began, but then her sudden enthusiasm just as quickly wilted as she finished with a crestfallen, "Oh, right. He went back too. Sorry, I didn't think it through."

"Nah, don't sweat it," I told her with a reassuring pat on the back.

"Right," Judy readily agreed with me while she patted her head in turn. "Contrary to how silly he usually acts, Leo's actually really resourceful. He'll figure something out."

"Yep. Listen to Judy, and don't worry about a thing. I only asked in case you knew a shortcut or something, but I will do something about your situation no matter what."

"I'm sorry for troubling you again," she muttered, prompting me to rub her back even harder.

"Come on, Snowy! How many times do I have to tell you to stop apologizing for every tiny little thing?"

"Sorry," she said reflexively, but then she raised a hand to her mouth and looked at me apologetically, so I let out a light chuckle in response.

"We have a long way to go, huh?" I directed a question at my girlfriend, who lightly shrugged her shoulders and began to rustle the supremely embarrassed Abyssal girl's hair with renewed vigor. I let out another chuckle and then took another sip from my mug while thinking that this kind of peaceful atmosphere wasn't half bad at all.

"Let's get started," I spoke solemnly after sitting down on my padded swivel chair in front of the PC. Once Snowy finally calmed down, I told her to get familiar with her room and to put her new clothes away. Afterwards, Judy and I left the premises and immediately entered my room in order to have a much-needed discussion about all the recent developments, so I took my usual spot right away.

"Before we begin," my girlfriend suddenly spoke up as she sat down on my bed, "it's imperative that you sit over here."

"Why?" I inquired while practicing my single-eyebrow-raising skill. "Do you want to use the computer?"

Judy shook her head, but instead of clarifying what she wanted, she began to mechanically pat the space next to her.

"... You want me to sit next to you," I stated rather than asked, and she immediately nodded in the affirmative. "You just want to cuddle, don't you?"

"That's correct," she confirmed my suspicion with a shameless nod, then added, "You already gave me permission."

"Yes, but... Don't you think this should be a little higher on our priority list?" I asked as I picked up a certain manila envelope and gently waved it in her direction.

"We can do both. Judybot is powered by a state-of-the-art dual-core processor, so she is good at multitasking."

"... I can't decide what disturbs me the most; the fact that you still beat the dead horse about the robot thing, that you talk about yourself in the third person, or that you think that a dual-core processor is state of the art."

When I said that, my girlfriend finally stopped patting the bed beside her and instead her eyes narrowed into a small frown.

"Chief, stop nitpicking already and come over, or I will be forced to take drastic measures."

"Such as...?" I cautiously asked her.

"I will go over and sit in your lap."

I gave my unusually intense girlfriend a subtly baffled look, then I tentatively asked her, "And that is supposed to be a threat because…?"

At this point Judy let out a grunt of displeasure and stood up, but instead of unexpectedly hopping onto my lap as I expected, she deftly snatched the envelope right out of my hand and then sat back down onto the bed with an unmistakably pouting expression.

"There. Now you either come here, or I won't let you read this."

"Are you seriously blackmailing me into cuddling right now?" She only gave me a rather severe glare (by her standards) in return, so I quickly raised my hands in surrender. "Okay, I get it. I'm already moving."

Saying so, I quickly got onto my feet and sat down on the spot she was patting before. A split second later Judy swiftly entwined our arms while simultaneously depositing the envelope back into my lap. Unfortunately, her mood already seemed to be quite sour, as she kept pouting at me with undaunted vigor. I thought this was the perfect moment to change the subject, but my plan was torpedoed when my girlfriend lightly kicked my shin.

"You are still so bad at reading the mood, I don't even know why I'm trying," she grumbled with a sulky voice, her words punctuated by another entirely harmless kick. "You even said you would put in more effort."

"I do!" I protested, if a little weakly.

"Then why does it take an entire song and dance routine to get you to act like a proper boyfriend?"

"Fine, I get it," I told her with a sigh, but since she was still pouting, I decided to be a little assertive for a change, so I disentangled our arms and, before she could complain, I quickly reached around her and put my hand on her waist, then I pulled her close enough so that our thighs touched.

Judy only blinked at me in surprise at first, but then she sharply exhaled through her nose in a way I could interpret either as a stifled chuckle or a derisive snort, and after a beat she leaned even closer and rested her head against my shoulder.

"That's a start," she said, her voice still containing a tiny bit of sulkiness, so I leaned down and planted a small kiss on her forehead. It was a weird sensation. My extended research on romance told me that these kinds of interactions should be firing me up and getting my heart to beat faster, but while I did feel a kind of cozy warmth in the pit of my stomach, the situation felt oddly calming instead.

Anyways, I let my girlfriend snuggle to me to her heart's content for about two minutes before I carefully picked the envelope up from my lap and asked her, "Can we get started?"

Judy glanced up at me, then after a moment of thinking she replied, "Five more minutes."

"Oh come on, Dormouse! Didn't you say you can multitask?"

"Yes, but that was before I realized that high-level cuddling algorithms use up way more processing power than I expected."

"That's just silly talk. You don't need algorithms for cuddling, it's entirely analog!"

"… I don't know enough about computers to come up with a snappy answer to that. Now I feel sad," my girlfriend said in a tone that was anything but sad.

"Oh, fine!" I gave up with a small sigh. "Would hugging for five minutes cancel it out?"

"Yes, but then I would be back at the baseline, so… ten minutes?"

I didn't answer her, instead I just pulled her even closer, and then I did nothing for ten minutes, which I didn't enjoy at all, and I definitely didn't have anything silly like warm, fuzzy feels in the pit of my stomach. Anyways, once the allocated snuggling time was over, I tapped my fingers on Judy's waist to get her attention, following which I removed my hand so that I could actually open the package.

"Time's up! Let's take a look," I said as I carefully pried the seal on the back of the envelope open. I was paying very close attention to what I was doing, with extra focus on any magical tomfoolery the infuriating old man might have put on it. My disposition might've been infectious, as Judy also stared unblinking at the object in my hand while holding her breath.

Then the envelope finally opened and... nothing in particular happened. I would be lying if I said it wasn't a bit of a letdown, but I quickly dismissed any such thoughts as I reached inside and carefully pulled out the contents. What we found was... considerably more mundane than what I expected, and based on the small frown on my girlfriend's brows, she shared my sentiment.

In total, there were a couple of standard A4 pages filled with words, a map of what I quickly recognized as Timaeus and its surroundings with several bright red circles drawn on it with a permanent marker, and four honest to goodness Polaroid photographs.

After a moment of skimming through everything in my hands, I turned to my assistant.

"What do you think?"

Judy visibly pondered for a moment before she replied, "Very noir."

"I know, right!?" I agreed with a smidgen of my previous excitement returning to my voice.

The 'leads' in my hand looked like the standard package any self-respecting hardboiled private detective would be guaranteed to receive on a cold and stormy evening to kick off a noir murder mystery of some sort.

The trope would've been perfect, except for a small but glaring flaw: in a noir detective story, the one kicking off the plot by delivering the leads was supposed to be a pretty femme fatale walking into my office, but instead all I got was a grating old wizard, and I was the one who had to walk into his office to boot!

But then again, maybe that was for the best. We already had too many pretty girls around these parts, we really didn't need another one, especially now that I was in a relationship and could get into trouble for messing around with femme fatales.

I lightly shook my head to clear it of such miscellaneous thoughts and turned my attention towards the papers in my hands in order to study them a wee bit more closely. Judy apparently already memorized the contents, but she quietly waited for me to finish while she continued to rest her head against my shoulder. It took me about five more minutes to reach the end of it, at which point I separated the 'clues' into three groups and said, "We have three leads."

"Mm," Judy agreed, followed by a nod during which her head somehow didn't break contact with my shoulder. "The research society, the monster sightings, and the unknown swordswoman."

This time it was my turn to nod as I put two of the bundles down beside me and focused on the last one.

"Let's start with this one," I proposed. "According to this, the Non-causative Science Research Society has increased their presence on Critias during the past two weeks. At least one new research base, location unknown. An unknown number of operatives, estimations range between ten and twenty. Possible connections to both the Abyss and the Celestials. Combat forces numbering in the hundreds. Also…" I paused for a moment to study a certain paragraph again, just to make sure I read it right the first time, "Also, they have giant robots with drill hands. Apparently those are a thing now."

"That's what it says," Judy confirmed my reading with a slightly bemused voice, by her standards, then she quickly added, "I don't understand this lead."

"Me neither," I agreed with a frown.

There were three huge issues with this particular 'clue' we were given. First off, it was way too vague but at the same time way too confident. It made hard claims, but then it failed to back them up with any numbers or sources. Sure, the way it was written made it look like a legitimate compilation of reports and intel, but I was fairly sure it wasn't, due to issue number two: I knew better. Or rather, the Celestial Hub knew better, and since I was sneakily perusing their intelligence network, it meant I had up-to-date information on the Research Society. Granted, I didn't pay them much attention in the past, but that didn't mean I didn't keep tabs on them… or rather, I didn't delegate one of the anons on the site to keep track for me. I'm a busy man, I can't do everything myself.

Anyways, the third and biggest issue still remained: what was I supposed to do with this information? Was I supposed to contact them? To gather information about them? To fight them? How? Or was this part of his test, to see if I was really an information broker and could find out more for the old man? Wait, no, that couldn't be; I only told Ammy about it today, and he should not know about my cover yet. What else could it be? Is it just a straight-up warning about them? There's not a single word on these pages about the NSRS actually posing a threat to me or Josh, only that they exist and that they are allegedly mustering their forces for some reason. As far as this tells me, they could be planning an all-out war on me or a company picnic; both possibilities had about the same weight.

"Could it be that the School simply has a poor information agency?" I ventured a guess, but my assistant promptly shook her head.

"The other leads should answer that question."

"True," I admitted as I put the papers down and reached for the next bunch. "Let's verify the parts about the Research Society on the Hub, just to be safe. I don't think we can do much more on that front right now, so let's move on."

"Mm," Judy agreed as she also focused on the second lead.

To summarize, it was a compilation of eyewitness accounts, rumors, and what looked like snippets from police reports, all of them pertaining to the sightings of some kind of large cryptid animal roaming the streets of Timaeus at night and wreaking havoc in butcher shops.

"There are no timestamps," I noted after skimming through the page one more time and ultimately settling on a specific witness testimony. "Three pairs of eyes. Sounds familiar?"

"The Chimera," Judy confirmed my suspicion. "Another one?"

"Maybe," I wondered aloud as I thought about it. Giving me this particular lead made a bit more sense, if a twisted kind of one. After all, I recently had the title of 'Chimera Slayer' stapled onto me against my wishes, so the old geezer telling me about another one wandering around the neighborhood was at least somewhat logical from his point of view. Anyways, I carefully read the descriptions given by the witnesses and tried to put together a mental image of the creature.

Six eyes, four legs, a doglike head without ears, thin fur, a long tail. That did vaguely remind me of the second form the Chimera transformed into when it was chasing me around the school building, but there were two things that still bothered me. First off, there were no casualties of these sightings. Not even an injury. That was weird enough, considering the temper of the thing I 'fought', air-quotes implied, but I was also somewhat baffled by the size of the creature. Or rather, sizes, as the witnesses couldn't agree on just how big this thing was. Some claimed it was the size of a person, while others put it more in the stray cat range.

"Either there are multiple Chimeras running around, or this one can change its size," Judy pointed out the discrepancy before I could, and I promptly shook my head.

"The one in the school obeyed the laws of thermodynamics when it transformed, at least to some degree, so it's probably not the latter. As for multiple Chimeras of different sizes..." I paused for a beat as a new idea formed in my head, and I quickly bounced it off my assistant. "Listen, Judy, I know this might sound silly, but I think this could be the first Chimera's arm." She gave me an intrigued look, so I quickly explained myself. "You see, when I was holding its attention at first in the courtyard, it bit off one of its limbs. It's possible that while we were busy with Crowey, it grew legs and escaped, and then went into hiding after the main body got liquified."

"Are Chimeras proliferous?"

"I have no frickin idea, but the size roughly matches, and I've seen it grow new heads in the span of minutes. I see no reason why a part of it couldn't grow limbs to scurry away."

"How do you explain the conflicting reports on its size?"

"Maybe it grew?" I responded with an uncertain shrug. "Either that, or it tore of smaller pieces of itself, and then those grew legs. I'll be damned if I knew."

"That's troubling," Judy spoke with a frown. "What are we going to do about it?"

That simple question threw a bucket of cold water on my enthusiasm. Discussing the ways freakish shapeshifting monsters reproduce was somewhat intriguing; discussing ways to 'deal with' said monstrosities was a whole lot less so.

"Honestly, I don't think we can do much about it right now," I gave my answer after ruminating on it for a short while. "It's not something the guys on the Hub can help with, and unless we organize a search party and comb the streets, I doubt we would stumble upon this bugger. I say we just tell the others to be vigilant at night and hope it doesn't have a vengeful streak and try to find me instead."

"If it really is a piece of the old Chimera and not a brand new one," Judy commented a little absent-mindedly and then glanced over at the final pile of papers. "What about the last one."

"That… might be trouble," I spoke solemnly as I picked up the last lead and pointed at the words under one of the polaroids. "It says an 'unknown swordswoman'."

"A knight?"

"It's about time one of them showed up, so that's the most obvious possibility, yes," I answered absent-mindedly while inspecting the photo.

It was a somewhat grainy picture of a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties by the looks of it, standing on a pier. I figured it must've been made on one of the docks around the island, and recently as well. But back to the subject of the pictures, for she had multiple photos done from multiple angles. She had short, black, or at the very least very dark hair in a pixie cut, with a single, bright red streak in it. That already made her a prime candidate of being important, due to the fact that the complexity and uniqueness of one's hairdo seemed to be linearly corresponding to the narrative importance of people around these parts.

She was also wearing a dark blue full pantsuit with her sleeves and the bottoms of her trousers fanning out a bit, and she had a pair of large sunglasses (even though the weather on the pictures was quite cloudy) to complete the 90s 'no-nonsense corporate career woman' look. What went against said look was a certain long object wrapped in a bundle of bright purple cloth and what looked like Buddhist prayer beads, which she was carrying with some leather straps slung over her shoulders.

I spent some more time studying the images, after which I let out an irritated sigh.

"This is fishy as all hell," I stated, then waited to see if Judy would have something to add, but since she only looked at me expectantly, I decided to elaborate. "Let's put the written reports aside for a moment. Look at these photos. Do you see the problem I'm seeing?"

Judy followed my finger and gave them a good long look, then she posited, "They are made with an instant camera."

"Exactly," I nodded with approval. "These aren't screenshots from a security camera feed or long-distance photographs with a telescopic lens. Someone actually had to get up to the face of this woman with a bulky Polaroid camera and had to take several photos of her, yet at the same time all they know about her is that she is an 'unknown swordswoman'. Look." I picked the accompanying papers up again and pointed at various parts in turn. "'Name unknown', 'affiliation unknown', 'didn't make contact with School officials', 'destination unknown'… According to this 'lead', they had no idea who she is, where she's from, and what she's doing on the island, yet they just happened to have a dedicated paparazzi on the docs to take multiple photos of her even though the only strange part about her is the thing on her back, and we don't even know if it's a sword for sure either. This makes no sense."

"… I'd like to say maybe they took pictures of her by coincidence, but I don’t think those exist anymore," Judy answered my musings with her own. "If they didn't know who she is, they would have no reason to take the photos. If they knew ahead of time and prepared for her arrival, then the lead you were given is a lie."

"Which one do you think is more likely?"

My dear assistant fell silent for a moment as she pondered, then after a few seconds she stated, "I think the latter. In fact, I believe it's reasonable to assume that all of the leads are either incomplete or purposefully misleading."

"My thoughts exactly," I agreed with a frown. "We already discussed the Research Society one. This one is also obviously fishy. I wonder if the Chimera sightings lead also has more than meets the eye?"

"At this point, I would bet on it."

I grunted in agreement, after which we both fell silent for a few long minutes as we reorganized our thoughts. Or at the very least that's what I was doing, and I was hoping Judy found the time to do so as well while she continued snuggling. Anyways, I ultimately let out a heavy breath and stated, "We need to be even more vigilant. It's obvious the old man is up to something."

"Maybe you shouldn't have picked a fight with him," my girlfriend replied with a flat voice, then added, "Speaking of which, I don't think I have scolded you enough."

"Not now, Dormouse," I soothed her by grabbing her by the waist again. "We have more important things to do now."

"I think making sure you stop making enemies out of the most powerful people on the island is plenty important."

"About that… Remember how I joked about having poor impulse control? I think there's more to it." My girlfriend once again gave me a look that said 'go on', so I did just that. "I told you I had felt irrationally irritable around Crowey and Sebastian in the past, right? I had the same reaction when meeting with the old man today. Furthermore, I was actually acutely aware of it, but my temper still got the better of me, and to be frank with you, I don't like it."

"So you have reflected on your actions? That's a first."

"Ha-ha. Very funny," I grumbled, followed by a precisely timed roll of my eyes.

"Do you think it was the narrative influence? Can you describe it?" Judy inquired as she finally let go of me and took out her phone to take notes.

"Before that, I have a separate theory." She glanced up at me with a questioning frown urging me on, so I told her, "You see, you guys were talking about some kind of pressure emanating from the old guy, right? The thing I didn't feel at all? What if the two are related?"

"So you posit that, instead of feeling a psychological pressure, you get a hair-trigger from the presence of powerful supernatural entities?"

"I think so," I confirmed with a nod. "The rate at which I was getting angry at the old man corresponded pretty well with the rate the rest of you got pushed back. As for the second point of data, I had a similar reaction whenever I met with Sebastian in the past, but ever since he stopped actively threatening me, I didn't really feel especially irritable around him."

"You are still at each other's throats all the time."

"That is neither here nor there. Just because I don't get supernaturally short-tempered around him doesn't mean he stopped being annoying. Anyways, the point is that the source of my irrational irritation might not be the narrative trying to screw with my head, just my unique way of dealing with magical influence."

"Possible," Judy relented with a conflicted look. "We should ask Sebastian to help test it."

"I guess we should, though I doubt he will be cooperative. But speaking of testing…" I paused for a moment as I considered how I should break it to her, but ultimately I decided to be blunt and just said, "Listen, Judy, I think we should put our research into the mechanics of the world on hold, at least until we make sure everyone is safe."

"I agree."

"Well, I… Wait, did you just agree?"

"Yes," Judy nodded with a determined glint in her eyes. "As much as I hate to admit it, staying alive is more important than research."

"That's a peculiar way to put it..." I mumbled, but she didn't seem to care about my half-hearted objection to her choice of words.

"So, what are we going to do instead?"

"I'm glad you asked," I answered as I tried to stand up and start walking up and down as I usually did during our discussions, but she didn't let me, so I resigned myself to the fate of continued cuddling and said, "First, we have to figure out the 'plot', so to speak. Whether we are dealing with routes or arcs, think we can conclude that with Josh's exposure to the supernatural parts of the setting, the preambles are over."

"I concur," Judy agreed, then fell silent for a moment. "If we presume a route structure, things should start happening around either Angeline, Amelia, or Neige. The Eleanor route is most likely off the table, since you snatched her up."

"It wasn't exactly my original intention to do so, but yes, you are correct. However, if it's an arc-based structure, we might see some completely different developments."

"Such as these plot-hooks?" Judy asked while gesturing at the pages laid out next to us, and I promptly shook my head.

"Nah. Lord Grandpa gave these to me, so they are probably supposed to be side-plots or background events," I mused as I absent-mindedly tidied them up. "We should keep an eye on unusual things happening around Josh, and then once we got a handle on the plot, then we can start coming up with counter-measures."

"Or we could play into it if it is beneficial," Judy proposed, and I gave her an ambivalent grunt in return. I mean, it could happen, but I doubted it.

"For now, let's try and solve the homework Lord Grandpa gave us. While we know these 'leads' are fishy, we have to figure out exactly how fishy they are. The Hub should help with the Research Society and the swordswoman. As for the possible Chimera, should we ask the Dracis for support?"

"Sebastian is always concerned about the family's safety, so I think he will cooperate, so long as you don't pick another fight with him."

"I won't make any promises."

Judy gave me a flat look, but then she wisely decided not to retort, and instead she continued with, "Should we also tell them about the alleged knight?"

"No," I replied immediately. "We don't even know if she is hostile, let alone one of the knights. First we should make contact and determine where she stands. If she is not a knight, siccing Sebastian on them could cause an incident. If she is a knight and she poses a threat to Elly and her family…"

I purposefully didn't finish my sentence. Not for dramatic effect, but because of the realization that I really didn't know what I would do. I mean, I didn't want to fight per se. I had a strong inkling that this was a world where supernatural battles were common, but I had my fill of those during the last weekend. If at all possible, I would've preferred if someone else did something about her. Like, say, Josh. I mean, he was the designated hero, so it was about damn time he did something heroic, and based on my memories of his capabilities as a pseudo-Draconian during the school incident, he should be more than capable to do so.

Speaking of Josh, that reminded me of another issue, so I quickly voiced it by saying, "The Hub had a list of emergency safe houses for Celestial operatives, right?" Judy gave me a tentative nod, apparently so used to my sudden non-sequiturs she didn't even raise a brow at them, so I continued with, "Next time you are up, please look into them and how we can re-appropriate one, preferably a spacious one that we could use as a hidden training ground."

"I already have two in mind," my girlfriend replied with a somewhat conflicted expression. "But wouldn't taking a physical property like that be risky? We might get found out."

"We'll figure that out. Maybe we can fake some reports saying that the Magi found the place and keeps it under surveillance or something. Be creative, and I'll back you up with the authority of Admin."

"I'll try." Judy sounded less than enthusiastic, but she still proceeded to type out a small novella into her notes.

"We should get it ready by the weekend, Sunday at the latest. The sooner we can get Josh to act like a proper, battle-ready, hot-blooded shounen protagonist, the better."

"I think he wouldn't be happy to hear your plans. Also, don't plan anything on Sunday. We are going to have our first proper date then."

"Oh, right," I muttered as I recalled my girlfriends' earlier declaration, then I quickly added, "Let's try to set things up by Saturday so we could relax on Sunday then."

"That's the plan."

"Great. Speaking of plans, here's a rudimentary one: We double-check all the leads on the Hub. Then we'll contact Sebastian about the Chimera. Then we secure a secret hideout where we can train Josh and learn about everyone's abilities in a controlled environment. Finally, we should make contact with the swordswoman to see who she is and what she's after." I paused for a moment, as I suddenly had a distinct feeling I was forgetting something really obvious, and at last I had the proverbial lightbulb light up over my head as I hastily added, "Of course, Snowy's paperwork should come before all that. I really don't want the police or some government agency with an on-the-nose acronym to get involved. As ridiculous as it may sound, at this point I feel more confident about dealing with the supernatural authorities than the mundane ones. To give you an example, I have no idea how I could get Snowy legally out of a jail."

"You can do it illegally?" Judy inquired while glancing up from her phone with an expression that was half intrigued and half exasperated.

"Well, yeah," I answered, slightly unbalanced by the unexpectedly oblivious question. "I mean, I can just teleport in and teleport her out, right? It would make her a fugitive though, and that would put a bit of a damper on our school life adventures."

"Oh, that," she muttered flatly.

"That indeed," I answered with a toothy smile. "Now then, I think my first priority should be finding someone who can forge some new papers for Snowy."

"Do you actually know someone like that?"

"Well, no, I don't…" I answered with a slightly mischievous smirk. "But I happen to know a guy who does."