The Simulacrum

It was just a little after nine in the evening. My room was, unusually enough, lit by the ceiling lamp instead of the customary PC monitor lighting, and while it hurt my eyes a little, it was unfortunately necessary. Why, you might reasonably ask? It was so that Snowy could easily move around while she was taking care of me.

Speaking of which, I let out another soft groan, which made my maid... or little sister… let's go with 'maidster'. Anyhow, it made her twitch in apprehension, but I gestured for her not to mind me, and so after a few seconds she continued to change my bedsheets. In the meantime I pulled the blanket over my shoulders even tighter around me and tried to sit straight on my chair, but my body refused to obey my clear and concise commands, so in the end I had to resign myself to stay hunched over for the time being.

Now, my situation might have required some explanation, and as if on cue, my phone on the computer desk lit up, followed by a jaunty little tune. I was a little startled at first, as I was fairly sure that wasn't my ringtone, but after a few seconds spent rummaging through the messy memory-cabinets of my brain, I remembered that I changed it during my sneaky operation at Labcoat Guy's place and I forgot to change it back. That was one mystery solved.

"Uuu… Aren't you going to pick it up?" Snowy tentatively asked me from beside my bed, and after forcing my addled brain to process the question, I responded with a noncommittal grunt.

"I… guess I should?" I spoke a bit more feebly that I tried to and reached out to the ringing device. After spending an uncomfortably long time fiddling with the screen lock, I read the caller ID, and after taking a deep breath I raised the phone to my ear.

"Hi, Dormouse…"

"Eleanor called me a few minutes ago," my dear assistant cut to the chase without even bothering to greet me. "She said you were sick but refused to stay over."

"It's nothing serious," I responded while trying to put enough strength into my voice to sound in the ballpark of being normal. "I think I just overworked myself a little."

"What did you do?" Judy leveled the question at me with the kind of verbal intensity she only showed through the phone for some reason.

"Oh, you know? Stuff?" My brilliantly descriptive answer obviously didn't sate her curiosity, so after a covert sigh I reluctantly told her, "When I got into Sebastian's toybox, I may have overexerted myself a bit. Apparently mucking around with enchantments is hard on your head-stuffing. Who knew? Well, I didn't until I finished tweaking all his artifacts, and now here we are."

"Was this before or after you called me to tell me about plot devices and otome protagonists?"

"Before that, obviously."

"You didn't make a lot of sense back then."

"Yeah… In retrospect, I was probably a little bit feverish and I just didn't realize it yet. Adrenaline high and stuff."

"So you had a fever. What else?"

"Fatigue, muscle pains, mild nausea, headache, enervation," I rattled off my symptoms in quick succession.

"The first and the last one are the same," Judy told me in her usual monotone, which was made uncanny by the fact that she usually wasn't so flat on the phone. "Do you still have a fever?"

"A little."

"Give me numbers."

"Thirty-nine point six."

"Celsius?"

"No, it's obviously Kelvin. Fevers are well known for almost reaching absolute zero." There was a long stretch of silence filled with a distinct sense of displeasure coming from the other end of the line, so I hastily cleared my throat and added, "Sorry, I'm kinda snappy because I feel sick. What I meant to say was that it was indeed Celsius."

"That's not 'a little' fever," Judy declared, her voice still containing just a smidgen of disapproval. "I'm going over."

At first I could only blink in surprise in the face of my girlfriend's categorical declaration, but once I overcame the initial shock, I hurriedly told her, "Wait, Dormouse! There is no need for you to come over this late."

"You are obviously sick, so I am going."

"For what? I told you I just overexerted myself a little, so it's not something you can help with, and Snowy is already servicing me enough as is. I don't need…" It was only at this point that I realized I let an uncomfortable and equally unnecessary detail slip out of my mouth, so I immediately clamped it shut even if it was too late for that.

"She is 'servicing' you," Judy stated a little incredulously, and since the cat was already out of the bag, I decided to just tell her what's going on, if for nothing else than to get ahead of any future misunderstandings.

"Yeah. She is dressed in her maid outfit and she cleaned my room, changed my bed sheets… she even made me chamomile tea! I'm positively pampered right now!" After saying all that I paused for a moment, realizing that I was getting worked up over something silly again, so I took a deep breath and quietly added, "I'm not going to lie; I think she is actually enjoying the situation more than strictly necessary."

"Is she there with you?"

"Not right now, no," I replied while glancing around. "She went downstairs not long after you called. I think she is making some kind of porridge with milk and cinnamon and… Oh, speak of the Abyssal; I think she is coming back."

Snowy entered my room a few short seconds after I said that, and she was carrying a wooden tray I was pretty sure I've never seen in any of my kitchen cupboards. On it sat a medium-sized plate with a milky white porridge in it, topped by a fine layer of brown powder. It actually smelled surprisingly nice.

"Is there something wrong?" my still fairly new little sister questioned me a tiny bit uncomfortably, and I immediately shook my head.

"Nah, Judy was just curious about what you were doing and—"

It was at this point that my dearest assistant interrupted me by pointedly clearing her throat.

"I gather she is in the room now. Can I talk to her?"

"Err… Sure?" I responded and granted her request by gesturing for Snowy to come over. She placed the tray onto the desk next to me, and after some extra gesticulating she gingerly took the phone from my hand.

"Hello?"

She took a step back before she spoke up, so I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, but based on how serious she looked, they much have been discussing something important. Like me.

Jokes aside, I decided to use this opportunity to squirm around a little on my chair in order to get myself into a more comfortable dining position, and once I accomplished that, I picked up the spoon before Snowy would try to feed me as well. I mean, being pampered was nice and all, but there was a limit to everything.

That said, the odd cinnamon-y porridge she made was actually surprisingly good. It had a smoother consistency than I expected, and it was really sweet. As I absentmindedly ate, I also continued to observe this side of the phone conversation, and while it wasn't exactly riveting, the way Snowy kept seriously nodding to whatever Judy was saying was actually a little amusing in its own way.

Before I knew it, I finished up my late-evening meal, and as per the unwritten rules of convenient timing, the conversation on the phone ended right around the same time. I mean, I really hope it was an 'unwritten rule', since if it wasn't, it meant that Judy's interpretation of the narrative was not only true, but it had way too much time on its hands to spend on silly stuff such as conveniently timing completely trivial events like this.

While I was ruminating about that, Snowy carefully handed my phone back to me and I immediately raised it up to my ear again.

"So?"

"We reached an agreement," Judy stated emphatically, and I was just about to ask her about what they agreed upon when she readily provided the answer by telling me, "I won't go over tonight and I will leave you in Neige's care. Listen to everything she says like it's me telling you."

"… Are you my girlfriend or my mother?"

"Your concerned girlfriend who is getting tired of you getting into trouble the moment she takes her eyes off you," she snapped back, and for once I had nothing in return.

"… Got it."

"Good. Now go and rest up. I'll see you the first thing tomorrow morning."

"Okay then. Good night Dormouse." I waited for her to say her goodbyes as well, but then on a whim I added, "I love you."

For some odd reason there was a several seconds long pause on the line, and I was just about to ask if everything was all right when my dear assistant blurted out, "Chief, could you repeat what you just said?"

"I said I love you," I did as I was told, if maybe a little more awkwardly than the first time, resulting in another unnecessarily long bout of silence.

"Chief, I might need to go over after all. I think you might be delirious."

"Oh, ha-ha!" My reply came packaged with an annoyed roll of the eye, which she naturally couldn't see, so I narrated, "Just so you know, I am rolling my eyes so hard they kinda hurt."

"Then stop it."

"I already did," I responded while rubbing my aching ocular organs. "But anyways, what's wrong with me telling my girlfriend I love her? Is this that toxic masculinity thing I keep hearing about?"

"Political joke, abort at once," Judy warned me, and then she explained, "I honestly didn't expect you to say that. Did something happen at Eleanor's place?"

"A few things. I'll tell you in detail tomorrow."

"Did it involve lewding?"

"… I'm pretty sure we both agreed that's not a word, but even if it was, no, it didn't."

"Good." I could totally picture her resolutely nodding to herself as she said that, an image that easily managed to bring a small smile to my tired face.

"Let's try this again: See you tomorrow, Dormouse. Sleep well."

"Good night, Chief," Judy said her farewells and cut the line, and I involuntarily let out a pent up breath when she did so. Cruel as it might have sounded, I felt really exhausted already, so I didn't want her to come over. No matter how much she would try to take care of me, at the end of the day I would probably not be able to keep myself from playing around with her, which was not beneficial to recovery of any kind.

Speaking of which, I turned to my patiently waiting sister and inquired, "So, what exactly did you two agree upon?"

"Judy told me to make sure you don't go anywhere, that you drink plenty of fluids, and that you rest without any disturbance," she told me without the barest hint of reservation.

"That's… surprisingly normal," I mused while deliberately narrowing my eyes in my best impression of a suspicious detective probing a witness. "Are you sure there wasn't anything more specific than that?"

"Uuu…" After letting out a hesitant noise, followed by a short but intense bout of fidgeting, my dear sister ultimately abandoned even the pretense of resistance and she quietly told me, "She said I shouldn't let you meet with the swordswoman."

"Meet with the swo— Hold on!" I exclaimed in a mixture of realization and alarm. "Dammit, I totally forgot that I was supposed to go out hunting with her tonight!"

"You can't!" Snowy declared in turn in a rare moment of steadfast determination, which I, unfortunately, made a little redundant by immediately agreeing with her.

"Of course I can't! I feel like a particularly worn-out washcloth at the moment. I am in no shape to go out and hunt for tiny shape-shifting monsters."

"That's… that's right! So don't even think about it!" Snowy doubled down with what remained of her previous gusto, though instead of a determined and steadfast, by this point she felt more like an angry puppy. An angry puppy in a maid outfit. Who was also my adopted sister. I think if I could squeeze just one more random fetish in there, I could make the whole concept completely collapse on itself, but I couldn't be arsed to do it at the moment.

Nor could I let it show that I wasn't taking her seriously, so I acted reasonably cowed in front of her and told her, "I'm not thinking about it, I swear! I promise I won't even leave the room."

"That's good," Snowy declared as she proudly puffed up her chest, kind of like a puffin, but even cuter. On an unrelated note, why was I so fixated on animal comparisons today? It must have been the fever.

Unfortunately she quickly deflated when she noticed I already ate all the gruel she brought.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" The question inadvertently escaped my mouth. "I obviously didn't need feeding, so I ate it while it was warm."

"Was it good?" my dear sister tentatively asked while twiddling her thumbs, and I couldn't help but exhale sharply at the silliness of her question.

"Of course it was. I wouldn't have eaten it otherwise."

"Are you sure? I thought you are the type who would eat it even if it was bad and tell me it was good so that you wouldn't hurt my feelings."

"What a silly notion," I scoffed at her completely incorrect and borderline slanderous assumptions, but for some reason she only giggled at me as she nimbly packed my empty plate and utensils, no doubt in preparation of heading out and doing something maid-y, like the dishes.

I decided not to bother her while she worked, so instead I obediently headed over to my bed and sat down on it while making sure that I still had my blanket tightly wrapped around me. I had cranked up the thermostat already, but I still felt cold even then. Fevers suck, amirite?

But putting my body temperature aside, since I had nothing better to do at the moment, I decided to do a Far Sight roll call, just to see if I could catch something important happening. First I leafed through the rest of the posse. Snowy needed no lookover, as she just left the room. Nor did Judy, as we just talked, so I switched my perspective over to Elly, and she was actually studying in her room. How diligent.

Since I was already in the mansion (I wasn't really, but I think you get the point), I decided to glance at Sebastian and the Dracis parents too. The former was having a night sack in the kitchen by the looks of it, so there was nothing to look at, while the latter were… um… they were busy. With the birds and the bees, if you get my meaning. I was no voyeur, so I quickly left and gave them some privacy.

Moving on, I checked Amelia, and to my shock and surprise, she actually wasn't doing paperwork! A real bombshell, I know! As for what she was actually doing, it appeared she was having a discussion with a group of distinctly placeholder-looking older men. I had a hunch they might have been the rumored artificers, if for nothing else than because all of them were wearing those odd jeweler's monocles with multiple lenses strapped to their heads. I think they are called 'loops' or 'loupes' or 'lopez' or something.

No matter what their official name was, the important part is that each one of the balding, bearded men were wearing identical ones either over their eyes or pulled up to their foreheads. I only listened to their conversation in passing, but they were apparently discussing how hard modifying an already placed enchantment was without specialist tools. Yup, that was totally going to bite me in the ass when the class rep's going to inevitably interrogate me about it tomorrow. At least I had advance warning, so now I had a whole night's time to come up with reasonably plausible excuses.

Moving on again, this time I checked on Angie and Josh. To my surprise, the hyperactive Celestial was already in dreamland even though it was barely half-past nine. Maybe that was the secret of her boundless energy? How did the idiom go again? 'Early to bed, early to rise, makes a young girl hyper and nice.' Yeah, that sounds about right.

There was nothing to see there, so it was Josh's turn, and I found him… hunched over his desk and writing a diary? That was unexpected enough to tickle my interest, so I… well, I suppose 'floated over' would be the right term to use, and I took a closer look, and it didn't take me long to realize that what he was writing was nothing as mundane as a common diary.

The visible pages of the standard A4 spiral notebook on his desk, the same kind we used for schoolwork, was almost completely filled with tiny letter interspersed with odd diagrams and arrows pointing every which way. It took me a little while to figure out what all of that was about, but the longer I looked at it, the more it reminded me of those game plans you sometimes see in movies and games about American football (or, as people of culture like to call it, handegg), and then it finally clicked with me: I was looking at battle plans!

Well, okay, maybe not 'plans', but considering some of the circles representing people had our little collection of supernatural misfits' initials in them, I figured Josh was either documenting and analyzing the 'battle' that took place earlier today, or he was making up tactics in advance. Both options were equally surprising, and I had to admit that I didn't think Josh had an interest in this kind of stuff, yet judging by his notes on the sides, he was actually doing an admirably good job at pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses of the people in our group.

Oh, speaking of which, I just noticed that he had notes on me too! It said I was… 'unpredictable'? Well, okay, I can live with that, but what's that under it? 'Shady'!? And 'stingy'? What does that even have to do with combat roles?

If I had a head in my disembodied viewpoint mode, I would have probably shaken it at this point. Anyhow, I decided to leave Josh to whatever he was doing and move on to the bad guys. Well, okay, not all of them were 'bad' or 'guys', but my first target definitely qualified for both, as it was Crowey. He was… catatonic as usual.

I have been wondering about this for a while, but the more time passed, the fewer things seemed to happen around him. I joked about him being catatonic, but in reality he seemed to be in much better shape than he was immediately after our altercation, yet nowadays all he did was eat, sleep, and stare at the ceiling. It got progressively worse to the point where I wondered if whatever underlying system was running this world simply put him on 'low priority' to save resources because he was 'out of sight' at the moment, and I was only half-joking about that.

In short, there was nothing going on with everyone's favorite (sic!) Abyssal, so I promptly moved on to my next target in the form of Labcoat Guy, and to my immediate shock and confusion, I found him not in his hidey-hole, but just in the process of leaving Lord Grandpa's office! My first reaction was to curse out loud for missing such a great opportunity to catch them red-handed, but then I realized something: the old man was actually leading him out! And they were still in front of the door of the study! This was the perfect opportunity to Phase over and rummage through the old man's stuff while he was away! Who knew what kinds of juicy blackmail mater*cough* I mean, vital information I could find there! And it was just a quick jump away, so I… immediately slapped some sense into myself.

"No! Bad brain! No ideas about going outside! Bad!" I whispered under my breath while shaking my head. I just promised Snowy I wouldn't go anywhere, so I obviously wasn't going to teleport away and make her sad. … But then again, this was a rare opportunity with just a small window to exploit it, so maybe… "No! Very bad brain! Stop thinking bad things!"

"Is there a problem?"

I shuddered in surprise and hastily looked around, only to realize Snowy was already back in the room.

"Um… nothing?" I told her a little weakly, hoping that she didn't hear me muttering to myself, but if her awkward expression was any indication, she sure as hell did. But then again, Snowy was often awkward even if there was no weirdo whispering stupid things in the room, so I decided to try to sweep things under the carpet by rapidly switching the topic. For example, to the tray in her hands, so I pointed right at it. "What's that?"

"Ah, this?" My little sister angled the tray in question so I could see it better and told me, "I didn't want to throw this out, so I wanted to ask you if you wanted seconds."

"Well, I am mostly full, but I guess I have space for one more plate."

My reply pleased her more than it had any right to do and she immediately pattered over to my side with an unusual spring in her steps. I found that the situation called for it, so I flashed her my Brotherly Smile™ v0.8, which she also seemed to appreciate, so I figured I could soon take it out of open beta.

While I considered that, she put the second helping onto my lap, tray and all, and then took a step back while continuing to stand ramrod straight and attentive to my every move. It was the most maid-like behavior I have ever seen, and considering that I was actually on first-name basis with an actual, flesh-and-blood chamber-maid, that said something.

"Is it just me, or are you actually enjoying yourself?" I leveled the question that was on the tip of my tongue for a good while at her, and unexpectedly enough she immediately nodded in confirmation.

"My brother never got sick, so I never had the opportunity to take care of someone. I always wanted to try it once. … Am I doing it right?"

"You are doing great," I reassured her with Brotherly Smile™ v.0.8.1 (the difference was in the angle of my head), and she let out a breath of relief.

"That's good. I think I have done everything on the list."

"You have a list?" I was prompted to ask, and she nodded with her usual innocent sincerity.

"Yes. I made chamomile tea, I changed the sheets, I made porridge, I moisturized the air…" She counted each one on her fingers until she came to a stop, paused, and then quietly added, "I hope I didn't forget anything."

"I don't think there is much else you could do," I told her just to keep the conversation going, but then her words actually reminded me of something and I clicked my tongue in frustration. "I, on the other hand, have forgotten something. Give me a minute."

My request slightly startled Snowy, but she dutifully took her 'attentive maid' posture again and waited for me to finish my business. Speaking of which, I quickly Far Glanced over to Labcoat Guy and, regrettably, he was already on his way back to his super-secret mad scientist lair. Peculiarly enough, instead of some kind of oddball transportation method befitting his aesthetics, he was riding a simple family sedan driven by the trigger-happy android (who was actually dressed much more sensibly this time around).

I waited for a little while, just to see if they would drop something relevant to my interests, but since they staunchly refused to discuss anything more riveting than what they would have for dinner. It wasn't particularly riveting to watch, so I was just about to return to my room when I belatedly realized that there was one more elephant in the room I consistently ignored ever since Snowy brought it to my attention.

Oh well, there was no sense in delaying the inevitable, so I decided to just bite the bullet and look into Rinne's whereabouts. In fact, it felt like she was fairly close by, so I quickly found her and… wait. Is that my…?

"Snowy! Open the window, now!"

Okay, I know this is an unexpectedly tense moment and all, but if I may go on a tangent, I wanted to mention one of the many reasons why I (platonically) loved my new little sister. Most people, when they were suddenly yelled at in a situation like this, would have frozen up. Maybe they would quickly glance around, and say something like 'What?', or 'Why?', or even just Okay?', wasting precious seconds in the process.

Not Snowy. The moment I exclaimed, she immediately leaped over to the window and threw it open without a moment of hesitation. It felt so nice to be in the company of someone who followed instructions even under pressure.

That tangent aside, let's get back to the present situation. The window was open, and the cold air coming inside immediately sent a chill down my sweaty back, but at first nothing happened. This time the rules of convenient timing must have been out of lock-step, as the two of us had to stare at the window for several long, awkward seconds before anything happened.

But then, in the span of a blink of an eye, there was a sudden gust of wind, followed by a dark figure soaring through the open window before landing on my floor, rolling forward and then coming to a standing halt about five centimeters away from the opposing wall.

Needless to say, the shady figure was no other than everyone's least favorite monster huntress, who then proceeded to spend several seconds staring at the wall right in front of her nose, as if in a trance.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" I burst out at last, making the other people in the room jolt in surprise.

Rinne turned on her heel on the spot and looked at me with a neutral, almost disinterested expression.

"I have found you, Leonard of the clan Dunning," she stated as she took a step forward, and I only just noticed that she had her weapon drawn. In an uncharacteristic display of common sense, she followed the way my eyes were pointing, and after she let out a noncommittal grunt she immediately re-wrapped her weapon, after which she forcefully cleared her throat and told me, "Good evening," with a straight face.

"Don't you 'good evening' me!" I exclaimed again while wildly gesturing towards the still open window. "What the hell were you doing flying through the air towards my room?!"

"I used a combination of shunpo and kage no—"

"I didn't ask 'how' you did it! I asked you why!"

"Oh." My unwanted guest let out a disappointed noised before she answered, "Since you didn't come to participate in the hunt, I resolved myself to seek you out myself. Upon my arrival, I found your house's entrance warded by some form of omyodo, so I concluded that if I wished to employ your assistance in the efficacious slaughtering of the creatures of the underworld, I must enter into your lodge by other means." At this time she glanced down at her sword, nodded to herself, and only then did she turn back to me. "Onikiri wishes to know why you have sealed off the main entrance of your lodge."

"Because someone broke down my door and destroyed my furniture a few days ago," I snapped back at her, but she once again proved her complete lack of self-awareness by giving me a shallow nod in return.

"So it was to prevent the spawn of the underworld infiltrating your territory again. I understand. Very sensible of you. Even Onikiri agrees, and she says even a dead timekeeper tells the correct time twice." She paused, again, and after silently wrinkling her brows for a while she added, "I do not understand how a dead person who keeps the time can say anything, but Onikiri is wise, so she must be correct."

I opened my mouth to respond, but I simply couldn't find the words to adequately describe the way I felt about her answer, so instead I just closed it again and proceeded to rub my temple in exasperation. In the meantime Rinne looked around the room and finally noticed Snowy.

"Who is that?" she asked me with the bluntness of an ACME anvil dropped on a roadrunner by a coyote.

"She is my sister. Her name is Snowy," I told her more or less on autopilot, and my flying home invader immediately stepped up to her and looked her over from head to toe.

"Uuu… Hello?" my sister awkwardly greeted her, but the creepy huntress completely ignored her in favor of continuing being creepy. At last, after a couple of tense seconds, she turned back to me.

"She has a funny name," she stated with an odd smile that was neither genuine nor one of her slasher grins. "Onikiri says she also likes her clothes. We might like her."

"That's odd, but I am still happy to hear it."

"Are we also taking her with us into the blackest night to quench our thirst for the hunt by the blood-drenched cadavers of our prey?"

"No."

My categorical denial apparently took her aback for a moment, but then she quickly shrugged it off and stated, "In that case, let us embark on the warpath on our own!"

"No," I repeated again, in the exact same manner.

That stopped her on her tracks for a bit longer than just a moment, but she bounced back all the same with a disappointed, almost whiny "Whyyy? Do you not want to shed the crimson essence of the monsters that lurk in the deep dark corners of the city with me anymore? Was Onikiri right about you? Are you really a male version of a small female dog?"

"Would you please stay silent for a moment?" I asked her, though considering I was already running a deficit on my available fucks to give, my voice was considerably more commanding than I originally intended. "I can't go with you because I am sick. I cannot hunt for tiny chimeras like this."

"Sick, you say?" Rinne's expression suddenly changed into a curious one and she extended a gloved hand towards my face, stopping about a finger's width away from my forehead.

"… What are you doing?"

"I'm affirming your justification by examining whether you have a feverous condition," she replied while lightly waving her hand in front of my face again.

"… So?"

"I can't say I feel anything."

"Maybe… you should take the gloves off?" Snowy weakly interjected from the sidelines, and Rinne grunted in approval.

"The little sister is right. I am became error." Saying so, she flung her sword over her shoulder and began to take off her glove, but then she abruptly paused halfway, glanced between the two of us and added, "Onikiri suspects that you two might be working in nefarious tandem for the sake of tricking me into touching your disgusting manflesh with my tender fingers to satisfy your depraved hand fetishism." There was a long, incongruous beat of silence in the room, during which she cocked her head to the side in a display that might have even been cute if it was anyone else, after which she asked, "Are you?"

"Obviously not." My barely restrained indignation might have bled through my words a little, as she took them at face value without any further malarkey and she gingerly touched my forehead with her fingertips.

"It appears you indeed possess a feverous constitution," she commented on my state while she quickly put her glove back on. "It must be a sickness of the most vile variety to cause harm to one such as you."

"I don't know about that," I stated after a dog-tired sigh. "I'm pretty sure I just accidentally overworked myself."

"What an unbecomingly silly notion," the annoying huntress honest to goddess scoffed at me. "The obviousness of the fact that you have unknowingly fallen victim to the malicious machinations of the vile denizens of the underworld is downright blinding."

"Is it?"

"Certainly," she responded in the company of a huge nod before, for some reason, she turned to Snowy and told her, "Pay attention, little sister! Your older brother was most likely poisoned by the abhorrent dwellers of the underworld. It must be part of yet another wicked plan to stop us from clearing their filthy existence out of this land by righteous slaughter. Were they to attack now, it will fall upon your shoulders to protect your kin! Are you prepared?"

"Uuu…" Snowy was completely overwhelmed by Rinne's fervor and she was sending me pleading glances for help, so I gestured for her to just agree with whatever she says. "Y-yes?"

"Good." After affirming her answer, my unwelcome guest faced me again and told me, "They must be waiting for you weaken even further and then slay you when you are most vulnerable. But fret not! I shall find them and strike them down as they approach, pain the city streets in the red of roses with their blood! Rest in peace knowing that even if the venom of their hidden blades may cut the thread of your life short, Onikiri and I will give them a death to remember in kind."

"How are they supposed to remember something if you…?" I wanted to ask her, but before I could finish, Rinne took a running start and dived right out through the window without saying anything else, leaving behind the two of us and a decidedly confounded silence.

At long last it was Snowy who broke the ice by awkwardly pointing at the still open window and asking, "Was… that really the monster hunter?" I confirmed the obvious with a nod. "She is rather… odd."

"That is by far the most diplomatic way you could have described how balls to the wall cuckoo for cocoa puffs she is."

"If you say so…" my sister muttered under her breath, but then she looked me in the eye before asking her next question, "What do we do now?"

"Well, there are a couple of things to consider," I mused as I glanced at my barely lukewarm food, but at the end of the day I simply stated, "I think we can both agree the most important thing at the moment would be to ward the windows..."

"It's about time," I thought aloud as I interlinked my fingers and stretched my arms over my head. I have no idea why that felt so satisfying, but it did, so I did it a second time, just for good measure. Once the blood rush died down a little, I shook my hands and quickly closed my useless browser tabs of the Celestial Hub.

I was actually still a little miffed about that. I've spent several long hours browsing the hub and interviewing the regulars, and after all that, I had to close my inquiries on whether or not Celestials had anything to do with the Abrahamic religions with a resounding 'Who knows?', which was just plain damn irritating. But enough about that, I was about to have visitors, so I had to prepare.

Thinking so, I jumped to my feet… or rather, since I was still sore all over, I carefully rose to my feet, slipped into my slippers, and I put my PC into standby mode, after which I had a quick shower. The water felt a little lukewarm even though it was the same temperature as usual, so I figured I probably still had a fever. I already took some medicine in the morning, so there wasn't much else I could do about it, hence after I finished washing up I quickly got dressed, walked down to the ground floor, filled the water heater, prepared a couple of mugs and a box of teabags, and then I waited.

Fortunately I didn't have to do so for long, and I didn't even need to use my Far Sight to figure out that the gang arrived, as they made enough noise to wake the dead. I consequently turned the heater off, walked over to the front door, and casually opened it just as my dear assistant was about to insert her key into the lock.

The unexpected, slightly uncomfortable silence that followed hung in the air for only a few seconds, as Judy slowly let her hand down and spoke up in a flat and yet at the same time distinctly disapproving voice.

"Why aren't you in bed?"

"Hi, Dormouse, I'm happy to see you too," I responded with a toothy grin and gestured for the group to come inside.

My non-draconic girlfriend might have huffed and puffed, but at the end of the day she still obediently crossed the doorsill, if only so that the others could follow without having to push her out of the way. My friends all looked quite cold, so I didn't blame them for trying to get inside in a hurry; it was late autumn already after all and the weather was especially chilly on this day. There was also another reason why they were all flushed, but I wasn't supposed to know about it at this time, so I didn't mention it yet and I simply directed them towards my living room.

In order of arrival, we had Josh, who was in strangely high spirits, then Elly, who immediately sidled up to me with the excuse to check my temperature (even though Judy was already doing the same, but I digress), then the ever-tired class rep followed by Snowy and an unusually downcast Angie.

"Hi, Leo…"

My impression was further solidified when the Celestial girl only gave me a shallow greeting, followed by a depressed sigh. Not only that, but Snowy seemed to be in the process of consoling her. Considering she was completely fine when I last spied *cough* I mean, observed her, her behavior was pretty suspicious, so while the others were putting their coats onto the racks, I waved towards her and casually asked her, "Why's the long face?"

"Nothing…" she replied in the same dour voice as she crammed her beany into the sleeve of her coat. I waited for a bit, just in case she would add something else, but instead she just exhaled another sigh and headed into the living room after the rest of the girls without saying another word.

Now that was slightly disconcerting, so after a moment of consideration I subtly gestured for Josh to come over to my side. By then my girlfriends have already left my side in order to prepare drinks for everyone, so I picked a slightly more secluded spot (which wasn't an easy task considering my home wasn't that spacious), which was pretty much just the corner by the coat rack.

"Is there a problem?" came the question from Josh before I could get a word in, and while I wanted to just shake my head, in the end it ended up as a noncommittal shrug instead.

"That's what I wanted to ask. Angie seems unusually down," I breached the question right away, and to my sincere surprise, my friend's face instantly twisted as if he just bit into a lemon.

"Oh, you mean that," he spoke in an abnormally flat voice as he simultaneously slouched his shoulders. "Where do I even begin?"

"At the beginning?" I proposed, and he did just that.

"Okay, here goes. So, you were sick and didn't come to school. When Elly told us it was for real and you had a fever, Angie had the idea to buy you some get-well cakes on the way home."

"'Get-well cakes'?" I repeated after him as I raised a skeptical brow for further emphasis, but he didn't seem to notice, as he simply nodded.

"I think she just recently learned that there was a new kind of Jaffa cake available in our favorite sweets shop, and she just wanted an excuse to try them. Anyways, we took a detour there on our way here, and she bought a whole box of them, but then right after that we were ambushed by Doctor Robatto."

"I figure nothing serious happened," I said out of courtesy, though I was already well aware of the recent even that could be generously called a 'battle'.

"Nah, nothing. There were a bit more of the yellow Sprockets, but we mopped the floor with them." Oddly enough Josh sounded almost proud for a moment, but then he quickly caught himself and continued in a more neutral tone. "The point I was getting at is that in the commotion, Angie lost the cakes. We would have been here a good ten minutes ago if we didn't have to look for them, but they were completely gone."

"Maybe Labcoat Guy took them?"

"Who knows?" Joshua granted it to me with a shrug. "Angie was pretty mad about it at first, but by the time we got here she calmed down a bit."

"She still seems pretty downcast to me."

"Don't worry, she is going to bounce back in no time," my friend reassured me, and just as if to prove his point, Angie suddenly poked her head through the doorway leading inside, and the moment our eyes met her lips immediately curved into a giant grin.

"Hey, Leo? Neige let me look through the kitchen, and I found three full boxes of cat's tongue biscuits! Can I have some? Pretty please?"

At first I gave the suddenly energetic celestial girl a blank look, but eventually I told her, "Sure. You already know where you can find the milk and the instant cocoa, right?"

"Of course! Thanks!"

After beaming at me one more time she immediately left the premises, with my friend giving me a somewhat smug 'See, I told you,' look. I graciously ignored him and was just about to tell him to follow after me into the living room when Angie's place was suddenly filled by the princess peeking over to us in the exact same manner.

"What are you two doing over there?"

"Oh, nothing. Just discussing our diabolical plans for world domination as usual, right, Josh?"

He only looked at me funny, so I gently elbowed my friend in the side, at which point he spoke in a staggered, mechanical voice. "Yes, plans. About what he said. Domination and stuff. Very diabolical."

Josh's acting was so stilted it would give wader birds a run for their money, but my girlfriend didn’t seem to mind, as instead she walked over to me, grabbed my hand and proceeded to more or less drag me along while telling me, "Stop joking around and come inside. It's cold here in the entryway and you are still sick."

"Maybe, but it's not because of the cold…" I protested ever so feebly, but my words fell on deaf ears as she pulled me into the living room and practically forced me to sit on my slightly battered comfy chair.

"There!" she declared with a satisfied huff, following which she turned towards the kitchen and called out, "Is the tea ready yet?"

"Just a moment!" came the instant answer from Snowy, and a few short seconds later she emerged from the kitchen with a tray carrying a single steaming mug. Even more inexplicably, she somehow managed to find the opportunity to put on her maid outfit between the time she arrived and the time I came back to the living room. Her dedication to her hobby was admirable yet baffling all the same. "One mug of herbal tea, as requested."

Saying so, she placed the suspiciously dark cup of liquid in front of me, but before I could voice my qualms about it, I noticed Judy tottering down the stairs with a staggeringly large pile of spare pillows and blankets. I was just about to get up to help her, but the princess beat me to the punch and she took about half of them before they both came back down and began to wordlessly cushion me into my sofa.

"Is this really necessary?" I asked maybe a little less intensely than the situation demanded, for Judy immediately rebuked me by placing a blanket on my lap.

"You are sick, and since you are horrible at taking care of yourself, we have to do it."

"Yes, but… I mean, no, I am perfectly capable of… Princess! I do not need another pillow behind my back!"

"Better to be safe than sorry!" she told me with an irreverent smirk before attempting to wedge another pillow under me.

"Speaking of sickness," the class rep intruded into our domestic horseplay, accompanied by her customary adjustment of her glasses. "I don't believe we have been told what happened to you yet."

"There's not much to explain, really," I attempted to deflect the question, but it was unable to redirect her attention, so at the end of the day I told her, "Oh, fine! So, you remember how I tweaked the Magiformers yesterday so that you guys wouldn't look absolutely ridiculous while using them?"

"You actually use the name we came up with! Yay!" a certain Celestial interjected at the most inappropriate of times, only to turn to the guy on her side and exclaim, "High-five!"

Josh immediately raised his right hand, as if by muscle reflex, and their palms met mid-way with a satisfyingly sharp sound. Putting the childhood friends doing their childhood friend things aside, I shook my head and turned back to the increasingly impatient Amelia.

"So, as I was saying, I revised the enchantments a little," I could see that Ammy was just about to cut in to ask about that, so I quickly raised my voice and continued with, "NOW, as you might imagine, modifying an already placed enchantment without any specialized tools is pretty damn hard, but in my excitement I did it anyway, and I might have overexerted myself a little. You can see the results with your own eyes."

The class rep opened her mouth to respond, but after some hesitation she closed it without uttering a word while looking both conflicted and maybe just a tiny bit suspicious. I would have liked to chalk this up as a victory for myself, but whatever satisfaction I could derive from the verbal sparring was immediately disrupted by Elly shoving the mug of strange-smelling concoction under my nose.

"If you are overworked, then it's all the more reason you should drink this! It's the ultimate herbal remedy my great-grandfather learned from an Indian yogi. It should be great both for colds, joint pains, sore throats, and receding hairlines!"

"That last one has nothing to do with the rest, and even then…" I began, but I was interrupted by Judy coming back to pile yet another blanket on me. "Oh come on, Dormouse! At this point it's starting to look like I'm sitting inside a fortress of cushions!"

My reprimands fell on deaf ears, as my girlfriend proceeded to tuck me in anyway, an experience that would have been embarrassing as is, but then it was made a hundred times worse by the fact that I had an audience watching… though, to be fair, they were having fairly odd reactions to my plight.

Ammy was mostly disinterested, though I could swear I saw some schadenfreude in her eyes. Angie, on the other hand, was grinning like a well-fed cat with a bunch elongated of biscuits in one hand and an open jar of peanut butter in the other, and she was giving me a revoltingly warm gaze, as if my situation was 'cozy' or 'heartwarming' or, heaven forbid, 'wholesome'. Ugh.

Well, at least Josh was on my side… or so I thought, but it didn't take long for me to realize that there was more to his sympathetic expression than met the eye.

"Do you want to say something, Joshua?"

My ever-so tactful prompt was quickly answered by my friend awkwardly scratching his chin and telling me, "Well, you know… I was just thinking that you are living the life, being pampered by three girls and all."

In return for his forthcoming answer I awarded him the flattest look three-dimensional space could possibly represent before exhaling a shallow groan and turning to my sister instead.

"Did you hear that, Snowy? Josh is disappointed because I'm the only one who is being 'pampered'? Why don't you go over and 'pamper' him a bit."

"I didn't say that," Josh called out in alarm.

"Now, now, don't be modest. Not to mention, it's a maid's duty to entertain guests, isn't it?"

"I… I think you are right?" my sister responded after a long moment of hesitation and she turned to Josh, her cheeks maybe a tad rosier than usual.

"Wait, Lili! You don't actually have to take everything that Leo says seriously!" Josh tried to avoid the coming embarrassing shenanigans, but it was too late! I have already used the magic word, so it was inevitable that our resident maid-enthusiast would heed the call without fail…!

Or, at the very least she would have, if not for a certain class representative clearing her throat in the most pointed of fashions.

"I’m glad to see you are all full of energy, but can we actually address the reason why we all gathered here in the first place?"

"Didn't we come here to visit Leo and wish him a swift recovery," Angie cut in, her reasonable words only slightly undermined by the fact that she somehow managed to get peanut butter onto the tip of her nose.

"Well… Certainly, I admit that was the original plan," Ammy acknowledged in an unusually flustered display before our eyes met again and, after adjusting her glasses, she swiftly declared, "However, as you can see it, he seems perfectly okay, doesn't he?"

"I guess?" Angie muttered under her breath while she absent-mindedly dunked another biscuit into the jar in her hand. "But then why are Judy and Elly piling so many blankets on him?"

"That is a really good question!" I burst out, only to be summarily ignored when Ammy shook his head and pointed at me.

"Doesn't really matter either way. What does is the fact that we were attacked once again!"

"I've heard," I responded just a smidgen begrudgingly as I tried to ignore Elly's insistent attempts to make me drink her family's suspicious 'traditional herbal tea mix'. "So?"

"So?!" she repeated after me with a pretty hefty amount of indignation.

"Yes, that's what I just said," I responded very diplomatically. "I said so because I have no control over whether or not Labcoat Guy will harass you."

"I never implied you had," Ammy told me after toning her voice back a little. "I brought it up because it's a threat we have to deal with!"

"Do we?" I asked a little coyly before clarifying, "Shouldn't you ask your grandfather about to deal with him? After all, it is his 'territory'."

I must have hit the nail on the head, as she visibly reeled back, if only for a moment, before ultimately admitting, "I… tried to ask grandfather about it."

"You did?"

That was mildly surprising. Now, I admittedly didn't have the capability to keep tabs of everyone 24/7, but I was pretty sure I never saw her in the vicinity of the old man yesterday. In the meantime the class rep nodded and began to tell me what happened in a dour voice.

"I called him over to discuss the threat these attacks posed to us and the people of the city. I… I didn't tell him about your claims. I thought I should first confirm his reaction before accusing him."

"And? What happened?" came the prompt from an inexplicably attentive Joshua of all people, and Ammy immediately let out a defeated sigh in response.

"He was evasive and claimed that the School couldn't afford to divert resources on a wild goose chase right after the incident with the Abyssals."

"Even though you were also in 'danger'?" I inquired, earning me a dispirited nod.

"He didn't seem to care about my safety either," the class rep muttered under her breath, to which I immediately answered:

"Or rather, he knows that there is no danger, so he is not worried about you at all."

"Maybe," she granted me a little begrudgingly.

"Oh? Does that mean you actually believe me?" I asked her with a barely restrained grin, and she gave me a weak nod in return.

"Maybe," she repeated, this time a little more firmly than the last time.

There was a short spell of silence in the room, which I used to organize my thoughts. As a matter of fact, the old man's behavior felt fairly odd to me. He flagrantly ignored the 'threat' the Research Society posed, at least to the ones unaware of the fact they were working together, even in front of his own granddaughter. If it was me, I would have at least attempted to try and make a show of combating their flamboyant menace, even if just on the surface, but instead he just dismissed it.

No matter how I tried, I couldn't make heads or tails of the old man's motivations. Maybe it was some sort of test? Like, was he actually dropping clues for us to figure out it was him behind it all, waiting for us to kick down his door only to reveal it was just an elaborate ruse to see if we were worthy of joining the School? Or alternatively, was it Judy's version of the narrative making him act stupid just to create clues that point at him as the current antagonist so that they could be claimed as foreshadowing once we reach some kind of climactic reveal? It was a topic Judy and I could probably discuss for hours, but at the moment we had more important things at hand.

"All right then, let's discuss Labcoat Guy after all," I declared, earning me a few curious looks from the gang. "What? You said you wanted to talk about his attacks, so here we go." After I said that, I got my hands out of under the blankets and linked my fingers in my trademarked 'diabolical mastermind' pose before I continued by explaining them, "So, as far as I can see, we have three options. First, we could try and avoid further confrontations."

"Can we do that?" came the doubtful question from Josh, so I gave him a solid nod to reassure him.

"Certainly. I have my eyes on the guy, in more ways than one, so while it would be a little tricky, I could probably give you advance notice on whenever he would try to ambush you. Since he is contractually obligated to use the Purple Zone to attack you, and considering that those have a limit to their sizes, you can simply avoid them on your way home and leave him fiddling his thumbs inside."

"That sounds reasonable," Josh mumbled on the side, but I ignored him for the time being.

"The second option is that we nip the problem at its root by storming Labcoat Guy's hideout and putting an end to his mustache-twirling antics once and for all."

"Can we actually do that?" Judy asked me, just as she finally gave up on trying to pile another blanket on me (at this point I was pretty sure she was only doing it for the attention), and I nodded in the affirmative.

"Sure. I have the location, we have both our group and Brang's Faun, and I'm fairly sure we could rush their base and blitzkrieg them before they could put up too much of a resistance."

"It still sounds dangerous," my assistant commented, and I could only shrug in response.

"Well, it would be more or less a paramilitary operation, so of course things could get dicey. That said, we also have one more option left."

"Which is?" Elly urged me to go on, and so I explained:

"The third option is that we do nothing." Most of the gang was obviously confused by my statement, so I hastily clarified, "By that I mean we would simply allow the ambushes to continue, with maybe one or two emergency plans in place. As you have probably noticed, Labcoat Guy and his cronies do not actually pose a serious threat, however they serve as great punching bags. We might actually run into real threats in the future, so I think it would be beneficial for you to gain some combat experience this way and learn how to support each other and work together as a group."

"I agree." All of the heads turned towards the unexpected source of agreement, and Joshua visibly flinched from all the sudden attention. He managed to quickly collect himself, and after forcefully clearing his throat he explained to us, "I mean, I do think that Leo is right. If we are ever going to run into a situation like when I was almost kidnapped, we need to learn how to efficiently work together, and these attacks are providing a great opportunity to do that."

"There is one more option you are ignoring," Judy abruptly cut in just as I was about to respond to Josh. "We could also directly confront Lord Endymonion about his involvement."

"True," I tacitly agreed, "Unfortunately, I don't think we have enough presentable evidence yet to put him in a corner."

"So, you think we should allow Doctor Robatto to continue his operations in order to gather more evidence," my assistant stated as if she was reading my mind.

"More or less."

"Also, it's not like we cannot do the whole 'storm the enemy's secret hideout' thing later, right?" Angie commented between two bites, earning her a nod from me.

"Sure. If playing around with the silly robots gets out of hand, the other options still remain perfectly viable."

"I'm in favor," came the next baffling vote of agreement, this time from Amelia of all people. "If grandfather is truly responsible for Robatto's actions, he must have a good reason. I want to learn why he is doing this."

"Let's hope you will have the opportunity," I responded before looking at everyone in turn and requesting, "All right, let's put this to vote. All who are in favor of exploiting our attackers, raise your hands."

I raised mine, followed by Josh and the class rep. Judy and Snowy followed suit, the latter probably because she was just deferring to my decision.

"I don't mind either way, but I am kind of curious about what a 'biomechanical gigant' is, so count me in!" the resident Celestial declared as she raised a hand over her head.

"What is a 'biomechanical gigant' anyway?" Elly mused as she belatedly raised her hand.

"I don't know, but Robatto said he was going to 'strike fear into our feeble hearts' with them, and their name sounds kind of cool, right, Josh?"

"I suppose," my friend tentatively agreed, yet it was still enough to make Angie giggle in mirth.

"All right then," I punctuated the discussion by raising my voice. "I suppose we are finished with this topic. What now?" There was no answer coming forth to my question, so I said, "You guys said you originally wanted to come over to see how I was doing. Did you really have no plans beyond that?"

"We had snacks, but they disappeared," Angie told me in the company of a sad sigh, only to immediately bounce back and declare, "But Leo is right! Since we are all gathered here, it's the perfect time for some group activity! All we have been doing for the past couple of days were sparring matches and serious discussions upon discussions! I'm sick of it!"

"Okay then, group activity it is," I responded with a smile, only to pause and ask, "What do you have in mind?"

"Well, I… um… do you have any board games?"

"I can't say I do," I told her, though considering how many unexpected things I have found in the house already, it wasn't entirely out of the question.

"How about card games?" Elly proposed, earning her a curious raised brow from yours truly.

"Such as?"

"Dad plays Poker a lot, and he occasionally let me join in. It's a fun game," the princess insisted, but I could only shake my head.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think we have cards either."

"No problem! I will call Melinda and ask her to bring our spare set over. It has a mat and tokens and everything."

"That sounds really nice, but… Do any of us know how to play Poker?" I raised my next objection, only for Elly to flash me a grin in return.

"Don't worry, I will teach you!"

"… Oh well then. Any objections?" Everyone seemed to be fine with the idea, so the princess immediately fished out her phone from her bag and made the call.

In the meantime I had to admit that maybe playing around like this every once in a while wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe after all the recent stressful events, a few friendly rounds of cards were all we needed to unwind. Yes, a friendly card game where everyone had the same chance of winning. Yeees.

"No cheating," Judy abruptly warned me, her eyes already set in a suspicious squint, and I have to say, I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Not one bit.