The Simulacrum

Sword fighting in media always has a kind of primal charm to it. Arcing swings meeting in the air, sparks flying, and combatants gracefully stepping out of the way of incoming harm. The back and forth is easy to follow and has a rhythm to it. In many ways, such fights are little more than a dance. A choreographed, rehearsed, and meticulously performed one that just happens to involve weapons. Real swordfights were rarely so glamorous. Case in point...

"Take this!"

The Knight girl yelled out and lunged at me with a low thrust aimed at my thigh. I moved my sword to intercept it, and she instantly changed the trajectory of her attack into an upwards slash with my upper arm as its target. It was impossible to readjust my parry angle at this point, so I didn't even bother, and instead I stepped in while twisting my upper body just enough so that her blade harmlessly glanced off my spaulders. This put her into the perfect position to swing down onto my head once she reaffirmed her footing, so I didn't let her do that and used my momentum to hit her with the same shoulder, pushing her back and nearly off her feet.

This was how all our exchanges went. She was always on the offensive, while I turtled up and exploited her openings to keep her unbalanced. She was faster than me, but she had comparatively little weight behind her attacks, while I could use a combination of my size, reach, and those ever-useful precognitive reflexes to neutralize her assaults. The result was the equivalent of watching someone trying to break down a brick wall with their forehead.

If I had to say why this was the case, I had to admit that it had little to do with skill levels and magical enhancements, but rather a fundamental difference in our approach to armed combat.

There was a reason why I complained about movie fight scenes just now: Miss Unicorn was fighting like we were in one. Every swing, every thrust, every single flourish was telegraphed like she was afraid that I wasn't paying attention during the rehearsals and I was about to miss my cue. All of her attacks were wide and easy to predict. Now, I admit that this might very well be a 'me' problem, as I had both my sixth sense, I'd excessively observed and memorized her habits in combat, plus there was a theoretical possibility of some muscle reflexes resurfacing from the sea of my lost memories. With all of those things stacked in my favor, it would've been embarrassing if I couldn't at least keep up with her.

On the flip side, while she was fairly predictable, she was also really freaking fast, and she was getting faster with each exchange. I didn't know when she would reach her peak, but for the moment I could still keep the pace, even if I had to run my armor's enchantments just under the red line. I hoped things would stay like this a while longer, but I knew better than to bet on that, so I already primed one of my hidden cards using my Phantom Limbs.

Oh, a moment. She's doing a thing. After our last exchange, Miss Unicorn somehow backflipped about five meters from a standing position, and upon landing, she crouched down and planted one hand onto the ground. Her boots flared up with colorless light, gradually growing in intensity as she maintained the posture, and then she dashed forth like an arrow freshly loosened from the bow. Or maybe not, as last time I checked, arrows didn't travel in a zigzag pattern. What was the point of that? Was she trying to confuse me? Was I a crocodile? Or were those effective on alligators? Either way, I waited for her to get closer, and the moment she was about to take another turn, I dashed right at her. Magic or not, momentum was a thing, and so she had to dissipate some of it before she could go from a 'zig' to a 'zag'. That was my window of opportunity, and I certainly wasn't too shy to exploit it.

She realized what I was doing just a moment too late and raised her sword to defend herself. Since my goal wasn't to skewer her, I aimed at the weapon and used all my mana-enhanced strength to swat it out of the way. Ignoring the blinding sparks of magical discharge exploding from the point of contact, I swept her guard away, and once I was right next to her, I stomped my foot hard and used my upper body to sharply shove her.

It was my own bootleg version of a martial arts move the princess used the last time we sparred. I think she called it 'body checking'. As for how effective it was, let's just say that my opponent was sent flying. Literally. Parabolic arc and all. Maybe I should've expected this much considering the size difference and the mana-enhancements, but it's hard to prepare for the sight of ragdolling someone. Miss Unicorn wasn't much worse for wear though, and she landed on her feet, drawing two parallel grooves into the muddy ground in the process.

She probably needed a few seconds to recover from that, so… where was I before her stunt? Oh, right. Phantom Limbs. Speaking of which, I used the downtime to quickly check the internals of my armor. Everything was in working order, but that didn't mean there was nothing to be improved, so I quickly tweaked a few output values and lowered the function boosting my reaction time a little, as it caused me to overreact whenever I was warned by my dodging sense, and it threw off my timing. The whole process was a little more involved than just tweaking a few knobs and sliders, but I've been doing it so much in the past two days that it became second nature, and once I was done, I quickly faced her again. As expected, she was still in the process of recollecting herself.

By the way, no, I didn't forget trying to use my Phantom Limb on her armor. It was simply ineffective because, surprise-surprise, it was a plot device. It wasn't as completely restricted as Cal or the anti-dragon spear, but it was still impossible to tweak it on the fly without relying on loopholes and exploiting magical coding errors, neither of which was feasible during a battle. On the bright side, this confirmed my suspicions about her being an important Main Character, and more than likely the Knight love interest option for Josh (though at this point they got along as well as oil and water). I mean, why else would her gear be a plot device if not to serve a crucial role in our dastardly Narrative's designs? This, in turn, meant that she herself was also crucially important. Or at the very least more important than me or Mr. Griffon, as neither of us got any fancy plot device gear. Though again, that was actually a good thing, so maybe I shouldn't complain.

Oh, but speaking of the other knight, since my opponent still wasn't coming at me, I quickly sneaked a peek at the other battle unfolding not too far away from us, and just caught the Griffon Knight take to the air with a pair of large, translucent wings. It was an unusual, but not exactly unexpected sight. Each of the Knights specialized in something. Mr. Minotaur could monitor and lock down the space around him to prevent his opponent from running away. Miss Unicorn was specialized in defending against and disturbing magical effects. Mr. Eagle was an archer type focused on mobility and long-range sniping, while the man trying his best to rise over the canopy was the group's aerial combat specialist. That might've sounded silly for a knight who, by definition, wore heavy armor and used melee weapons, but considering that dragons, and even mature Draconians, could also fly, it was undeniably a necessary role to have.

"I'm not impressed!" Josh called out from the dark. I focused in the direction of his voice, and quickly noticed the glow of another pair of transparent wings unfolding. "I can do that too!"

With that, he also rose into the air, though considerably less gracefully than his opponent. Huh. I didn't expect him to break out his Celestial transformation under these circumstances. I also wasn't entirely sure trying to engage the aerial combat specialist in the air was a great idea, but who knew? Maybe he had a plan.

More importantly, all of a sudden I was felt my sixth sense blaring at me. I didn't argue and raised my sword, just in time to block a horizontal cut aimed at me. I'm not going to lie, I was a little surprised. Miss Unicorn covered the distance so fast that, without my fraudulent forewarnings, I probably wouldn't have been able to catch her strike. The impact of her sword was also slightly heavier and sharper than before, which meant she was still ramping up. That… wasn't exactly good news for me, but to be fair, I was already amazed by how well I was doing without full armor output, let alone going into overdrive, so I decided to cut myself some slack.

Thinking so, I set my feet and pushed back against her. This time she wasn't fully unbalanced, but instead retreated out of range while also making another poke to keep me back. It was so off the mark that I didn't even bother to parry it, but before I could chase after her, she was already way out of reach and circling around me. Then came another strike, this time aiming for my legs. Once again, it wasn't hard to stop her, but I couldn't get a good parry angle, so I had to settle for a static block, and by the time I could counter, she dashed back several meters again.

Okay, that settled it. It was time to move the fight to the next stage, and I meant that literally. After powering up and getting used to the slick ground, staying in the open gave her too big of an advantage. If I wanted to maintain the balance of the duel, I needed to limit her movements a little, and what do you know? We just happened to have a bunch of trees right over there, perfect for breaking her line of sight! It's almost as if someone set the stage on purpose or something, eh?

Getting there was a little trickier, but not an insurmountable problem by any means. I simply waited for her to pick a suitable angle of attack, and then when he rushed at me, I coincidentally lost my footing and staggered in the opposite direction.

"Oh, that was a solid hit!" I called out to her. "Come on, give me another!"

It wasn't like I needed to ask, but my taunting was super effective, as this time she didn't bother to retreat and followed right after me. I maintained an outwardly frantic yet precise guard as I slowly let myself get pushed back. Even during this time, her strikes were getting harder and harder to intercept and my hands started to feel raw from the impacts. Then, it happened. For the first time, I couldn't keep up. I saw the diagonal slash coming, but I couldn't raise my sword fast enough, and the tip of her blade scraped my coat and drew a couple of sparks from the plate underneath. That certainly wasn't good.

"Come on, kiddo! I barely felt that!"

Appearing as fearless as possible, I gestured for her to come at me again… and immediately ducked behind the huge oak tree on my right.

"Hey! Come back!"

"I'm right here though?" I answered with my head poking out from behind the trunk, and she immediately swung towards me. I don't say 'at me', because her strike obviously wasn't aimed at my exposed head, and her blade dug into the wood with a deafening crash. By then I was already retreating towards the next closest cover, but what I saw forced several questions to the forefront of my mind.

First, what the hell was with that cutting power? Sure, Sir Griffon also felled a tree, but that was a fairly young one. This was an ancient mammoth of a tree, and yet her sword blew a chunk the size of a microwave oven out of it with a single strike. Also, on a related note: have I been seriously blocking attacks of that magnitude all this time, without turning both of our weapons into scrap metal in the process? That felt wildly improbable, so she was probably holding back. Either that, or I was using way more power than should've been safe, but my hand was still functioning, so that couldn't be the case. Anyhow, Miss Unicorn's shouting was getting a little annoying, so let's focus on her again.

"What are you doing? Stop running away!"

"I'm not running. You're simply looking for me at all the wrong places," I told my opponent a tad cheekily before ducking behind another tree. I waited for her to strike it, and before she could withdraw her weapon, I popped out of the other side and smacked her on the back of her helmet with my hand. I made sure to be careful, just in case I was unaware of my strength, yet she only let out a yelp in surprise. That meant I didn't have an unexpectedly high power output, but then how was I blocking her earlier without breaking my arms?

I made a mental note to comb the arrays on the armor again for any defensive enchantments I might've missed, but for now, I had to focus on evading, as Miss Unicorn was upon me once again. I was ready to block and dash towards the next tree, but just as she was about to come at me, she flinched and stared right past me. Now, that had the words 'bluff' written all over it, so I was ready to ignore it and focus on my defenses, but then, there was a loud, metallic thud behind me. My first instinct was to look over my shoulder, but that was a stupid thing to do in the middle of a duel. My second instinct was to use Far Sight to glance behind me, which was slightly less stupid, so I did just that, and found Josh and Sir Griffon rising to their feet.

My witness looked to be a little worn out, though so did his opponent. I figured my meddling wasn't strictly warranted, but that never stopped me, so I immediately turned around and dashed towards the duo before my opponent could react.

"Sorry, passing through!" I announced as I barreled past the armored man while accidentally bumping into him. He staggered back, but then nearly got knocked over when Miss Unicorn came to an abrupt stop right next to him.

"Stop running!" the Knight girl called after me, most likely just on principle, and turned back to her unsteady comrade. "Uncle Roland! What's wrong?"

"There's something wrong with my armor," he stated, and as I turned back to face them, I just caught him clenching and unclenching his fist.

"Must be gremlins," I stated matter-of-factly, drawing all eyes to me. "You know? Tiny little fairy things that mess with technology? You must have a couple in your armor. You see, Josh? That's why maintenance is important. It's the only way to keep gremlins out of your stuff."

Nobody reacted, but to be fair, I only said that to buy my friend some time to catch his breath. At least he appreciated it, even if he only showed it with a skeptical look.

"I'll try to end this quickly," Miss Unicorn declared out of the blue, most likely as a way to reassure the still unsteady man by his side.

"Emphasis on the word, 'try'," I pointed out, but I was only met with a wall of silence. "What? I'm not wrong. Wasn't that your plan from the very beginning? Well, here I am, still standing. You should try harder."

"Dude, why do you keep taunting her," Josh blurted out on the side, and I raised a finger to hush here.

"I'm doing a thing, please don't interfere. How about you capture that guy while I keep her busy?"

"Easier said than done," he grumbled, then sighed in resignation, and finally popped yet another capsule into his mouth. "I'll try something new next."

I wanted to give him some encouragement, but Miss Unicorn didn't give me the opportunity. I wasn't staying still either and dashed behind the closest tree. This time she didn't wantonly swing at it, but tried to round the trunk from the other direction to catch me. She was learning, but not fast enough, and the moment she came into my view, I gave her some of her own medicine by rushing right at her. I swung at her a couple of times, only enough to put her on the defensive, and then I retreated again.

"Stop that! Stand and fight!"

"I'm standing right now. You're the one who's still over there," I answered her from the safety of the cover of my next tree.

"This is dishonorable!"

"What, fighting smart?"

"Yes!"

"… Wow… I didn't expect you to actually say that."

Of course, I didn't forget to keep up the cat-and-mouse game even as I heckled her. It wasn't completely fair, but it was effective, and I successfully bought another five or so minutes with it. The trees around the clearing didn't really appreciate that tactic, but to be fair, they were fake Purple Zone trees, so no one cared about their opinions. Then, at long last, I noticed a change. Or rather, a lack of one, and once I did, I stopped my organized retreat and stood my ground. Miss Unicorn didn't expect it, or maybe she thought it was another trick, so she didn't put her full weight behind her attack, but it was still enough to confirm my previous observation.

"You just plateaued, didn't you?" I asked between two parries, and the silence she gave me in return was all I needed to hear to be certain we were reaching the endgame of this duel

Now, let me say something in my defense here: things were going really well. Like, almost exactly as planned. Show me a man who says he wouldn't be a little complacent at this point, and I'll show you a liar. It was because of this that I was completely blindsided by her suddenly doing a backflip and, I kid you not, she jumped high into the air and fell towards me in a somersault.

Under normal circumstances, this would've been the moment where I pointed out how absurdly inappropriate and ineffective such a move was, but there was a catch: she was fast. Ridiculously fast. As in, before this, she was about fifty percent faster than me, but this time she was at least twice faster than that. He honest to goodness looked like he was on fast-forward. There was no way in hell I was going to block that spinning thing she was doing, so I did my best to get out of the way. I managed, if barely, but I didn't even get a chance to catch my breath when another strike was coming at me. And then another.

Thrusts and slashes fell on me like torrential rain, their speed and weight incomparable to the ones from before, and I was pushed back both figuratively and literally, unable to break away. Worse yet, I was losing the parrying contest as well, and with each passing second, more and more strikes sneaked their way past my defenses and landed on my armor. It was holding up well enough for now, but it was only a matter of time before the tip of her blade would find a gap between the plates. I had to make a move.

I didn't have any fancy techniques to bring to bear though. No, what I had was something better: cheating. At least in technical terms. However, I needed a second to initialize it, and I couldn't do it while I was under her barrage, so I had to do something risky. Shocking, I know. It was also simple. I just had to fail to block one of her attacks. Not just any attack thought, but one that wouldn't result in losing an eye or a finger, and a candidate appeared in just a few seconds. I didn't exactly have the time for second guesses, so I clenched my teeth and focused my attention on the tip of the incoming sword.

I watched as it quickly yet very slowly closed in on me, and I had to simultaneously ignore my sixth sense screaming at me and at the same time guide her weapon with my own. I was half-successful, and my efforts bore fruit in the form of a sharp, searing pain in my left armpit, where her sword pierced through the gap between the breastplate and the spaulder.

Miss Unicorn sucked in a sharp breath and froze in her tracks, as expected, allowing me a moment to assess my condition. Call it a side-effect or an acquired skill, but after getting repeatedly bruised for hours on end during Dominance, I developed a keen sense for gauging my injuries and how much they'd affect my ability to keep fighting. This stab? It was the definition of a 'flesh wound', though it did sting like hell.

Of course, she didn't know that, and I liked to keep it that way, so I used my free hand to wrap my gauntleted fingers around the blade to keep it in place. It was a small sacrifice to make for a pause in the combat, and once I had the initiative again, I squeezed out a guttural chuckle.

"Wow. I only let my guard down for a moment, and you totally got me! Good job, kiddo. I knew you had it in you."

"Stop that!" Josh called out to me all of a sudden, and when I glanced over, I found him wrestling Sir Griffon on the ground. I imagined he was in the process of putting the armored man into one of his chokeholds, but it didn't make their sprawled-out display any more dignified. Whether he realized I was looking at him or just continued the previous thought, my friend let out a grunt as he twisted the man's arm and added, "Seriously, you're giving me goosebumps!"

"Josh, could you please keep quiet for a bit. I'm still doing a thing here."

"Yes, and it's creepy as hell!" he continued protesting between strained groans, and since he was uncooperative, I simply ignored him.

Now, where was I? Ah, right. Turning the tables. Step one was already completed, and even while I was arguing with the guy on the ground, my Phantom Limbs were busy interacting with the armor and, more importantly, the undersuit I was wearing beneath it. On the surface, it was a form-fitting wetsuit you'd see on the pilot of a mecha show. It was also bright neon purple, but nobody could see it under the armor and gambeson, so I pretended I didn't mind. Seriously, I didn't. Not that it mattered in the first place, as it wasn't a fashion statement: the whole suit was packed to the brim with enchantment arrays and technical gizmos I didn't understand at all by my very own mad scientist, and it did way more than just keeping me warm.

As for its actual purpose, it was probably faster to just show it, so I flicked the magical equivalent of a switch inside the central control array, and the whole thing came to life with a low hum. Miss Unicorn might've sensed something, as the eyes behind her visor opened wide and she pulled back. Normally this would've been the point where someone would grab onto the sword embedded into them even harder and say something like, 'Oh, you didn't think you could get away after getting this close to me, now did you?', but I obviously didn't do that. Not only because I didn't want to get my hand cut, but also because Josh was right; that was creepy, and it was about time I dropped the character and end the battle on my terms.

The Knight girl might've felt the change as well, as she instantly switched to high gear and tried to put some distance between us. The look in her eyes when I followed right after her, matching her acceleration, was absolutely priceless. Of course, staying so close to her meant that I had limited space to work with, so I could only put so much strength into my swing, and I purposefully hit her breastplate as well, so I did practically no damage. It did rattle her a fair bit though, and allowed me multiple follow-up attacks before she came to her senses and did another unnecessarily flashy backflip to gain some breathing space.

Should I follow after her? The question sunk as fast as it surfaced in my mind. Sure, I could match her speed for the moment, but that didn't mean that I should start following her example too and do all kinds of silly acrobatics. As for how I could do so, it was obviously thanks to Fred's high-tech undersuit. Before I explain what it did, let's touch upon a previously mentioned factoid again, namely that the Entitled Knights all had a specialization. That, of course, raised the obvious question of just what the Lion Knight's specialization was? Well, simply put, there was none.

The Lion Knight was a perfect example of a 'jack of all trades, master of none', trading higher 'base stats' for a significantly weaker power-ramping potential over the course of a battle. That sounds bad, but here's a reminder: I was actually competently keeping up with the fully boosted Miss Unicorn at about half my maximum potential power output. Sure, my sixth sense and dueling experience also played a major role, but the only reason why I could utilize those advantages in the first place was because I had higher base specs. At peak performance, I the Lion Knight was slower than the Unicorn Knight, weaker than the Minotaur Knight, and less mobile than the Griffon Knight. On the flip side, this meant I was only inferior when matched against their strengths and should easily match them, or even win, in every other attribute.

So, here's a question: what would happen if you pit a Lion Knight against another Entitled Knight, but then used some external means to boost the attribute matching their opponent's strength? Short answer: this situation.

The undersuit worked by hijacking the connection between the Knight gear and the Oaths, and it effectively added another layer of buffs on top of the one granted by the armor. It was tuned to augment my speed and agility, and it would even bear most of the backlash from pushing my limits. There was no such thing as a free meal though, and the undersuit naturally had at least one crippling design flaw to keep me on my toes, namely that it had its own mana battery, as using my internally circulated mana would've resulted in my hand exploding the same as if I pushed the armor into overdrive. Due to this, Fred could only promise a few minutes of peak operating performance before it would inevitably break down.

More than enough time if you ask me.

Once Miss Unicorn landed, I scanned the area one last time, and quickly noticed something potentially useful. Josh more or less finished subduing Sir Griffon, and he was heaving on the ground with his legs wrapped around his opponent's upper body, pinning him onto the ground while securing his outstretched right arm. I think it was some sort of joint-lock, but I wasn't well-versed in grappling, so I couldn't say for sure. More importantly, since the Knight was out of commission, I figured he wouldn't mind if I borrowed his discarded saber, so I made my move.

My own opponent reacted just a hair too slow. She tried to intercept me, but we were close to on par right now, so she had no chance to catch me. When I got close to the duo on the ground, I lowered my center of gravity and stuck one leg out, entering into a slide tackle, and due to the tremendous momentum I had, it carried me a solid five or so meters and allowed me to deftly snatch the fallen sword off the ground. The moment I had my hand on the hilt, I sprung to my feet, just in time to face the charging Knight girl coming at me.

"I'll be borrowing this for a moment, if you don't mind," I told the man on the ground while simultaneously parrying her with the saber and also stabbing at her with my original sword. She let out a surprised yelp and tried to retreat out of range, but I kept the pressure up by aiming the saber at her shoulder on the back draw, forcing her to divide her attention. Dual-wielding was tricky, but nothing I couldn't manage. It was thirty percent practice, twenty percent flailing around and hoping for the best, and a solid fifty percent of being an Entitled Knight proving to be fraudulent once again.

Simply put, just like how the other Knights had something unique about them, the Lion Knight did as well: weapon-mastery. Unlike the rest, who specialized in certain weapon types, the Lion Knight was naturally proficient with all Knightly weapons. That made a lot of sense, considering my track record. More troublingly, it also answered a question that nagged at me for a while: who was supposed to use the dragon-slaying spear when none of the Named Knights on the island were spearmen? Who knows? Maybe in a parallel universe where I didn't lose my memories, I would've gotten my hands on the spear during the natural course of the plot and then used it against Elly and my prospective in-laws. A disturbing thought indeed.

More importantly, while I still didn't quite understand how this 'weapon affinity' thing worked, it allowed me to dual-wield like it was nothing, and when combined with my temporary speed boost, I had Miss Unicorn on the ropes. She tried her best to defend herself, but being able to automatically parry with one sword using my sixth sense while simultaneously attacking with the other was absolute bullshit, and I almost felt sorry for her as she frantically tried to defend herself. But then again, I imagine that's how I looked when I was defending against her assault, which considerably dampened the guilt I felt.

Not that there was any time for such emotions, as I had to end the duel before the undersuit ran out of juice or she got a heroic second wind, so I grit my teeth, focused, and for the moment I ignored all forms of sentimentality as I raised my blades and lunged after my retreating opponent. What followed wasn't very graceful, nor was it particularly dynamic. I simply swung my swords really, really fast, one after the other, without letting her catch her breath. With each strike, her poise crumbled further and further, right until I found the opening I was looking for.

First I let her dodge one well-telegraphed overhead strike, followed by a thrust for distraction, and then when she tried to parry, I put all my weight into it, twisting her blade to the side. Simultaneously, I swung the saber up, hitting the bottom of her forearm and wrist with the spine of the blade. Thanks to that, I could put extra leverage onto her sword, and with a pained hiss, her fingers gave out and lost their grip on her weapon. In for a penny, in for a pound though (no pun intended), and since I figured a climactic battle required a climactic ending, I pulled back just enough to let me flourish my weapons at the same time and then cross them right in front of her neck because dammit, this was a long day and I deserved to do something uncharacteristically flashy every once in a while.

And with that, the duel came to an end, and with it, a deafening silence settled into the Purple Zone.

"So… I think this is my victory," I stated, sounding more uncertain than I intended, and the magical whatchamacallits of the Arbitration also agreed with me, as we were both enveloped in enchanted light. It lasted for a few seconds, and I had to endure the constricting sensation again, but once it was over, I could finally let out a pent-up breath of relief… only to immediately get alarmed by the noises the girl in front of me was making.

"What are y—?"

"Waaaaah!"

Okay, that was… unexpected. Also, mildly distressing.

"Wait, hold on. Why are you crying?"

She didn't answer me and only continued bawling, going as far as to take off her helmet and throw it onto the ground so that she could rub her eyes.

"Come on kiddo, there's no need to cry. It's just a silly ritualistic duel you lost. It's not the end of the world."

"How the hell are you so popular with girls when that's your best attempt at consoling someone?"

"Could I ask the peanut gallery to stay silent for a second?" I snapped back at Josh. He shrugged and continued to nonchalantly grapple with the, at this point no longer resisting, Knight on the ground. By the sound of the groans he was making, he was more exasperated than in pain, and I shared his sentiment.

Meanwhile, Penelope collected herself a little, though her face was still a teary, snotty mess.

"I lost, and I couldn't defeat you, and you beat me, and now you are going to keep dating that wyrmblood, and then you are going to be kicked out of the brotherhood, and I'm no longer your sisteeeeeer!"

Okay, so based on how much emphasis she put on that last part, I was about ninety percent sure she was still shaken by my previous taunts. I said I would apologize, but I didn't think I'd have to do it right away, but it looked like we would be getting nowhere fast if I didn't do so.

"Oh, come on, kiddo! I didn't actually mean that."

"You… You didn't?"

"No. I only said that to rile you up so that you would fight me seriously."

I could practically hear the gears groaning under stress in her head as she tried to make sense of what I just said. After wiping her eyes one more time, she cocked her head to the side a little and said, "You wanted me to fight seriously? Was it… because you wanted to be sure that the results of the Arbitration would be indisputable? So that nobody could say that you won because I let you win? Was it because you wanted me to acknowledge your determination? Was it?"

"Erm… sure, let's go with that." Her eyes opened wide, probably making some further completely off-base conjectures, but so long as they were in my favor, I didn't mind. "Anyhow, I'm sorry for saying that and making fun of you. It was a necessary evil, but I might've gone a little overboard."

"I see, I see…" she nodded along with an expression that said she didn't really get it at all but already stopped thinking. "I mean, I don't even know why I got so worked up. I am your sister after all, right?" When I didn't nod along right away, her brows rose in panic and she stressed, "Right?"

"It's actually a little complicated at the moment, so…" Oh crap, she's about to cry again! That was, once again, mildly distressing, so I reached into my toolbox and applied the one that never let me down so far: head pats! "Here, here. I tell you, it's not so simple, so how about we…?"

I got that far, but then I noticed that contrary to my best head patting efforts, she already had tears running down her cheeks. Before I could figure out why though, I was startled by her suddenly throwing herself at my chest, and a moment later he started bawling from the top of her lungs again. Seriously, I was getting mixed signals here.

"I do not wish to interrupt your bonding," came a deadpan voice from under Josh, and when I glanced over, I found Sir Griffon twisting his neck to be able to look at us. "However, I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable, so now that the Arbitration is over, why don't we sit down and discuss the situation like reasonable adults."

"Says the 'reasonable adult' who tried to cut my freaking head off just a few minutes ago!" Josh grumbled as he readjusted his grip on the Knight.

"It was a perfectly rational reaction to your comments," Sir Griffon responded, earning him a glare from the guy. "If we were in the same situation, I would do so again."

"Those are some brave words from a guy already caught in an arm-lock!"

"Cut it out, you two," I told them with some trepidation while simultaneously trying to keep Penny from wiping her snot on my armor as she sobbed. "I promised that we'd have a long discussion. Things haven't fully wrapped up yet, so I might as well explain my circumstances and why we had to go through this whole Arbitration."

And with those words, the curtains closed on the duel, leaving us with some downtime to clear the air. Unfortunately, this was but a short segue leading me to another battlefield, though this time a more metaphorical one, but a break was a break, and I really needed one at the moment. The night was far from over, and I still needed my wits. Also, some bandages for my armpit, but that's another matter entirely.

"I'll be—"

"Don't you dare just say 'I'll be right back' and leave me here with these two!" Josh cut me off before I could finish my sentence, and I couldn't help but groan in frustration as I turned back to him.

"Well, I can't call the girls from inside the Purple Zone, so I have to go out," I told him and pointed at the knightly duo sitting on the trunk of the first victim of today's impromptu logging efforts.

"It's still two on one," Josh pointed out, and I raised my hand to show him the weapons I was holding.

"I'm taking their swords with me. What else do you want?"

"Idunno. Don't you have some rope, or a handcuff, or something?"

"Of course I don't. Where would I even keep those?" He was still giving me the stink eye, and I was too tired to argue, so I gave up and walked over to our… captives? I guess they were our captives, though we didn't really formalize it, and they were looking at us funny, which didn't exactly scream 'prisoner' either. Anyhow, this was all beside the point, and for the time being, I focused on Sir Griffon. "Don't move."

"… Okay," he answered, just a tad surprised. Not that whether he agreed or not changed anything, but I had to keep up appearances.

Anyhow, I turned to Josh with a smirk. It was a bit of a waste, because he couldn't see it due to my helmet, but in my defense, since it didn't affect my field of vision at all, it was easy to forget I still had it on my head. No wonder the Knights were wearing theirs all the time.

"See, now he can't move."

My comment was met with a crossfire of skeptical looks, but it all changed when Sir Griffon let out a subdued groan.

"Is something wrong?" Penny turned to the armor-clad man, yet he remained silent… for about three seconds.

"I can't seem to move," he stated with a deadpan delivery that couldn't completely hide the alarm in his voice.

"Wait, are you serious?"

Josh's question prompted Sir Griffon to try again, and a few more grunts later he flatly stated, "Quite."

"Okay, that's unexpected, but I'll take it," my friend declared with an unexpectedly impressed expression. "Now, do the same to her, and you can leave for as long as you want."

"I can't."

My succinct answer washed the smirk off Josh's face and replaced it with a deep frown.

"Why? Don't tell me it's nepotism."

"No, it's more complicated than that," I answered a tad dourly. "Don't tell me you can't keep a single girl in check."

"It's a girl that managed to stab you," my dear friend pointed out, making the subject of our conversation visibly twitch in the background and aver her eyes. As for Sir Griffon, he was stoically bearing with the situation like a seasoned pro.

"Yeah, but I'm taking her sword with me. No sword, no stabby-stabby."

Josh rolled his eyes with a loud "Bah," but didn't argue any further, so I concluded our discussion and immediately disappeared from the clearing, only to appear in the clearing. In realspace, I mean. I didn't even have to Phase, as it was just an intuitive thing I could do as the 'owner' of the Purple Zone. I glanced around a bit, just to be sure there was nobody around, and then headed to the nearby bike racks. I left my phone in the trunk of Josh's moped, so if I wanted to contact Judy and Elly, I had to get it first. There were a couple of reasons why I didn't take my phone with me to the duel, but the most obvious was that even if I took it, it couldn't be used in a Purple Zone, or rather, this one.

The reason why most Purple Zones we encountered had cell phone reception was because it was an option during the creation of one. It was originally just a function to decide whether the creator wanted to 'let in' certain wavelengths of light from realspace, so that the place wouldn't be pitch black save for the purple cracks everywhere. It was a little more complicated than that, of course, but due to a few loopholes and general lack of knowledge about electromagnetic radiation at the time, this feature could be tweaked to allow certain radio wavelengths in and out of the purple zone. However, since it was optional, it meant that it was just as easy to compeltely block such transmissions.

So far we didn't run into such Zones because the School's one was designed to allow radio waves through even after Crowey hijacked it, while Labcoat Guy's Zones were erected for the express purpose to harass and put pressure on the gang, so it didn't matter whether we warned each other or not. In this case, however, communication between the Knights had to be avoided, so I specifically made sure to block technological means of messaging. I (or rather, Ammy) could do little about the magical types on such short notice, but considering that the Knight duo was still sitting still meant they had no access to such methods.

While pondering so, I reached the bike racks and, using Josh's key, unlocked the trunk and retrieved my phone. Technically I could just Phase home to give a status report to the girls, but I was a sorry sight at the moment, and I didn't want to scare them. I mean, the only injury I had was the stab wound under my shoulder, but in the scuffle the coat I wore on top of the armor got shredded, so I looked much worse than how I actually fared.

So, I accessed my contact list, and it only took two rings for the line to connect.

"Chief."

My deadpan girlfriend's greeting was slightly more apprehensive than expected, so I quickly told her, "Hi, Dormouse. We're officially done with the duel. Guess who won?"

"You did," she told me matter-of-factly, and I couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle.

"You could've at least pretended to be uncertain for a moment."

"There was no need. I saw it."

"You did?" I blurted out, and it took me several seconds to realize what she was talking about. "You used the glasses."

"I did," came the immediate answer.

"So you saw the whole thing?"

"Yes." There was a long pause, and then she added, "Including the part where you got stabbed."

"It was just a tiny stab. Barely penetrated the skin," I told her in a hurry, only to receive an even longer pause in return.

"The moment you come home, you're getting treated by Angeline."

"… Yes, ma'am." My dear assistant let out a satisfied grunt on the other end of the line, so I quickly moved the conversation along by telling her, "So, since you've seen the battle, I guess I don't have to give you much of a sit rep."

"Only the end of it. Joshua was preoccupied with the man in the armor for most of it."

"Too bad. I hoped you would comment on how cool I was."

"I think guys who don't get hurt are the coolest… but you get a passing grade."

"How gracious of you."

"You're welcome. When are you coming back?"

"Let me see…" That wasn't just verbal filler, as I literally used Far Sight to check on the general state of affairs. "Things are wrapping up, but I still have to explain a few things to these two, and then we have the culmination of the whole plan we very definitely don't think about. I don't know how long that will take, but I think I'll be home before ten."

"That's too late. Phase come home first to get your injury treated, then you can culminate all your plans however you want."

"Oh, fine. I'll have to stash away these swords anyway, so I'll stop by."

"You better. See you soon." I thought that was the end of it, but then she added, "Elly told me to tell you we love you."

"Ah, yes. I can perfectly understand the sentiment, for you see, I also happen to love myself." I waited for a long beat, and then hastily amended, "I'm kidding. I love you too."

"… Chief, you're aware that you're going to be kicked for that, right?"

"Still worth it," I answered between two snickers and then said my goodbyes, this time properly, and pocketed the phone. I didn't bother walking back to the clearing, as moving in and out of a Purple Zone looked functionally identical to Phasing in, so I did just that. What welcomed me was loud, obnoxious, but by no means unexpected.

"… no difference! They are wyrmbloods! Wyrm! Bloods!" yelled the helmetless Knight on the left, without bothering with her fake baritone.

"So? Why exactly is that a crime?" Josh asked back with his arms crossed and a scowl on his brows.

"They aren't human! They treat human lives as toys!" Penny insisted with a glare of her own, and the guy gave her a look like she was talking Swahili.

"What are you even talking about? Aren't you the people who run around ramming cars into gates and stabbing people? All the Draconians I know are teddy bears compared to you… well, except for this one butler, I suppose."

"Sebastian is a unique case, so he doesn't count," I added to draw their attention, but it only half-succeeded, as Josh nodded along and pointed at me.

"Right! If they were really callous monsters, Leo wouldn't date one of them, now would he?"

"T-That's just…!" Penny glanced over to me, and even though I didn't make a sound, she fully faced me and turned an accusative finger on me. "I still don't acknowledge it! I-I mean, I acknowledge your determination, but I don't acknowledge her! It must be some kind of trick! And… And… And I especially don't acknowledge that Seducer!"

"Her name is Lili," our resident protagonist pointed out, and then got hissed at for his trouble.

"You stay out of this! This has nothing to do with you!"

"Am I the only one who feels like we're going in circles?" he asked as he raised a sardonic brow at me, and I agreed with a sigh.

"How about we shelf this topic for now and talk about why we are here and how we got to this point," I proposed, and Penny sulkily agreed after a short stare down.

"I like the sound of that, but could you please undo whatever you did to me?" Sir Griffon cut in with a straight-faced question. "My neck is itching something awful."

"Fine," I half spoke and half groaned as I made my way over to his side and roughly patted him on the shoulder. "There, you can scratch your neck now."

The man let out a surprised noise, but then he raised his hands, and after clenching and unclenching his fists a few times, he turned to me and said, "Much obliged. Would you mind telling me just how did you do that?"

"Maybe later. We have bigger fish to fry first," I replied and moved to the front again.

To be honest, what I did wasn't that complicated. As I've already demonstrated, tweaking the output setting of the Knight equipment wasn't hard, so long as it wasn't a plot device that I felt I shouldn't touch. I've also shown that it was possible to reduce the individual boosts provided. So, what would happen if you took the arrays responsible for said boosts, and tuned them down into negative values? Simply put, the more effort the wearer put into moving, the more the armor hindered their movements, essentially paralyzing them in the process. I was already familiar with how this worked, as I sneakily tweaked Sir Griffon's gear before the duel, just in case he would enter the fray, and it allowed Josh to match him in combat and eventually triumph. In fact, I might have lowered his boosts a bit too much, as the guy won without suffering without much wear and tear, but it was better to err on the side of caution.

Of course, explaining all of this without revealing my Phantom Limbs would be tricky, and they might even consider it cheating, so I pushed the task of coming up with a suitable excuse to future me and focused on the discussion at hand.

"Now that we're all more or less comfortable, let's quickly discuss why we had this Arbitration in the first place." Saying so, I addressed Mr. Griffon directly. "Since you're the only one not in the loop yet, let's clarify one thing: I'm actually, one hundred percent sincerely, dating Eleanor Dracis."

I don't know exactly what reaction I was expecting, but a thoughtful 'Hm.' was fairly down on the list.

"I've gathered as much from their argument," the Griffon knight stated as he gestured at Josh and Penny, "but hearing it from you certainly makes the situation impossible to misinterpret."

"That's the point," I told him, and he nodded along. Considering he wanted to cut Josh down for being a 'collaborator', I anticipated a stronger reaction. Maybe he was adopting a 'wait and see' approach, or just recognized that there was no point trying to make a move when I could paralyze him. Either way, he looked receptive enough, so I began my explanation by calmly stating, "First things first, there's something you need to know. I have amnesia."

"… I remember when that used to be a secret," Josh spoke on the side, and I shrugged.

"These two knew me way longer than any of you guys, so they would figure it out sooner or later anyway. It's better to let them know now before any of them start coming up with harebrained ideas about mind control and the like."

"Fair enough," he granted me, but the end of his words was then drowned out by Penny's shouts.

"Wha-Wha-Whaaat? Wait, how, when, why, how?"

"You asked 'how' twice, but staying on topic, I've no memories from before the first of September."

"This year?" Sir Griffon asked, and I nodded.

"But… no, that's impossible! You called me 'kiddo'! You always called me that since we were kids!"

"Did I? Josh, did I call her that?"

"A couple of times," he told me a touch incredulously.

"Seriously?" When he nodded, I let out a thoughtful 'Huh' and faced my alleged sister again. "To be fair, she has kind of a 'kiddo' look to her, doesn't she?"

"I don't even know what that means," Josh griped, and I had to agree with him.

"Me neither, but that's just kind of the vibe I get from looking at her."

"Dude, are you sure you're all right? Maybe you've lost more blood than we thought."

"Nah, my wound stopped bleeding a while ago."

"So just to summarize," Sir Griffon abruptly interjected by rising to his feet. "You say you've lost your memories, and then you met the scion of the wyrmbloods on this island and you two fell in love without knowing about your affiliations."

"More or less," I granted him. "Though I was aware of her being a Draconian for a while before we discovered that I was a Knight, but it doesn't really matter."

"Of course it matters!" Penny exclaimed in horror. "They are our enemies!"

"Yes, but why?" Josh asked, this time his skeptical brow turned on the girl. "Why are they your enemies? You still haven't answered my question from before."

"Because they are evil!"

"… Could you be a bit less uselessly broad?" I asked in turn, and it was the Griffon knight who answered.

"The wyrmbloods are known for manipulating humanity and instigating various conflicts." I gestured for him to continue, and he added, "Such as the Boxer Rebellion and the Thirty Years War."

"Also the Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' war," Penny added, if a touch unnecessarily.

"Okay, let's narrow it down a bit: what exactly did they do recently? No, let's make it even clearer: has the Dracis family done anything in recent memory that would warrant attacking them on sight?"

The two Knights shared an uncertain glance between each other, and it was Penny who stated, "They crippled Sir Mallory!"

"Who?"

"The last wielder of Ascalon," Sir Griffon clarified.

"Asc— Oh, you mean the dragon-slaying spear. Wait, wasn't that when he used it to stab Emese in the back. It was on a boat restaurant or something."

"Yes! That's when they crippled him and stole Ascalon!" Penny doubled down, entirely oblivious to the look I was giving her.

"So he attacked a couple during their anniversary dinner, got beaten up in self-defense, and it's somehow the couple's fault?"

"Yes!" the girl declared like it was entirely obvious.

"… You see, Josh? This is why we need to get rid of this stupid feud. It rots people's common sense."

"Are you sure she even had one, to begin with?" my friend jested (I think), earning him an enormous huff from the subject in question.

"Are you picking a fight with me?"

"Nah. I don't want others to think I'm picking on an idiot."

"Who are you calling an idiot you idiot?"

I wanted to get between the two, but couldn't manage to do so before Sir Griffon addressed me again.

"I hope you know that the others won't approve of your relationship."

"Does this mean you do?"

"I can't say, but I'm willing to hear you out. Arnwald and Duncan most likely won't give you the same courtesy."

"Well, then I suppose it's a good thing that I'm not going to give them a choice," I told the composed Knight, and I could see his eyes slowly narrow behind his visor.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Don't worry, you'll see soon enough." My elusive answer obviously didn't satisfy him, so after some consideration, I also told him, "I promised you a long discussion after the Arbitration, didn't I? Everything will be explained there."

"I was under the impression that we're already doing that."

"No, this is just a bit of a preamble while the rest of the pieces assemble themselves on the board."

I was sure the man had more questions, but before he could ask them, someone roughly yanked on my frayed coat, demanding my attention.

"Brother! Hand me back my sword! I must teach this oaf a lesson!"

"Oh, sure. Since you can't win with words, you immediately resort to violence. That's going to prove that you're reasonable for sure."

"Silence, you unchivalrous lout!"

"Yeah, because trying to attack an unarmed guy with a sword is what chivalry is all about. Typical."

"You two, stop fighting," I reprimanded them, but my warning fell on deaf ears.

"Brotheeer! He's picking on me!"

"And now she's trying to get someone else involved," Josh grumbled while rolling his eyes. "I can't believe I almost thought you were cute until you opened your mouth…"

"Hey! I'm cute whether my mouth is open or closed, right, brother?"

"What even are we arguing about at this point?"

"That's a very good question," I told the guy and raised my voice. "Last warning! Read my lips! No! More! Fighting! Got it?"

The two of them both looked started, but then Josh cautiously told me, "I got it, but… It's kinda hard to read your lips with your helmet on."

"Oh for the love of…! Fine!" Saying so, I unbuckled my helm and took it off. "Here, are you happy now? Do I have to repeat myself?" I got no answer. In fact, they were both looking at me with slack jaws, prompting me to utter a confused, "What?"

"Brother, you look terrible!"

Josh also nodded along, so I quickly Far Glanced using his mark, and even I was taken aback for a moment. My hair was a mess, though that was to be expected after wearing a helmet, and more alarmingly, there were caked over red lines running down from my nostrils, and my skin was deathly pale. Suffice to say, I'm not easily scared, but if someone looking like me jumped out at me from an alley at night, I would've run.

What was really strange was that I didn't actually feel as bad as I looked. In fact, I was perfectly fine. I touched my upper lip, and it came away dry, meaning that even if I had a nosebleed, it was long over. Speaking of which, just when did that happen? I couldn't remember feeling anything running down my face or tasting metal, but to be fair, I was fairly preoccupied.

"So you've been pushing yourself past your limit after all," Sir Griffon noted on the side like it was something he was expecting.

"I really haven't though," I responded while checking my right hand, but it felt perfectly satisfactory. I also circulated some mana, just to be sure, but there was no adverse effect. No matter how I looked at it, I was fine. I imagined that the undersuit might not have taken all the backlash after all, but that was impossible to tell without making Fred inspect it first. "More importantly, I have to go away for a moment."

"What? Why?"

I turned to the alarmed Josh and his built-in live-cam, and a tired sigh later I showed him my phone and said, "I have to call my girlfriends again and tell them this looks waaaay worse than it actually is and that I'm all right. Please behave, I'll be right back."

And with that, I promptly Phased out of the Purple Zone, barely catching an echo of the world 'Girlfriends?' coming from Sir Griffon. That's going to be another lengthy explanation, but let's focus on one thing at a time.

Limousines are great. They're comfy, stylish, and spacey enough where three people could comfortably sit face to face even while two of them are wearing medieval armor, with legroom to spare. If that sounded like a very specific example, it's because it was my reality. I already changed out of my gear at home while Angie treated my injury and I didn't bother putting it back on, so at the moment I was wearing a business casual ensemble, complete with a scarf and one of my thicker coats. It was Judy who insisted I should wear both, though I honestly wasn't against it to begin with.

Speaking of a change in attire, Penny did her hair up into a ponytail, while Sir Griffon also took his helmet off so that I could finally see his face. I was… slightly underwhelmed. By the looks of it, he was in his late thirties, had short, dark brown hair, and a very plain face with a simple dad-moustache under his nose. Put a brown checkered suit on him, and he'd look just like an average, overworked assistant professor in some backwater university. Speaking of him, the freshly de-helmeted Griffon Knight let out a thoughtful hum and slowly shook his head.

"I'm sorry, but your math still doesn't add up."

"It does." My brilliant retort didn't quite convince him, so I exhaled a long sigh and told him, "Okay, let's start from the top. Again. So, our armors work by multiplicatively enhancing our abilities. Let's say both Penny and I start out at a baseline speed of one. My gear adds a two times multiplier, while hers adds three, because it's more specialized. Are we clear so far?"

"Yes. So you are at two speed, while she's at three speed."

I had a feeling he was subtly making fun of me, but I ignored it and focused on my explanation.

"So, at this point, we're still fighting evenly, because I'm staying in the defensive and got a reach advantage, but then she warms up and her multiplier goes up a notch to four. At this point, she's twice as fast as me, so I use an extra piece of gear to give myself a separate multiplier, temporarily bringing my speed up to four so that I could match her for a short time. It's really simple."

"On paper, maybe, but I still don't agree with your numbers," the armor-clad man argued back with the same, level tone as always.

"What's wrong with my numbers? They are clean and illustrate the point perfectly."

"They are too clean," he pointed out with a finger raised. "For a start, I don't think your baselines are the same. Penelope has trained herself for high-speed combat for years, so her baseline speed should be at least one point five."

"She's not that fast. One point three at most," I countered, and the man shook his head.

"That would still resort in a three-point-nine multiplied speed at the beginning of the battle, making her nearly twice as fast as you. Furthermore, once the mana stream reached its peak state, it would result in five-point-two. I'm also not convinced by the capabilities of this 'undersuit' of yours. By your explanation, it would provide the same level of physical enhancement as your personal equipment. I find that highly unlikely."

"Unlikely or not, you've seen it in action."

"I did, and that's why I'm still not convinced. Based on my experience with Penelope, she should've been easily able to overwhelm you in terms of agility, yet you managed to overpower her instead. Staying with your numbers, you somehow overtook her five-point-two when you should've been only capable of three to three-point-five at most."

"Nonsense. I wasn't faster than her at any point," came my objection.

"You most certainly were," Sir Griffon retorted.

"Fine, let's ask her then. Hey, kiddo?" Once she realized I was addressing her, the spaced-out girl glanced at me, and I quickly asked, "Was I faster than you at any point during the duel? I wasn't, right?"

"No leading questions," Sir Griffon warned me, but I just shrugged him off.

Penny, on the other hand, looked back and forth between the two of us and her shoulders slouched.

"We've been captured and being taken to the lair of the wyrmbloods right now! How can you talk about pedantic things like that in this situation?"

"We're not pedantic, we're precise," I pointed out, and Sir Griffon nodded along.

"Furthermore, we technically aren't captives, and even if we were, there is little we could do now that we're already in the car."

She probably had a brilliant rebuttal to that, but apparently we didn't deserve to hear it, as she turned away from us with a huff and proceeded to sulk while staring out the window. For a moment I was almost tempted to tease her, but thankfully Sir Griffon draw my attention away from her.

"But returning to the previous point, your math simply doesn't add up." Penny let out a quiet groan in the background, but we both ignored her. "There are two possibilities I can think of. Either your baseline is much higher than assumed, or there is another multiplier in the equation we are unaware of."

As much as I wanted to object, I had to admit that I was also getting more and more uncertain about how I beat Penny. Thinking logically about it, I shouldn't have been able to win as seamlessly as I did, a tiny-little stab wound notwithstanding. I didn't really consider this at the time because of the adrenaline and things happening too fast, but even if my 'base multipliers' as the Lion Knight were higher than hers, save for agility, I was drawing out little more than half of those enhancements from the armor due to my injury and my broken Oaths, and yet I was still keeping up with her from the very beginning and led the fight for the majority of the duel.

Sure, recent combat experience, training, and my opponent being reluctant all played a significant role in my victory, but as our first exchange demonstrated, she expected to completely overwhelm me with her speed, and she didn't know about any of my handicaps. This told me that as far as these two were concerned, I shouldn't have been able to keep up with her at all even if I was in peak condition, yet I did at half power.

Now, I had two explanations for that. One was the aforementioned Watsonian one; I simply became much more experienced since the last time they saw me thanks to diligently training with Brang and constantly getting involved in other incidents, and I bridged the power gap with skill. The Doylist explanation, on the other hand, presumed that by eking out something like a deuteragonist position in the Narrative, it afforded me a smidgen on plot armor and I got a sneaky last-minute power boost to be on par with Penny. Maybe it was the power of friendship because I brought Josh along? Though again, maybe I wasn't thinking weird enough. For example, maybe I was acting like Bel so much lately that the Narrative began to incorporate 'him' and so I'm slowly turning into an Abyssal Lord or something. I was personally putting my vote on the Watsonian option, but hey, this is a weird world, so anything is possible.

Anyhow, I was shaken out of my pondering by the girl in the opposing seat taking a sharp breath, and as I glanced outside, I recognized the familiar façade of the Dracis mansion. The whole building was lit up from the outside, probably because they were expecting some guests, and once we passed through the main gates, I could see a small throng of generic servants and security personnel running around like bees in a recently disturbed hive.

Our ride came to a slow halt in front of the stairs leading up to the main entrance, and at its foot, we were welcomed by Sebastian and way too many sharply dressed security guards. When the grouchy butler opened the limo door, Penny shrank back, while Sir Griffon remained stoic as usual.

"Good evening, old man."

"You're in unnecessarily high spirits, as usual" Sebastian stated with a vitriolic undertone before glancing at the knightly duo on the other seat. "Are these the last two guests for today's conference?"

"That's right," I replied as I retrieved a canvas-wrapped sword from the storage space under the refreshment bar. "I know there's a bit of bad blood between you and them, but please try to give them at least basic courtesy."

"You are a hundred years too early to lecture me about professionalism, my boy," the old lizard told me with a huff as I got out of the car, and then he looked over Knights still inside. "I was told the Bernstein boy would also be coming over, but I don't see him anywhere."

"That's because he was tired, so I sent him home."

"I see." Sebastian hummed and gestured towards the Knights. "What should we do about the equipment these two are wearing?"

"Don't worry about it. I already put their weapons away, but they aren't going to cause any trouble, so the armors can stay."

"If you say so." He signaled for the two to get out, and Sir Griffon took the lead, with Penny reluctantly following after him. "Please wipe your feet before you enter, and leave your headgear with the maids."

As if waiting for the words, the silent twin maids came to the forefront and took the pair's helmets before they could raise an objection. In the meantime, Sebastian fell in line next to me, and once I gestured for the 'guests' to follow after us, the guards formed an orderly box around us. It was a little unnerving, and made getting through the front door more of a hassle than it was ought to be, but I couldn't say I was entirely surprised by the heightened security.

"The family and the rest of our guests are in the conference room. Follow after me." I nodded to Sebastian and he led us through the byzantine corridors of the mansion, yet we barely took a couple of steps before he addressed me again. "The operation succeeded without any causality. The support you procured was quite… 'unorthodox'," he stated along with his annoying air quotes, "yet they proved to be crucial in the swift resolution of the conflict." He paused here for a long time, seemingly gauging my reaction, but in the end, he couldn't help but ask, "Just where did you find a squad of Fauns loyal to you?"

"Fauns?" Sir Griffon echoed behind us, but I didn't respond to him.

"They are technically loyal to my sister."

"The one with the spear referred you as 'Lord Regent'," Sebastian continued with another pair of air quotes drawing a sigh out of me.

"It's a long story, and not entirely relevant at the moment."

"Fair enough, but one of these days you have to recount it to me in detail. I'm also curious why they would be wearing such strange outfits."

He gave up unexpectedly fast, and some thinking later I gave him a nod.

"Next time I'm here to hang out with the princess, I'll make sure to set aside some time for a chat."

"Would you prefer Moroccan mint tea or masala chai for the occasion?"

"Surprise me."

Sebastian acknowledged my comment with a small grunt and just the barest hint of a smile, and we wordlessly continued down the hallways, all the while ignoring the duo behind me burning holes into the back of my head with their eyes. It didn't take us long to arrive at our destination, as the conference room was on the ground floor, and I could tell we were almost there by the presence of the braided maid standing ramrod straight in front of a large double-door.

"Good evening, future young master."

… Of course she couldn't resist calling me that in front of these guys. As if the way they were scrutinizing me wasn't already bad enough.

"Hello, Melinda. How are our guests doing?"

"They were treated well, as per future young master's orders. We are just about to serve refreshments, future young master. Does future young master have a request?"

"I'd request that you'd stop calling me that, but I know it's pointless, so no, I don't."

"Future young master is wise beyond his years."

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go inside."

The moment I said that she opened the door for us, and I quickly entered while pointedly ignoring the quietly snickering old man at my side.

The conference room was about the same size as the parlor, but significantly less lavishly decorated. Maybe it was so that all the glinting gold foil wouldn't disrupt negotiations? More importantly, the space was dominated by the large oval table in the middle, with two people sitting on one side, and two on the other. Besides them, there were about ten more security guards on top of the ones coming in with us, about a dozen or so placeholders wearing identical gray tracksuits sitting on dining chairs along one wall, and finally, Mountain Girl in her usual purple suit standing at attention next to the fancy chair at the head of the table, at least as much as such term applied to ovals.

As for the people around said table, on one side sat Abram and Emese, with one more seat next to them which I presumed was reserved for Sebastian. On the other side, there were four chairs, with two of them already taken by a pair of men dressed in similar business casual clothes that looked too small on one of them, and too loose on the other.

When they noticed out arrived, the Dracis couple beamed at me, while the men became crestfallen at once.

"Ack, sae thay captured ye tae... "

I think that made it abundantly clear that the bigger man way Sir Minotaur. On closer look though, I had to reconsider whether I should call him that, as despite his voice and size, his face was shockingly young, possibly not even twenty yet. He had cropped black hair and thick eyebrows sitting over a pair of dispirited eyes, and his clean-shaven face had a prominent jawline.

The man sitting next to him was considerably older, probably in his late forties, and his long brown hair and bushy mutton chops gave the impression of a seasoned biker. By process of elimination, he had to be the Eagle Knight.

"Good evening, everyone. Sorry for being late, but we had to discuss a few things amongst ourselves," I greeted everyone present and walked over to the head of the table, and then casually leaned the covered up sword in my hand against the table before turning to Penny and Roland still standing by the doorway. They looked a little uncomfortable, so I gestured towards the empty chairs next to their comrades. "Go on, take a seat. We can't exactly get started while you're still standing."

They were still hesitant, but after some further prodding, the two also came over to the table. In the meantime, Sebastian already took his own spot next to the hosts, and Rinne wordlessly pulled my designated chair out as well.

"There, Leonard-dono."

"Thank you."

"Do you have any further orders?"

I was just about to sit down, but that question made me pause.

"Not right now. Please stand by."

"Understood."

Mountain Girl gave me a deep bow, and without any further ado, she more or less 'fell' into my shadow and disappeared from sight.

"Wow! That's a neat trick, isn't it, honey?" Papa Dracis exclaimed in amazement, and in the meantime, I succesfully took a seat.

"Brother Leonard. What exactly is going on here?" Sir Eagle inquired the moment he got the opportunity, but before I could formulate and answer, Sir Minotaur joined the fray.

"Richt, whit th' hell is gaun oan 'ere? We wur amboosd in oor field base by some ninja wifie, a lassie wi' floating hauns, thae twa wyrmbloods, 'n' a gaggle o' abyssal beasts, ainlie tae be tellt that we hud tae attend a meetin, 'n' then ye juist saunter in lik' ye ain th' steid! Explain yersel', noo!"

"… Hey, son? Do you actually understand what he's saying?" Abram whispered to me the moment the echoes of the big guy's bellows died down.

"More or less," I responded with a shrug, and this time it was Sir Eagle who directed an accusatory frown at me.

"'Son'?"

"I'll get to it in a minute, but how about we get this meeting started first?" Nobody objected (not that I gave them time to), so I hastily continued with, "How about we start with the introductions? From left to right, it's Sir Duncan, Sir Arnwald, Sir Roland, and Penny, my sister."

"Oh, she is? Hi," Emese greeted her with a wave, completely bamboozling the girl, only to then subsequently let out a sigh and turn to her husband. "I don't know how to feel about this, dear. Christmas dinners are going to be strange enough with an Abyssal at the table, and now he has another strange sister."

"Now, now, honey. I'm sure we can accommodate her as well."

The knightly side of the table was getting increasingly fidgety, so I drew everyone's attention by tapping my fingers against the table.

"Moving on to our hosts. As you are assumedly well aware, it's Abram and Emese Dracis, the heads of the Dracis bloodline of Draconians, as well as Sebastian von Fraenir, the steward of the Dracis household, among many other things." I waited for a beat to see if anyone had anything to say, and once I was in the clear, I took a deep breath and turned to the Knights. "Now then, it's been a long time since you've last met me, and a lot of things changed since then, so allow me to introduce myself as well."

Saying so, I stood up from my seat and picked up my sword again. I inhaled deeply to calm my nerves, and a suitable long tense silence later I slowly exhaled and forced a solemn expression onto my face.

"I'm Leonard 'Blackcloak' Dunning, Chimera Slayer of Critias, acting head of the Kage clan, the so-called future young master of the Dracis family and, last but not least…" At this point, I undid the binding on the sword's hilt and drew Cal out of its canvas swaddle and held it out in front of me at chest level, and they played along by releasing a soft light and a thrumming hum. I let everyone take a good look, and then concluded my introduction with, "the current wielder of Caledfwlch and this generation's King of Knights."

By then Cal got really into it and they let out a high-pitched sound that reminded me of the stereotypical noise a sword makes when drawn from its scabbard in video games and movies. It made no sense in this context whatsoever, but it suitably impressed everyone in the room, so I decided not to complain about it, and instead I carefully placed the blade onto the table in front of me.

"So, now that everyone's aware of exactly who they are dealing with…" I said that with an amicable smile and sat down, only to then morph it into a wolfish grin as I placed my elbows onto the table and assumed my 'diabolical mastermind' pose, and then culminated the whole act with an ominous, "Let's have a chat, shall we?"