The Simulacrum

"I'm outside of the gates now," stated the echoing voice of Elly as she cautiously peeked left and right just outside of the main gates of the Dracis mansion. "Where are you?"

"Move a little further to the right," I instructed her through the phone while simultaneously observing her with Far Sight. "Further. Further. Just a liiiiitle further..."

I continued to watch her inch forward step by step (which was an admittedly amusing sight, as she was just a manila trench coat away to look like a highly visible spy that just stepped out of an eighties Saturday morning cartoon), until I was sure she was hidden from casual observers by the thick hedge surrounding the estate. The moment I felt in the clear, I tightened my grip on Judy's waist and we both appeared right behind her.

The princess was still scanning the perimeter, so I quickly cut the line, put my phone away, and by the time she finally turned around, I was already flashing my most suave smile at her and greeted her.

"Good evening, princess."

At this point Elly was still holding the phone by her ear, and she kept it there as she proceeded to blink at me with a weird mixture of surprise and confusion, plus just a hint of a frown on top of it all.

"Why were you hiding?" she finally asked as she awkwardly put her phone away.

"We weren't really hiding per se," I answered ambiguously, only to get elbowed in the side by Judy for my trouble.

"I told you; no more ad-hoc excuses," she warned me as she simultaneously slipped out of my embrace.

"It wasn't an excuse! We weren't actually hiding," I voiced my complaint, only to get shot down by a withering scowl (by Judy standards, of course).

"Hush, Chief. After your recent track record, I am afraid even asking about the weather would cause you to make an international incident," my assistant replied with an exasperated pout.

"International incident?" Elly cut in with a curiously raised brow as she sidled up to the two of us.

"It's kind of a long story," I sheepishly told her, lest I would incur even more of Judy's wrath.

"We will tell you later," Judy stated, then after a moment of thinking she gestured towards the estate gates while telling the other girl, "Let's go inside first, or you will catch a cold."

I blinked in honest surprise at her words. I mean, not the part about Elly catching a cold. I asked her to go outside on a short notice, so she was dressed only in her indoor clothes, and considering how it was late in the afternoon and how chilly the autumn weather had been as of late, I wholeheartedly agreed that she should get inside. The part that actually confused me was Judy's insistence that we should do so as well. Technically the only reason why we were here on the first place was because I might have forgotten that, for us to get home from our secret base, I actually needed to have someone at home to teleport to.

Now, to be perfectly honest here, the Princess wasn't exactly on the top of my list of target-candidates, but a quick Far Sight peek at each member of our circle of friends revealed that their homes were positively filled with those creepy eyeball surveillance orb thingies. Well, except for the Class Rep's, but she was just about to have a shower, so she was right out of the question; and no, I didn't actually tell the shower thing to Judy, as she was cross enough with me already without some kind of misunderstanding about peeking on girls throwing more fuel onto my funeral pyre.

But putting my metaphorical self-immolation aside, after observing Elly via Far Sight, I found out that the Dracis estate didn't actually have any such surveillance, so the only thing we had to avoid while teleporting in was the ever vigilant eyes of the mansion's staff in general and a certain butler in particular. As such, we left Snowy in the secret base, both so that she could continue her reunion with her 'uncle Brang' and so that they could work out the kinks in their new contract or fealty or whatever. Hence the current situation.

Now, I am not going to lie; I was about ninety percent sure that the moment we arrived back in the neighborhood, Judy would grab me by the hand, drag me to my room, and then spend about an hour scolding me about some of my recent life decisions. To be fair, I did regret some of them, but I had a feeling the things she was most upset about weren't amongst them. Such as, I certainly didn't regret bringing Brang and company over. Nor did I regret the pranks I played on Crowey, even if they kind of, um, shall I say 'gone out of hand'?

Of course I told everything I learned about Crowey's situation (and tantrum) through Far Sight to Judy… which was one of the things I regretted a tiny little bit. I mean, what she didn't know about, she couldn't' reprimand me about, right? Granted, I would have probably told it to her at some point later anyways, but doing so right after she finished chewing me out for recruiting a squad of Faun without any plans to feed and supply them might not have been one of my brighter ideas.

Anyhow, I think it was about time I stopped getting stuck on the circumstances and instead returned to the present situation, where Judy was still gesturing for us to go through the gates. I gave her a slightly hesitant look and ultimately asked, "Do we have some business here?"

"I do," she responded with a nod. "I want to talk to mister von Fraenir and discuss your new recruits before it would lead to some kind of enormous misunderstanding with the Dracis household."

"Recruits?" Elly asked, as she was getting increasingly confused by our discussion, and yet she somehow still had to presence of mind to very sneakily edge over to my side, as if waiting for an opportunity to grab me as usual.

"Another long story," I answered her, and then I let out a shallow breath and gave an affirmative nod to my other girlfriend, following which I began walking towards the gates with heavy steps.

"Wait!" the princess abruptly exclaimed as she excitedly followed after me. "Are you staying for dinner? I will go tell Melinda to prepare two extra servings!"

"I… don't think so?" I answered with more than a slight uncertainty. "We are just going to have a short talk with Sebastian."

"Not 'we'," Judy interjected while lining up with us on my other side. Noticing my raised brows, she let out a small sigh and told me, "I want to sit down with him to explain our situation. Just the two of us. Without a certain someone picking a fight and causing another incident."

"I—" I wanted to defend myself, but in the end all I could do was to swallow my flimsy rebuttal. I mean, while I was sure that if I tried really, really hard, I could probably stop myself from verbally sparring with the old lizard, I unfortunately couldn't really guarantee it. As I realized that, I also couldn't help but feel frustrated by my weird temper around the old man. I mean, it wasn't really my fault… or maybe it was? Either way, letting my temper get the best of me to the point where my girlfriend was outright disappointed in me honestly stung a lot.

In the meantime Elly must have somehow came to a conclusion based on our discussion, and when we reached the actual entrance of the mansion, she happily skipped ahead and told me, "All right! I will tell the staff we are having guests!"

"Call mister von Fraenir too," Judy stressed, at which point Elly theatrically rolled her eyes, which looked a little weird when accompanied with her still beaming smile.

"Come on Judy! I'm not deaf, I heard it already."

Saying so, she let out a high-spirited giggle and she disappeared through a large wooden door, leaving the two of us alone in the lavish foyer of the mansion. I might have mentioned this before, but damn, the Dracis knew how to do interior decoration. Unfortunately what they didn't know was the word 'restraint', so the place looked so opulent with all the golden foil and polished hardwood that it was pretty much suffocating.

Speaking of suffocation, for a few seconds there was a really heavy silence in the air between Judy and I, so I hastily cleared my throat, and in lieu of breaking the ice I rhetorically asked, "So, should we stay for dinner too?"

She glanced up at me, her eyes still set ambiguously between 'sulky' and 'angry', but in the end she simply shrugged her shoulders and answered, "We might as well. The cook here can probably do better than grilled cheese."

"Oh, come on!" I raised my voice in protest. "I told you, I didn't actually write that!"

"Then what did you write?" she asked back, not at all swayed by my sincere assertion.

I groaned aloud, then I leaned forward and continued in a strained whisper, "I told you already! I wrote the Archon thing because I thought it would make the Celestial connection more believable if they managed to translate it somehow. The rest was supposed to be pure gibberish! How the hell was I supposed to know they would be able to read not one, but four different lines out of it?! I'm totally innocent! A victim of circumstance!"

"You sure are," Judy nodded with a look that said she didn't have a shred of faith in my innocence.

"Come on, Dormouse!" I objected again, and as much as I hate to admit it, it came out as a bit of a whine. "Please believe me!"

She gave me a long, hard look, after which her frown finally eased off a little.

"Very well Chief. Let us say I will, against my better judgment, believe in you. Can you actually explain to me what happened?"

I let out a relieved breath, following which I fell silent for a moment to collect my thoughts.

"I would be lying if I said I have a concrete answer, but… I have three hypotheses off the top of my head."

"Three?" Judy raised a single brow, which finally erased the last traces of that awful glare from her face, to my utmost relief.

"Yes," I answered accompanied by an emphatic nod. "They are, from most to least mundane, are as follows: My first option is that the actual translators messed up. I honestly thought I was writing complete gobbledygook, but it is possible that they have read into it something that wasn't actually there."

"The lines were too complex for that," Judy denied my explanation on the spot, but I gestured for her to let me continue.

"I know, but I have two possible explanations for that: either their 'experts' were so desperate for answers they completely fudged the translation, or they realized that it was meaningless, and so they translated it more 'liberally' so that they would even have an answer to present to the angry, bedridden Abyssal Lord."

"Whom you poisoned."

"On accident!" I protested again, only for her to shake her head.

"The one about crows is still too much on the nose," Judy stated after some consideration.

"True," I granted her, albeit hesitantly, "But that's when my second hypothesis comes into the picture. Do you remember when we discussed my language skills and how weird Celestial Script was? Like, how the syntax felt like it was constantly shifting when I wasn't paying full attention?"

"Yes," Judy nodded, then she suddenly froze as she frowned again. Thankfully this time it was the thoughtful kind of frown, not the disdainful one she was treating me with until very recently. "You think the words you wrote rearranged themselves between the time you wrote them and they translated them," she finally stated with a tone that said she was completely confident in her prediction of my thoughts.

"You once again prove you know me better than I do myself," I told her with a jestful little smirk to ease the mood. "Yes, that's what I think. Or more precisely, I think there might have been some patterns in the gibberish I wrote based on my state of mind at the time. Like, I was thinking of Crowey, so I might have wrote something about crows in there. Then I was thinking about snappy words to add, which would explain the quote and the bits about being a true god of whatever."

"And the grilled cheese part?" Judy's question was about as skeptical as it could get, but I could only shrug my shoulder.

"I might have been a little peckish…"

She looked me in the eye for a while, as if to see if I was serious, but then she finally let her shoulders slacken and stated, "So you are saying that it is the unusual syntax of the Celestial Script that is at fault." She paused for a second, then added, "It's a little convenient."

"Well… I still have my third hypothesis," I told her while averting my gaze for a moment, but then I took a deep breath and told her with a forced smile, "It's your favorite too; narrative influence."

That earned me a curiously raised brow and she immediately followed it up by asking, "At which point?"

"Take your pick," I answered with exasperation masked by nonchalance. "I might have been influencing my choice of words, or changing the words themselves on the paper after the fact, or influencing the translators. The depressing possibilities are endless!"

"That's strange," Judy spoke while raising a finger to her chin in contemplation.

"Which part?"

"The one where you only acknowledge the possibility of narrative influence when it lets you avoid the consequences of your actions," she answered with a poker face even more deadpan than usual, but before I could voice my just protests, she lightly shook her head and added, "Nevertheless, you've made your point, and I have to admit that there were exonerating circumstances following your latest misdemeanors. For the time being, I will acquit you of your crimes against commons sense and annul your prohibition of cuddling."

"Wait, since when was that prohibited?"

My dear assistant magnificently ignored my entirely valid question, and instead she glanced at her phone and then told me, "Since it was postponed due to the previous prohibition, cluddle-o-clock will be re-scheduled until after dinner."

I gave Judy a flat look, but after a while I gave up on trying to convey my feeling with gestures alone and instead I muttered, "So I didn't actually convince you, you just wanted an excuse to move on so we could cuddle later."

"I unfortunately cannot confirm or deny such accusations without my attorney present."

"Wait, I'm confused now. Weren't you playing judge just a moment ago?"

"Chief, don't be silly. Judges and attorneys are not the same thing."

"I know, but—"

Our little, at this point practically customary, exchange of the random banter ball would have likely continued unabated for a while, if not for the sudden opening of the door on our left, which incidentally was the same one where the princess exited the scene not too long ago. Through said door entered a familiar pair in the form of Sebastian and Melinda. They were wearing their usual garbs, with Sebastian opting for an actual, I-shit-you-not monocle to complete the image, while Melinda had her long, blonde braids behind her back as usual.

"Good evening," Judy immediately greeted them like they were close associates… which, considering how she had way more contact with them than I did due to her frequent visits to the Library, was likely on the mark.

In response Melinda honest to goodness curtsied, while the old butler only glanced over us with a slight nod, "Good evening, miss Sennoma. And you."

An appropriate retort was on the tip of my tongue, but a quick glance at my finally placated assistant made me swallow it back down, and instead I greeted them a little late with a curt, "Evening."

That earned me an odd look from Sebastian, but before he could get started, Judy stepped forth and addressed him, "I wish to speak with you in private, if you have the time."

Now it was her turn to get a peculiar look from the old butler. In the end he lightly shrugged his shoulders and answered, "If it is important, I can open up some time in my schedule for the evening." For some reason at this point he gave me a quick glance and then asked, "Should we head to my office or the library?"

"The library," Judy answered on the spot. "I feel more comfortable there."

"Very well," he nodded, and to be honest, it kind of irked me how polite he was with her, as opposed to his usual abrasive attitude when he was talking with me. I could not dwell on it for long though, as the blonde maid stepped forth at this time and she gestured towards me.

"Lady Eleanor informed me that you will be staying for dinner. I was told to lead you to her room until then."

"… Okay," I answered a little uncertainly, but before I knew it, Judy was already walking out of the foyer behind the butler, so I had little choice but to follow after my own guide, and so we also left the room through a different door. The two of us started walking down some familiar corridors, thought to be honest, I wasn't sure I have been in them before, or just that the whole huge mansion was made out of similar looking hallways.

I was just about to get lost in my thoughts when I was yanked out of my contemplation by Melinda letting out a dry cough to draw my attention.

"I have been informed that milady and you are currently dating. Congratulations."

For a second or two I could only stare at the maid in flabbergasted silence, and then I tentatively answered, "Thanks, though I would probably feel better about it if you didn't look like you wanted to stab me."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," she continued with a wooden smile while simultaneously still staring daggers at me. "Could it be your inner guilt manifesting? Is there anything related to your relationship with milady that you would think would make me want to repeatedly stab you in cold blood?"

"… Oookay, that was too graphic for my comfort," I stopped and then, after quickly looking around, I gestured for her to follow me to a nearby nook and told her, "I have a feeling you really want to tell me something, so how about we stop here for a while and discuss it before it explodes into our faces?"

The blonde maid gave me a skeptical look, but then followed after me and faced me with a disapproving frown and a conspiratorial whisper.

"Very well. Since you seem to be receptive, I will get to the point straight away. Are you also dating miss Sennoma?"

I had a feeling it was something like this, so I immediately answered, "Yes, things turned out like that."

"Are you intending to keep up this relationship?"

"Well, yes, that's the plan," I answered sincerely.

Melinda gave me another critical look, then she let out a tired breath and began, with a firm yet somewhat helpless voice, "I will be honest with you. I was well aware that milady would one day find a partner. I hoped, from the bottom of my heart, that she would find a 'special someone' who loved her back, instead of being forced into a bleak political marriage. For a while, I hoped that someone would be you, but…"

"Hold on," I cut in with raised hands. "I do like her a lot, you know? I wouldn't be going out with her otherwise."

"Then why are you also dating another girl?"

"I told you, it just turned out that way!" I explained aloud, only to tone my voice back to a whisper as I continued, "Also, it's not like I am dating the two of them separately; all three of us are technically in the same, big relationship."

Melinda gave me a skeptical look and repeated after me, "All three of you are in a single relationship? How does that work?"

"I can't really tell you, since I am also pretty new to this, but so far it kinda does." I paused for a moment to look for further arguments, and then I added, "Actually, Elly said the Dracis family had something similar going on, with multiple wives or whatnot."

"A practice like that exists, yes…" she mumbled uncertainly, "But it is for the head of the family only."

"And the princess is going to be that when the current head retires, right?"

"Yes?" Melinda nodded with an expression that said she had a hard time believing she was agreeing with me.

"Then there is no problem, is there?"

The chambermaid fell silent for a long time, then she ultimately asked, "So you are trying to use our traditions to benefit yourself in this strange relationship."

"I deny your accusation, and if anything, it was the princess who decided to invoke it to resolve our love triangle."

"I see," she once again fell silent for a moment, then said, "However, have you thought about this: If you grant this precedent to milady, aren't you afraid that it would open the door to allow her to take another mistress?"

"Mistress?" I mumbled for a moment, but then I shook my head, "Well, no. I mean, she was already very accommodating in the resolution of our current relationship, so if she really insisted, I don't think I would have the gall to object, especially since I am the guy who already has two girlfriends at the moment."

"Really?" Melinda suddenly perked up.

"Um… yes?" I replied uncertainly, at which point the maid gave me an uncharacteristically enthusiastic nod, only to finally realize she was acting weird, so she unashamedly cleared her throat and tried to act all prim and proper again, which incidentally only made her even more suspicious.

"I see. If you have put so much thought into your relationship with milady, and you are willing to compromise to that extent, I believe I have no objection to your liaison"

Saying so, she selfishly decided to end the conversation here and gestured for me to follow after her as she exited the nook with a slight new spring in her steps. I had a very, very bad feeling about this, but I decided not to confront the suspicious maid right now and instead ask Elly about it in a roundabout way.

Anyways, as we continued on our way, I suddenly recalled something else that nearly slipped my mind due to the unexpected discussion about my relationships.

"Melinda, I have a quick question?"

"Yes, sir?"

That almost made me stumble, so after regaining my balance I repeated after her, with no small amount of incredulity, "Sir?"

"Would you prefer if I addressed you as young master instead? Or, considering the circumstances, 'future young master'?"

"… I have no idea whether you are making fun of me right now or not, and frankly, I don't think I really want to know either. Instead, can you just tell me if you left any of your uniforms over at my place?"

The chambermaid paused thoughtfully for a moment, then she admitted, "I believe I might have indeed left a pair of spare uniforms in your guest room. If they are in the way, I will arrange with the family chauffeur to take them home in short notice."

"Before that, I was actually curious if you would be willing to sell them."

Melinda paused again, for what seemed like the umpteenth time in our short discussion, and then she pointedly took a step away from me while musing, "I never thought future young master had such an interest. I believe I have to be vigilant in the future."

"No, I don't, and no, you won't, and stop backing away from me and listen to what I am saying!"

In the end I had to spend the whole time it took to get to Elly's room to somehow resolve the misunderstanding before the whole estate would conclude I had a maid fetish. Seriously, why did all the women in my life have to be so bloody difficult!?

"We have arrived, future young master" Melinda stated, for some reason still keeping a distance of about two steps from me.

"Yes, I figured," I answered with my own brand of deadpan while subtly pointing at the mahogany door with a large brass plaque bearing the words 'Eleanor Dracis' on it in cursive letters.

"I will call you when dinner is ready to be served."

After saying so, she gave me a curt curtsy and then turned on her heel and began walking down the corridor where we came from. I followed her with my eyes until she was out of sight, and only then did I let out an absolutely exasperated sigh. While I had a lot to dwell on following this encounter, I decided not to do so, and instead I did a quick Far Sight roll-call. It was a habit I decided to slowly develop; just so that I would be prepared in case the dreaded 'narrative' reared its ugly head again.

In the span of a few seconds, I found that the Class Rep finished showering and was now in the process of doing homework (or more paperwork, one or the other) at her desk, Josh and Angie were sitting on the latter's couch and watching some really old, cheap looking black-and-white monster movie while munching on popcorn and laughing their heads off. Snowy was sitting in a big circle on the floor with the Fauns and fervently discussing something about bodyguard rotations. Judy was sitting at a table with the old butler in a quite poorly lit room, while Elly was… Well, she was stiffly sitting on her bed on the other side of this here door.

Since that meant no one else needed my immediate attention, I resolved myself and lightly knocked.

"Come in!" came the instant response from the other side, so I naturally obliged and opened the door.

The chamber on the other side was quite… err… let's go with 'eclectic'. If this was the first time I had laid my eyes on Elly's room, I would have probably frozen on my tracks as I stepped in, but since I have already seen the place a couple of times through Far Sight, I was mentally prepared. As for a description… where do I even begin?

Let's start with the general layout. Since the room was naturally part of the mansion, at its base it had the same kind of marble floor and dark hardwood wall paneling as the rest of the building. The richness of the architecture was further reinforced by a vaulted ceiling covered in baroque stucco decorations and huge, elaborate windows partially hidden by simple yet elegant black curtains. The furniture inside were also of similar design, all white and intricately ornamented with golden highlights on the edges and the handles, and the centerpiece of the room was definitely the giant, king-sized bed in the middle. In summary, it really did feel like I just stepped into the bedroom of a true princess.

Unfortunately, things didn't stop there. Now, while I am the first to admit that I am not above considering animal plushies cute, or finding them even cuter when they are arranged in a girl's room, but there is something to be said about the effect not scaling well when it came to the kind of numbers I was facing at the moment. We weren't talking about a couple of plushies, or even dozens, but hundreds of the adorable little buggers, in various colors, sizes and designs. Seeing them neatly arranged all over the place suddenly made a chill run down my back, as if I just entered into the elaborate set-piece of a schlocky horror movie.

This would have been weird enough, but that wasn't all! On top of all this, as if just to make the place even more anachronistic, the walls were plastered with posters. Now, for a teenage girl, no matter how well bred, having posters on her walls was nothing unusual. Well, I might have agreed with that assessment if they were, oh, I don't know… let's say some pop stars, or celebrities, or maybe even a handsome sports star or something. Usual, dare I say stereotypical, teenage girl stuff.

It probably doesn't take a genius to figure out that no, the faces staring at me from her walls didn't belong to the members of the latest dreamy boy band. In fact, all of them featured various groups of leather-clad, long-haired, bearded men, occasionally with elaborate props in tow, posing in front of epic landscapes filled with thunderstorms, volcanoes, dark forests, mythical animals, or even more likely, all of the above at the same time. In case my brief description wasn't enough, let me spell it out: Elly's walls were covered by dozens of different, carefully framed promotional posters from actual metal bands, and to make it even weirder, most of them even had autographs on them!

So, let's put all of this together, and we now had an opulent room that looked like an actual royal suite form a period movie, its furniture all but buried under a mountain of plushies of various colors and sizes, and with framed images of snarling power metal bands covering the walls in every direction the eye could see. If this was the first time I saw this, it would have easily taken me a minute to gather my wits but, due to my previous inoculation, I just let out a flat 'huh' instead and closed the door behind me.

In the meantime the princess demurely walked up to me and said, "Welcome to my room. It's… the first time I invited a boy in here."

Now, this was the thing that actually had me froze up for a moment and forced me to gather my wits. I knew this was a trope or something in certain romance narratives, but unfortunately I didn't really do any research into that genre lately (being more focused on the whole 'battle-shounen shenanigans' thing, because of obvious reasons related to actual survival), so I had no idea what direction the trope actually went. At long last I decided to be cautious, and answered with a noncommittal, "I'm honored?"

Elly let out a delighted giggle, and a moment later she clamped onto my arm like it was the most natural thing to do, and then she began to pull me towards her bed while asking, "So, what do you think?"

I had to ponder for a moment to figure out just what she was asking about, but since we only talked about her room so far, I ventured a guess and tentatively answered, "Your room certainly has a strong character," in my most diplomatic politician voice.

She didn't seem to mind, as she only smiled at my response. Meanwhile, we reached her bedside and we both sat down, and to my eternal shame, it was only at this crucial moment that I realized that I kind of just came to her place on autopilot because I was 'requested', but I didn't actually have anything to talk about. Since I already had enough awkward silences, I quickly started grasping for possible conversation starters, and so I blurted out the first thing that caught my eyes.

"Just where did you get so many plushies?"

"You like them?" she asked back, and after a moment of hesitation I answered with a not at all confident nod that made her smile all the same. "Dad buys me one whenever he goes on a business trip or visits one of the branch families, and they piled up over the years."

"Really? He must travel a lot."

"He does," she told me while, for some reason, proudly puffing up her chest. "That bunny over there is what he brought me this week." I followed her pointing finger towards a large, blue rabbit sitting on her cabinet in the corner. After a few moments of silence, she added, "Believe it or not, I actually have even more plushies back in Vienna."

"You have a mansion in Vienna too?" I asked immediately, just to move the conversation away from plush animals.

"Yes," Elly nodded, and then wiggled a little to free the hand clasped around my left arm and she began to count on her fingers in a now familiar yet still absolutely adorable display. "We have a big mansion like this in Vienna, one in Stockholm, a mountain villa near Sofia, and smaller mansions in Lisbon, Warsaw, and Berlin."

"Really? You have a lot of real estate in Europe," I mused aloud, though it was something I was already aware of some of those due to my research.

"We also have about thirty safe houses around the rest of the world, but Europe is the ancestral land of the Dracis family," Elly answered with a smug little smile on her face that kind of made me want to pinch her cheeks. Just a little.

I restrained the urge, and instead I stated, "That's a lot of safe houses."

To my shock and surprise, the previously giddy smile disappeared from my girlfriend's face in under a second, only to be replaced by a seethingly angry scowl.

"It cannot be helped," she stated, her voice dour and angry, raising the contrast with her previous behavior by another notch. "We can never be too vigilant against the accursed knights."

"Oh right, those guys," I mumbled, still in the process of recovering from the sudden mood whiplash.

"Yes, them," Elly gave me an intense nod, as if I just said something really profound, and she also apparently took it as a prompt to yell, "I can't wait until every last one of them have been erased from the face of this planet!"

"Whoa there!" I grabbed onto her hand and began soothing her. "No need to get that loud, it's not like they can hear you." Elly let out a placated huff, and after a second or two I cautiously asked her, "I don't think they have been particularly active as of late though."

"Right, but that just means they must be scheming something," she hissed in response. "Just like the last time."

I looked at the princess for a solid five seconds, debating whether I should ask or not, but in the end curiosity got better of me and so I said, "I feel like there is a personal story here. Do you want to talk about it?"

To my surprise, Elly jumped to her feet and declared, "Very well, if you insist, I will tell you the story of my everlasting grudge!"

"I'm not insisting that much," I whispered, but my mumbles fell on deaf ears as the princess crossed her arms (which also incidentally put extra emphasis on her chest), so in the end I decided to just sit back, soak in the sight, and enjoy the show.

In the meantime Elly began with, "It all started a long-long time ago! Our ancestors, over centuries of grueling battles and sacrifices, managed to claim all the dragon-slaying weapons of the accursed knights."

"Question!" I raised my hand like we were in school, and the princess immediately froze up with a perplexed expression. Since she didn't say anything, I took it as permission, so I asked, "I was just wondering, are there other kinds?"

"Um… Yes, I think?" Elly muttered uncertainly, obviously knocked out of her groove just as she was getting into it. "I mean, we are holding onto the last dragon-slaying arm here, so for there to still be knights, they must have other kinds of weapons." After saying that, she all of a sudden went deathly pale and she all but threw herself at me and clasped my hands in her own. "Wait, that was supposed to be a secret!"

"Which part?" I asked back by reflex.

"The part about the dragon slaying spear in Sebastian's office."

I gave my girlfriend a long, hard look, just to make sure she wasn't pulling my leg, but after a short while I simply let out a shallow groan and told her, "Princess, you are terrible at keeping secrets."

"I know!" she agreed, but then she finally caught her gaffe, and her subsequently pale face went beet red in an instant. "I… I mean… Please don't tell anyone!"

"Don't worry, I won't," I reassured her while squeezing her hand back, then said, "So, I figure you wanted to tell me the story of how your family snatched that spear."

"We didn't snatch it!" she pouted for a moment, then she stood back up, letting go of me in the process, following which she stuck out her chest and proudly declared, "They attacked us first, and father beat them up, so it's technically a spoil of war."

"You are also spoiling the ending," I warned her, at which point she let out a small 'Ah' sound.

"Right, I should start from the beginning," she said, accompanied by a nod, and then began. "This happened about five years ago. Back then, we were living in Berlin, and I was going to a private elementary school there."

"Was this before or after you met Josh?"

"After. So, I told you that the accursed knights like to lay low before they strike, right?" I nodded, and so she solemnly continued, "It was just like that back then. The business was great, the knights didn't cause any trouble in years, and I made a lot of friends in school, so father decided to stay in place for a little longer instead of moving to the next estate as usual. So, my parents decided to book an entire floor of this large boat restaurant on the Spree for their wedding anniversary."

"A boat restaurant? They have those in Berlin?"

"Yes," Elly's solemn façade melted in a second as she grinned at me. "It was on this large barge, and the food was really great. The sight of the river Spree was also really romantic at night! Oh, I know! We should have our anniversary there too… I mean, if they actually rebuilt the place after the battle."

"You are both thinking too far ahead and spoiling your story again."

"Oh, right. Sorry… Where was I?"

"Your parents booking an entire restaurant," I told her helpfully.

"Okay," she nodded and then somehow managed to forcefully return herself into a semblance of solemnity under a second. "As I was saying, our family went to the restaurant on the boat, with only minimal security. The knights were apparently waiting for an opportunity like that for years, and just when they finished serving the hors d'oeuvres, they attacked. At first, they created a diversion by causing an explosion nearby, and when we were distracted, they attacked us from behind like the cowards they are! Some of them were disguised as part of the staff of the restaurant, so it was complete chaos! Then one of the bastards sneaked up behind my mother and stabbed her in the side!"

"Oh…" That actually took me a little aback. "That must have been terrible."

"Well, I was a little scared for her at the time, but mom is really tough, you know? So what does she do when she gets stabbed by the last remaining dragon slayer spear? She grabbed the guy dressed in a tin can and punched him so hard he flew across two tables! Then father noticed what happened, and he let out this amazing roar as he dashed over, grabbed the guy, and then threw him right into the river! He flew for about thirty meters! It was so cool!"

"Okay, time out!" I raised my hands in the shape of a T, which finally made her stop her enthusiastic retelling. "What kind of story is this!? I thought you were going to share with me the dramatic experience that made you hate the knights so much, and instead it devolved into you bragging about your parents!"

"I'm not bragging!" she retorted with a pout. "It was really traumatic! And I hate them because they stabbed my mom, so I'm still on topic!"

"Fine," I grumbled. "So, what happened after that?"

"After that?" Elly blinked at me and then stated, "Well, father and Sebastian beat up all the accursed knights and we picked up the spear."

"That's the end of it?! Where is the climax!?"

"It was when my father threw the knight into the river. Weren't you listening?"

I gave the blonde dragon girl my most critical look, and then said, "So, in summary: you hate the knights because they tried, and failed, to assassinate your mother," I paused here for a moment, but I decided to ask anyways: "Speaking of which, I guess she survived the ordeal."

"Of course. I told you, mom's tough," Elly emphasized her words like she was stating the obvious.

In the end I let out a huge sigh, subtly rolled my eyes, and inquired, "So, if the knights only scared you a little by completely botching an assassination that they had apparently been planning for years, then what was the point of this story again?"

"It was… um…" At this point I wasn't even surprised that she couldn't give me a straight answer, but I still let her try. "Well… It still contributed to my dislike of the accursed knights! And it also explained why mom's in a wheelchair."

"Whoa, hold on!" I raised my hands in a T again. "This is the first time I've heard of this."

"Really?" Elly looked up, apparently in honest surprise, but then she suddenly grinned at me and said, "Oh, right! I haven't introduced you to her yet! We should do that today!"

"Do we have to?" I mumbled dispiritedly, but she only continued to grin at me, so I decided to change the subject. "So, you said she was stabbed in the side, right? Why is she in a wheelchair?"

"Because it was a dragon-slaying weapon," the princess answered as if it was completely self-evident. "Those are dangerous because they stop us from regenerating."

"Regenerating? Since when can you do that?"

"I could always do that."

"Then what happened when you sprained your ankle?"

Elly blinked at me and then after some reflecting she said, "Well, to regenerate we have to assume our draconic form. That's why dragon-slaying weapons are dangerous; they make us unable to transform properly."

"Yes, I think I get that, but then why didn't you transform after you got home after hurting your ankle?"

"I…" she began, but then she gave me an odd look and said, "Actually… why didn't I do that?"

I was actually surprised by this new information. Could it be that whatever narrative influence was messing with me also did the same to the others? For example, to make sure the supernatural masquerade didn't get out of the bag early, it might have made Elly conveniently forget that she can transform for a while. … Or my girlfriend was just a natural airhead. One or the other.

Since the princess looked like she was getting more confused the more she was thinking about her past actions (a sentiment I was really familiar with), I decided to change the topic by reaching out and gently pulling her into my lap. In the beginning she was a little startled by my sudden action, but then a moment later she simply accepted the situation and began snuggling up to me.

"Are you sure you are a dragon girl and not a cat?" I whispered to myself, but she must have heard it, as she glanced up at me with a curious 'Hm?', so I told her, "Nothing. I'm just thinking aloud."

I was just getting comfortable, but then the princess suddenly threw me a curveball and said, "We were joking about it, but… I really do hate the knights, you know?"

"I figure it's not just because they hurt your mother," I ventured a guess, and she nodded in return.

"No. I mean, I really hate that particular guy that stabbed her, but he was just the tip of the iceberg." As she said that, she twisted in my lap so that she could look at me properly over her shoulder before she continued, "I really hate them because our entire lives revolve around them. They are not a huge threat, not anymore, but they are a constant one. We always have to be on the move, never staying at one place for long. All the family businesses have to be run in secret. Whatever we do, we always have to be on the lookout for them and live under their menace." At this point she paused for a moment, then with a slightly shaking voice she continued, "And… since we are dating, they might even start targeting you. Or even Judy!"

"Easy there, princess," I soothed her before she could work herself into a frenzy. "I am not worried about them, to be honest. I have enough people out for my blood already, so if they want to join the club, they need to draw a number first."

"That's not a good thing!" she protested quite vehemently. "In fact, adding them as an extra threat makes it even worse!"

"Now, now. It's not that bad. Not to mention, do you think I wouldn't get involved if they showed up, even if we weren't going out?"

Elly wrinkled her brows thoughtfully for a while, then she answered, "Yes, you would. You would probably antagonize them to the point where they would even forget about us for a while."

"See, that means there is no problem here."

"No, that's exactly the problem!" she retorted with a nostalgic scowl. "How are we supposed to have a peaceful anniversary dinner on the river Spree if you keep antagonizing everyone?"

"You really want to have a dinner there, don't you?"

"But only so that I can throw a knight into the water like dad did. I have been training in martial arts just for that!"

"Easy, easy," I playfully chided her with a smile. "If we actually get to the point where we would have a dinner like that, I would have probably already taken care of the knights, so there is no need to worry your pretty head over it," saying so, I patted her on the head for emphasis. The feeling was a little different than when I did that to Snowy, and the way she delightedly rubbed her crown against my palm once again reminded me of a cat.

We stayed like this for a few minutes, in a strange yet not at all uncomfortable silence. Maybe it was because of the cozy atmosphere, or our previous mention of hypothetical anniversaries, but I as I held my slightly less troublesome girlfriend (which, considering I was talking about an easily excitable rich ex-tsundere dragon girl, spoke volumes about Judy), I couldn't help but wonder about the future.

I still had to figure out what made this world tick, but that was something of a long-term goal currently on hold due to a need to establish our place in the supernatural hierarchy before we would get swallowed up by it. Once we did that, I figured Judy and I would return to our previous cycle of theory-crafting and experimentation, but that wasn't going to put bread onto the table. At the moment I was fine due to my mysterious allowance and the money on my bank account, but neither of those were stable or infinite.

I had no idea how long it would take us to figure out the secret behind this world we lived in. It could take as little as a few months or as long as a few decades, and I had no long term plans for the worst case scenario. Also, it wasn't like once I finished settling the Faun and training Josh to take up his mantle as the hero would mean there would be no further distractions down the road.

Granted, all of this wasn't a really pressing issue at the moment, since I still had two years of high school left, but what if we couldn't reach a conclusion in our research before that was over? At that point I will have to start thinking about higher education, or finding work to support two girls at the same time. Though again, it's not like they needed support per se. Judy was smart, both academically and in general, and I was pretty sure that she would do very well for herself in the future, while the princess was… well, an almost quite literal princess. If anything, she would be the one supporting me. Would that make me into a trophy husband? A question for later, I concluded, and instead I focused on said girl reservedly grinning on my lap.

"Hey, Elly?" I called out to her, which apparently startled her a little.

"Yes? Is there a problem? Am I heavy?"

"No, you're not. I just wanted to ask something."

"Really?" For some mysterious reason she was suspiciously delighted by my answer, but I decided not to dwell on it and instead asked the question on my mind.

"I was just wondering… do you have any plans?"

"Plans for what?" she asked back while raising her brows.

"For the future. For example, what do you want to do once you graduate high school?"

"Oh, that?" For a moment she seemed a little down, but then she quickly bounced back and said, "Actually, I probably won't graduate. Not like you do, at least. I never really attended school until recently anyway, and once we leave the island, I will have my private tutors prepare me for the graduation exam, and that will be it."

"So… you won't go to university?"

"Almost certainly not," she answered, accompanied by a shrug. "I will most likely take some business classes and then start working with father."

"Really? So you want to take over the family business?"

"To be honest, I don't really want to, but I have to." She probably realized she sounded a little bleak there, so she hastily added, "Don't take me wrong! It's not a bad job, or a hard one. Dad barely has to make any business decisions, and most of the work is taken care of by the accountants and the managers."

"I see," I whispered noncommittally, but before I could say anything else, the ball was suddenly thrown into my court.

"What about you? Are you going to go to college?"

I blinked at the girl on my lap, eagerly awaiting my answer like it was something really significant, so after a moment of thinking I honestly told her, "I don't really know yet." She gave me an odd look, so I decided to elaborate. "To be perfectly frank with you, the reason why I asked you was because I just realized that I don't really have any plans for the future. I mean, I am currently bogged down with the Magi, and the Abyssals, and Snowy's situation…"

"Now that you mention it, did you manage to get her new papers?"

"There is some progress, but no, not yet," I answered the princess, graciously overlooking the way she interrupted me, and after a shallow sigh I continued, "So, as I was saying, currently I am too busy with averting whatever immediate disaster is heading our way to think about long term plans."

"You can always work with us!" she offered on the spot. "In fact, once we get married, it is best that you work in the family business. It's safer that way."

I let out another sigh that may or may not have had a small chuckle hidden in it and replied, while gently poking Elly's forehead, "You're putting the cart in front of the horse again."

The princess let out a soft giggle, though as to why I had no idea, and said, "So you have no dreams for the future? That's a little sad."

"Well, plans and dreams are not the same thing, but you are technically correct," I answered absent-mindedly, but then what I just said made me curious, so I asked, "Speaking of which, do you have any dreams yourself?"

To my surprise (and secret delight), the girl on my lap suddenly reddened to the tip of her ears and she turned her head away in a very princess-like fashion.

"I… have nothing in particular," she told me while crossing her arms and refusing to look my way, which earned her a small chuckle from yours truly, after which I gently poked her cheek from the side.

"Come on princess! You know that if you act like that, it only confirms that you have something to hide."

"No I don't," she responded while turning her head away, so I switched sides and continued to poke her other cheek. "Stop that! You probably don't even want to hear it!"

"You say I don't want to hear that thing that according to you doesn't even exist?"

"Muuu…" Elly pouted for a while, then softly said, "It's silly."

"I'm not going to laugh," I promised at once. When she heard that, she finally glanced at me again over her shoulders, and after looking each other in the eye for a while, she raised her right hand towards me.

"Pinky swear," she demanded, rather than asked, and after getting over my first bafflement I decided to be nice and play along with her peculiar request. After entwining our pinkies and shaking fingers three times, for some reason she seemed visibly more assured and she finally declared, "Since I was little, I wanted to be a singer."

"A singer," I repeated after her. "Like, a pop-star or something?"

"No, not that kind!" Elly protested as she abruptly jumped off my lap and walked over to the nearest wall. "Do you know Dragon Prodigy?"

As she asked, she pointed at the large, framed poster behind her. It featured five burly, long-haired men clad in black leather grimacing in the forefront, surrounding a young, pale-skinned brunette in the middle wearing what appeared to be an overly elaborate gothic dress, with a giant blue mountain and two red dragons providing the background. As she said, the poster had the words 'Dragon Prodigy' on the top in a font that resembled burning, molten rocks. After I spent a few seconds scrutinizing the image, I gave Elly a tentative nod.

"I was actually the backing vocalist for Janis in their last two albums," she stated while puffing up her chest again.

For a moment I was kind of flabbergasted, and all I could ask was a confused, "That was you?"

Now it was my girlfriend's turn to look confused, as she asked back, "You listen to them?"

To be honest, it wasn't like I was some kind of metalhead or anything. In fact, I only learned about the existence of this band, along with many others also featured on Elly's wall, after being shocked by them on my first Far Sight visit into her room a few weeks back. I'd say that the eclectic image of the room left a deep impression on me, and so I immediately searched for them on the internet. They were playing a genre called 'gothic symphonic power metal', a phrase which would've needed several paragraphs to explain, so I didn't even attempt to do so here. Even more shockingly, their music was actually pretty good. Because of this, lately whenever I was working on the research notes, administering the Hub, or just browsing in general during the night, I had their discography running in a loop in the background.

As such, after some deliberation, I told the princess, "You could say I am familiar with them, yes."

That comment earned me a giant grin and she began to explain herself with extra gusto.

"You see, I always wanted to be a singer in a band, like Janis!" Janis was the lead singer of the aforementioned band, by the way. "I told you I took music classes, right? I've been doing so ever since I was little, and a few years ago, when father and I visited the recording studio, they let me do some backup for Janis. They were super-nice, and when they finished recording, they said my voice was great and it complimented the album, so they convinced dad to let me sing in the rest of the songs they were recording too!"

"Sooo… Doesn't that mean that you are already a singer?" I asked tentatively, at which point Elly's smile slowly withered into a disappointed pout.

"It's not the same. My name couldn't be put on the credits, so I had to use a pseudonym. I am also not allowed to appear on stage, because then the accursed knights might recognize me, and then what's the point?"

"You could still sing."

"Yes, but… The whole point of being a metal singer is the live performance! The lights, the crowd, the atmosphere! I want to do that! Being a backup singer who only appears on the studio albums is no fun!"

I was pretty sure that what she just said was a little disrespectful to backup singers everywhere, but seeing her eyes sparkle in excitement and then immediately afterwards get dejected over and over again like that made me decide not to file a complaint in their stead for the time being. Instead I stood up and told her, "So it's back to the knights being a nuisance again, huh?"

"Yes!" Elly vehemently agreed with me. "They are the worst!"

"Yeah, they are," I muttered as I looked at the poster again. In my mind's eye, I tried imagining how Elly would look in that group, in that dress. Then I imagined how she would look on the stage while performing; the crowd, loud and lively, singing along with the chorus. In my mind, the only way I could imagine her was with an enormous, gorgeous, elated smile. Then I looked at the girl who was sighing in melancholy as she looked at the same picture, and before I knew it, there was a new little desire born in me. It was whispering, planning, and scheming, with only one goal in mind: to make that smile a reality. Of course, to do so I would have to deal with a certain knight order, but considering they were openly antagonizing my girl and her family, it was only a matter of time before I would collide with them anyway.

For the time being though, I shut it in one of the recesses of my mind and returned to the conversation at hand. Elly looked a little depressed after our discussion, so in order to improve her mood, I decided some flattery was necessary.

"But still, you actually sang for a big band like that?" I began, just to get her interest. "That's still really impressive. I knew you had an amazing singing voice, but I didn't think the professionals would recognize it too."

"I told you I've been practicing since I was litte," she told me with a smug little smile that suited her much better.

"I know, but I am still happy for you. Even if it's just a baby step, it still means you have a foot in the industry. Who knows? You might even get your chance once the knights are out of the picture."

"The knights? Out of the picture?" She paused for a second to ponder, then she shook her head. "Probably not in our lifetime. They are like cockroaches."

"You can never know," I told her with a wink. "Think of it this way: if you could go back in time and tell yourself that you'd come to this island and become friends with not only a Celestial, a Magi, and an Abyssal, but you would also enter into a relationship with yours truly, your younger self would've probably said it was impossible too, and yet here we are."

The princess looked at me funny for a moment, but after some time she let her shoulders slouch and said, "When you put it like that, our situation seems even weirder… and you forgot to mention the part where we only got together because you sabotaged my attempts to get close to Josh."

"I didn't sabotage anything," I answered with a slight huff. "I told you, I was a victim of circumstances, and then things just kind of snowballed from there."

"Yes, yes," she agreed with her mouth, but her eyes told me she wasn't listening to a word I was saying. A moment later she just crept closer and then suddenly glomped me while proclaiming, "Things worked out great in the end, so everything's fine."

"That's just the hormones talking," I muttered, at which point she pinched my side. Unlike Judy's valiant yet harmless efforts at inflicting physical violence, this one actually stung, but I decided to bear with it and not to react in any way.

"You are terrible at reading the mood," she audibly sulked, yet didn't show the slightest intention of letting go of me.

"Yeah, Judy tells me that a lot too."

"Then you should—" Before she could finish saying her piece, she was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Not only that, Elly suddenly all but leaped away from me as if I was made of molten metal or something, and she only let out a relieved sigh after she saw that the door was still closed. She quickly checked her clothes (as if something would be out of place), and after a second or so she called out, "Enter."

"Please pardon the intrusion," echoed two voices as a pair of familiar French maids entered the room. They were the… twins, maybe? The ones with the bubble cuts. I don't think I've ever heard their names. Anyways, they bowed in unison, and the one on the left said, "Milady, your mother is requesting your presence."

"Right now?" Elly asked back, obviously a little suspicious.

"Yes. It is quite urgent," the other maid with the exact same face and voice answered.

"If it's important…" the princess mumbled as she glanced between me and the duo, visibly hesitating, but at last she sighed and told me, "I'll be back in a minute."

"No need to rush," I spoke with a smile. "I'm not going anywhere."

She returned the gesture, and then the three of them immediately left. The maids didn't even say goodbye or anything. To my surprise, less than thirty seconds later, just as I was about to sit back down on the bed and wait for Elly to return, someone knocked on the door again. At first I was a little apprehensive, but then they knocked again, so I raised my voice and said, "Yes?"

Without further ado, the door swung open and Melinda entered the room, prim and proper as always, and she told me, "Future young master, the head of the household is requesting your presence."

For a moment I could only stare at the chambermaid in disbelief, then I finally asked, "Right now?"

"Yes. It is quite urgent," she told me with a nod.

"… Did you rehearse this ahead of time?"

Melinda didn't seem to get it.

"What are you referring to?"

"Never mind," I dismissed the topic with a wave of my hand. "Do I really have to go though? Shouldn’t we wait for Elly to come back?"

"I believe it's in future young master's best interest to do so."

I shook my head in resignation and started walking.

"All right then, let's get this over with. Please lead the way."

"Yes, future young master," Melinda agreed with a bow as she held the door open for me. I subtly rolled my eyes as I exited the room before glancing back at her.

"Also, please stop calling me that."

"Yes, future, young master," she repeated with a straight face.

"… Are you doing this just to annoy me?"

"Yes, future young master."

At this point I simply gave up on having a proper talk with her and instead just gestured for her to go ahead. Thus, unexpectedly enough, I was on my way to meet my possible future father-in-law for the first time… who was apparently capable of throwing grown men in plate armor over a distance of thirty meters. How come all of a sudden Judy's father with his shotgun seemed so quaint…?