The Simulacrum

I had to admit, the nightscape of the town of Timaeus certainly had its charm. The public park, in particular, was especially scenic due to the combination of moonlight and the evenly placed streetlights illuminating the meandering walkways under the autumn leaves, with the cobbling giving them that extra layer of old-world class. I would even go as far as to call the environment romantic in a quiet, introspective sense of the word, so I immediately made a mental note about taking Judy and Elly out for a stroll here once things have calmed down a tad bit.

The park also felt distinctly different from the last time I've been here, which I believe was around the time I had my first proper meeting with Snowy. If I had to pinpoint exactly why, I'd say it was probably because now there were other people around the area. All of them were placeholders, naturally, but they were of the partially developed, more animated variety, and their mere presence made strolling through the park feel more natural. It also helped that the simulation or whatever apparently didn't get far enough to present things like homeless, drunk, or otherwise shady people on the benches, which had naturally forestalled any and all awkward situations involving them.

I'm going to be honest here; this line of thought made me feel a little depressed. Not because I really wanted to see homeless people around, but because the slow and steady development of the placeholders around the city was prime research material, but I simply didn't have the time and energy to do work on it because I had way too many things on my plate already.

Let's just put the fact that I lived in a dazzlingly artificial world running on fiction tropes aside for a moment, and just focus on the more tangible threats and complications surrounding me. First and foremost, I still had to make sure my unwitting harem protagonist friend was up to speed and able to deal with all the supernatural shenanigans the world was throwing at me in the form of the various secretive magical folks in general and a freaking mad scientist using sentai tactics in particular. On top of that, there were tiny little shape-shifting monsters scurrying around the city, the big boss Arch-mage of the island was probably responsible for both those and the flamboyant mad scientist harassing us, and on top of that, I was more or less forced to accompany a crazy Japanese huntress and her even crazier sentient sword on hunting trips around the more scenic parts of Timaeus.

Any one of these would've been an absolute headache by itself, but when combined, they ate up all my attention and forced me to put my long-term goal of understanding the world and its mechanics on indefinite hold, which was something even my usually adamant assistant/girlfriend agreed with.

Speaking of Judy, I pulled the scarf insisted I should wear a bit tighter around my neck, and glanced around while waiting for the return of my wayward companion for the evening. She disappeared about five minutes ago, not long after saying something about how she needed to investigate a thing, and even with the extra layers and the scarf, I was getting just a little bit chilly and... Oh, who am I kidding? I was still a little feverish to begin with, so standing around in the open like this made me feel like my family jewels were about to freeze off. My dear girlfriend even forced me to wear a thicker coat over my usual coat, and yet I still felt cold. Nice scenery or not, I would've much rather stayed at home and under about four blankets at the moment.

Unfortunately, that would've required me to have a say in the matter, which I obviously didn't have. Judy wasn't particularly happy about it either, but it was either this, or risking a certain infuriating huntress invading my house again.

Speaking of the devil, just as I looked around one more time, I finally found Rinne in the distance. She was walking towards me at a brisk pace, and as I took a closer look, I couldn't decide whether I should laugh or cry. I kept internally debating the issue until she got into earshot, and by that point, both the 'laugh' and the 'cry' party came to a compromise in the form of a tired sigh.

"You know, I can't decide what I find weirder: the fact that you would want to drink frozen slush in this weather, or that you've actually found someone selling them at this time of the day."

The aggravating huntress, clad in her usual purple pantsuit and carrying her wrapped up sword on her back, gave me an odd look as if what I just said made no sense whatsoever, and then she took a large gulp out of her slushie before replying with, "Your comment is incomprehensible. When else would you consume cold beverages? It's for—"

"Tempering the body and spirit, yes, yes I've heard already," I cut her off before and pocketed my gloved hands.

Rinne took note of my action and, after another bite, she began to honest to goodness lecture me.

"It's because your body lacks tempering that you suffer from feverous conditions. Your 'yang' must be out of balance. You must temper your constitution and..." She didn't finish her sentence; instead her words slowly trailed off into silence before she abruptly nodded to herself and added, "Onikiri wonders if you're currently attempting to mimic weakness to exploit our generosity in an attempt to deceive us into handing our tempering material over to you." The moment after she said that, the frustrating huntress pulled back her hand holding the paper cup while simultaneously covering it up with the other. "We must inform you that, regardless of your response, our answer is no."

"I don't want your slushy," I told her with my inner Judy once again bubbling to the surface.

The slightly-less-creepy-but-still-pretty-annoying huntress narrowed her eyes at my comment and, after no doubt listening to whatever her considerably more infuriating sword was spouting, she stated, "Onikiri wonders just how wide in girth your cranium must be for you to deny yourself even the chance to receive our tempering material."

I immediately rolled my eyes in exasperation and responded by telling her, "Tell your stupid sword to make up her mind."

"Onikiri says—"

"I don't care," I nipped the argument in the bud and sharply pointed down the walkway. "How about we just get on with today's 'patrol' already?"

My unwelcome companion spaced out for a moment, but at last she gave me a nod, yet not before telling me, "Onikiri requests that you consume excrement."

"Tell her that I don't listen to oversized kitchen utensils with delusions of grandeur," I responded while pocketing my hands again and began walking.

Rinne was rooted to the spot for a moment, but then she hurriedly followed after me while expressing, "We do not exactly understand what Onikiri is trying to make us tell you, but instead we want you to acknowledge that we are not required to convey your messages, as Onikiri is perfectly capable of understanding you."

"I know, I just refuse to talk to her on principle," I told her off-handedly as we continued our leisurely lap around the park.

"Onikiri wants you to know that you are a useless person, you are out of rhythm, and that you are really mean."

"Says the sword that would make sailors blush with her constants swearing. Speaking of which, ask her if one of her ancestors was a cutlass."

"Onikiri says that your jokes are not as witty as you think they are."

"... Ouch. That is the closest your sword has come to actually hurt my feelings."

"Onikiri says Onikiri is glad to hear that."

I shrugged my shoulders in a defiant display of indifference, and for or a short while we continued our patrol in silence, save for the occasional slurping sounds my erratic companion made while she was steadily devouring her slush. That said, while I certainly didn't want her frozen treat, it didn't mean I couldn't use a drink, so when we reached a familiar corner of the park I gestured for her to follow after me.

"Did you find our prey?"

I tried to ignore the way her eyes sparkled at the mere mention of the possibility and shook my head.

"No, I just remembered that there's a vending machine around here somewhere, and I want a warm drink."

"It's irresponsible consumption of yang energy like this is what exacerbates your weakened condition."

"... Sometimes I really can't put my finger on your vocabulary," I mumbled so low she probably couldn't hear it. I ignored her continued nagging and we quickly found a familiar coffee machine. I offered to buy her something as well, as basic courtesy dictated, but she naturally refused, so a disinterested grunt later I pressed one of the buttons, and very soon I had a fresh, warm cup of hot cocoa in my hands.

So, there we were; a young woman in a fairly thin pantsuit drinking a frozen slush with a straw right next to a tall, handsome, fit, intelligent, and criminally humble young man dressed as if he was on an expedition to the south pole, with a warm cup in his hands. We must've looked quite a pair.

I wasn't really in favor of just standing around in silence though, so after some consideration, I decided to breach a subject that's been on my mind for a while.

"Hey, Rinne?" The unpredictable swordswoman jolted in surprise and took a step away from me while grabbing onto her weapon with her free hand, so I had to amend my words with a pretty damn confused, "What?"

"We've already warned you against using our name so informally!"

"… Okay, then how should I be calling you other than your name?" I inquired with the utmost seriousness.

"We've told you: our name is Onikiri no Tsukaite Rinne. Our name is written as 'gallant' and 'mountain'!" she explained it as if what she said was entirely self-evident, although I had absolutely no idea what she was blabbering about.

"Soooo… What you are trying to say is that I should call you 'Mountain-girl'?"

Mountain-girl responded to my query by giving me one of her typical 'Am I having an aneurysm, or is this guy really this stupid?' looks and stated, "We don't understand the question."

"It's not that hard though. You said I cannot call you by your name, you said your name means mountain, so I'm calling you Mountain-girl. Simple."

"We're not sure we like that."

"Too bad, I'm using it," I stated on the spot, and just to accentuate it, I also flashed the third iteration of my 'roguish smirk', which itself was an off-branch of my 'roguish smile' line of expressions. It must've worked, because Rinne stopped squeezing the handle of Onikiri and she was actually looking at me quite attentively. As such, I immediately moved on by saying, "Anyways, there was one thing I wanted to ask you about for a while now: Where did you learn about the Chimera on the island?"

She became visibly crestfallen the moment she heard my question, making me wonder just what exactly she was expecting me to ask her about. Probably something silly, like if she wanted to hunt leprechauns together. Nevertheless, after pointedly taking another large gulp out of the cup, she unreservedly told me, "Our clan received the news from a nameless source."

"So it was an anonymous tip, huh?" I wondered without even trying to hide my suspicion. "And how about after you arrived here? Were you contacted by the Amadeus?" Seeing her uncomprehending expression, I reiterated by saying, "I meant the head of the Magi on the island."

"Are you talking about the Daimyo? For if you were, then no. If he were to call upon us, we would pay our respects, but our clan is not beholden to his authority. "

"Really? So you never even met him?" She shook her head. "Then where did you learn about me?" This time she was just looking at me funny, so I stifled a groan and explained to her, "You obviously knew who I was the first time we met. Who told you about me?"

"Your image and the description of your deeds arrived from the same source as the news about the creature of the underworld prowling the streets of this once-peaceful city."

"I think it's still pretty peaceful, but that's beside the point," I rebuked her before falling silent for a while. Truth be told, I actually expected that Lord Grandpa might've been careless enough to make direct contact with her, but in retrospect, I might've overestimated his folly a little bit. After all, if he really was behind it all, and he intended to hoist Rinne upon me for some reason or another, even a true idiot would make sure not to show his face like that. But then again…

"Hey, Mountain-girl?" Curiously enough, she actually responded to my call. "You said you got a picture of me?"

"Yes," she confirmed, and before I could even ask her to do it, she used her free hand to reach into the breast pocket of her suit and extracted a folded-up piece of paper.

"A moment."

After saying so, I quickly drank the last of my drink and threw the empty plastic cup into a conveniently placed nearby trash bin before returning to her and taking the photo. I fully unfolded it, and after some squinting in the dim light, I had to conclude that it was indeed a mug shot of yours truly. As a matter of fact, it wasn't just any mug shot, but one I was really familiar with.

"Can I keep this? I mean, it's not like you need it to recognize me anymore, and I think I could find a use for it."

Rinne shrugged her right shoulder only, which I figured must've meant agreement, so I returned her gesture with a thankful nod and pocketed my first piece of evidence.

Since I finished my hot cocoa, it was about time we moved on, and when I did so, she quickly finished up the last of her drink and obediently fell in line next to me. For the next ten or so minutes, we continued our round around the park without much else to talk about, right until her head suddenly snapped to our left near one of the crossroads where the paved paths met.

"Is there a problem?"

Instead of just giving me a straight answer, she gestured for me to quiet down before she walked a few steps forward, but only to come to a sudden halt less than two seconds later. Once she did so, my fickle companion dramatically looked around, kind of like one of those phony 'genius detectives' when they were assembling the clues or reconstructing the crime scene in their heads in those late-afternoon crime dramas. It didn't last long though, as in the end she merely pointed at a small clearing not too far away from the paved path.

"One of the vile denizens of the underworld has been here. Recently."

I glanced around, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary that would indicate something like that, so I reflexively asked, "What makes you think that?"

"We can detect the remnants of the traces of the lingering presence of the tracks left behind them," she clarified in a way that didn't clarify anything at all.

"So you can 'detect' Abyssals?" I fished for a slightly clearer answer, with air quotes implied.

"If you're referring to the denizens of the underworld, then yes," she confirmed with a confident nod. "It is due to our years of experience, and it's why no reviled spawn of darkness can escape our sight."

"U-huh," I grunted, and if skepticism was a power source, the amount condensed into those two syllables could probably power human civilization until the sun burned out. "Does it also work on the actual Abyssals as well?" Instead of answering me, Rinne just tilted her head to the side in the mirror image of a confused pug, so I clarified to her, "I mean the ones that normally look human."

"Ah!" My annoying companion's eyes sparkled with recognition as she straightened her neck and stated, "You are referring to the Oni!"

"'Oni', huh? I wonder if the way nobody seems to stick to the same damn terminology is some kind of secret in-joke amongst the supernatural folks…" My stray comment only earned me a 'Just what the heck is this idiot babbling about?' kind of stare, so I exhaled hard and amended, "Never mind. More importantly, can you detect the 'Oni' as well?"

"With the utmost certainty," she told me while proudly puffing out her chest for some inexplicable reason. "We can smell the foul stench of their ilk from a nautical mile away."

"That's very impressive," I responded with my nearly perfected poker face. "Just for the record, have you 'smelled' any of them recently?"

"No. Their deviousness is only matched by their rarity on the surface, so we would most certainly track them down the moment we found one."

"In that case, you might want to have your nose checked." She obviously couldn't understand my words, which wasn't surprising considering I only whispered them under my breath, but I decided to move things along anyway by gesturing towards the general direction of the 'trail' she discovered. "Does that mean we can track them?"

"No, it's too old." Rinne circled around the spot like a trained but slightly less endearing bloodhound, and then she immediately declared. "This is a land they frequently frequented. We shall lay and ambush and ensnare our prey!"

"… Now?"

"Yes," she nodded two times in a row for some reason and pointed at a strip of shrubbery nearby. "We will lay in wait over there."

"Wait, was that one of your royal plurals, or did you mean both of us?" I inquired, and she more or less answered it by walking away from my side. "What about me?"

That one earned me another 'Is this guy actually denser than a white dwarf?' kind of frown as she very slowly explained, "You will stay here. You are the bait." She must've realized that I was not particularly happy with the arrangement, to put it mildly, so she added, "You've already agreed, so stand right there."

I glanced down, then back at her, and with my incredulity barely restrained I asked, "You seriously want me to just stand here, in the open, and just twiddle my thumbs just in case a mini-Chimera shows up?"

"Precisely."

"…" I looked the glorified supernatural pest control in the eye for a good five seconds, and since she seemed entirely serious, I simply threw my hands into the air and told her, "I'm going home."

"What? Why?"

She sounded exceedingly alarmed by my declaration, but I already cast the die, so I pressed on.

"Because it's cold, it's late, and because your plan is stupid."

"No, it's not," she vehemently stated as she walked back to me. "It's hunting discipline at its most basic."

"I don't care. I'm not going to just stand around in the cold just on the off-chance that a—" I countered, but then I noticed something moving in the corner of my vision, and after focusing on it for a moment, I hastily added in a whisper, "Listen, I think there is something in the bush you were just going to hide behind."

"Are you certain?" she asked for clarification without bothering to tone her voice down, and I nodded in the affirmative.

I wanted to tell her to act natural so as not to startle whatever was in the bush, since I wanted to take a closer look, but by the time I could've said anything, she was already wearing her slasher grin as she much less turned but leaped back, the purple cloth around Onikiri unfurling and trailing behind her mid-flight like a comet's tail.

What followed was something that could best be described as history's first successful hybrid of a human and a chaff-cutter in action. The whole ordeal lasted for less than ten seconds, leaving me no space to intervene, so I could only take a better look at the end result of her carnage after she stopped whacking the greenery. I was a little afraid of what I might see, but once I finally took a closer look, I immediately let out a breath of relief.

"Another successful hunt," Rinne declared with her slasher smile still prominently plastered on her face as she turned towards me. "Once again, the crimson lifeblood of—"

She only got so far in her tired old diatribe before I had enough, so I furled my middle finger, raised my hand, and swiftly delivered the mother of all forehead flicks to her unsuspecting noggin. Now, I admit that it connected really well, and that she was probably really surprised by it, but her comical reaction of flailing around, recoiling back, and then nearly slipping on the wet ground was still entirely uncalled for.

"Why did you hit Rinne!?" she exclaimed with the indignation of a boiling cauldron full of angry ferrets, and for a moment I couldn't decide what was more surprising; her over-the-top reaction, or the fact that she just referred to herself in the third person. My momentary bewilderment was just that though, as I quickly mirrored her scowl.

"Because you're an idiot! I told you there was something in the bush! It could've been someone's pet for all we knew, and yet you immediately flew off the handle! Look at what you've done!" Saying so, I pointed at the aftermath of her rampage, which manifested in the form of the entire clearing being covered in broken twigs and branches of various thickness, shredded leaves, and random splashes of blood.

Speaking of which, even though she was always going on and on about 'bathing in the blood of her prey', she somehow managed to cover almost every surface in blotches of blood in a five-meter radius, yet somehow her own suit remained entirely spotless. How did she even do that?

However, let's put that small tangent aside for the moment and focus on the scene, because in the middle of all that, there was the mutilated body of a deformed creature that seemed to be a curious crossbreed between a chicken, a crocodile, and a sloth.

"That," I emphasized as I trained my finger upon the carcass, "could've been a squirrel, or a dog, or a stray cat."

"It could?!" she exclaimed, for some reason considerably more mortified by the possibility than I expected.

"Yes. This time it wasn't, because…" My words trailed off into silence as I glanced back at the remains, only to discover that almost half of it was already gone in a way that looked like it was melting into the ground. I gave the sight a slightly disturbed 'Huh.' and then continued, "Well, whatever that used to be. But what about next time? It could be an innocent bystander!"

"Like a cat? Are there really cats around here?"

Her fixation with possible feline casualties was odd, but not the oddest thing I've seen from her by a long shot, so I decided not to dwell on it, and instead I told her, "Sure. The park is right next to a residential area. I'm sure some people keep cats there, and they could be out adventuring in the park even as we speak."

"No one told us there would be cats…" Her comment seemed almost remorseful, which I took as a great opportunity to press on and try to avert any future collateral damage, be they people, pets, or just shrubbery.

"And another thing—!" I began, only for my impassioned words to come to a screeching halt the moment I felt a distinct buzz in my coat pocket. "Give me a moment," I requested with one finger raised while I simultaneously used my other hand to unbutton my outer coat and fish out my phone.

I unlocked the screen, and after checking the caller ID, I immediately used my Far Sight to glance at Snowy. I found her in the entryway of our house, still dressed in her favorite uniform and with her phone raised to her ear. At a quick glance, there didn't seem to be anything dangerous going on, so I let out a relieved breath that sneakily got itself pent up in my chest and I picked up the phone.

"Hi, sis. Is there a problem?"

"Problem?" Snowy repeated after me a tad uncertainly, after which she let out a somewhat uncertain sound. "Nm. I'm not sure if it's trouble or not, but we have a visitor."

"At this hour?" the question slipped out of my mouth, but on second thought I had to admit that it wasn't actually that late, just the sun started to set fairly early, so I quickly amended myself and asked a considerably more important thing. "Who is it?"

"I don't know him. He's tall and he..."

"You don't need to describe him; it's enough if you just take a step or two towards the door."

"Oh, right. Sorry. "

I wanted to tell her she didn't need to apologize, but in the meantime she moved into position, so I decided to do that later and instead I focused on the unexpected visitor by re-entering Far Sight and changing my vantage point so that I could see the other side of the door.

Right there, I found a young man, somewhere in the vicinity of his early twenties, covered in about as many layers as I was at the moment. He was indeed fairly tall, and even though it wasn't readily apparent at first glance, he was sharply dressed, and he even had a pretty neat black leather briefcase and an admittedly pretty stylish hat. What were these things called again? 'Flat cap', I think? I wasn't an aficionado of men's fashion, but what he was wearing looked distinctly cappy, and it was flat enough, so let's go with that.

Anyhow, he didn't appear particularly dangerous, but if I have learned anything, it was that looks were more often than not deceiving around these parts.

"What did he want?" came my next obvious question as my perception snapped back to my actual location.

"He was looking for you. He also mentioned something about, um..." Snowy inserted an awkward pause into the conversation right here, then after a second or two she added, in a very low voice bordering on a whisper, "... Celestial... business...?"

This, ladies and gentlemen, was yet another one of those 'DUN-DUN-DUUUUN!' moments. As if my life needed more.

"Ooooookay then. I suppose I better get home ASAP and see what he wants from me. I'll be there in a jiffy."

"Okay," Snowy uttered in the verbal equivalent of a relieved sigh and put down the phone, no doubt expecting that I would show up behind her in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, before I could do that, I had to excuse myself from the currently ongoing 'hunt', except when I directed my attention back to my greenery-ravaging companion, I found her completely spaced out.

"Hey? Mountain-girl? Hello?" She didn't react, so I was just about to poke her in the shoulder to get her attention when she abruptly shivered and she looked me in the eye.

"We have to go now. We've already tracked down today's prey, and so we must go and make sure that no innocents would suffer in the process of our relentless pursuit for the rivers of blood spilled by our abominable prey."

It took me a second to unpack her sentence, but then I presented her with a skeptical frown and asked, "When you say 'innocents', you are talking about cats, aren't you?"

"We shall pursue the thrill of the chase another day, Hunter of Dunning!" she declared without bothering to answer (or deny) my question, and then she suddenly leaped away like an oversized grasshopper and disappeared into the park before I could even say 'Who's a 'Hunter of Dunning?''

At the end of the day, I simply shrugged, accompanied by an exasperated "Oh well." I mean, I wanted to part ways with her anyway, so her leaving like that was not a bad thing, just somewhat sudden. Kind of like her interest in cats. Speaking of which, I made a quick mental note about looking into that, as my tingling trope-senses told me her reaction to the mere mention of them was simply too blatant and conspicuous for it not to be important in one way or the other. From the top of my head, I guessed she could either be one of those gap-moe types who would immediately melt into a puddle of bliss the moment they would be in the proximity of cute animals at best, or she could have been raised by a group of samurai ninja cats at worst. … Oh, how I wish I was joking with the second option.

Anyhow, I decided I wasted enough time pondering Rinne's feline connections, so I quickly got back to the walkway and headed for the closest public restroom. Technically I could've Phased back home from right where I stood, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry and do so from a location where no one else would be able to accidentally see me do so.

That was a sensible idea. Too bad I never got around to it.

I only took about ten or so steps from the clearing when all of a sudden the whole world flashed in reversed colors before settling down into an ominous, purple hue that permeated absolutely everything, with some red, circuitry-board looking patterns on top for good measure.

"Lovely," I muttered under my breath in sheer, industrial-strength exasperation. The moment this happened, I immediately had a hunch, so I used Far Sight and checked on the most likely culprit behind my current predicament, and when I did so, a throat-shattering groan escaped my mouth even against my best efforts to stifle it.

"Kihihi!" came the auditory confirmation of the fact I was already well-aware of, and so I turned around very slowly and deliberately in order to show off just how brassed off I was with this whole bag of shite. I shouldn't have bothered, as the target of the gesture didn't even notice and he continued his introduction with, "We meet at last, Leonard Dunning! I am Doctor Robatto, and unfortunately for you, you are already in the palm of my hands! Kihihihihi!"

I gave the blithering idiot standing in the middle of the crossroad a look I hoped adequately expressed just how little of a damn I gave about his theatrics, but my attempt once again fell on deaf ears.

Labcoat Guy and his personal android were, as I already mentioned, currently standing smack dab in the middle of the road, with a small group of about twenty or so ineffectual robots behind them. They were both naturally wearing their supervillain (or in this case I sentai-villain) outfits, and Labcoat Guy was trying (and failing) to menacingly cross his arms in front of his chest, made somewhat difficult due to the oversized, angular shoulder-pad-thing he was wearing getting in the way. The trigger-happy android, on the other hand, was entirely relaxed and didn't even seem to pay much attention to what was going on.

Anyhow, after a long moment of pause for effect, I pointedly cleared my throat and told him, "I believe this is against the rules of engagement."

I couldn't really see it because of the non-transparent face-mask he was wearing, but I could swear our self-styled budget villain sent a panicked glance at his companion, but since she didn't do or say anything, he clumsily changed his posture so that he was now standing arms akimbo and declared, "There are no rules in war!" in an unusually high-pitched voice.

"This is not a war," I responded dourly. "Also, I'd appreciate it if you dropped the theatrics and just told me what you want, because the number of shits I can give at this point is steadily approaching zero."

This time Labcoat Guy outright froze up for a moment before whispering, "Galatea, I think he's not intimidated by our ambush."

"An astute observation as always, master," she responded while sounding entirely disinterested.

"What should we do?" he continued to whisper so loud he might as well didn't even bother. "Should we bring out the big guns?"

"Whatever master thinks best."

"Okay then, do as we practiced." Once he said that, Labcoat guy turned back to me and, after finally noticing how impatient I was, he let out another a forced cough before he declared, "You're already in my palm!"

"Yes, you said that already."

"Yes, but… It doesn't matter! Now look upon my masterworks, and tremble!"

After saying so, he clapped twice, at which point two of the robots in the back brought forth a large metallic sphere. It was about a meter in diameter, and while it was hard to tell in the unnatural lighting conditions, it looked like it was made of brass or copper and its surface was covered in deeply etched geometric shapes and diagrams. The robotic minions inelegantly swayed and staggered to the front under the weight of the sphere and then dropped the ball, both figuratively and literally, as one of them slipped and the round object fell down. It rolled away and stopped roughly at the halfway point between me and their group.

"Err…" Labcoat Guy was obviously and reasonably flustered by the development, but he somehow gathered his wits enough to continue his act. "Kihihi! Exactly as planned! Now, Galatea!" He paused yet again, probably for dramatic effect, and pointed his finger at the ball exactly the same way as a fictional attorney would. "Activate the Biomechanical Gigiant!"

"Yes, master." The android continued her display of utter indifference as she also pointed at the ball and said, "On."

For once there was no awkward pause or anything of the like, as the moment she said the word, the sphere unfurled into several slices of various sizes. From within the gaps gushed forth a viscous violet liquid (or at least that's how it appeared in the purple ambient light), and as the pieces of the sphere kept turning and transforming into other shapes, the insides began to form into six thick limbs right in front of my eyes. The whole process only took a few seconds, and soon I was standing face to face with a vaguely humanoid something.

It didn't have a head, but instead it possessed an odd-looking piece of glowing triangle where the base of its neck was supposed to be (if it had one, which it didn't either). It was standing on two short digitigrade legs on the bottom and had no less than four arms, each ending in three-fingered hands tipped with bits of the original sphere in place of claws. Speaking of the sphere, its parts spread out on the body of the creature and formed a kind of outer shell or armor on its chest, abdomen, groin, and upper arms.

However, it didn't end here, as the moment the thing in front of me finished transforming, Labcoat Guy exclaimed again.

"And now, Galatea! Make it grow!"

"Understood." After she gave her reply, the android raised her hands to the odd headdress she was wearing and pointed the stubby unicorn horn on it at the 'Biomechanical Gigant' and chanted, "Magical crown, make my monster grow," with a tone so wooden she made the Amazonas rain forest look like a master thespian in comparison.

But back to the events at hand: once she spoke her line, the horn on her forehead lit up with a bright red light and it shot out a visible beam of something at the creature. It honest to goodness flashed for a moment, like a video game sprite, and then all of a sudden it… well, grew. As expected, really.

Anyhow, in the matter of a few seconds, the originally about two meters tall 'Gigant' began to live up to its name and it steadily swelled to a size of almost five or six meters, then its growth spurt slowed down and it finally settled at around nine or so meters. In other words, I was now standing just a short distance away from a three stories tall behemoth of a monster that was constantly making a sound like a roaring furnace.

I looked it over one more time, from head to toe, and once I was sure I didn't actually feel any threat from it, I jerked my head towards Lobcoat Guy to get his attention. Once I had it, I said, "You know, with all the stupid outfits and the useless robots, it was kind of hard to take you seriously, but credit where credit's due. That," I pointed a casual finger gun in the direction of the creature, and continued, "That, is actually freaking impressive."

"Kihihihi! Scared, are you!?"

"Not really," I told him honestly. "If anything, I'm just curious why you found it necessary to bring this massive thing into the open."

"So that you know there's no escape!" he declared. "You cannot leave this Sealed Restricted Space until I allow you to leave, and you're all alone against my army of Sprockets and my Biomechanical Gigant! So why don't you just sit tight and listen to what I have to say?"

For a moment I couldn't decide if he was serious or just pulling my leg, but he sounded sincere enough, so after I stifled the incredibly powerful urge to just facepalm myself into oblivion, I took a deep breath and very slowly and carefully elucidated, "Pal, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but I've been waiting for you to say your piece since you appeared. In fact, I would bloody well appreciate it you got on with it already."

"Oh… I mean, I will! Kihihi!"

"I'm listening," I urged him to get started already while trying to ignore the imposing yet totally motionless creature looming over us. In the meantime, Labcoat Guy inelegantly crossed his arms again in preparation of his no doubt very riveting explanation.

"Kihihi! My ever-present agents tell me you're at odds with the Lord Amadeus Endymonion," he stated expectantly.

"To put it mildly," I replied to keep things rolling, and he let out yet another grating laugh in response.

"Kihihi! So I've heard! Listen to me, my friend!" I wanted to point out we were so far from being friends our association didn't even share the same postal code, but I deemed it was better to just stay quiet and wait for him to finally get to the point. "You and I, we're not so different! I also want that pesky old man gone!

"Do you now?"

"Yes!" he cried out in a voice so hammy it could fill an entire butcher's market. "Our goals align, so tell me, why don't we join forces?"

For a while I could only blink in incomprehension at the idiot in front of me while hoping my own expression wasn't too dumb, but at last, I closed my eyes, exhaled to calm my nerves, and then once I looked at him again I asked, without even bothering to pretend I was taking this conversation seriously anymore, "Excuse me, but weren't you supposed to at least try to butter me up a little before you came out with the 'Join me!' speech?"

"Why bother with the formalities?" he replied with a voice that, for the first time, made me believe he wasn't reading from a script. "Not to mention, you don't have a choice! You're trapped in here, with no chance to escape and no way to oppose me!"

"So first it was 'Join me!' and now it's 'You can't escape me!'. What's next? 'I'm your father'?"

"Errr…" Stumped, Labcoat guy turned to his companion again and whispered, "Galatea, I think he is still not intimidated."

It was at this point that I couldn't take it anymore, as I let out an exasperated noise and threw my hands into the air.

"Okay, that's it. I'm out," I declared with a scornful frown. "I figured I'd be nice and hear you out, but if you're not taking this seriously, then I have nothing to say. I've places to be, and I'm already late because of you."

"But… I just told you that you cannot leave…" the flustered Labcoat Guy muttered, and I rolled my eyes in a mixture of refuge in audacity and a genuine sense of exhaustion as I decided to put my primary exit strategy into action.

"You're one of the Research Society guys, right?" I asked, but didn't let him answer and immediately followed it up with, "You know a lot about both science and magic, right?"

"Erm… Yes, I'd say I do?" he replied just a tad uncertainly.

"Good. Then here's a quick question: how much do you know about illusions?"

"A little," he told me, this time with palpable uncertainty. "Why?"

"For you see," I began as I forced a friendly smile onto my face. "I'm not actually here."

And with that, I phased home, with my only regret being unable to see his reaction. Unfortunately, as I said, I had places to be, and I figured I already made my 'guest' wait long enough.

How could I best describe the sense of tension enveloping my living room at the moment? 'Palpable' sounded about right, but I felt it just wasn't quite 'meaty' enough. 'Oppressive', on the other hand, was just a little too strong. It was, if I may dare to be poetic for a moment, like the kind of tension emanated by a single bunny dropped into a pen filled with a whole brood of hungry snakes.

Speaking of which, our bunny for the night awkwardly glanced around for what felt like the hundredth time in the past two minutes. The young man was sitting on the sofa across the coffee table, and his fidgety, nervous body language told me he was well out of his comfort zone. He was indeed tall, about the same height as I was, with a fair complexion, bright blue eyes, a prominent chin and, maybe most importantly, a head of short blonde hair that seemed to be strategically tousled to the precise point where it could be still considered attractive. In other words, just by looks alone, I could immediately categorize him as a Side Character, or a Unique Placeholder at the very least.

Narrative classification aside, he introduced himself as Michael Khurshid when I let him into the house, but he hasn't said anything else since we sat down. I likened him to a bunny before, and even on a second look, he was giving off the same harmless impression. He was also still tense as a bowstring, probably because it was only the two of us in an unfamiliar room. Snowy was in the kitchen at the moment and, based on the few words we exchanged when I arrived, she was probably preparing drinks and snacks for the guest. Very maid-y, as usual.

Anyhow, I was just thinking about how to get the conversation rolling with my fretful visitor when he unexpectedly broke the ice and spoke up first.

"So… aren't you going to take those off?"

He was weakly gesticulating towards my direction, so I looked down and belatedly realized that, even though I took off my outer coat and cap in the entryway, I still had the lighter coat and my gloves on.

I considered my options for a moment, but since I was still chilled to the bone after my little hunting trip, I ultimately answered, "No, I'm fine."

"Oh… Okay, just checking."

After that curt answer my guest fell silent once again. I wondered just what his game was. He said he came here on 'Celestial business', yet he didn't seem to be about to get down to it any time soon. At last, after waiting a couple of seconds to see if he would add anything else, I lightly cleared my throat and decided to ease the atmosphere with some small-talk.

"You seem to be on edge. Is there a problem?"

My tactfully spoken question surprised him for a moment, but after a moment of tongue-tied silence he sharply shook his head.

"No, it's not really a problem; it's just that I didn't sleep much last night."

"Insomnia?"

"No, I just have a lot of papers to turn in before the end of the semester," he told me with his words accentuated by a somewhat strained smile.

"I guess that means you're attending university," I ventured a guess, resulting in a small nod of confirmation. "Is it here in Timaeus?"

"No, no," he repeated twice, most likely for emphasis. "I live and study at the University of Hermocrates in Locri. I study pharmaceutics."

"Locri is on the other end of the island, isn't it?" If my memory served right, it was the second-largest city on the island behind Timaeus and the seat of one of the six administrative regions.

"Yes," he confirmed with a nod and just the barest hint of an amicable smile.

I was just about to continue the conversation along this thread by flexing my extensive geographical knowledge a bit more, but my plans were quickly torpedoed by Snowy entering the room with not one but two trays in her hands.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," she apologized while placing the platters onto the table. "I've brought biscuits and crackers. I forgot to ask what our guest would like to have, so I made tea, coffee, and lemonade."

"Thanks, Snowy. You're a treasure," I told her with the newest iteration of my brotherly smile, and she gave me a demure one in return.

"Ah… Um… Thank you?" our visitor mumbled a little absent-mindedly, his gaze sweeping over the table before landing and ultimately staying on my sister as if being glued there.

I expected that she'd stay around, but instead she did a perfect curtsy and left the room with measured steps, followed by the eyes of our guest all the way to the exit, and he still kept looking in the direction of the kitchen door even after she was long gone.

"Is there something bothering you?"

My calm and very diplomatic question, which certainly wasn't tinted by a smidgen of hostility over the fact that he was just openly ogling my sister, earned me a panicked look and he hastily waved his palms in dismissal.

"N-No! I just found it… unusual that you'd have a maid, that's all." In the following few seconds I may or may not have drilled holes into his forehead with my eyes, and so he awkwardly added, "She is also really cute."

"We can agree on that."

"So… is she your…?" My expression must've looked a little confused, because he then made an odd gesture with his hand and clarified, "I mean, is she working here full time or...?"

"She's my sister."

"Oh? Oooooooh…" The man's already fair expression completely blanched, only to immediately turn beet red as he hastily excused himself by saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that. I just… didn't expect that… why is she wearing a maid uniform?"

"Do you have a problem with how my sister chooses to dress at home?"

My unfailingly polite words made him shudder for some reason and he hastily denied my suggestion.

"No! Not at all! It looks great on her! It really brings out her… um… personality?"

"… Was that supposed to be a joke?"

"No, sorry. I'm going to shut up now before I put my foot in my mouth again."

I sent a skeptical stare in my guest's way, but he stayed true to his words and remained as silent as a herring, so I let out an ever so slightly exasperated sigh and decided to just get things over with.

"You know, I was under the impression you came here to discuss 'business'." To my shock and horror, I found myself making air quotes with my fingers, which I immediately stopped with extreme prejudice. Goddammit, Sebastian; one day I'll get you for infecting me with them! That said, I let my hands down and finished my previous sentence with, "We can hardly have any discussion if you refuse to talk."

"I know, I'm just…" After realizing that he was talking in a high-pitched voice, my guest cleared his throat and started again, this time more firmly, "I was told by my contact that you are quite something, I just never expected that you would be so… um…"

"Young?" I attempted to help him out, but he immediately shook his head.

"What? No, I knew you were in the second year of high school, so I wasn't surprised about that. The word I'm looking for is more along the lines of… err… Intimidating, I think?"

"Intimidating," I repeated after him with a gallon of added incredulity on top, but he only nodded with the utmost sincerity. That still left me less than totally convinced, so I quickly made a decision and called out to the only other person in the house. "Snowy?"

"Yes?" my sister responded immediately as she stuck her head through the doorway. "Did I miss something?"

"No, you didn't. Please come over here for a moment. I want to ask a question."

I could practically see the illusory question marks circling around her head, but after only a second of hesitation she fully entered the living room and pattered over to my side.

"Can I help?"

"Yes, actually. Just a quick question: do I look intimidating?"

Snowy was obviously surprised by my blunt inquiry but, to her credit, she didn't dwell long on it, and instead she looked me over from head to toe. Then she did the same from toe to head. Then she leaned closer and observed me like I was a piece of post-modern art in a prestigious gallery. At the end of the day, she stood tall again, looked me in the eye, and simply told me, straight and simple, "You're not more intimidating than usual."

"Well, that's good to h—" My eyes involuntarily narrowed at the same time I swallowed back the second half of my sentence, and instead I commented, "That could be understood in more ways than one. Am I usually intimidating?"

"Uuu… Not really," Snowy replied while shaking her head so hard her twin tails flailed around like, well, flails. As in, the medieval weapon. Anyhow, she stopped doing so just as abruptly as she began and, after leaning closer and observing my face from various angles one more time, she authoritatively stated, "On second thought, I think you might be a little more intense than usual."

"Really? How so?"

"You are frowning a lot," she clarified on the spot.

"Is that supposed to be surprising?" I huffed a little. My rhetorical question seemed to pique her interest, so I exhaled hard and explained, "You know, I'm fairly certain you'd be just as grouchy too if you had to spend two hours hunting outdoors in this weather, and with Rinne to boot."

"Oh? Were you hunting Chimeras again?" Our guest's playful voice and wide grin told us he was obviously trying to ease the mood, but when neither of us laughed along, his smile slowly withered as his jovial expression first turned into one of confusion, following which it swiftly morphed into disbelieving horror as he whispered, "Oh sweet Deus, you actually were..."

"Yeah," I confirmed what sounded like his worst nightmare and he nervously glanced around the room, as if he thought a surprise Chimera would burst through my walls at any moment, kind of like an off-brand Cool-aid Man, except maybe slightly less creepy.

"Is there... really another Chimera? Here, on Critias?" my hapless visitor asked in a voice that told me he wasn't even sure he wanted to know the answer.

"In Timaeus, even!" My happy-go-lucky answer clearly didn't appeal to him, and since I was obviously way too good-natured to find his nervous squirming amazingly amusing, I immediately flashed him my friendliest smile and added, "In fact, there are about a dozen of them out there."

"Leo!" My sister's sudden rebuke made me jump in surprise. I turned to her and wordlessly communicated the question 'What?' via my eyebrows alone. Snowy gave me an uncharacteristically stern look and, after sending a quick glance at our guest, she leaned really close to me in a conspiratorial huddle, and she even cupped her hand as she whispered almost directly into my ear. "Don't be mean. Chimeras are really scary."

"Are they?"

"Well… maybe not for a brave Chimera slayer like you."

I didn't think my honest question deserved a snappy response like that, so I turned my head and sent a wry glance at her… only to realize that, somehow, she was actually one hundred and one percent genuine, and before I knew it, my face slackened into a blank, stupefied stare.

"W-What is it? Is there something on my face?"

Her words quickly shook me out of my momentary stupor, and I subsequently quickly shook the last of said daze out of my head and whispered, "No, there's absolutely nothing wrong. Nothing at all. That said… you mentioned Chimeras are supposed to be really scary, right?"

"That's right," she affirmed with a serious look in her eyes.

"How scary?"

"Uuu…" She thought for a long moment, all the while unconsciously making a noise, kind of like how an old PC would buzz when it was under a heavy load, and at last she explained to me, "Just the other day, Angie told me that Celestials would scare their misbehaving children with stories about Chimeras, so… what is the thing young children are most afraid of in the mundane world?"

"… Dentists?" I blurted out without any thinking, and for some unfathomable reason my sister gave me a slow nod as if my answer was really profound.

"I see. Then, imagine that Chimeras are like… uum… like super dentists to Celestials."

So, if I understood her words right, I was the supernatural equivalent of a super-dentist-slayer.

…

Oh my god, I mustn't let Judy hear about this! Ever! She'd call me that for the rest of our lives, and worse yet, she'd think it's cute and affectionate!

"Leo, you are looking weird," Snowy noted with a puzzled expression. "Is something wrong?"

I immediately dismissed her with the sure-fire combination of a firm shake of my head and my absolute best innocent smile.

"Nonsense. I'm fine. You're fine. Everything's fine."

"If you say so," she granted me, though obviously not without any reservations, and then she sternly warned me, "So, don't be mean, and don't make fun of others' fears."

"O-kay," I promised, my enthusiasm only very slightly lacking, but it seemed to be satisfactory for her, and she stood straight with a satisfied enough expression. A shallow sigh later I turned towards my increasingly befuddled guest and, after donning the closest approximation to an apologetic smile my tired face could muster, I told him, "I'm sorry that we ignored you, but my sister just told me that I shouldn't tease you."

"So… does that mean that there aren't really any Chimeras in Timaeus?" he asked, his voice almost comically hopeful.

"Nah, they are out there."

"Leo!" my dear sister called out to me again, but this time I faced her head-on.

"But it's true! There are a bunch of Chimeras out there." I inserted a short pause for effect into the conversation here, and then I shortly added, "The only thing I forgot to mention was that they are about this big."

Saying so, I indicated the rough size of the mini-Chimeras I have seen so far with my hands, and the man in front of me gave me a blank look in return.

"They are only that small?"

"Not all of them, only the ones running around the town right now. My expert on supernatural stuff that goes bump in the night tells me they are pieces of the standard big, nasty version that are sent out to scavenge food for it." He was still looking at me as if I was an aluminium Christmas tree, so I promptly elaborated on the topic by telling him, "My 'expert'," I emphasized hard, accompanied by the judicious use of air-quotes (Insert another melodramatic joke about how Sebastian's influence is ruining my ability to communicate like a sane person here.), "is a Japanese monster hunter ninja with a talking sword."

"Ah!" my guest suddenly pointed at me, his previously tense and frightful face all but shining with excitement for some (no doubt thoroughly unreasonable and baffling) reason. "That's why I'm here!"

"… Would you care to elaborate?" I requested while doing my best to stay unfazed by his sudden outburst.

"Oh, my apologies. You're right. I completely forgot my manners." After saying so, my suddenly strangely enthusiastic guest cleared his throat and told me, "So, as I've mentioned, I'm here about Celestial business."

"Yes. I'm still curiously awaiting your explanation about what that actually means."

"Right, I'm on it." He flashed me a confident smile and began by stating, "As you might imagine, the recent events that took place on this island couldn't evade the attention of the Celestial Intelligence Division."

That comment made me raise a brow right away. Simply put, the Celestial Intelligence Division was, in practical terms, the military arm of the Celestial Intelligence Network. To illustrate the difference between the two, the CIN was an umbrella term for all the assets, field agents, and bureaucrats organizing intelligence from around the world, while the CID were the people whose job was to analyze, double-check, and act on said intelligence. For example, Angie was technically part of the network, even though she was barely qualified to be called a sleeping agent, while Admin (aka, me) was part of CID. At least on paper.

"So you are a member of this organization?" I asked a tad warily. The last thing I needed right now was supernatural James Bond types snooping around my neighborhood.

"Me? Oh, no, no," he denied while waving his hands, much to my hidden relief. "I'm but a simple field agent, nothing as lofty as being an actual CID operative. However, we're naturally interested in the recent events that took place on the island in general… and a Japanese swordswoman in particular."

"So you're here because…?"

"Simply put, my contact told me you are an 'information broker', so I figured I would offer you a fair trade."

"So, in short, you want to buy information from me about the monster huntress on the island."

"Correct."

I took a deep breath and thought long and hard about the prospect. Considering my access to the Celestial Hub, I sincerely doubted that this guy could provide me with anything I didn't already know. Hell, based on what I knew about the modus operandi of the Celestial Intelligence Network, I was probably a hundred times more informed than he was. However, that didn't necessarily mean he had nothing to offer, so with that in mind, I assumed my patented evil mastermind pose and opened the negotiations by first attempting to determine this guy's net worth.

"Before we start, I'd like to know exactly what makes you qualified to negotiate this deal," I stated as dryly and straightforwardly as any lawyer.

"I understand." The smile accompanying that statement looked like it came out of a con artist's handbook on how to appear as trustworthy as possible. Subtle. "You see, while I might be just a run-of-the-mill field agent at the moment, my father is actually a chief officer in the Seraphic Safeguard."

His assertion made me raise a brow right away. To put that into context, the Seraphic Safeguard was a branch of the Celestial military. Contrary to their name, they weren't actually guards, but a sort of supernatural special operations division. Whenever something or someone was threatening Celestial interests (or even just the supernatural masquerade in general), they would be sent in to fix the situation by any means necessary, ranging from armed raids to kidnapping and assassinations. In short, they were the military enforcers of the higher echelons of the Celestial hierarchy. Also, their name could be abbreviated to 'SS'. Very subtle.

More importantly, if my memory served right, being a chief officer in the Celestial army, which naturally included these guys as well, was a hereditary position with no small amount of prestige and wealth included. In other words, if this guy's words are to be believed, he was the equivalent of a son of a noble house. His looks certainly matched the part…

"That means you do have some connections after all," I stated while doing my best to maintain a neutral expression.

"Trust me, I do," he responded with a considerably more genuine grin. "I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm also on very good terms with the man responsible for all our incoming intelligence reports."

"Really?" My brow rose even further as a sneaking suspicion reared its ugly head in the back of my mind.

"Yes. Why, he recently entrusted me with organizing a part of our intelligence reports, and just the other day I even received his written thanks and his acknowledgment of my hard work! He's a great guy, and while he's technically not my superior, we are kind of like friends, I think, so since I was already on the island, I decided to help him."

"I see," I muttered with my suspicion becoming more definitive by the word. "Sorry for the off-topic question, but I have to ask: how did you find me again?"

"Oh, that?" He was only surprised by my sudden question for a moment, after which he showed me yet another variation of his smiles, this time a modest one. "Confidentiality is important, but I think I can say that I just happened to know a guy who happened to know a gal who gave me your address and told me that..."

It was about that point that I completely tuned out of the conversation as recognition settled in, and it took all my willpower to keep my nonchalant façade from crumbling. I mean, who the hell would've thought that this guy would show up on my doorstep, about as oblivious as a deaf man accidentally dialing a phone sex line, and on top of that, trying to get information from me so that he could give it to me?

Nonetheless, this obviously changed the entire context of this conversation, so I let the last vestige of tension trapped in my chest out in the guise of a slightly amused sigh. It didn't escape my guest's notice, and so he immediately stopped the recounting of his philosophy about how giving away more information about his contact would violate the unspoken laws of something or the other.

"So, in a nutshell, you want me to give you information about the huntress so that you can hand it over to this other person who's not really your superior but he also kind of is," I summed up his whole motivation for coming here in one sentence, and after a long moment of thinking, he nodded in the affirmative.

"Yes. And in exchange, I'd give you non-classified intelligence," he stated as she suggestively patted the side of his briefcase.

"I don't need it." My blunt refusal shocked him way more than I expected (or was reasonable), so I hastily explained myself. "I currently don't need Celestial information. However, I've something else in mind."

"Such as?" he questioned me after a comically loud gulp.

"Artifacts," I declared without beating around the bush.

"What… kind of artifacts?"

"Anything will do," I replied with a small shrug.

"Leo?" I faced my sister after being called by name, and she sternly warned me, "If you play around with enchantments and get sick again, Judy and Elly are going to be really mad."

"I know, I know. I'm going to be careful. Everything in moderation and all that."

"Excuse me? What was that about playing with enchantments?" our guest wedged himself into the conversation with a truly bemused expression, and after stifling a chuckle at his expense, I faced him again.

"Don't worry about it. It's a long story. Anyhow, what do you think about my offer? A small collection of random artifacts of any kind or quality in exchange for the information you want."

"Well, it's… I mean, I can gather some, for sure, but I don't have any artifacts on me at the moment."

"Then I suppose you better collect some by the next time we meet."

"Yes, but I kind of wanted to have something to show for my work by tomorrow, sooo…"

I gave the downcast Celestial agent a skeptical look, but at the end of the day I shook my head, exhaled a theatrical sigh, and told him, "You know what? Let me give you a few morsels, free of charge. Consider it a gesture of goodwill."

"… Are you serious?"

"I sure am."

If my reply didn't convince him, it appeared my winning smile did, as he immediately reached into his briefcase and retrieved one of those small notepads you would see old-timey journalists use to take notes. He also found a pen, and after testing it first, he immediately focused all his rapt attention on me.

"So, our monster huntress," I began, and he faithfully put every word I uttered to paper like a seasoned scribe. "Her name is Rinne. She is about one-sixty-five tall, fairly lithe. She has short black hair with a red streak and she has a penchant for wearing purple suits and leather gloves. She also always has a sword on her back, which may or may not talk. Also, she is decently manageable under normal circumstances, but when she hears about hunting monsters, she gets her switch flipped and her tirades are… well, they kind of remind me to a pizza cutter."

"Pizza… cutter?"

Both my guest and my sister were giving me odd looks, so I explained, "All edge, no point whatsoever."

"Ah, I get it now!" Snowy suddenly beamed me, while the local Celestial field agent only gave me an even odder look.

I decided to ignore him and I continued to share some of the tidbits I have learned about Rinne, including information I knew from the source the guy sitting in front of me provided me with. I figured it would help give the rest of my statements more weight and authenticity.

"… and apparently she can smell Abyssals, but don't quote me on that. Aaaaand that's about it," I closed my dissemination of mostly useless minutia, and my guest gave me a look that said he wanted more. "Sorry, but that's all I'm giving away for free."

"I understand." He put away his notes with a visible show of reluctance and then told me, "I can't promise anything concrete at the moment, since I'm supposed to be under-cover, but if you give me a few days, I should be able to call in some favors and gather a few artifacts for you."

"I'm glad to hear that."

What followed was several seconds of me trying to tell him 'You're done with your business, so go away' with my body language, but he apparently wasn't fluent in eyebrow-wriggling, as he only looked at me funny. A second later he checked his fancy wristwatch, which almost made me think he got the memo after all, but alas, I thought too soon.

"Sooo… here's the thing: my next train back to Lorci is going to leave in about one and a half hours."

"That's late," I added to move the point along, and he gave me a nod in return.

"Yes, and it's the last train for the day. Originally I wouldn't mind staying at the train station for a while… but then there is the issue of the dozen or so Chimeras out there…"

"They are not that big a deal though. They are comparatively tiny."

"That just makes it worse!" he suddenly burst out. "I mean, think about it; you can see a big monster from far away, but what about a small one? There could be one hiding in a trash can, or under a bench, just waiting for you to come close and jump at you."

"That sounds a little far-fetched for me, but fine, I'm listening. What's your angle?"

He fell silent for a few seconds, and at last he sheepishly asked, "Can I stay around for a while longer?"

At first I couldn't really tell if he was serious, but he looked sincere enough, so I resigned myself and told him, "Might as well."

"Thanks! I'm in your debt, Mr. Dunning."

"Oh, please." I rolled my eyes and firmly told him, "Being called 'Mr.' by someone older than me makes my skin crawl. Just Leonard will suffice."

"Are you sure?" I nodded, and he immediately beamed at me and exclaimed, "All right! In that case, you can also call me Mike!"

I had to wonder if wearing one's emotions of their sleeves was a 'Celestial thing', but it didn't stop me from shrugging my shoulders and saying, "Sure."

He looked remarkably pleased about my response for some reason, but I couldn't muster the will to care, especially since after he left, I was planning on using Far Sight to check on Labcoat Guy and his reaction. I figured that even if I couldn't observe him extensively, I should at least glance at him now that there was a lull in the conversation. Needless to say, I briefly closed my eyes and I did just that.

It was a quick Far Glance, but based on what I saw, they were still in the purple-with-red-highlights zone in the park, with Labcoat Guy pacing up and down while rattling on about my disappearance, while his android companion was in the process of trying to stuff the normal-sized 'biomechanical gigant' back into its shell. It kind of reminded me of someone trying to stuff a travel bag already past its capacity with an entire garniture of duvets. There wasn't anything immediately relevant to my interests in their conversation, so I quickly left the scene.

On second thought, if I was already using Far Sight, I figured I might as well do a full roll call. As such… nothing on Josh… nothing on Elly… nothing on Judy… nothing on…

When I laid my eyes on the next member of the posse, I involuntarily paused for a while, and after a brief moment of deliberation, I opened my eyes and addressed my sister.

"Hey, Snowy? Could you please make a cup of that terrible minty-appley-peary infusion tea thing?"

She looked at me funny for a moment, but then the proverbial light bulb over her head lit up at once and she responded by asking, "Isn't that Amelia's favorite?"

"Yes."

"Okay then."

With those two words, she immediately turned on her heels and entered the kitchen with light steps. Well, at least one of us was having fun. Unfortunately, the night was far from over, and I was already tired. Sometimes I wished I could sleep. Or barring that, an evening without any surprise visitors would be fine too.

Thinking so, I directed my attention back to the person sitting in front of me, and I found him curiously observing the collection of cards, tokens, and other related items sitting on the cabinet by the corner.

"Hey, Leonard? Do you play poker?" Mike asked with an almost childish light of curiosity in his eyes.

I glanced at the cards, allowed an irritated sigh to escape my lips, and then I told him, "No. I'm not allowed to anymore…"