The Simulacrum

There was an odd, tense silence in the dark trophy chamber, which lasted exactly until the knights outside rammed the barricaded door of the neighboring room for the umpteenth time. The dull sound of the impact made the large man in the middle twitch as if he just woke up and he hastily raised his heavy blade to assume a defensive stance. The squires, as the security guy called them, also overcame their momentary stupor at the same time and bunched together in the doorway. They all raised their kite shields and blocked the exit with something that, if you squinted hard enough, might be possibly considered the second-removed step-cousin of a proper shield wall.

Once everyone was in place, the big guy in the middle took an almost comically heavy step forward and pointed his blade at me with one hand. It was all veeeeeery dramatic, and not at all silly, I swear.

"Wha urr ye? Eydentify yersel' a' wance!"

I inhaled a sharp breath and was about to give a suitably snarky reply, but as I opened my mouth I stiffened for a second and then snapped it shut with a slightly painful clank of my teeth.

"That's... actually a very good question," I mused aloud, much to the belligerent men-at-arms' bafflement.

I mean, really; who was I? And no, I didn't mean that as some kind of profound question of Jungian psychology or the like, but as an entirely practical matter. As in, I sure as hell wasn't Leonard Dunning at the moment, especially after the trouble I went through to disguise myself. That naturally meant that I wasn't 'Blackcloak' or the resident 'Chimera Slayer' either. What other options did I have?

Admin? The guy was supposed to be on the other side of the globe, so if it got out that 'he' was here, it would undoubtedly raise a few Celestial brows, which was bad for my sustained espionage efforts. If not him, then who else could I be? I needed a context-appropriate, non-conflicting, and at least reasonably cool fake name.

The Jester? Nah, too on the nose. Persona? Too Jungian. Bel of the Tenebrous Flames? Too chuuni. Nyarlathotep? Too eldritch. The Kingpin? Too copyrighted. Shadow, the True Self? Heck, that's both Jungian and chuuni!

Okay, screw it, my brain was obviously too much of a mush at the moment to come up with something fitting, so...

"Give me a second, I'll be right back."

My words caused no small amount of confusion amongst the men in front of me, but I reckon not nearly as much as my subsequent disappearance from the room.

"Hey, Dormouse," I greeted my ever so slightly surprised girlfriend, but to her credit, she only looked stupefied for a moment before she directed a welcoming poker-face at me, which was made only slightly ridiculous by her party-glasses-shaped communication artifact. I also noted that, judging by the faint light of the magic circle under our feet, we were inside the fake teleportation closet for some reason, but that was beside the point.

"Hi, Chief. What are you doing here?" I was about to formulate an answer, but then her expression subtly darkened and she added, "Why are you swaying like that? Are you injured?"

"Nah, I'm just a little light-headed," I told her while indiscreetly leaning against the nearby wall. "Too much teleporting around in a short time. I'll live. More importantly, I need your brain."

This time my girlfriend's face was the spitting image of the anthropomorphic personification of skepticism.

"You look bad, but I don't think you're a zombie just yet, so please elaborate in a way I can actually understand."

I took a deep breath, and once I felt steady enough, I quickly explained myself.

"I'm currently planning to verbally engage some dastardly knights and tease some info out of them before the inevitable hostilities, but I need a fake identity for the charade. I want to pretend to be a mysterious, powerful, and knowledgeable villain of indefinite origins."

"So the same thing you used to do in the past, just with a mask on your face."

"And ambiguously evil."

"So an outside-context villain?"

"More or less. Do you have any ideas?"

Judy's brows once again furrowed ever-so-imperceptibly, and after a few seconds of consideration, she ultimately proposed, "How about masquerading as an Abyssal, like when you got Neige's ID forged?"

"That's… something I totally should've thought of myself," I muttered, after which I flashed an appreciative smile at her. She didn't react, and it was only then that I belatedly remembered that I was still wearing the carnival mask, so I voiced my sentiment as well. "Thanks, Dormouse. You're the best."

"You're welcome."

I was about to leave so that I wouldn't let the gaggle of swordsman wait for long, but before that, I quickly added, "Also, could you support me? I'm a little slow right now, so I think I might have further need for your grey matter."

"Sure. I can multitask," she responded with just the barest tinge of smugness in her voice. Or was it just run-of-the-mill confidence that only sounded weird when it came from her? While I pondered on where the line was between the two, I gave her a small nod, and promptly reappeared inside the trophy room again, eliciting a series of shocked gasps from the agitated antagonist populating the premises.

"Whit manner o' foul sorcery…!?"

"Please do forgive my tardiness. I had urgent matters to attend to, but now you may enjoy my undivided attention," I cut him off with my best sleazy villain impression. I'm not going to lie, it came out way easier than I expected.

"Ye! Wha th' hell's bells urr ye!?"

To further emphasize his question, the big man vigorously waved his weapon in my general direction, but I didn't feel any threat from him, so I casually ignored his attempts at intimidation with a shrug.

"You may call me…" I began in a casual tone, only to pause as I realized that I forgot to actually come up with a proper cover name. Worse yet, now that I began to give my answer, I couldn't backpedal out of it without ruining the image I was building right now, so after another moment of hesitation, I blurted out. "Bel."

"Bel?" came the befuddled whisper from one of the squires in the pseudo-shield-wall.

"{Bel?}" echoed the voice of my girlfriend, her tone a curious mixture of puzzlement and skepticism. Normally I would've made an excuse to the effect of 'Hey, they put me on the spot! At least I didn't accidentally add 'of the Tenebrous Flames' to it!', but considering the circumstances, I concluded that directly communicating with Judy would've only made things even more confusing.

"Bel of the Abyss," I stated off-handedly, and a second of hesitancy later I also added a scraping bow for the sake of showmanship. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

What followed was exactly half a second of silence before the big guy in the middle let out a stifled battle-cry and lunged towards me with his weapon held high. Oddly enough, my danger sense still didn't warn me about any incoming grievous bodily harm, but it was better to be safe than sorry, so I immediately Phased two meters to my right and well out of his immediate range. Oh, and I did that while still maintaining my bow, not on purpose, but because that's how Phasing worked.

In retrospect I probably shouldn't have bothered with it at all, as the big guy stopped his vertical swing midway, and based on his posture, he would've most likely done so whether I tried to get out of the way of the strike or not. The sudden attack also awakened my adrenal glands, as I was feeling a sudden rush that finally dispersed some of the fog dulling my thoughts, and I soon came up with a working hypothesis for his odd behavior.

"Now, now, sir Minotaur; do be careful." Saying so, I straightened myself and controlled my body language to appear as laidback and non-threatening as possible. "You almost broke one of your oaths there. Hurting poor, innocent me would've been quite a blunder, I say."

"If yer innocent, then a'm th' queen o Sassenach land!" the horny knight scoffed, his odd dialect still as hard to decipher as ever, but at the very least it didn't seem like he would try to turn me into minced meat again. For the moment, at least.

"Really?" I responded with a sneering grin that wasn't visible, yet it was important all the same. It's a lesser-known fact, but even when people's faces are hidden, their expressions subtly change their voice; just enough so that the perceptive listener could pick up on it. "My apologies, your Majesty. I didn't recognize it was you under all of that metal, and… oh my, did you put on some weight?"

"Ye think yer funny?"

"No, I know I am," I answered without a shred of shame before unceremoniously Phasing to the other side of the room, startling everyone and pushing them even further off-balance. For a short while the big guy was looking left and right in mild alarm, and for some reason he failed to notice me twice, so I let a resigned sigh slip out between my teeth and walked forward until he finally managed to see me in the dark. At this point, he took up another aggressive stance with his weapon held high, but he didn't seem to be about to take another swing at me just yet.

For the time being, I decided to stay silent and used this lull in the hostilities to draft out my priorities. First off, I had to find the magic jammer. It apparently wasn't on mister Minotaur, but then again, he was shining from head to toe, so it was still possible that the glowing tree was just hidden in the eye-sore forest. Secondly, I needed to mark at least one of the knights here, a prospect made quite tricky by the fact that they were wearing full plate armor with gambeson under it and full helmets, leaving little to no skin exposed. Thirdly, I wanted to squeeze some info out of these guys, and there was no better way to make them talk than to have them think we were already on the same page and they weren't actually telling me anything I didn't already know. In other words, my old and trusty fallback plan for teasing information out of others.

Now then, with my priorities set, I decided to get the ball rolling by some small talk.

"Jokes aside, you're quite rude, sir knight," I addressed the guy in the middle as I began to slowly circle around him. He constantly turned in place to face me as I did so, and I couldn't help but notice that that the eyes glaring at me through the slits of his horned helmet were of an unusually piercing, icy blue color, a bit of data that I immediately filed in the back of my brain before I continued with, "To think that you wouldn't even introduce yourself even after I did so! How unchivalrous!"

"{The name of the current Minotaur Knight is unknown,}" Judy chimed in, immediately picking up on my subtle request for support. "{However, according to records on the Celestial information network, the mantle is passed down in the mac Cumhail family.}"

At first I could only blink in surprise when I heard Judy's info, but even though what she said sounded incredibly silly, the way she said it was anything but, so I had no choice but to trust her. That said, it meant that the Minotaur knight was a Scottish man with an Irish name. At this rate, I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out he was an Asian man with blue eyes and red hair who grew up in Australia and was raised by a Polish immigrants. But putting my confusion over the man's ethnicity aside, I raised my hand to my temple, and after feigning concentration for a moment, I snapped my finger as if I just recalled something.

"Ah, don't tell me! You must be the descendant of old mac Cumhail, aren't you!"

The moment the word left my mouth, there was a series of shocked gasps coming from the sideline, with one of the bricks in the faux-shield-wall even muttering an almost pitiful, "He just pushed the 'Cumhail' button…", which incidentally caused Mr. Minotaur to start literally shaking with what I presumed was bottled up fury.

"I's spelled MacCool, you feckin' bampot!"

"Really?" "{Really?}"

Judy and I quite literally echoed the same sentiment, but I didn't have the time to dwell on how you could possibly read it like that, as following his exclamation my opponent immediately rushed forward to swing his blade at me, and this time my danger sense told me it wasn't a feint. I quickly Phased out of the way of the incoming strike and reappeared behind him, but before I could get a word in, the armor-clad man turned on his heel and swung his sword in an almost three hundred and sixty degrees arc.

"I'll kill ye!" he shouted, his voice barely stifled by his helm, but he naturally only cut the air.

"{For your interest, the Minotaur Knights of the past were infamous for their short temper.}

'Oh really? I couldn't have noticed if you didn't say so!'... was what I would've said if I wasn't too busy getting out of the way of the next diagonal slash coming my way.

"Now, now. Calm d—"

I tried to speak up, only to get interrupted by a low slash aimed at my legs, so I immediately Phased out of the way.

"Listen to—"

This time it was a half-swording stab targeting my neck, forcing me to Phase back to my previous location.

"I..."

And now he was using the same half-swording grip to spin his weapon around and try to clobber me with the pommel. As for my reaction, it could be best summed up as, 'Oh, come on! Could you let me finish just one nefarious sentence? Pretty please?' Oh, and also Phasing out of the way, but at this point I believe that was a given.

My unspoken pleas naturally fell on similarly deaf ears, so for the time being I kept Phasing out of the way of the egregious equestrian hell-bent on inflicting grievous harm on poor old me. To be fair, I was fairly certain that if push came to shove, I could probably avoid his graciously well-telegraphed strikes without relying on Phasing, but at the moment I was pretending to be a mysterious and powerful Abyssal of unknown affiliations, so abusing my short-range teleportation ability felt more fitting for the role. Thankfully doing so within the bounds of just one room didn't strain my already battered brain that much, and the adrenaline-rush of the bulky knight repeatedly screaming and swinging at me kept the vertigo at bay as well. On the other hand, the same yelling was also giving me a headache, so I couldn't say everything was just peachy either.

However, just as I was about to get into the rhythm of the battle, my danger sense suddenly threw up a warning sign right after I Phased out of the way of yet another unnecessarily elaborate twirly slash, and I instinctively twisted my upper body just enough to avoid an armored fist sailing past my torso. My opponent spun around, apparently still carried by the momentum of his swing before he came to a halt by stomping his feet hard and turning his weapon towards me.

"Surprised, aren't ye?" he sneered at me, and even though I obviously couldn't see it, I had a distinct feeling that the burly man of indecipherable ethnicity had his mouth set in a wolfish grin behind his face-plate. "A've git yer wee trick figured oot awready! "

"You do?" I blurted out in a mixture of surprise and apprehension, only to remember that I was supposed to be a mysterious trickster type at the moment and hastily added, "I mean, please go ahead, do tell."

"Ah admit yer trick wis gey unexpected, fiend, bit ye hae tae git up earlier tae deceive me!"

"Did Sir Duncan already figure out his opponent?" came another stray comment from the peanut gallery, followed up by an enthusiastic, "Of course! Sir Duncan is the second-best duelist of the Brotherhood! There's no way someone shady like that could match him!" from another amateur battle commentator.

The big guy let out a grunt in response and used his sword to confidently point at three spots on the ground.

"A dinnae ken wha yer, bit tis ah kent that awreedy yer 'ere tae buy time fur th' dragons!" For a moment I honestly wanted to point out that if anyone was wasting time here, it was him, but I never got the chance to voice my opinion. "Ye aimed tae deceive me, bit ye hae chosen th' wrong opponent tae speil yer petty trickeries upon! Fur a'm th' Knight o' th' Minotaur!" By this point even I was a little curious about where he was going with this, so I decided to ignore the impressed gasps and stray comments coming from the direction of the shield palisade in the entrance and subtly gestured for the big guy to continue, and he did so with a confident grunt.

"Ah bear th' marc o' th' Minotaur," he repeated, for some odd reason, only to then immediately expound, "Ah possess th' Authority o' th' Maze!"

"Uh-huh, neat," I muttered with a nod while waiting for the rest of the strangely smug explanation.

"Ever sin oor brave squires o' th' th' knightly brotherhood o' th' maist heroic bloo'lines barred th' doorway, this room became mah domain, 'n' by spreading mah aura oan th' flair, ah hae discovered that ye ainlie shaw yersel' oan them three plooks!"

I glanced around for a moment, figuring that he was talking about the three places where he was pointing at not long ago, and I could already feel my head getting filled up by question marks. I mean, yes, that's where I 'appeared' when Phasing around, because those were the only free spots in the room not taken up by chairs or coat-hangers or what have you near the knight guy. There wasn't anything special about them.

"Ye wanted tae mak' me think that yer fleet, bit in fact, ah kin tell that yer feet ne'er touched th' ground anywhere else ither than they three places! Ye ne'er moved!"

There was an incoherent noise already trapped in my throat at this point, and I nearly let it out of form an uncertain 'Eh?' or a stupefied 'Uuurm?', but neither was destined to be, as I was interrupted by Judy's voice, forcing me to swallow my reaction noises back down.

"{Chief, what are you doing?}"

"You mean, right now?" I asked back in a whisper, my voice hidden by the continued and boisterous explanation coming from the armor-clad man and his eagerly cheering audience by the door. "I'm listening to the big bad knight explaining his ability and how it allegedly counters mine."

"{So you're having an Explaining Your Power to the Enemy moment.}"

"Yes, it's a… Wait, that's a trope?"

"{Of course it is,}" my assistant replied with just a hint of disapproval. "{Did you really never hear about this? It's very common in Japanese battle manga and—}"

"No, I know that the trope exists," I cut her off just a tad indignantly, "I just didn't know it was called that. Don't tropes usually have snappier names than that?"

"{Not every trope can be 'Aluminium Christmas Trees',}" she stated with undue solemnity. "{On a separate note, can you actually understand what he is saying?}"

"More or less."

"{Odd. I can only recognize about half of the words. Maybe he is half-Faun?}"

I almost told her that, considering this guy's size, he might as well be, but Mr. Minotaur didn't give me the chance to do so.

"Awright! Urr ye listening tae me, fiend?!"

I exhaled a long sigh and responded with, "You made this place into your territory by spreading your Aura or whatever, which created a bounded field upon which you could enforce your Authority, whatever that is, and so now you oh-so-inescapably cornered me with your super-special-awesome Cretan Labyrinth Magic or what have you. I've heard everything loud and clear."

"{Chief, you are breaking character,}" my dear assistant warned me, but I couldn't help and roll my eyes in return.

"Well, I can't very well break something this guy never let me establish in the first place," I answered in an angry whisper, following which I cleared my throat and turned to address the man in the horny helmet again. Or, at the very least, I wanted to, if not for…

"WHA URR YE CAWIN A CRETIN YE RADGE WEE SHITE?!"

… that. Also, to punctuate his very eloquent response, the knight immediately raised his weapon over his head and lunged at me, his whole armor suddenly shining even harder than it already did. That looked mildly fatal, an assessment which my danger sense wholeheartedly agreed upon, so I quickly Phased to the right… only for my sixth sense to add a 'P.S.' to its previous warning and force me to Phase again to avoid a follow-up kick. Since I wasn't really keen on the current situation, I decided to put a bit more of a distance between us this time around.

"Yer trick is auld!" the big man bellowed in a triumphant voice even before I fully reappeared and reoriented myself in the corner. "Noo ah ken whaur yer true body hides!"

I would've asked just what the hell he meant by that, but then my attention was once again occupied by my sixth sense screaming at me, accompanied by the sound of something cutting through the air.

Now, here's the thing: there is this common idea that when someone is in mortal danger, time comes to a crawl. This was, unfortunately, something that I've already experienced once, courtesy of my little sister. What I'm trying to say is that I should've been, if not used to, but at the very least familiar with the phenomenon. However, familiar or not, nothing in this world could possibly prepare me for the sight of a heavy warsword very, veeeeeeery slooooowly hurtling towards me in the air while spinning like the world's least practical boomerang.

Now, I think we can all agree that being caught flat-footed by a flying sword of all things was a pretty dangerous situation. Also, very novel. I mean, just how many people can claim that someone threw a sword at them? That's a conversation started, that's for sure.

However, my rambling aside, my brain currently felt like one of those spinning loading icons stuck at eighty-nine percent; this close to finishing processing just what kind of fresh hell was careening towards me, yet seemingly in perpetual limbo. Then, just like that… my weapon-catching training got validated! Again!

My right hand, with little conscious input from my frontal lobes, reflexively reached out towards the weapon sailing through the air with a distinctly dangerous-sounding whistling noise, and before I knew it, my fingers were unceremoniously grasped around the grip of the sword with my mouth involuntarily uttering an elated "Zoink!"

Now, I don't toot my own horn often, but I have to say that this was, without a doubt, a perfect, ten out of ten catch. Go, me. After dispersing its remaining momentum with a small flourish, I held the softly glowing blade vertically in front of me, and couldn't help but grin in satisfaction.

…

And then the grin slowly withered from my face as I realized what I just did.

…

What the bloody hell was I thinking?! That was insanely dangerous! If my timing was off by just half a second, I could've lost a finger or four! Thank god or Buddha or whoever that Judy currently didn't have a visual feed, or she would kill me!

"{Is everything all right?}"

Oh, look. Speak of the devil. How utterly unexpected.

"Yes, everything is perfectly and one hundred percent fine and absolutely safe. There is no reason for you to worry, none at all," I spluttered in a hurry, and this time my ever so slightly panicked words must have been heard by the knights around me, no small part due to the fact that the silence in the room was downright deafening at the moment.

{Good,} Judy responded, sounding a little absent-minded, before quickly adding, "{There's still a lot of noise coming from the main hall over here. Could you tell me what's happening? I'm getting a little worried.}"

"Can't you check?"

"{You told me to hide,} she huffed. "{I'm still in the closet, and I'm not coming out until everything is over.}"

"Fine, I check," I relented before once again clearing my throat and sending a carefree (if mostly hidden) look at the knights still rooted in place, including the big one who still didn't completely come out of his throwing posture. First things first, I theatrically hefted the weapon in my hand and made a show about inspecting it before nodding to myself. "A gift? Oh, you shouldn’t have! Still, I must sincerely thank you for your generosity. This is a fine blade indeed."

"Wha…?"

Based on his dazed voice, the burly knight still hasn't completely digested the situation, so before he could do so, I flourished the blade one more time. Strangely enough, even though it was a heavy sword with a high point of balance, it was deceptively easy to handle, and unlike the temperamental dragon-slaying spear, this one not only didn't give me any nasty shocks, but felt outright comfortable in my hands. Anyhow, after I was done with that, I pointedly tapped the rounded tip of the blade against the floor and subsequently leaned onto the pommel like it was a walking cane.

"Whit dae ye think yer daein'!?" came a sudden bellow from the armored man in the middle of the room, apparently finally nudged out of his momentary stupor by the sharp sound of metal meeting the ground.

"As a matter of fact, I'm thinking about adding this outstanding gift to my collection," I told him with as much forced schadenfreude I could muster at the moment, and then I gleefully added, "In fact, I can't wait to do so! I will be back shortly!"

Needless to say, I didn't wait for the owner of the sword to make a complaint, and instead I immediately Phased over to the secret base. It was also at this point that it became obvious that I didn't pretend to use the sword as a cane only for show, as it actually served me in that purpose at this moment. I felt, for lack of better terms, supernaturally exhausted. Each long-distance teleport felt harder than the last, kind of like when I was working out and my muscles started getting tired; I felt like I still had a couple of push-ups in me, but I could also distinctly tell that I was slowly but surely reaching my limit.

Anyway, once I caught my breath, I finally looked around and… what the hell?

"[Blackloak!]"

Brang called my name the moment he laid his eyes on me, but he might as well have screamed for help by the looks of it. Somehow the training area was in even worse shape than when I left, and there were even cut-marks on the concrete floor around the area where the lion's share of the battle between Brang and Rinne must have taken place. Speaking of which, the general was currently in a sorry state. His beard and his clothes were caked in blood, and while he was standing firmly, a single glance was enough to tell that he suffered several small wounds since that last time I saw him, and at least one deeper cut on his right forearm, which was dripping blood even at this moment. Not only that, but the rest of the Fauns were more-or-less down for the count, with only Pip and Karukk trying their best to support the old Faun.

More surprisingly, while Rinne's usual pantsuit was torn at a few places, she didn't seem to be worse of wear, and based on the enormous (and equally creepy) grin on her face, she was having the time of her life. When she heard him call out to me, she glanced over, and when she realized I wasn't right next to her, she apparently decided to use the unexpected distraction I provided to lunge at the wounded Faun.

"Oh no, you don't!" I whispered through gritted teeth as I forced my body to move and Phased next to Brang, just in time so that my rising blade could parry her descending one. When metal met metal, there was a familiar outburst of magical sparks, but my 'borrowed' weapon held out and deflected Onikiri with little trouble, forcing Mountain Girl to retreat a few steps in order to regain her balance.

In the meantime, I glanced at the ex-general by my side, and while a certain, indignant part of me wanted to yell 'You had one job! One! Job!', my more reasonable side tempered my reaction into a more appropriate, "[Is the condition of your earthly coil severe?]"

"[Nay, only wounds of the skin,]" he responded with what I was sure he thought was a reassuring smile.

"[Please clarify the nature of the events that transpired in our abode. Myself was laboring under the notion that by the means of the succor of the endowment I provided to you, the aggravation of facing the leering hunter would be momentously diminished.]" I told him, and even though I tried to be extra-concise, somehow I ended up even more long-winded than usual. Faunish, am I right?

"[Facing thine wayward companion is… difficult,]" the old Faun told me, followed by a pained sigh. "[Standing by her side makes us dull. It's akin to facing a warrior of the merfolk in their element.]"

Okay, so I learned two things from this: being in Rinne's presence somehow weakened the Faun, and mermaids were real. I didn't remember Judy ever talking about the latter, so it was quite a shocker, but for now, let's focus on the first issue: even if he had a proper weapon to use, apparently Brang and his merry band were still at a disadvantage against her. I had no idea of the mechanics of that, but for now, the important thing was that I needed a way to keep her busy without putting my self-appointed minions at risk.

"Leonard-san."

"Hm?"

The way Rinne suddenly addressed me threw me on a loop for a moment.

"Have you left the premises of this blood-drenched field of battle to properly arm yourself? Good. Rinne was afraid that Rinne would have to search for you after Rinne dispatched these brutes of the netherworld. Facing your demise in the company of your underlings is commendable."

"Thanks, I suppose," I responded on autopilot while the gears in my head slowly began to spin until they came up with an idea that seemed really dumb on the surface, and it was probably pretty dumb even under the surface, but with today's track record, I had a distinct premonition that it would one hundred percent certainly work out precisely because it was so. With that in mind, I unsubtly cleared my throat, pushed the mask up to the top of my head, and raised my voice as I addressed the creepy huntress. "Say, Mountain Girl? Since I'm already going to be demised with extreme prejudice and everything, could you maybe tell me, in excruciating detail, how and why you can weaken these guys? It must be some kind of amazing secret technique, right?"

Rinne was just about to take up a stance, but my words made her hesitate, and at the end of the day she let her sword down and declared, "You're correct, Leonard-san! The weakening of the foul spawn if the netherworld is due to the ancient technique of yada yada inherited in the third century blah blah blah and my ancestor of something something clan of…"

Okay, first and foremost… wow. Just wow. I didn't think that would work right away, let alone that well. I was honestly a little floored at the moment, and I wasn't the only one utterly baffled by the ease of this development either.

"{Did you just get her to monologue?}"

"More or less," I whispered back to my assistant before hastily adding, "More importantly, please pay attention for me and give me the abridged version after all of this was over."

"{Roger.}"

With that settled, I only had to come up with a plan before Mountain Girl reached the end of her explanation about something called a 'Night Parade Suppressing Divine Aura of Amaterasu'. I had no idea what it was, but I was sure Judy will write a neat report on it. Anyhow, the first and arguably most obvious option was to just sneakily grab her from behind and Phase her out of the secret base. While simple and sound in theory, there were only two practical problems with it: I didn't have any anchors I was comfortable dropping an angry, psychotic swordswoman upon, and more importantly, doing so would've not only been a temporary resolution, but it would also reveal one of my hidden trump-cards to an 'enemy'.

In the end, I discarded the idea and looked for an alternative. Actually beating her was also an option, and now that I 'borrowed' an enchanted sword as well, Brang and I could theoretically tag-team her into oblivion, or at the very least submission. However, after thinking it through, I also dismissed this idea. The general was already injured, even if he was enduring it with a stiff upper lip and pretending to be fine, and I really couldn't waste time with dueling her when the Knights were still running loose in the Dracis mansion.

In short, I needed something to, at least temporarily, hold her attention. Something other than the Faun. Something that she would focus on, but wouldn't get cut after a single swing of Onikiri. Something that was already here…

"Crap, I have to use that thing, don't I?"

"{What thing?}"

"Nothing, never mind," I answered by reflex, but then amended to, "For the record, things are probably going to get extra-noisy out here. Don't come out of the closet."

She didn't respond, which I interpreted as agreement. Now then, first off, I needed to warn Brang while pretending to be listening to Rinne's history lesson about the joining of this demon-hunter clan and that orthodox sect or whatever, so I tried to aim my voice at him while remaining still.

"[General, I shall attempt to create a sustained diversion until my ability to deal with her shall no longer be obstructed. I request that you retain your pelt in a single piece in the interim.]"

"[I will strive to adhere to thy order,]" he told me right away, though I could tell he didn't have his heart in the answer. I didn't let it bother me, as I was pretty sure that if he knew my plan, he wouldn't have had any other body part in his answer either.

I took a long, deep breath, and prepared myself for something that I felt would make me really, really hate myself this time tomorrow, granted I was alive and/or conscious to do so. Once I felt mentally ready, I sharply inhaled through my nose before growling out a decisive "[Scatter!]", interrupting Rinne's diatribe in the process.

When they heard the word, the Faun immediately followed suit, much to Mountain Girl's initial bafflement. I, on the other hand, simply disappeared out of her field of view and Phased over to the middle of the training grounds, and without any further ado, plunged my Phantom Limb into the limp body lying on the ground there. The process was subjectively long, confusing, and tasting like the sound of an electric guitar underwater… in short, it was the same as usual, so instead of mincing my words, let's cut the chase shall we?

Once I was out, the previously limp body of the Chimera twitched and shook from head to toes as if it was being tazed by an entire police squad, but at last it opened its many redundant eyes and ponderously rose to its four feet. Once it found its bearings, it quickly locked onto its target, and a moment later the injured yet far from harmless semi-dead beast broke into a limping dash towards the apparently very confused huntress. Needless to say, I was nowhere near the creature by the time it got up, and I observed all of this from the safe sidelines on the other end of the main hall, right next to Brang and Karukk.

The younger Faun was just about to unroll a pack of bandages to treat the ex-general, but he paused mid-motion to send a skeptical look at the rapidly unfolding rematch by the training grounds.

"[My… um… Boss? Are you sure this was a good idea?]"

"Not at all," I replied between suppressing two dry-heaves, and once I was sure I was going to be able to keep my lunch down, I carefully pulled the mask back onto my face and continued with, "In any case, the Chimera was programmed to consider her its main target. She also can't cut it all willy-nilly, so it should keep her busy for a while. For now, just keep an eye on them and hold the line."

"[As you command,]" Brang noted, and would have probably given me a salute if the other Faun wasn't in the process of bandaging his arm.

I waited for Karukk to finish patching the old Faun up before I gestured for him to pay attention to me, and after a brief moment of hesitation, I ultimately handed my newly acquired weapon over to him. It was a shame, as I actually really liked this sword, but it was best to keep the Knights as far from their weapons as possible, and considering that I was just about to go back to the Dracis mansion, I figured it was the prudent thing to do.

"If the need arises, you can use this to defend yourself."

The friendly Faun first only blinked at me, his eyes repeatedly moving between the sword and my face and ultimately settling on the former as he gingerly, almost reverently took it from my hands. I had a feeling that there was another misunderstanding in the making there, but I have run out of damns to give to such a degree that my damnlessness was about to reach the level of the national damn-deficit, so I ignored him and simply turned on my heel.

"Stay safe."

Since I felt that things were… well, I wanted to say 'less chaotic', but that would've been a lie. Let's go with 'in state of directed chaos'. Anyhow, I didn't dare to dawdle for too long, so after I made sure that the Chimera was still resistant to Onikiri, I took a deep breath to steel my nerves and Phased over to the Dracis mansion.

Upon my arrival, I had to blink a few times to make sure I was at the right place, but on closer inspection, it was definitely the trophy room, though it had definitely seen better days. I wasn't away for too long, yet it looked like an entire season's worth of hurricanes passed through here in the meantime. Mr. Minotaur and his flunkies were nowhere to be seen either, so I figured that he was the most likely cause of the mayhem in front of me. Even the poor gnu head on the wall couldn't escape the havoc and was currently sitting upside-down on the antique (and slightly broken) chair on which Abram sat the first time I met him.

Speaking of which, I quickly Far Glanced in his direction, and to my relief, it seemed like he was already in a car and heading back to the mansion in the company of Sebastian, and based on the urgency of their expressions, they probably already knew about the attack. Good; that should be a nice bargaining-chip… so long as I could meet a Knight I could properly talk with.

Anyhow, there was nothing to see in the room, and I couldn't hear the battering coming from outside either, so I cautiously stuck my head through the door. I couldn't see anyone in either direction, but I could hear something that sounded like muffled speech in the distance. To be perfectly honest, with Papa Dracis and the annoying butler on the way, I felt that things were much less perilous than before, and I even entertained the thought of leaving the mop-up to them, but then I remembered that I technically didn't achieve any of my stated goals. I only hesitated for a moment, and then ultimately disappeared from the doorway.

I repeatedly Phased through the mansion, following the sounds of someone talking (or rather, yelling), and I soon arrived at the foyer of the mansion. Upon my arrival, I immediately hid behind the stairs leading to the first floor and observed the situation. At a single glance, it seemed like all of the knights were gathered inside, forming a semi-circle and keeping watch around a pair of men in the middle. One of them was the familiar robust knight with the horned bucket on his head, and he was animatedly yelling at his colleague while wildly gesturing with his hands.

As for the other man, I figured he was the Entitled Knight that Melinda saw during the evacuation. He was almost a head shorter than the big guy, yet he somehow had an even more imposing presence. If I had to say why, it was probably due to his bearing; his back was ramrod straight, and he had one hand on the hilt of the cavalry saber hanging from his waist while his other hand was raised with his palm pointing at the enraged Mr. Minotaur. He was also wearing a lighter set of armor, with the light blue of his gambeson being clearly visible through the gaps in the shiny metal plates. Most strikingly, he had a golden-plated, large winged helmet on his head with a beaked face-guard that completely hid his face.

"Calm down, MacCool," he chided the large man with the air of a teacher scolding a student, his deep, rich voice simultaneously authoritative and yet reassuring.

"Howfur cuid ah calm doon!? That bas teuk mah sword!"

"All the more reason you should keep your head cool. Shouting won't make him appear."

Now, that was an invitation if I've ever heard one, so I figured I should oblige before the conversation moved along.

"Once again, good evening, gentlemen," I greeted the group after Phasing into the ring of knights, and after the first moment of shock passed, the squires immediately closed the circle around the three of us.

"Ye! Gimme back mah sword ya hackit bawbag, or ah—!"

"Duncan!" the second Knight sharply raised his voice, silencing his comrade before turning a pair of sharp green eyes hidden under his helmet towards me, and after a long and tense beat, he returned my greeting in a composed, borderline courteous voice. "Good evening to you as well, stranger. I don't believe we are familiar yet."

Oh? Ooooh!? Did I hear that right? An actual, level response? Finally!

I forced my body language to stay calm and not betray my excitement as I repeated the same scraping bow I did when I introduced myself the first time.

"You may call me Bel, sir Griffon Knight," I told him with a smirk hidden by my mask.

Refuge in Audacity Two: Electric Boogalo was about to start. Let's hope this time it's going to be smoother than the first…

All right Leo, this is it. Time for a new set of priorities.

Priority number one: Find the Purple Zone restricting MacGuffin.

Priority number two: Mark one of the baddies for future use.

Priority number three: Try to learn about their goals and operations.

Priority number four: Buy some time for Papa Dracis and the butler to arrive, because pincer-maneuvers are fun.

Priority number five: Actually establish my nefarious villain character.

That's about it, I supposed. Easy-peasy.

"{Is everything all right? You've been silent for a while.}"

"Just thinking," I whispered under my breath, and my girlfriend let out an ambivalent noise at my expense.

"{You just met the Griffon Knight, am I right?} She didn't wait for me to respond before she continued with, {Unlike the Minotaur Knights, the title of the Griffon Knight is not passed down in the family. Because of this, the name of the current Griffon Knight is unknown. According to the Dracis records, one of them was called Boreas. Whether that is a given name or a surname wasn't indicated, nor when the record was originally penned down, but it was in the section that predates the time Sebastian's daughter married into the family, so at least one hundred years ago.}"

Well, that wasn't much to go on, but more than enough for my purposes, so I whispered a muffled thanks under my breath and focused my attention on the expectant knights still waiting for my next words. I straightened my back and looked the more reasonable one in the eye before saying, "It's such a pleasant surprise to see you here. Tell me, how is good old Sir Boreas doing these days?"

The man with the winged helmet momentarily froze up while he processed my question.

"If you mean my teacher's teacher, I'm afraid he has already passed away," Mr. Griffon stated in a voice that said he didn't know what to make of me, which was exactly the reaction I was fishing for.

"Really?" After uttering that word, I theatrically shook my head, raised my hands with the palms up, and then shrugged in the classic 'oh well' gesture. "Please excuse my tactless question, sir knight. At my age, it feels like I met him yesterday."

"Ye age? Ah knew it, yer a wyrm, aren't ye!?"

I sent an annoyed glance at the horned knight and shook my head again.

"I believe I've already introduced myself to you, Sir Duncan, but just to reiterate: no, I'm obviously not. Now, I'd like to ask you to stay quiet while the adults are talking."

"Bite ma bawsack ya mangled fud!"

"Oh, how rude," I responded with flamboyant swoon, only to then add, in a flat voice, "Or at least I presume. It is sometimes hard to tell with your slight accent."

The big guy was about to share further insights into his linguistics, but he was stopped by the other named knight tapping on his breastplate with the back of his hand, and Mr. Minotaur immediately sucked down whatever cute insult was about to leave his mouth. This, incidentally, also shed some light on the pecking order of the people present, as Mr. Griffon appeared to be in charge, even though the Entitled Knights were all supposed to be peers with no hierarchy. Apparently all Knights were equal, but some were more equal than others. Go figure.

Anyhow, once the griffon guy got his colleague under control, he turned a pair of narrowed eyes, barely visible behind the slits of his helmet, in my direction.

"So, if I understand this correctly, mister Bel is not related to the wyrmbloods living in this mansion?"

I mulled over the question for a moment, and ultimately I decided to go with an ambivalent shrug and continued to flesh out my character by telling them, "Who knows? After a few millennia, it's hard to keep track of one's ancestors and who else they might've sired over time. It's a problem your organization probably has more experience with than I do."

I must have touched a nerve, as for a second I could sense an almost palpable sense of tension emanating from Mr. Griffon, but at last he let out a shallow breath and muttered, "I see," before raising his voice back into its previous, polite yet not deferential form. "I can't help but ask, if mister Bel is not related to this family, then why are you here?"

"That's a good question, one that applies just as well to you, gentlemen, wouldn't you say?" I waited for a second to see if he wanted to respond, but since they stayed silent, I soon continued with, "With your well-known disposition in mind, I presumed that you're here to terminally pester the descendants of some old flying lizard or the other, but then why did you decide to do right now, instead of when all of them are present? Most curious."

"Oor reasons ur oor ain 'n' hae hee-haw tae dae wi' ye, fien'!"

I tilted my head to the side while sending a dismissive grunt towards the aggressively Scottish man, following which I directed a slightly more amicable look at his colleague.

"On second thought, don't tell me just yet! I love riddles like this!" Saying so, I began to nonchalantly walk in a circle around the two named Knights inside the wider circle formed by the squires, but it still wasn't blasé enough, so I also raised my hands and made various gestures with them to further elucidate my words and baffle my audience. "The only person with non-negligible dragon-blood in them is upstairs, yet instead of attacking her with all you've got, you were content with only sending half of your numbers to harass them. A most curious choice, if your goal was to deliver harm of the most grievous variety unto her, as you tend to do." I paused for a beat, then Phased over to the opposing side of the circle, eliciting a series of surprised gasps in the process before raising my voice into a considerably loud "However!"

"Fockin' 'ell, he is daein' it again!"

I ignored the exclamation coming from Mr. Minotaur and began walking in the opposite direction as before while expounding my marvelous time-wasting tirade.

"However, you didn't break down their door, even though the good sir MacChill could've probably put those oversized shoulders of his to good use. But no! Instead, half of you were content with banging on the door with the menacing flair of a Visigoth horde. One could even imagine you didn't want to actually fight the dragoness upstairs, only keep her at bay."

At this point the two Knights shared a subtle look between each other that naturally didn't escape my notice, so I let out a mirthful little chuckle befitting the situation.

"But if so, what other goals might you have to keep you from your knightly duty of slaying dragons, rescuing princesses, and then celebrating by repeatedly ramming your thick, hard rods into each other?" I let a meaningful silence hang in the air for a moment, only to innocently ask, "Or do you maybe no longer do that? Please forgive me, I've yet to catch up on modern times; is jousting no longer considered a prime form of entertainment?"

I got no answer, so I shrugged and Phased to the other side of the actually important men once again.

"Och fur fock's sake! Stoap that!"

I waited for the squires to stop running around as they tried to reform the encirclement around us, and while doing so, I placed my chin on the back of my hand as if I was deep in thought, only to promptly shake my head.

"Never mind that. We were at your unwillingness to attack the owner of this fine abode here. I can only think of two possible reasons: you were either restricted by one of your many oaths, or more likely, you had a different goal in mind when coming here. Could it be you were looking for someone else? Or rather… something else?"

Oh, look at that! They actually both twitched at the same time. How delightfully transparent. This time I didn't speak up, and instead I gestured for the more reasonable Knight to pick up the rein of the conversation, and he did so, though not before considering his words for ample time.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, mister Bel, but I believe Sir MacCool mentioned something about your being a 'collector', if I'm not mistaken."

"In a way, I indeed am," I responded with the voice of a fisherman whose hook just caught onto a prized catch. "It is but a small hobby of mine; a trait I inherited from the scalier side of my family. The number of curios I accumulated over the centuries could barely fill this room."

"Thon's… quite a lot," Mr. Minotaur mumbled under his breath, and his colleague agreed with a nod.

"Oh, please, do not patronize me," I responded with a dismissive wave of my hand. "I could hardly call that much; it's only a minor collection."

"In any case," Mr. Griffon began to speak, his voice dropping half an octave as it gained a suspicious undertone, "Have you come here to add something to your collection?"

"I may have." After responding so, I added a nefarious little chuckle for dramatic effect, though my audience didn't seem to appreciate it. "Could it be that you were also looking for something here?"

The soft-spoken knight only hesitated for a moment, but then he took a deep breath and bit on the bait with the abandon of a starving shark.

"Please forgive me for being blunt, but are perchance you in possession of an old spear that used to be inside one of the smaller rooms on the ground floor of this mansion?"

Ho? Hohohooo! Now would you look at that! I totall—

"{Called it,}" Judy cut off my thought, and I couldn't help but huff back at her.

"No, you didn't," I grumbled in a low voice while inconspicuously turning to the side, hoping that the men around me wouldn't hear it. "I called it, you just agreed with my hunch."

"{You're just splitting hairs,}" my girlfriend told me in a sulky voice, and one eye-roll later I decided to ignore her chatter and turn back to Mr. Griffon. A long beat later I let out a noise of recognition, as if I just recalled some minor piece of trivia, and snapped my finger for extra emphasis.

"Oh, you mean that spear! Why didn't you say so in the first place? It caught my eye while I was passing through the neighborhood, so I took it. Is there a problem with that?"

"It is a precious… 'heirloom' of ours," the Knight with the winged helmet explained, though I couldn't help but silently snicker at his very peculiar word choice. "Our brotherhood would be indebted if mister Bel could return it to us."

"Hmmm… I don't know," I mused as I dramatically touched the chin of my mask. "I'm afraid I can't just do that. 'Finders keepers' is the term for this situation, I believe? And what a wonderful term it is!"

I let out another low chuckle, but no one laughed along with me. Oh well, sometimes you get a tough crowd. That said, playing the nefarious villain like this every once in a while felt strangely liberating. Therapeutic, even. However, while pushing on with the act was unexpectedly amusing, I quickly reminded myself that I wasn't supposed to completely antagonize the Knights before I accomplished all my pre-stated goals, so I toned things back with a shallow sigh.

"That said," I spoke up, my words accompanied by a mischievously raised finger. "Your eloquent friend over there already gave me a nice gift, so I'm actually in a good mood right now."

"Get tae fock ya fart-box! Ah didnae gie ye mah sword!"

I smoothly ignored the yelling Scottish-Irish-Russian-Greek(?) man and continued.

"You see, I'm not completely unreasonable. If you can provide me with something interesting in exchange, I might consider a fair trade." There was a meaningful silence left in the wake of my words, which I let longer for a while for dramatic effect, and I was about to press on when I remembered that I still had a connection to my very own all-encompassing magical encyclopedia, so instead I whispered, "Psst, Dormouse? How rare do you think an anti-Purple-Zone artifact would be?"

"{I don't know. I'll ask Amelia.}"

Well, okay, maybe she wasn't quite all-encompassing after all, but I wasn't going to hold it against her. Anyhow, that meant I had to buy some time for her, so I promptly focused my attention on my current company.

"I would of course require something of comparable value, and by the looks of it, you value this spear very highly!"

"What makes you think so?"

"Oh, but it's obvious, isn't it? You've gone through quite the trouble to try and steal… I mean, 'recover' this 'heirloom' of yours, and you did so under some very unusual conditions. Invading someone's home while they are away is very unsportsmanlike. In fact, it is, dare I say, quite unchivalrous of you."

"… Maybe," Mr. Griffon agreed, much to my surprise, and a second or so later he even let out a sigh that sounded oddly self-deprecating. "The times are changing. So must we."

"Such a delightfully unexpected response."

I would've continued with the small talk after that, but Judy connected to me before I could.

"{Amelia says that artifacts that could affect a large area are very rare, and one that could interfere with the opening of a Restricted Space should be even rarer. It would also require a strong, magically conductive base material suited for the purpose, such as a wraith skull or a unicorn's horn.}"

Now, there were many ways I could've reacted to her explanation, such as being surprised that unicorns were also real, or ask 'Since when did wraiths have bones?', but my attention was currently preoccupied with a small revelation and I couldn't spare the brainpower for quips. As for the nature of said revelation, let's start by re-stating the fact that the men around me were all glowing, or rather, most of their equipment was doing so. The swords, shields, and other assorted enchanted gear of the squires were one thing, but the items on the two important guys were shining from head to toe. Besides being an eye-sore, this meant that even if I tried, I couldn't immediately recognize the magic jammer they had... however, I've actually made note of the odd, elongated cloth bag hanging from Mr. Griffon's belt. It looked a little like one of those recorder flute cases I've seen around the school, probably on members of the music club, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it held. Now, I had a strong gut feeling about it, and I was willing to bet on it.

"{On a related note,}" Judy continued speaking before I could get a word in, "{She sounded really angry, and she told me to tell you that she can't get Michael out of the cage and she needs help.}"

"Seriously? Can't anyone do anything on their own today?" She didn't respond to my perfectly reasonable inquiry, so after a while I added, "Tell her to keep trying. If she can't get him out by the time I'm done here, I'll bring some tools over or something."

"{Roger.}"

Okay, so where was I again? Oh, right; the knights in front of me. It was kind of a silly thing to forget about, but in my defense, I felt like I was at four different places at once.

"So, since sir knight is so flexible, I presume you wouldn't have any quandaries about making a deal with me. All you need is something of comparable value."

"Do you have something in mind?" he asked back, just a tad tentatively.

"Oh, let me see… How about some precious raw materials? Your little club has been around for a while, so I'm fairly sure you must have some rare articles in your possession. How about some orichalcum? Oh, I'm also fresh out of unobtanium, so I could really use a bar or two! No, wait!" Falling silent for a moment, I used both my hands to point a pair of finger-guns at Mr. Griffon. "I'm fairly sure some of your ancestors used to have a unicorn horn or two."

The moment I uttered the word, the slightly shorter knight's free hand immediately moved to cover up the long bag on his belt. In other words, I hit the bull's-eye. That was more or less the final piece of the puzzle I needed to be done here.

"Mister Bel, I'm afraid—"

While the Griffon Knight prepared to make his excuse, I checked on Papa Dracis, and I was delighted to learn that he was only a couple of blocks away from the neighborhood. It was perfect timing, and also my cue to move on, so I raised my left hand to shoulder-level, with two fingers pointing forwards, and at the same time let my right hand down and opened it with the palm facing outwards.

Before anyone could react, I immediately phased over to the side of a nearby squire, and then jabbed forwards with my left hand, aiming at the small gap between the man's helmed and his spaulders. I didn't pick him at random either, as he was one of the only three guys in the circle who wasn't wearing a gorget to protect his neck, allowing me relatively quick access to his skin. I mean, no one said I had to mark one of the considerably more dangerous Entitled Knights to keep track of them, right?

Oh, but speaking of those guys, the moment Sir Squire McNotproperlyarmored let out a panicked shout, Mr. Griffon immediately grabbed onto the grip of his saber… leaving him wide open for my next maneuver as I unceremoniously Phased right in front of him and, before he could properly reach, I clasped my open right hand around my actual target, and then a forceful tug later I Phased away, leaving behind a satisfied "Zoink!" in my wake.

"Eeeep!"

"Hi mom-in-law," I greeted the currently uncharacteristically flustered Emese the moment I arrived.

"Future young master?" Melinda muttered in a bit of a daze on the side, so I lifted the mask off my face and gave her a reassuring smile that might've looked less heartening than I intended, as she somehow turned even paler. At the end of the day I decided to ignore her and turned my attention back to Mama Dracis.

"Long story short: I've got the magic jammer thingie," I paused for a second as I plunged my Phantom Limb into the item inside the bag, and a moment later added, "and now it's off. Dad-in-law and Sebastian are on the way, so if you want to have a piece of the action, now's the time to go out. That said, you might want to lay low instead; the Knights weren't actually here for you, and they should be leaving soon. I leave it up to your discretion. Oh, also," I threw the package over to Melinda, and she almost managed to drop it. I didn't call her out on it, and instead I told her, "Hold onto that for now, I'll have to go now."

"O… Okay. Bye?"

I almost chuckled at Emese's odd response, but at the end of the day I settled on flashing a smile at her before lowering the mask again and, a deep breath later, I Phased over to my next destination. A short, increasingly nauseating blink of an eye later I was inside a similarly dark room, right behind a certain magi girl currently ineffectually hammering on the padlock with something that looked like a comically oversized Allen wrench.

"Hi, class rep."

"Eeeep!"

This time the surprised squeak came from the guy behind the bars, while Ammy only froze up for a moment before turning on her heel and directing a pair of thundering eyes at me.

"Leo, what exactly were you…!?" she started, only for her words to quickly trail into silence, followed by a flat yet distinctly alarmed, "You're bleeding."

Now it was my turn to be alarmed as I uttered a short "I am?" and looked over myself. It was hard to see at first, probably because my eyes were still adapted to the magical light show at the mansion, but on closer look, there really was a long, vertical cut on my abdomen. Odd. I wasn't feeling any pain, yet by the looks of it, I was most certainly cut.

I reached down and used two fingers to feel around the area. It went through my coat and then sliced across the ballistic vest I was wearing under it, leaving a long, thin cut on my stomach, yet even when I touched it, it didn't really hurt, nor did it actually bleed much. Wait, on second touch, I couldn't feel the area around it either. How about other parts of my body?

…

Nope, pinching my forearm didn't really hurt either. That… probably wasn't good. Oh well, let's look on the bright side: at least my slightly disconcerting numbness allowed me to inspect my wound without any hassle.

"Don't spread it!" Mike called out to me, but I only shook my head.

"Don't worry, it's literally just a scratch. I probably got it when the Griffon Knight drew his sword, but it barely broke the skin."

"Griffon Knight?" Ammy repeated after me, but I quickly shook my head, lest I would accidentally reveal even more incriminating evidence.

"Never mind that, I'm just rambling. More importantly, what's the problem here? Why is he still in the cage?"

"It's because of you," the class rep burst out, and once she realized I had no idea about what she meant by that, she followed it up with, "You just left me here without any way to open this lock!"

"Why don't you use your magic?" I asked what felt like the obvious, and Ammy almost stomped her feet in reaction.

"Because the room is warded from the outside! It interferes with any low-tier spells!"

"That's why I couldn't escape on my own," Michael informed me a little sheepishly, though his comment was mostly beside the point.

"You said low-tier spells, right? Why didn't you just summon your golem?"

"Because if I summon Petra, then who is going to sit on Galatea?"

"Ah, right," I admitted with a tinge of embarrassment in my voice. "I didn't think of that. Ah, but you could've summoned your staff."

Ammy's expression was practically seething at this point and she unceremoniously pointed to our left. I followed it, and there I found a familiar staff on the ground… in two pieces.

"Um… My condolences?" She was still less than amicable, so I raised my hands to pacify her and uttered, "I'll help you make a new one later; how about I go and get some proper tools for the job first?"

"You better," she grunted, but then her expression eased up and she wondered, "But… how did you even come in here? The door is locked, and…"

"Oh, look at the time, I better get going, bye."

"Wait…"

I didn't, and before long, I was inside the secret base. I looked around, and the first thing I naturally noted was that the Chimera was pretty much down for the count, suffering a death of a thousand cuts under the continuous assault of the creepy huntress. Another thing that didn't escape my notice was that, at the moment, I felt quite fine. I was light-headed, and I was feeling a bit odd, but my previous nausea almost entirely subsided, and my head no longer hurt. Or maybe I just couldn't feel it anymore? The thought was a little disconcerting, but not enough to sidetrack me from my next objective.

"[General, I request that you brief me on the present condition of affairs.]"

"[Ah, Blackcloak, welcome back,"] the old Faun greeted me as he finally noticed my presence, only to tense up as he looked over me. Following his gaze, the rest of them also glanced my way and showed a similar reaction. "[You are injured.]"

"So are you, and you won't see me gawking," I snapped at them, and the small gaggle of Fauns immediately (and quite conspicuously) averted their eyes. Speaking of which, our group was currently crouching in a small huddle behind the counter in the recreational area of the main hall, and for a change, someone finally showed a bit of competence, as they were all cloaked at the moment and let Rinne and the Chimera duke it out between each other.

The awkward silence only lasted for a few short moments before Brang forcefully cleared his throat and addressed me.

"[We have regrouped and tended our wounds, as per thine orders. Thine associate remained belligerent, and thus we stayed out of her way till thine return.]"

"The Chimera's in bad shape," I noted, and Gram (or Rabom, it was hard to tell under the bandages) let out a grunt in agreement.

"[I'd say it would go down in a few minutes.]"

"[I give it less than five,]" Pip noted, only for the rest of the group to nod in agreement.

"[What do we do then?]" came the next, entirely reasonable question from Karukk, and the others also seemed to share his interest based on the way they were looking at me.

"I kind of have to go and help free a wayward Celestial, but I suppose I can't really leave her alone any longer, can I?"

That was an entirely rhetorical question, yet for some reason the seven Fauns all shook their heads in unison. That was mildly aggravating, but I let it slide for now, and instead I thought long and hard for a few seconds before coming to a resolution.

"I have a plan, but I will need your help. Who is the least injured among you?"

There was a long moment of silence, but when Brang sent a glance at him, Karukk awkwardly raised a hand, his ears drooping so low they almost disappeared under his hairy head fur hair thing. Let's not get into the semantics of that.

"You still have the sword, so it should work," I told him before taking a deep breath to collect my thoughts. "Listen up; first, I need you to sneak up on her and wait until the Chimera goes down and can no longer move."

"[You want me to hit her in the back?]"

"Actually, no. I want you to appear nearby, preferably so that when she faces you, she would have to turn her back this way. Draw her attention, and then challenge her to a duel."

"[Um… Boss, no offense, but this sounds like a terrible plan so far.]"

"Less back-talking and more listening," I chided him, and then once he fell silent, I followed it up with, "I don't need you to fight her per se. Your job is to draw one of her silly named sword-moves out of her."

"[So you want me to get hit by a sword art?]"

"No, you're not going to get hit by anything. Listen, you just have to make sure you are not too close to her; about two paces should do the trick. I'll take care of the rest."

"[Okay,]" he agreed, if a tad apprehensively, and I gestured for him to get going, as the Chimera was on its last legs (literally, as it lost one front and one hind paw), but after half a step he turned back and whispered, "[How should I get her attention?]"

"Taunt her, or something. Be creative."

"[I'll try…]" he muttered with a distinct lack of confidence, but after some more silent spurring he finally got going.

For the time being, the rest of us watched over him while he edged closer to the brutal battle of attrition in front of us, and not a moment too soon, as with one solid lunge, Rinne stabbed forth and impaled the battered creature through the neck. The Chimera let out a low, guttural whine, and once she retrieved her sword, it collapsed onto the bloodied concrete floor with a thud, immobile, though not unmoving, as even then its paws kept ineffectually clawing at the ground.

Mountain Girl also looked pretty out of it; her hair was a mess, and her usually impeccable outfit had several tears on it, though she had nothing worse than the scratches I originally inflicted on her. She was also breathing hard, though I figured after being engaged in melee for this long, it wasn't entirely unexpected. Her stance, on the other hand, was as stable as ever, and once she made sure the Chimera wasn't going to get up any time soon, she raised her blade and scanned the perimeter. She was just about to look our way, but Karukk, either by design or by pure chance, decided to reveal himself just before she could have noticed me.

"You!" he exclaimed in a rumbling voice while pointing his borrowed blade at her, startling Rinne into taking a defensive posture. There was a short beat of awkward silence, then he declared, "Your mother! A hamster!"

…

Really, Karukk? Really? I just spent a bunch of time maneuvering around a pack of knights, and it's you who makes a Holy Grail reference? Since when did you guys even watch British comedies? What's next; are you going to tell me you had cable TV in the Abyss? That's just silly!

…

Note to self: Next time I meet that Cumhail fellow, I absolutely have to tell him that his father smelled of elderberries, because dammit, I refuse to be outdone in combat-banter by Karukk of all people.

More importantly though, after such a grievous insult, Mountain Girl naturally couldn't hold herself back and immediately lunged at Karukk. He followed my advice and retreated while doing his best to parry any incoming strikes, and even by a cursory look, I could tell that he was indeed affected by some kind of external, suppressive force, as his moves were positively sloppy. He still held his own fairly well, though it was probably more due to Rinne being tired than his own skills, but that's beside the point.

While all that was going on, I also took up a stance in preparation, bending my knees for a runner's start and getting ready for an explosive dash at a moment's notice. The rest was all down to timing, so I held my breath and focused all my attention on the two of them, or rather, the sword in the huntress's hand. I didn't even dare to blink, which was ever so slightly uncomfortable, but thankfully I didn't have to wait too long, as…

"Sakurabana Ranbu!"

That! That was exactly what I wanted to hear! Honing my focus to a single point, I watched her wind up to an upwards slash that managed to knock Karukk off-balance even though he successfully deflected it. Now came the crucial part; it was all about timing. I waited, and waited, and then…

"ZOINK!"

In the literal blink of an eye, I let loose all the potential energy in my legs and let them propel me forward, while at the same time I also Phased right behind Mountain Girl just as she crouched down and was about to do her three-sixty spin. Our eyes met for a moment, and I doubt she could even register what was going on as I leaped over her, using one hand to boost myself by pushing down on her shoulder while my other reached out and expertly grasped the hilt of the sword flying through the air. However, even after I caught it, I still had to disperse my momentum, so I did a not particularly graceful yet effecting tumble upon landing.

The lesson of the day: letting go of your sword for some fancy-pants special moves is a bad idea. The more you know, am I right? Once I stopped rolling, I immediately jumped to my feet, wary of how Rinne would react to this development, but unexpectedly enough she was simply sprawled out on the ground with a vacant expression on her face. I was just about to call out to her, but then she abruptly sat up as if she was poked by a needle and looked around in mild panic, and once her eyes met mine, she practically screamed out to me.

"Leonard-san, no! Let go of Onikiri! Quickly, before she—!"

I'm not going to lie, I was slightly taken aback by her reaction, but not as much as when I glanced down at the sword in my hand. I was holding it in a reverse-grip at the moment and… wait, when did the shroud get wrapped around my wrist?

I had a couple of other questions as well, but then they were all drowned out by a strange, ethereal sound. It took me some time to realize that it was a voice, or rather a set of voices. One was silky and sensual, another was low and growling, and yet another was like the screech of nails upon a chalkboard. They were all strangely feminine, and even though the words were unfamiliar, somehow I still understood their meaning.

"" the voice declared, and I could feel the shroud around my wrist tightened even further. There was also a creepy, crawling sensation slowly making its way up my arm that became even worse as it added, in a tone that was both alluring and terrifying, '"

Oh, great. And now the stupid sword wanted to possess me or something. Lovely. Because apparently my day just wasn't crazy enough yet…