"… and that's why our class is going to have an idol-group performance for the school festival," I explained with more than a hint of trepidation, and even though what I said didn't actually have a logical thread to follow, Mountain Girl nodded in acknowledgment like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Though again, it was her, so maybe it was my bad for expecting her to operate on the same logic as us normal folk do. That said, I had a feeling my definition of 'normal' was getting further off the mark by the day, so who was I to cast the first stone?

"I still can't pinpoint the exact moment when Joshua's idea turned into an idol group one, but I'm sure that once I get home and write down the chain of events, I should be able to find it. Probably."

Judy said that in a muffled, barely audible voice, since her face was currently buried into my back. As for why… simply put, she was using me as a shield to ward off the chilly autumn headwind blowing down the streets on our way home. I honestly didn't mind it though; if anything, I found it a little cute.

"Is it really that much of a mystery?" Snowy asked on the side, rounding out the members of our little group. Needless to say, she wasn't bothered by the cold at all. It must have been a quirk of her Abyssal physiology or something.

"It's not exactly a mystery," I answered still as morosely as before. "I'm pretty sure it was the four creepy dudes from class, so we already know the whodunit and the whydunnit, we just don't know the howdunnit."

"Not that it really matters at this point," Judy added in a slightly clearer voice, but the moment there was another gust of wind, she hid her face again and she continued with a dampened, "It's already decided that we're going to do it, we just want to know why out of intellectual curiosity."

At this point the wind gathered steam again to the point even Snowy had to hold onto me for a moment, so there was a long lull in the conversation. Obviously enough, the four of us were heading home after school, though it was a tad later than usual because of Rinne. I promised her that I would take her over to the secret base today so that she could talk with my chief of staff (read: Brang) and discuss how she would fit into our pecking order. I honestly found the entire concept of such hierarchies silly, but she was really insistent, so I decided to leave it up to the two of them and just get on with my life.

As for where the rest of the group was, the princess stayed behind at the tennis court to help Angie train for their regionals, and Josh was roped into setting up their pitching machine which, by process of elimination, left only the four of us present. Or rather five, counting the fox girl in Judy's shadow, but let's not get bogged down by semantics.

"Our class is doing a maid café," my sister suddenly declared apropos of nothing, and I couldn't help but let out a shallow sigh the moment she did so.

"No, Dormouse, I didn't have a hand in that. Please stop giving me that look."

"You don't even know what kind of look I'm giving you," she countered, and true to her word, her face was still glued to my back in response to a particularly vigorous gust of wind. "You can't even see my face."

"I don't need to. I can tell instinctively. It's boyfriend-magic."

"Is Snowy-san also going to dress up as a maid?" Mountain Girl approached my sister, apparently turning a deaf ear to our exchange, and when she nodded, the high-school teacher ninja let out a brief, rather nostalgic sigh. "Rinne can't help but recall the cultural festival in Rinne's old high school right now."

"You attended high school?"

The question slipped out my mouth before I could catch it, and she immediately nodded with a soft grunt.

"Of course Rinne did so. How else could Rinne have a degree if Rinne didn't even finish high school?"

In retrospect, that was a really solid point I should've considered, so all I could say in response was, "Yes, but I kind of expected that you were been running around hunting Japanese monsters or something instead of attending school."

"Yes, Rinne hunted a lot of youkai back then, but Rinne wasn't a delinquent." Her response was practically fuming and she even broke away from my sister to come to my side to further elucidate her point. "Rinne maintained her average, took part in extraterrestrial school activities, and participated in every cultural and sports festival! Rinne even dressed up as a maid for our own maid café in the second year!"

"Chief, don't imagine her in a maid outfit," came a muffled yet somehow still distinctly deadpan comment from my back, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes at it.

"I won't," I told my dear assistant, and to my credit, my words were only very slightly exasperated.

"We also got to dress up as a butler in Rinne-san's third year," an unexpected voice told us from the direction of our feet, and this time I wasn't only slightly annoyed.

"Ichiko? What did we agree upon about coming out of Judy's shadow when we were in the open?"

The little fox-miko didn't answer, nor was there any more ripples under my girlfriend's feet, so I didn't press the issue any further. In the meantime, it was my sister's turn to approach the currently flustered Mountain Girl with a question.

"You were a butler? Why?"

Rinne glanced between her, me, and even our shadow, but when no one came to her rescue, she grudgingly recounted her story to us.

"In the third year of high school, Rinne's class made a butler café. One of the boys was attacked by an evil youkai the night before the cultural festival, and since the other boys all had their own jobs, Rinne had to take his place."

"A butler café," Judy repeated after her in a clear voice, and I could once again feel her eyes on the back of my head.

"Dormouse, don't imagine me in a butler outfit," I echoed her, but in vain.

"Too late. The image is already burned into my memory and I will carry it to the grave in flawless clarity. Such is the burden one with perfect memory must bear. Woe is me."

"If woe is you, then why do you sound so delighted?"

"Because it's a really nice mental image," she told me without a hint of shame, and she was even joined by Snowy as well.

"Leo would look really good in a butler uniform, wouldn't he?"

"Not you too, sis…"

"The Chief looks good in almost any outfit, but now I really want to see him in a butler outfit," Judy mused before quickly adding, "I believe it is imperative that we should have one of these butler cafés next year."

"If such an event comes to pass, Rinne would be happy to offer guidance based on her experiences."

"Oh come on! Why are you ganging up on me like that?"

I didn't receive a proper answer, only a series of conspiratory giggles all around, and our bickering continued like that right until we reached my home. By this point, we ended our verbal tug-of-war in a white peace saying that Judy could imagine whatever she wanted so long as she didn't expect me to borrow a butler suit from Sebastian any time soon. That was fair, I supposed.

"Let's get in," my obviously chilled girlfriend urged me while pushing my back with all her might, though it had little actual effect on me. To be fair though, I was about as fed up with the wind as her, so I didn't really require any urging, and I was just about to open the front door when we were all startled by a low thumping noise closely followed by a pained hiss.

After the first moment of confusion passed I quickly turned around, only for the slowly mounting apprehension to immediately drain from me as I laid my eyes upon the source of the commotion.

"Erm… Mountain Girl? What exactly are you doing on the ground?"

Rinne, currently sitting on her butt in the middle of the sidewalk and with one hand on her forehead, only gave me a couple of stupefied blinks in place of a proper answer. Soon after that she rose to her feet and extended her hand towards us, only to abruptly stop before she could fully stretch her arm out. That could only mean one of two things: she either suddenly developed a burning passion for becoming a mime, or she was stopped by the wards around our house.

"Do I have to invite her in every time?" I asked my suspiciously silent sister, and she gave me a curt nod in return. "In that case, please come in."

Hearing my invitation made Rinne's eyes lit up with realization, apparently only just recognizing what happened to her, and she took a step towards us… only to bounce off once again like she just hit a glass panel with her forehead.

"Snowy?" I addressed the source of said ward, and my sister immediately replied with a squeaky "I-I'm on it!" and dashed over to the fallen highly visible monster huntress ninja retainer PE teacher's side. Damn, that's a lot of adjectives.

While she undid the wards, Judy continued to subtly urge me forwards, so I opened the door for her, and before I knew it, she passed right beside me and targeted the thermostat with the single-minded accuracy of a diving peregrine falcon. Soon Snowy undid whatever buggy ward kept Mountain Girl outside and they also entered after me.

The next half an hour disappeared in the blink of an eye. We all drank some hot cocoa to warm up, I scolded Ichiko for not behaving in public, and then the girls comforted her when she turned into a fox and acted cutesy, then Judy tried to convince me to make a stone fireplace in the corner of the living room for the coming winter, and other such small, inconsequential hustle and bustle. Once everyone settled down a little, I promptly delivered my guest to the secret base so that she could take care of her business and then ditched, or rather, delegated the task of looking after Ichiko onto Snowy. Not that she minded.

After all that I finally returned to my room, for once using my good old legs instead of any fancy teleportation skills, though by this point moving around using the latter felt just about as natural as the former. Judy was already inside, which was expected. I mean, I left her there. What I wasn't expecting was finding her in front of my PC.

"I'm back, Dormouse. Are you checking the hub?" I asked a little absent-mindedly as I made my way over to her side, but then I froze for a moment when I noticed what she was doing. "Judy? Care to explain what you're doing in my secret fake porn folder?"

"I couldn't find any adult magazines under your bed," she answered me as naturally as if she was just talking about the weather. "Then I remembered that you are a modern boy, so I checked your documents folders for anything suspicious, and found these in a hidden folder. I'm disappointed."

"What? Too vanilla for your tastes?" I jested, yet she simply shook her head with the same seriousness.

"You haven't watched any of these."

Her statement sounded way too confident to be just a random guess, so I tentatively asked back, "How can you even tell?"

"I checked your history in your media player."

"Oh. Clever."

"Thank you, I'm trying," she answered with the smallest of smiles before putting the cursor onto one of the more colorfully titled files and telling me, "The fact that you're not even interested enough in the topic to even open something titled this fascinatingly strange makes me really worried about your libido. Or the lack thereof."

"Don't be silly, Dormouse. I have nothing wrong with my libido," I said, though I admit I sounded a little defensive even to myself, so to punctuate the point, I gently took the mouse out of her hand and closed the window.

"One of these days we really have to get to the bottom of your lack of initiative."

"How about we leave my bottom alone for now and focus on something less awkward today?"

"Like Rinne?" she asked completely innocently, though I was pretty sure she was trying to push my buttons.

"Oh, please! She is pretty much the definition of 'awkward'! And weird. And annoying."

"She also seems to have a lot of stories to tell."

The way she said that sounded subtly peculiar, and she even turned the chair around to face me, so I was pretty sure she was trying to get at something. Maybe it was supposed to be some kind of segue? In that case, I figured it was only proper for me to humor her.

"I figure. I mean, you don't get that many adjectives without going through a few hoops aaand that's not what you meant."

My dear assistant let a soft hum in agreement and told me, "Due to Elly's repeated attempts at persuading me, I believe I've successfully stopped viewing her as a potential love interest for you. When I did that, I realized something."

"I’m listening."

"You know the saying 'Everyone is the protagonist of their own story'?"

"Of course I do. That's what tripped me up for a short while when I woke up in the Simulacrum." She looked quite curious, so I frankly told her, "At first I thought I was the protagonist and Josh was the idiot friend. It was before I hired you to be my assistant."

"That was silly, but understandable at the time."

"Do you mean my initial mistake, or hiring you? Because if it was the latter, I might have to tickle you for making fun of the best decision of my life."

"The former, obviously, and please stay on topic," she reproached me before taking a deep breath and laying another idea onto the table, "Do you remember that we hypothesized about whether the world was new with everyone's past memories being retrofitted, or if the history of the whole world was fully simulated up until now?"

"Yes, but—" It was at this point that the light-bulb lit up over my head, and I hastily asked, "Wait, you mentioned protagonists. Are you implying that Rinne is also one?"

"Or at the very least was one," Judy agreed with the tiniest of tiny smirks. "My new theory is that she used to be the protagonist of her own high-school action-adventure narrative back in her own school days. It would explain her extensive background, her out-of-context abilities, and her lack of ties to the narrative surrounding Joshua."

"Yeah, that kind of checks out," I responded while trying to put the pieces she laid out together. "So if I get this right, you are presuming that she had her own story with her own nebulous narrative force in the same Simulacrum we are in right now, but then she was thrown into our mess due to Lord Grandpa's subplot. Wouldn't that make her a cameo?"

"Only if we presume that someone out there watches us and would appreciate her appearance. It is also entirely likely that she only showed up because she was an already established actor the Narrative could call upon to fulfill a specific role."

"That's an interesting hypothesis," I granted her, and then I had my second lightbulb-moment, "Actually, now that I think about it, the annoying butler also had a really intense backstory with at least one very otome-game-ish setup thrown in there."

"Then it's also likely that he's another stray main character," Judy stated, after which we both fell silent for a few seconds. "So, just to summarize: I think it is possible that the Simulacrum we're in has been not only running a simulation of the world for a long time, but also that it had numerous narratives in it, and that the people who were involved in them can show up as important players in later narratives."

"It would certainly explain a few inconsistencies," I pondered aloud as I let the idea sink in, and I couldn't help but add, "And you say you figured this all out just by changing your perception of Rinne?"

"More or less," my assistant stated with feigned nonchalance, but I could tell she was quite proud of her idea.

"Nice work then. I'll add it to our list of hypotheses. I suppose we should be on the lookout to see if we could find similar ex-protagonisty people around us for further data points. Later."

"Why later?"

"Because I have some other things to discuss first," I told her, straightened my back, and then followed it up with, "First and foremost, I have a favor to ask. The Symposium of the artificers is coming up sooner than expected, and apparently it's a much more prestigious ordeal than I first thought it would be. I got some books and technical manuals from Ammy, so… could you please help me cram for it so I wouldn't look like an idiot?"

"Why do you even feel the need to ask? Of course I'll help."

"Thanks, Dormouse. You are the—"

"In exchange for the appropriate wages, plus overtime."

"… Of course you'd say that," I whispered with a sigh, then asked, "So, what is your rate for this kind of work?"

"You can pay me the standard rate in cuddles, snuggles, and nuzzles. Alternatively, you can pay in me romantic moments at a ten percent discount."

"Romantic moments, huh? In that case, how about a dinner-date in town, with just the two of us?"

"Sir, I believe we have a deal." She offered me a hand, and I immediately shook it, at which point she slightly tilted her head to the side and asked, "Do you want to start right now?"

"Later. I have even more things I want to discuss first," I answered as I bent my fingers and lightly poked the inside of her palm with my fingertips, and she immediately retracted her hand in the company of a small yelp. Yep, just another proof for my theory that ticklish girlfriends are indeed the best. Anyhow, I took a deep breath, and once I cleared my head I explained to her, "I already told you about how I found my knightly equipment the other day. I want to show them to you later, but more importantly, there was one more thing I found that I didn't mention yet."

"So it's something knight-related, and you didn't want to tell me about. Is it a love interest from The Knightly Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines you forgot about due to your amnesia?"

For a second or five I didn't know what to say, but then I noticed the mischievous glint in the corner of her eyes and realized she was teasing me, at which point I let out a veeery long breath.

"Dormouse, could you please stay serious and not joke about something so bloody terrifying with a straight face?"

"I'm just outlining the worst possible scenario. This way if I was right, I will be already mentally prepared to deal with her, and if I was wrong, I will be pleasantly surprised. In other words: sorry, but not sorry."

"Oh, for the love of… Listen, Dormouse. There's already the new knight girl who apparently knows me and is shaping up to be a giant pain in the neck in the future, so I really don't need you to tempt fate on this one! Wasn't that one of your pet peeves anyway?"

That question finally made her pause and, after an uncomfortably long beat, she concluded the tangent with a quiet, "You're right, I shouldn't have joked about that. However, if you end up related to the 'new knight girl', as you call her, I still hold my right to say 'I told you so' before Elly and I hit her with the full brunt of our anti-harem counter-measures."

"A fair compromise, apologies accepted. Anyhow, the thing I really wanted to talk about was not a person. Well, maybe it is, but… Okay, from the beginning: do you remember the Knights' prophecy?" Judy nodded, so I continued with, "It involved a super-special-awesome Excalibur clone."

"Chief," she abruptly cut in and she looked so incredulous she even furrowed her brows a little, "You found the sword in question."

"That… wasn't a question, but yes, I have. Complete with a magical stone to pull it out from and all."

"It wasn't a question because you wouldn't have brought it up if you found something else. The real question is, why you would have something like that in your possession?"

"Beats me," I responded in the company of a shrug. "My guess is that I was either a much higher ranking member than I originally imagined, or that it was arranged by the Narrative."

"That is the most likely answer. If the sword is related to one of Joshua's prophecies, it would necessitate that it had to be physically possible for him to claim it. If it wasn't on the island, he couldn't pull it. Q.E.D., it makes perfect sense for it to be here."

"Ah, right, speaking of pulling." I hesitated for a moment, as I already spent a lot of time vacillating over whether I should tell Judy about this, but I could really use her perspective, I decided to bite the bullet anyway. "There's another complication regarding that…"

After saying so, I took a deep breath and gave her the footnotes version of my encounter with the fancy sword in the considerably less fancy stone. To her credit, Judy took my words in stride and only spoke up after I finished my tale.

"I'm not even a little bit surprised anymore."

"That makes one of us. The stupid thing nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Take this as a lesson. Grabbing swords you know nothing about is bad. Bad Chief. Reflect on your actions."

"Yes, yes, I got it. More importantly, do you think I accidentally broke something again? I mean, in a narrative-driven chosen-one context?"

"I don't know. I'll try to research the sword using our main sources of information and try to figure out how important it actually is. In the meantime, you should ask Sebastian about it."

"Ugh. Do I really have to? We still aren't exactly on friendly terms."

"That's just your skewed perspective, Chief. The entire Dracis family agrees that he likes you a lot."

"As much as it hurts me to say this, I wouldn't necessarily consider them a great judge of character…"

My objection made my dear assistant raise a brow, and she immediately countered with, "Elly's chambermaid is also of the same opinion."

"Really? Then I suppose I might have to reconsider things a little." Judy was still giving me the same, slightly disapproving look, and I soon gave up. "Fine, I'll ask him. I mean, you're right; if there is anyone who knows about an ancient Knightly sword that was stuck into a chunk of rock centuries ago, it's him."

"Please do so." After Judy said that, the conversation entered into a momentary lull, which lasted exactly until she cleared her throat. "Speaking of The Knightly Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines, is there any movement from them?"

"Not much," I responded with yet another shrug. "They are still settling into their new base of operations. I'm still planning to create a situation where I could try to safely tag one of the entitled knights, and I couldn't find out anything concrete about the new knightess on the island yet, but for now they are inert." I wanted to leave it at this, but then I recalled something I have contemplated over a lot in the past couple of days, so I decided I might as well bring it up to see what she thought about it. "Listen, Judy. I had a brand new idea the other day, and I'm curious if you think it's feasible."

"A new idea. Should I take notes?"

"Your call." Following my answer, she took out her phone all the same, and I waited for her to fire up her word processor before continuing. "Here's my premise: your current hypothesis says that the Narrative that's manipulating things around us is operating on an arc-based structure." I waited for her reaction, and once she nodded, I continued with, "I also remember you saying that you thought we had that entire flustercuck with Fred and Mountain Girl and so on because I messed up the plot and the Narrative tried to course-correct."

"Yes, that's my current theory."

"All right, here's my idea based on your idea: if that could happen by accident, doesn't that mean that we could also do so on purpose? For example, if we have a strong hunch that the arc with the Knights with the Superfluously Elongated Name was about to begin, and it would be inconvenient for us, couldn't we potentially manipulate or even postpone it by forcefully triggering another arc in advance?"

"You want to try and directly mess with the Narrative," Judy stated, and when I confirmed it with a nod, she fell silent for a good couple of seconds before telling me, "It sounds difficult, but I suppose we cannot really confirm or discard our hypotheses without trying it at one point. The only issue I can see is about identifying another arc and purposefully triggering it without it just overlapping with the current one."

"It's actually not that difficult," I declared with a smile and raised a finger to punctuate my point. "There are actually a number of classic arc archetypes that are incredibly common in any and all harem narratives, be they the battle or the vanilla variety, such as the beach episode."

"Chief, I don't want to rain on your parade, but winter is already knocking on the door. We aren't going to any beaches any time soon."

"That was just an example. School trips, hot springs, hell, even the school festival can be one. So long as we make a big deal out of it and get Josh and his entire entourage involved, we should be able to force the narrative to acknowledge it and switch gears. If it happens, it means we're on the right track."

"Since the cultural festival is already happening, and the beach is unreasonable, I believe that only leaves the school trip or the hot springs. Also, possibly a holiday-themed arc."

"Right, I didn't consider that. First, we have to find out if we even had hot springs on the island, and then—"

It was right here, smack dab in the middle of our furious planning, when we were interrupted by a powerful guitar solo, startling the both of us into stunned silence for a few seconds.

"Just a moment, let me answer the phone," I told Judy and fished my mobile out of the school bag I carelessly tossed onto my bed when we arrived. I checked the caller ID and picked it up with a chipper, "Hi, princess."

"Ah, it's actually me, son!" a man's voice blared out of the speaker's so loud it took me a second to recognize Abram under all the compression and distortions.

"Hello, dad-in-law," I greeted him while making sure that I was keeping the phone a healthy distance away from my ears. "Did something happen to Elly?"

"Oh, no! I just had to borrow her phone because mine didn't have your number!" I was fairly sure I gave it to him already, but I couldn't point this out, as he immediately continued with, "You see, son… Errrm… This is really embarrassing!"

"What?" I blurted out and couldn't help but recall another recent conversation that started out eerily similarly.

"Do you remember that I promised to call a healer for your hand? The one we contacted couldn't make it because he was arrested at the airport! They found some illegal substances in his luggage, and he can't leave the country for a while!"

"Wow. Color me shocked."

"I know, son! Who would have thought he would be dealing with those kinds of things? But don't worry, we have other contacts too!"

"I'm happy to hear that. Listen, I have to put down the phone now. Please tell Elly I love her a bunch."

"Ahaha! Will do, son!"

The moment he said that I immediately cut the line, put the phone onto my bed, and turned to Judy.

"Put the previous topic on hold and open the hub, please."

She didn't argue for even a second and instead she turned the chair around and pulled out the keyboard without a word. In the meantime, I walked back to her side and rubbed my eyes with my good hand to collect my thoughts. In this situation, the saying 'Once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence, three times is enemy action' came to mind. Considering we started with arson and stepped it up to a drug-trafficking frame-job, I figured it was everyone's best interest that I did something about said 'enemy action' before things got really out of hand…