Arriving home late in the afternoon, I unceremoniously plopped down onto my usual comfy chair and let out a long, content sigh. While training with Dominance wasn't too taxing, either mentally or physically, the sensation of all the tension trickling out of my body afterward still felt strangely satisfying. The fact that there was no urgent threat or grand plan to take care of also helped, as while our upcoming trip was technically for the sake of research, at this point, it was an open secret that we rather looked forward to just kicking back and unwinding, so there wasn't much to worry about there.

I already double-checked the reservations, packed my bags, and mentally prepared myself for my girlfriends' inevitable nightly assaults. Or rather, I was mainly worried about Judy, as she not only had a higher-than-average libido, but she was way more adventurous than either me or the princess. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing though; for the longest time, she had been worried about being just a post-character-development placeholder in a world of special snowflakes, so her having a unique quirk was actually pretty nice. I only wished she didn't pick the 'outwardly proper but actually really kinky' archetype, but hey, so long as she was happy (and I had the stamina), it was all good.

Anyhow, I spent a couple of minutes relaxing while musing about things like that, but while I wasn't in a hurry, I wasn't in a habit to waste time either, so I soon rose to my feet and headed upstairs. Having Pudding-kun, our convenient shape-shifting mini-shoggoth hive-mind, disguised as various objects around the house gave me free rein to Phase around the house wherever I wanted, but when it was just going upstairs, I still preferred using the ol' legs.

Once at the top of the stairs, I wanted to head to my room first, but my feet stopped in front of Snowy's door instead. There was some kind of commotion on the other side; hisses and yelps, combined with the occasional creaking of furniture, those kinds of things. For a moment, I internally debated whether or not I should just peek inside using Far Sight, but while I was the last person who could preach about respecting other people's privacy, peeping on my sister just out of curiosity was still a little iffy even by my standards. As such, I settled on simply knocking on the door.

"It's open," came the instant answer, followed by a panicked, "Awawa! Hey, that's not fair! I wasn't paying attention!"

More curious by the second, I turned the knob, only to freeze as the weirdness of the scene in front of me hit me like a tsunami wave of perplexity. Let's take the scenery in part by part, shall we?

So, first, Snowy. She was naturally in her room, and dressed in her maid cosplay to boot. That would've been mildly peculiar, but it was her hobby, so I was already used to it. What I wasn't expecting was to find my other sister in the room as well. Now, granted, during the past week or so, Penny all but officially moved into my house and expropriated the right side of Snowy's room (and bed, though it was a huge king-sized one that came with the house, so it was far from cramped), so her being here was less of an issue than the fact that she was also dressed as a maid! I figured it was one of Snowy's spare costumes, but as for why she was wearing it, I hadn't the foggiest of clues.

Then, just to make things even weirder, they were playing some kind of racing game on Snowy's PC, and each one of them had their own headset and controller too, which fiercely crashed with the maid aesthetic.

"What are you girls doing?" the question slipped my mouth, and it prompted Penny to finally pause the game and turn around on her chair.

"It's Want for Tempo: Skyline 4. It just came out last week, but look at that! This beast runs it like a dream!"

"That's nice, but that wasn't what I meant."

Reading the room, my Abyssal sister lightly cleared her throat and said, "It's… cultural exchange." Seeing that I didn't really get it, she hastily added, "We made a deal. I teach Penny about maids, and she teaches me about video games."

"It's a win-win!" my redhead sister declared with a toothy grin.

“Neat. More importantly, did you pack your bags?”

“Mostly,” my redhead sister answered a tad hesitantly. “I don’t have any swimsuits, but Judy said we’ll make a stop at the mall on the way there and I can buy a few.”

“Right. I suppose the other Knights don’t have them either. It’s not exactly practical combat gear.”

“T-That’s right! I’m sure the others also need to buy them! For sure!”

Penny’s agreement sounded just a bit too desperate, but I didn’t probe her, and instead turned to my other sister.

“What about you?”

“I’m good. I bought a pair when we went shopping with Angie last week.” Snowy answered with a reassuring smile, soon to be replaced with a troubled frown. “But… are you sure we’ll need it? Rinne said you usually go into a hot spring bath naked.”

“N-Naked!?”

Penny’s sound went up by about an octave in surprise and looked at Snowy like she just heard the most outrageous thing ever.

“That’s her version of Japanese onsen culture. We don’t know the customs here, so it’s best to be prepared.”

“Ah. I understand.” Snowy nodded, but the frown didn’t disappear from her brow at all. “What about mixed-gender bathing?”

“Wait, whaaat!?”

Ignoring my knightly sister’s outraged yelp, I shrugged.

“I have no idea, but it’s most likely a no-no. We’ll ask, just to be sure to avoid any embarrassing walk-in situations.”

Snowy nodded with a soft hum, while Penny’s eyes were still swimming, no doubt lost in some kind of strange imaginary scenario. In any case, since there wasn’t much else to discuss here, so I left my sisters to their odd, maid-themed gaming party and returned to my room.

First thing first, I turned on my PC and logged into the Celestial Hub. Ever since the internal hubbub among the Celestial leadership, the place had been much less lively than before. The forums were still semi-active, and the high-end top-secret files were still regularly updated, but that was about it. Since my unexpected promotion, I’ve been making sure to log in regularly and check every message, just to make sure ‘Admin’ wasn’t required to attend some super-secret meeting or the like, but so far my ‘duties’ as the official director of something or the other didn’t require me to do anything out of the ordinary.

After checking the new thread and approving a couple of editing requests, I glanced at my own file, but despite being at the heart of the newly formed Draconic Federation, the document wasn’t edited for the past couple of weeks. That wasn’t normal, but with the way the site’s functions had been restricted until things calmed down in Elysium, the Celestials’ unexpectedly agrarian little realm, it wasn’t particularly noteworthy either. But speaking of which, I leaned back in my chair and quickly Far Glanced at my mark on Jaakobah, only to come away disappointed once again. Ever since he was put under house arrest (though they called it ‘protective custody’), he’d been either working out, reading technical manuals, or disassembling and reassembling things, be they magical lock picks, magical surveillance devices, or magical guns.

Yes, guns. They even looked like a pair of oversized .44 magnum pistols a movie star would use, except instead of bullets, they fired slowly moving arrows made of light. I knew this, because the only three places the gaunt Celestial agent was allowed to visit outside his room were the toilet, the gym, and an in-doors shooting range.

All of it was pretty high-tech (even the toilet; it talked), which made the endless fields tilled by hand and farm animals outside the confines of whatever spiraling crystal tower nonsense he was locked inside all the more baffling. The fact that I couldn’t find any further information about this pocket-realm even though I’d spent about ten hours in total watching him naturally made it even more infuriating, but there wasn’t much I could do about that right now.

Returning to my body, I shook my head and grabbed the mouse again. If push came to shove, I was ready to Phase directly over to Elysium and do some snooping around in person, but all of that was for later. Right now, my first priority was to maintain my cover as Admin. Considering I wouldn’t be logging in for the next couple of days, I sent a somewhat official message to the same address where the news of my promotion came from, telling them that I needed to move to a more secure location and they wouldn’t be able to reach me for a few days.

After that, I wrote a couple of PMs. The first was to Morose Moose, and I told him pretty much the same. Since he was the sanest and most trustworthy member of my inner circle as Admin, I temporarily gave him some extra rights to act in my stead. My second round of PMs were for the moderator team, including W1NG3DN1NJ4, aka Mike, though in their case it was just a notification that I wouldn’t be available for a while.

Once I was done with all of that, I leaned back and let out a soft huff. Speaking of him, it’s been a while since the last time I checked on our resident Celestial asset, and now that I reminded myself, I figured a quick Far Glance wouldn’t hurt. A split-second later, I couldn't help but let out an amused hum.

Normally, the guy lived the usual life of a slightly introverted college student; attending lectures in the morning, studying in the afternoon, then gaming and watching shows in the evening, with waaay more emphasis on the last part. Around this time of the day, I would've normally found him in front of his PC, grinding his favorite low-poly MMO, so I was naturally intrigued when my disembodied point of view arrived at a small restaurant.

At least, that's what I first thought, but on closer inspection, I noticed a couple of oddities, such as the rows of book shelves all around the walls, and a couple of desks with CRT monitors attached to similarly old-school black PC towers. There were a couple of placeholders idling around, mostly reading books or conversing at the tables, but the place was by no means crowded. More importantly, Mike was sitting at a corner bench in the company of the class rep.

The two of them were sitting side-by-side, close enough where she could rest her head against his shoulders, and they were both reading their own books. Not only that, they were also listening to music while sharing a single set of earbuds attached to Ammy's phone. I'm not going to lie, the two of them looked cute as heck, the perfect image of a nice couple on a date comfortably spending time together.

However, putting all of that aside, I couldn't help but feel a little confused by this scene, and no, it wasn't the fact that we apparently had manga-cafés on Critias. By this point, I was more-or-less completely used to distinctly Japanese cultural bits and bobs just randomly showing up on the island and in our lives. It was just the Simulacrum being the Simulacrum. Instead, the thing that confounded me was why this cozy couple was hanging out here while reading mangas of all things.

Mike was one thing; I've seen the guy watch the occasional anime, and his favorite MMO shared the aesthetic, but Ammy? Since when was she into this kind of media?

…

Wait. That's the wrong question. Here's a better one: why was I surprised by this? Wasn't it perfectly plausible that she'd always been into this? I mean, just how well did I even know her?

I've known her exactly as long as the others, but now that I thought about it, we were never that close. Sure, I knew a lot of things about her, but even her quirkier traits, like her interest in psychics, turned out to be academic and just an extension of her being a magi. While I used Far Sight on her a lot, just like with the others, I never really looked into her hobbies before, and since Fred replaced her as my main source of information on anything magical, we didn't really interact much. She wasn't even going to come with us on the hot springs trip, so… was I accidentally marginalizing her in the group?

I mean, I was busy, so I didn't really notice, and she was also busy with her budding relationship with the guy merrily perusing a manga about ninjas by her side, so her drifting out of focus made sense. Still, the realization still left a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

Note to self: while it was too late to invite these two along now, after we returned from our research trip, try to get her a bit more involved with the group again. Maybe we could start a club at school or something? In any case, while looking at these lovebirds hanging out was diabetes-inducingly wholesome, I definitely had better things to do, so after a while, I returned to my body.

Exhaling, I stood up and grabbed the bottle of ice tea I stashed by the nightstand and drank most of it in one go. Meanwhile, I couldn't help but wonder: how did those two end up together anyway? Yes, Mike had a crush on the class rep since pretty much the first time they met in my living room, and she wasn't entirely indifferent either, but seeing them like that made me question the chain of events that led them there.

Ammy was supposed to be one of Josh's potential love interests, and those were usually immune to getting into another relationship unless it was the point of the scenario. The term was 'netorare', or NTR (for people allergic to vowels), and depending on how dark the story was, it could go from a type of love triangle to some pretty nasty stuff involving cheating and cuckoldry. In any case, the Simulacrum was pretty light-hearted so far (for which I'm shamelessly going to take credit), yet after Mike came into the picture, the Josh/Ammy thing evaporated almost instantly. Not that there were any serious indications for the ship to begin with, as it seemed to be little more than a mild crush on the class rep's side from the beginning, but it was still odd.

Now, here's the million Jen question: were there any Narrative shenanigans afoot here? Looking at it objectively, at least Mike was actively going for a relationship, and they apparently did share some common interests (aka, you don't just accidentally go to a manga-café to have an intimate evening date), so the two of them getting together made sense from a Watsonian perspective, but there were at least two potential Doylist ways we could look at it as well.

On the more positive hand, this could've been an example of the 'beta couple' trope. It's a situation where a pair of side-characters enter into a wholesome relationship ahead of the 'main couple', and their example would help push them forward and serve as something to emulate. In this context, Josh and Angie would serve as the main couple… which brought up two issues. First, Mike and Ammy started dating literally on the same day as our resident harem protagonist and his sweetheart, meaning they couldn't serve the role described above.

Now, while the relationship between the childhood friend duo was still a little rocky due to the transition from best pals to lovers, these two couldn't really serve as an example of a harmonious couple to them anyway, because the class rep didn't advertise things, so I wasn't even sure Josh knew she was dating someone yet. But even putting all of that aside, there was a much stronger argument for them not being the beta couple archetype, and it was that I existed. Sure, my polifidelous relationship wasn't exactly easy to emulate (or one that should be, outside of our convenient circumstances, really), but as far as wholesomeness was concerned, I knew for a fact that we were still in the lead by a mile.

So, let's say we already filled the 'beta couple' spot in the Simulacrum's trope bingo card. What then? Well, there was another trope that fit these two, and it was a slightly less flattering one. It's called 'pairing the spares', and as the name implied, it's about side-characters in a story getting paired up with little rhyme or reason, mostly done for either fan-service or to give them a sort of 'happy ending'. This usually didn't happen to potential love interests, but considering that Ammy had always fallen into the 'hopeless third girl' archetype, next to Angie's 'status-quo maintaining childhood friend' and Elly's 'status-quo shaking transfer student', the Narrative pushing her out of the race this way wasn't entirely unthinkable.

Or maybe, just maybe, I was overthinking this, and instead of any kind of Narrative influence, it was just the out-of-context-butterfly (read: me) flapping its wings and causing a scenario-tornado somewhere else. After all, if it wasn't for me, Mike would've probably never even met Ammy, let alone start crushing on her, and without me tolerating the guy due to knowing him from the Hub, the chances for the two of them to interact would've been sharply reduced.

Anyways, there was no way to know for sure yet, but as always, I preferred the Watsonian explanation over the Doylist one, so I patted myself on the back for being the best accidental cupid ever. Also, while I was thinking, I absent-mindedly drank the whole bottle. Ugh. My bladder's going to complain later, I reckoned.

Putting that aside, I scrunched up the plastic bottle and threw it into the bin before returning to the PC, where I'd already received a couple of answers to my PMs. I was planning to give a couple of extra tasks for Moose, but before I could get to it, I was interrupted by the sound of a doorbell ringing. I'd learned from experience, so instead of heading downstairs right away, I first entered into Far Sight and checked to see if it was a familiar face or not before I stood up.

Even though that only caused a few seconds of delay, by the time I left the room, Snowy was already moving down the stairs with a chipper "I'll let them in!", closely followed by my other sister after her. I already knew who it was, so I didn't rush, and I arrived at the entryway just in time to see Roland handing over a small bag to a mortified Penny.

"… some snacks too," the Griffon Knight said with an amused smile, then added, "This is certainly a new look."

"Hauuu…" my redhead sister whined, obviously not expecting 'uncle Roland' of all people to show up at this hour. "D-Don't tell the others!"

"About what? Your outfit?" he teased her while Snowy, ever the professional maidster, helped him out of his long grey coat. "It looks great on you. Was this the costume you wore at the school festival?"

"No, it's one of my uniforms," Snowy explained without the slightest hint of embarrassment. To be fair, being a maid was her hobby, and it wasn't the first time she welcomed a guest while dressed like one, so it wasn't unexpected by any means. My other sister, on the other hand, was apparently utterly embarrassed by the situation.

"Since you c-came to see brother, we'll go back upstairs!" Since my Abyssal sister didn't budge, she soon gave up the pretense and turned on her heels. In a blink of an eye, she was already halfway up the stairs, and after waiting for a beat, Snowy gave a polite curtsy and followed after her.

"I did not expect to see that when the door opened," Roland noted once the girls left the room, and after kicking off his boots he added, "As long as they are having fun, it matters little."

"I couldn't have said better myself. So? What do I owe the unexpected visit?"

"Unexpected?" he echoed me with a curiously raised brow. "In the morning you told me you wished to discuss something in private in the evening."

"Yes, but I was going to look for you. I didn't expect you to show up on my doorstep."

Roland seemed to be satisfied by the answer, and a slight shrug later he picked up a second, bigger paper bag from the floor.

"I was in the neighborhood, so I decided to visit you. It's killing two birds with one stone."

"True, I suppose." I gestured for him to come into the living room, and only then did I ask, "So? What were you doing in the city?"

"I was making preparations for tomorrow's team building exercise," he answered without reservations and raised the paper bag to nearly eye level. "I was told that drinking spirits while at a hot spring is tradition, so I bought a couple of bottles."

"Let me guess; Rinne told you that." He nodded, and I sighed. "Well, figures. Just keep it in moderation."

"Naturally." Roland flashed a thin-lipped smile, and we both sat down around the coffee table. Since he was here already, I figured I might as well discuss the thing I originally wanted to tell him, but before I could bring up the topic, he softly cleared his throat. "I have a few things to report. May I?"

"Um, sure," I said by reflex, and the Knight straightened his back in his seat.

"While the numbers aren't finalized yet, it appears the founding members of the Draconic Federation agreed to increase our yearly operation budget by nearly twenty percent over the initially requested amount. Sir Arnwald wants to put the difference into the recruitment drive, while Sir Brang wishes to expand the weapons workshop using the extra funds. Of course, the final word is yours in the matter."

"I'll look into it. Anything else?"

"Staying on the topic of enlistment…" Roland paused here, with a distinctly displeased expression, before saying, "Since we agreed to accept recruits from the Draconian clans, we have received nearly three dozen applications. They're mostly young members of various branch families looking for opportunities, but despite our best efforts, there was already an open conflict with an Ordo Draconis member today."

"Duncan or Raven Boy?" I asked reflexively, and the way Roland's shoulders slouched told me I hit the nail on the head.

"The former. There was an argument about rations, and a young Draconian man from an Albion branch family misunderstood him, thinking he insulted his mother."

"Was he?"

"It's hard to tell. Nobody could recall the exact words said after the fact."

"Well, it's Duncan we're talking about here…" I grumbled, earning a similarly annoyed hum from the man in front of me. "Injuries?"

"Only a few light scrapes. Dame Morgana was passing by and broke them up before things could devolve into a brawl."

"I don't want to say I told you this would happen, but I told you this would happen," I continued to grumble, but Roland shook his head at my comment.

"It is but a growing pain of a new organization. If we wish to integrate into the Draconic Federation and serve as an efficient force, we need to learn how to effectively cooperate with each other. Having Draconian members in our ranks should greatly lessen internal friction in the long run."

"Yes, yes. We already discussed this, and I gave my blessing," I told him a touch morosely. "It's still going to cause a lot of friction in the short term, but if you think you can deal with it, then by all means go ahead. Just please put Duncan on a short leash."

"I'll attempt to reason with him during the upcoming trip. It is the reason behind it, isn't it?"

"Among other things," I responded with an ambivalent shrug. "Anything else to report?"

"There are several other smaller issues, but it's not something for you to concern yourself over. We'll take care of them by tomorrow morning."

"If you say so, I'll leave it up to you." Here, I once again paused, waiting to see if there was anything else he wanted to say. He remained attentively silent, so I figured it was the best time to break the ice. First things first though, I Far Glanced at my sisters, and once I was sure Snowy was still consoling the mortified Penny in her room, behind closed doors, I let out a pent-up breath and looked Sir Griffon in the eye. "Listen, Roland. What I'm about to tell you is a secret, at least for now. I wanted to discuss this with you before anyone else, because out of all the Knights, you're the least likely to misunderstand, gloss it over, or try to strangle me on the spot."

"… Is it something regarding the Draconic Federation, or your position as the King of Knights?"

"Neither. It's a pretty complicated issue, but long story short… I'm Bel."

Roland was looking at me like he was waiting for me to continue the sentence, but when I didn't, his brows descended into an incredulous frown.

"Excuse me? Could you repeat that?"

"I said, I'm Bel of the Abyss. You know? The guy with the mask and the teleporting and everything."

"Yes, I know, but…" his words trailed off, and after blinking a couple of times, it seemed like he just reassembled a couple of puzzle pieces in his head. "Oh. That actually makes some sense."

I watched him closely, and while I expected him to get angry or confused, his intrigued eyes were just as disconcerting. Well, at least he didn't try to strangle me. That was a good start.

I waited for him to collect his thoughts, and after a few long seconds he uttered, "Can you explain everything in detail?"

"Sure, but it's a long story."

"We have the time."

Nodding, I took a deep breath and began a long, intricate tale that started with a chaotic situation, an idea that seemed clever at the time, and lots of frantic improvisation somehow creating even more chaos. Story of my life, really…