The VIP suite was, once again, a great example of how deeply Japanese tropes were entrenched into some weirdly specific parts of Critias's culture. Case in point, the room had the same kind of tatami-matted floor as the lounge did, though maybe a touch softer and less creaky. Not only that, but the main room had one of those fancy kotatsu things. It was practically just a short table with a heater under it and cloth flaps on the sides, and while these things were always hyped up as super-comfy, we had little reason to try it out, considering how balmy the temperature was inside the room.

Through the huge insulated glass sliding door (which covered about a third of the wall), I could already see the steam rising from the small hot spring pool just beyond the veranda. It was lined with huge natural rocks, surrounded by bamboo stalks, and had a wooden stepladder leading into it, creating a small, hot oasis in the otherwise snow-covered yard. So far, so Japanese.

Then I turned ninety degrees, and blam! A western-style bedroom with a pair of simple, wood-framed beds, two nightstands, and a walk-in closet in the far wall. It even had fancy table lamps and a bearskin rug of all things, though I was pretty sure the latter was a replica. In short, the two styles clashed like nails on a chalkboard. The girls didn't mind or even notice the issue though, so I decided to follow their example and walked over to the beds to help with the bags instead.

"How about 'honeybunch'?" the princess spoke up, holding a spare dress in her hands, and my dear assistant shook her head.

"You're focusing too much on the word 'honey'," she told her while rummaging through her bag, currently disemboweled all of her bed. "You've already used it in 'honeybear', 'honey bun', 'honey pie', 'honey fritters' and…" My dear assistant's hands slowed while her words gradually trailed off, and when they completely stopped, she sent a sideways glance at my other girlfriend. "Are you just hungry? The resort has a buffet."

"No, I'm not," the princess responded in the company of a pout, but it only lasted for a second. "How about a name that reflects something about Leo in particular?"

"That's a start." In the meantime, Judy's hands started moving again, and I silently helped her unpack. "Do you have something specific in mind?"

"How about... 'my knight'?" Elly proposed a touch uncertainly. "Since he calls me princess, calling him 'my knight' in return should be thematic, right?"

"Yes... but you don't sound very confident about that. Or comfortable."

Once Judy pointed that out, the princess quickly gave up and slouched her shoulders.

"I'm still not used to it. Whenever I say the word 'knight', my mind just automatically wants to add 'accursed' to it," she admitted while hanging up a one-piece swimsuit.

"I don't think it's a great idea, to begin with. There are a lot of Knights around us, and if things work out, there are going to be even more of them in the future, so it might lead to confusion."

"Oh, right. That's something I didn't think about." At first, I thought that was the end of that conversation, but then Elly's eyes lit up again. "What about 'handsome'?"

"It's somewhat on the generic side," Judy responded without looking up from her bag. By this point, she was in the process of unpacking her underwear, and while I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable around frilly (and occasionally risqué) underclothing, I figured it was best to leave handling them to their owner. It was about high time I started unpacking my own bag anyway, so I silently stepped aside.

As for why the girls were discussing my potential nicknames again, I hadn't the foggiest of clues either. When we entered the room, we were still talking about more obvious things, such as whether or not we should push the two normal-sized beds together to form a makeshift queen-size bed, when apropos of nothing, the princess suddenly brought the topic up, and they'd been going on about it ever since then. After the first failed attempt back in November, I thought Elly already gave up on finding me an endearing pet name, but I was apparently wrong about that. Oh well. So long as it wasn't 'pumpkin', I was willing to live with it.

More importantly, I picked up my travel bag and, since the beds were already taken, I opened it up on the floor. I didn't plan on unpacking my clothes at all (I didn't bring too many to begin with, since in case of an emergency, I could always just Phase home to grab more), but there were still a couple of things that had to be prepared. Such as my 'Nightly Activity Survival Kit' (patent pending).

Jokes aside, Judy had already made her intentions for this research excursion blatantly clear, so I went ahead and brought practically everything from my nightstand along for the trip. Yes, that included the lubes as well. Yes, even the crème brûlée flavored one, because it was best to be prepared for anything. Also, Elly liked it, but that was neither here nor there.

I packed all of those into the closest nightstand, fittingly enough, and then dove back into the bag for another round. I could've made my life much easier if I just took out all my clothes and put them back after I was done, but I naturally didn't, so I had to spend a disproportionate amount of effort to push everything aside so that I could retrieve a long package from the very bottom. Once I unwrapped it, the canvas cover revealed a familiar sword sheathed in a richly decorated scabbard.

"{Young knight! I believe I told you I do not appreciate being tucked away for so long! I can only sleep so much when I'm not within my stone!}"

And naturally, Cal started complaining the moment I put my hands on them. I didn't even know what I was expecting.

"Well, sorry, but I couldn’t exactly wave you around while we were traveling around the island, now could I?"

"{Traveling, you say? Hmmm? Indeed, the mana of this area tastes much richer than usual.}"

Restraining the urge to ask how a sword could taste anything, let alone ambient mana, I slightly pulled the sword out of its scabbard.

"How's the fit?"

"{Very satisfactory. Please communicate my eternal gratitude to the polite golem with the pointy ears.}" I was pretty sure he meant Galatea, as she was the one who did most of the machining on the sheath, but before I could ask to make sure, Cal beat me to the punch by inquiring, "{Tell me, young knight, what is the goal of this expedition?}"

"It's… complicated, so let's just say we're here to have a vacation and test some theories while we're at it."

"{I completely understand,}" they said, even though they obviously didn't, and my hunch was proven not a moment later when they added, "{I do not wish to appear a braggart, but I am well-experienced in the art of war, and I'm more than willing to share my knowledge with you, both practical and theoretical. After all, it is my role to guide you in your—}"

"Stop. Don't get too worked up about that. We're not talking about those kinds of theories."

"{Then did you perchance mean the arts of leadership? I can certainly help you in that regard as well.}"

"No, no I didn't," I told him just a touch flatly, and I could feel a palpable sense of perplexity emanating from the blade in my hands.

"{In that case, could you please clarify what you meant by theoretical knowledge?}"

"It's not…" I began, only to click my tongue when I realized where the disconnect in the conversation was coming from. "When I mentioned 'theories', I meant it in the scientific sense. As in, we're going to use the opportunity to collect a lot of data related to a very specific situation we have in mind, and we hope to either prove or disprove some of our hypotheses about the metaphysical nature of the world. In a way, you could consider our stay here a big experiment, except without a clear protocol, no blinding, we're part of the experiment, and there's no peer review."

It was only once I said that out loud that I paused and let out a conflicted grunt. By all modern metrics, we would make terrible scientists, but unfortunately, this was the best we've got. Just because any self-respecting scientific journal would laugh us out of existence if they heard about our methodology, it didn't mean we were automatically doomed to fail. Newton discovered and described gravity through observations and mathematics, without actually understanding why gravitational forces existed, and while I couldn't exactly claim to fill his shoes, I was at least trying to follow his example. Gravitation, narrative… they're what keep things together, so they're practically the same thing, right?

"{I… I'm afraid I didn't quite understand that, young knight.}"

"I don't blame you. The last time you were awake, the term 'scientific method' wasn't even established yet."

"{Indeed… But, since I lack the knowledge to help you with your methods of scientificness, I can't help but wonder why you brought me along for this… vacation? Was that the word?}"

"Yes, and… well, it's because I'm probably going to need you to be around during the nights."

"{Is that so? Do you expect an ambush? Or are you planning to conduct a raid yourself?}"

"No, it's… well, never mind. You'll see it yourself."

I could practically see the question marks circling around Cal, but I didn't say anything more. I had no idea how they would've reacted if I told them I took the Knight's supremely powerful kingmaker Excalibur-expy with me just to take advantage of its ability to heal and rejuvenate me by being nearby. I had a feeling it would've broken its nonexistent heart, and I would've had to listen to another tirade about how this was the darkest of times. Again.

Instead, after concluding the conversation, I firmly re-sheathed the sword and put it under the bed. As I said, proximity was important. Then, just as I was about to return to my bag…

"Starlight?"

"Yes?"

Seeing Elly call out to me from the edge of the vision, I automatically responded, and she was immediately elated.

"You see? He listened to it!" she told my other girlfriend with a triumphant grin, and it was only at this point that I realized what was going on.

"Wait, are you guys still going on about nicknames?"

"Yes," my princess stated matter-of-factly. "Do you like 'starlight'?"

Before I could even ask where that came from, Judy raised a finger to forestall me and addressed the other girl.

"You don't need to ask for permission. The Chief never asked for anyone's permission either."

"I know, but I don't want to give him a name he doesn't like." She paused for a beat and stared at me intently. "Do you like it?"

"It's not terrible, but kind of lacks… personality?" I muttered, and after some consideration, the princess let out a thoughtful hum.

"True. How about this then: You're the Lion Knight, so staying with the topic of stars… What is the official name of the Lion constellation?"

"Leo," Judy uttered in a deadpan voice, and my other girlfriend shook her head.

"That's not good. That's literally your name. In that case… do the stars in the constellation have names?"

"Of course," my dear assistant nodded and then started listing them like they were common knowledge. "There's Regulus, Denebola, Algieba, Zosma, Chort, Al Minliar, Alterf, Subra…"

She continued rattling the names off one after the other, and for I while I couldn't decide whether I was impressed by her memory, or worried about why she even looked up these stars in the first place.

"… Gliese 436, and Wolf 359. There are a few other Messier objects too, such as—"

"No, wait! It's good." After cutting her off, the princess held her temple, no doubt suffering from sudden information overload. "I need to think about this. Let's… continue this discussion later."

"I second that notion," I said, raising my hand over my head.

"I still have some clothes to unpack though," Judy noted, gesturing towards the pile on the bed. How did we even fit all of that into a single travel bag, I wondered? Anyhow, after a long beat, my dear assistant said, "Do you have any other topics?"

"Well, we didn't finish the one we started on the bus," I proposed, and Judy immediately agreed with it.

"True. We were discussing the Medieval Stasis, weren't we?"

"Yes, and Leo gave his Watsonian explanation already," Elly chimed in, as if there was any need to refresh the memory of someone who could casually list all the stars in a constellation, but I digressed.

"In that case, let me use this Doylist explanation as a jumping board to explore a new hypothesis I have." Even while saying that, Judy was still folding clothes, and Elly soon joined her. As for me, I only gestured to show that she had my full attention. "While you had provided a hypothetical explanation for why the Celestials might maintain Medieval Stasis in the Elysium, I find that it misses the bigger picture."

"Which is?"

"Let me answer your question with a question of my own: what was your reaction when you first encountered the trope in the Elysium?"

I considered her question for a moment, admittedly expecting it to be a trick one, but it seemed pretty straightforward no matter how I looked at it, so I told her, "Honestly, I thought it was weird. Also, I was fairly intrigued. Is that important?"

"Yes," Judy declared, but then left me hanging while she shelved her pajamas, and only continued once she returned to the bed. "Put bluntly, according to my current theory, it's entirely possible that the Simulacrum created this Medieval Stasis scenario specifically just to draw your attention."

My initial reaction was to roll my eyes, but I restrained the urge and instead noted, "So you're telling me the Simulacrum stratified Celestial society just to make me interested in them. Doesn't that strike you as way too over the top?"

"Not at all." When I continued to give her a skeptical look, she paused her packing efforts and used her hands to pantomime the shape of a small box. "Chief, you have to consider the Elysium for what it used to be until recently: a Schrödinger's Cat box. Despite having access to both the Hub and Angeline, we had practically no reliable information on what was inside of it, right until you used your Far Sight to infiltrate it, at which point its current state was canonized into existence."

"I don't know about that. I mean, sure, we didn't know about how the insides of the Elysium looked like until recently, but other people had to. Changing it would've required an enormous retcon, and doing it just because of me sounds a little far-fetched," I told her, and Elly agreed as well.

"So far, I'm on Leo's side."

My dear assistant let out a long sigh and raised both of her palms to quiet us.

"Disregarding the fact that the existence of retcons is already a proven fact, I would ask you to listen to my whole argument first. In my opinion, the Elysium being purposefully changed by the Narrative to steer the Chief in a certain direction isn't a new development, but just another example of a chain of similar occurrences."

These kinds of declarations required long, dramatic beats, and while that was going on, I crossed my arms and thoughtfully pinched my chin.

"Oookay then. Consider me intrigued."

I didn't have to say that twice, and after a deep breath, Judy started by dropping a bombshell right away.

"I believe the Narrative is actively tuning the plot and the Simulacrum to indirectly manipulate your actions." Once again, a big declaration like that demanded a dramatic pause, after which she pointed at me. "You told me that on the first day of school, you were overcome by the urge to follow your role in the plot, and you only broke out of it due to an irreconcilable conflict with your character."

"Really?" Elly blurted out, drawing our attention to her. "This is the first time I heard about that."

"I'm pretty sure I talked about this to you before," I mused, admittedly feeling a little uncertain about it, but she shook her head.

"No, you only said that you 'broke out of your programming'. What was that 'urge to follow the plot'?"

"Just a persistent headache that didn't go away until I went to school," I told her, skipping a lot of the details in the process.

"Oh? And the 'irreconcilable character' thing?"

I glanced at Judy, then back and the princess, and groaned.

"It wanted me to tell a terrible joke, and I refused."

What followed was a very, very long beat of silence, during which Elly kept blinking at me like she was expecting a punchline to drop at any second. It, obviously, never did, and once she realized that, her previously blank expression twisted as she descended into a fit of giggles.

"That's…. That's so you, Leo!"

"Yes, yes, I know," I muttered a tad awkwardly, but since it didn't seem like she was going to stop giggling any time soon, I lightly cleared my throat at addressed my dear assistant again. "What does any of that have to do with the Elysium and its tropes?"

"Simply put, on that day, you broke out of the designs of the Narrative, and you dragged us along with you. My hypothesis is that, since the Narrative had no direct control over you anymore, it switched to using tropes you would show a strong reaction to in order to steer your actions."

All of a sudden, I had one of those moments. The kind where a chain of thoughts started cascading down like a line of dominos through a Rube Goldberg machine until the last one caused a single missing piece to fall into a puzzle on the floor you didn't even know existed before. There were all kinds of gears grinding and fireworks going off my head, but at last, I managed to gather my wits.

"Wait. Hold on. Let me see if I get this straight. When you talk about tropes I would react to, what exactly do you mean?"

"Right now, I consider the sentai tropes provided by Friedrich and Galatea and the tournament arc for sure, while the presence of Medieval Stasis in the Elysium is more circumstantial at the moment. There are likely more, but those are the outstanding examples."

"So you think the Narrative created those sentai shenanigans just to get a rise out of me?"

"Yes. Consider this: would you have gotten as involved as you did with the events if not for trying to avoid a potential genre shift?"

"Well, no, probably not," I told her, and she immediately pressed on.

"If you look at the big picture, the sentai tropes appeared without any prior indication, and the moment Friedrich was apprehended, they completely vanished without a trace."

The princess, finally done with her giggling fit, spoke up at this point, sounding genuinely surprised.

"You're right. Back when we had to fight them, I never really thought much about it, but the way Friedrich and Galatea were conducting themselves really feels out of place in retrospect."

"Okay, let's grant you that," I cut in, one hand already massaging my temple. "Let's say that all the sentai stuff was just to ensure I would act against them. I have an issue with that."

"Namely?"

"If you remember, I was given leads by Lord Grandpa, which led me to Rinne and the reanimated Chimera. I think we had concluded that those were my own sub-plots, specifically designed to keep me busy with a side-quest and not interfere with the main plot of Fred scaring Josh. Whether we look at it through a Watsoninan or a Doylist lens, the way it was structured makes it obvious it was one of those Narrative shenanigans."

"Agreed."

"Do you not see how that conflicts with your hypothesis?"

"Oh, I do!" Elly interjected with an intrigued look on her face. "If Judy's idea is true, then the Narrative wanted to distract you from Robatto and his Sprockets, and yet at the same time it also wanted you to want to get rid of them by giving them those sentai trope things you hate."

"Precisely! Also, while it's true that I still consider tournament arcs a rancid boil of the face of storytelling, what exactly did the theoretical Narrative achieve by introducing one?"

"It made you try to ruin it," Judy pointed out, and I promptly shook my head.

"So it didn't want to have a tournament arc and wanted to me sabotage it? Then why did it introduce it in the first place?"

Judy remained silent as she was thinking, then answered, "There's also a chance that it was used as reverse psychology. Since you didn't want anything to do with it, the Narrative could limit your interactions in some way."

"To what end?"

"I don't know. There are too many variables," Judy finally admitted. "But that doesn't mean my hypothesis is necessarily wrong."

"No, it doesn't. However, it not only presumes a conscious Narrative that actively plans out these things, but it also presumes that it has direct access to my brain to know all the clichés, tropes, and genres I hate, and is also willing to enact vast systemic changes in the Simulacrum just to affect me in some way we currently can't make sense of."

"And it also contradicts itself," Elly added, as a side note.

"Yeah, it does that too." I could see that Judy was getting disheartened by our objections, so I decided to stop and offer and olive branch. "I mean, this isn't a terrible hypothesis, but it raises just as many questions as it answers, and if anything, it only brings your idea of this all-controlling, all-seeing, near-omnipotent Narrative into question."

"It does… but only if we give it those attributes," Judy suddenly countered, taking me aback for a moment.

"What do you mean by that?"

"In short, what if the Narrative is incompetent, or at the very least can't deal with your actions?" Suddenly reinvigorated, my dear assistant once again pointed at me. "You have mentioned that, when you accidentally spied on the architects of the Simulacrum, they talked about how it was under stress due to too many variables. You also told me that you recalled the term Free Actor, and that the two things were related. What if all of these examples were just the Narrative flailing around and trying to adapt to your influence and out-of-context abilities?"

"It's… an interesting thought experiment, but I would personally first try to figure out if there's even an actual, sapient, scheming Narrative to begin with before I would start speculating about its competence level."

"Here you go again, questioning the existence of the Narrative," Judy scoffed and crossed her arms.

"I'm not questioning its existence, I'm simply dubious about its exact nature and just how active it is," I countered. "I mean, you have to admit that the idea that it would focus so much on me is a little silly."

"No, Chief. If there's anything silly here, it's your dogged refusal to accept that you absolutely are at the center of the Simulacrum and the Narrative's attention."

"Even if I were to grant you that, and that's a big 'if', don't you think that it would do something as outrageous as pushing half a pre-established magical civilization back into the middle ages just to make me curious about them?"

"Chief, please don't talk like we don't have firsthand experience with the existence of retcons."

"That is one thing, this is something else entirely."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's most definitely not."

"Yes, it's most def—"

"Wait! Stop, you two! Don't fight!"

I was honestly taken aback by the princess jumping between the two of us (which, incidentally, meant she was standing on top of the bed) with her arms open, as if trying to distance two angry dogs from each other.

"We aren't fighting," Judy took the words out of my mouth, but I felt obliged to follow her up anyway.

"Right. This is just academic discourse."

"Really?" When we both nodded, Elly finally let her arms down, but still looked just as stumped. "From where I was standing, it really looked like you two were fighting."

"Nah, that was just a small intellectual disagreement, right, Dormouse?"

"More or less," Judy agreed with me, and that finally got the princess off the bed.

"Is this kind of thing common?"

"Not really," I answered by reflex, but then as I thought about it, I sent a questioning glance at Judy. "Right?"

"It's not uncommon enough, but it's been a while since we last disagreed like that."

"Eh, it's just because it's been a while since we last had a new hypothesis to discuss. Those are much easier to argue over."

The princess glanced back and forth between us and put her hands on her hips with a disapproving huff.

"Well, I still don't like it, so I'm going to moderate you. From now on, if you can't keep things civil while debating, I'll bonk you over the head!"

For emphasis, she raised a fist and shook it at me, at which point Judy let out an amused hum.

"You heard that, Chief? You better keep things civil."

"The same goes for you," Elly cut in, and shook her fist at her as well, for good measure. "I'm an egalitarian moderator."

"Very scary," I noted, and Judy once again agreed with my assessment.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, how free scientific debate was once again subverted by the demands of the bourgeoisie. How were we supposed to have make-up cuddles after a fight like that? I mean, after a debate like that? How very unreasonable!

"I don't feel like debating anymore," Judy told us out of the blue. "Why don't we go and get some fresh air?"

"Good idea! Let's check out the buffet," the princess switched gears on a dime, and her comment even earned an amused twitch of the lips from my dear assistant.

"I knew you were hungry."

"Maybe a little," my draconic girlfriend sheepishly admitted, which naturally painted a smile onto my face.

"Chief?" Upon suddenly addressed, I blinked at Judy, so she directly asked, "Are you coming along?"

"Before that, shouldn't we finish unpacking your clothes?"

"Don't worry about that. We still have a lot of time until sunset."

I couldn't help but sense a hidden meaning in her words, but for the time being, I ignored it and followed after the girls. However, as much as I tried to pretend that the previous conversation was behind us, there were still a few brand new ideas gnawing at the back of my mind as a result of it, and one, in particular, was giving me all kinds of ominous chills.

We had discussed the idea that the Narrative was trying to guide me through employing tropes that annoyed or intrigued me. We had discussed what its potential goals could've been, and whether it was competent or not. However, there was one more possibility we didn't talk about that didn't let me rest. The question was, did we have contradictory elements in Judy's hypothesis because the Narrative was incompetent and was sabotaging itself, or because there was more than one 'Narrative' in play?

That was a scary thought. Not necessarily because it made the world even more chaotic than we previously imagined, but because I had no idea how this idea would affect Judy. She was already coming up with some crazy theories when there was only one hypothetical Narrative running amok. I had no idea just how deep she would fall into the rabbit hole if she got into her head that the Simulacrum was a five-dimensional chess game between two of those things.

As such, I shelved the idea for the time being and followed the girls to the buffet, concluding that I'll have plenty of opportunities to explain it once we actually got any solid proof of anything. Hopefully, that would happen before the heat death of the universe, but hey, at least until then, we'll still have plenty of opportunities to debate these topics, wouldn't we?