I was still lost in my thoughts when the three of us arrived at the lounge. By this point, most of the guys had already settled into their rooms and were busy exploring the resort all over again. At the back, I saw Rinne and Galatea making full use of the massage chairs, while by the sounds of it, the childhood friend couple was in the process of teaching Ichiko how to play Street Kombat. Overall, things were calm and cozy at the moment, just as expected. It was too early for hot springs episode shenanigans.

While I was looking around, Judy and Elly came to a halt in front of the large map of the complex, so I hurriedly followed after them.

"Why does a resort of this size have both a buffet and a restaurant?" the princess mused while pointing at a specific part of the map, and my other girlfriend gestured at the densely packed text in its lower-left corner in turn.

"Over there it says that the restaurant is only open from eleven in the morning until two in the afternoon, and then from six in the evening until nine."

"Isn't that a bit odd," I chimed in, and my dear assistant let out an ambivalent grunt.

"We're in the off-season. During high season, everything is open twenty-four-seven."

"Really? Where did you read that?" Elly whispered while squinting at the text.

"It's there, in the fine print."

"How can you read that?" the princess grumbled and stepped closer. "Did they write this for ants?"

While she was busily deciphering that, I also took a closer look at the map, and had to admit that it was surprisingly detailed. The resort had three buildings in total. The main one had the reception, the lounge, and the VIP rooms on the ground floor, while the second floor was completely taken up by the standard rooms. To the west (if the small compass in the upper-right corner was to be believed), there was a big indoor bathhouse connected to the main building, and right next to that, there were two large outdoor spring baths, one smaller and one bigger.

The other building, to the north of the main one, was completely separate, with a footpath leading to it through a stone garden. It housed both the buffet and the restaurant on its ground floor, while its first floor had a small shop and an internet café combined with a small library.

"It's a good thing we haven't changed out of our coats yet," I noted and pointed at said building.

"So it should be… that way!" Elly exclaimed, ready to move out, yet my dear assistant to didn't budge and only pulled on my sleeve.

"Yes, Dormouse? Is there a problem?"

"Just something I noticed," she said in a low voice and gestured at the scale indicator at the bottom of the map. "This is not only a highly accurate map, but it also allows exact measurements of distances between the different rooms and buildings."

"So?"

"So… Chief? What is your opinion on the whodunit genre?"

That question threw me on a loop for a moment, but then I tentatively answered, "No strong feelings either way. Why?"

"Because this map looks like it was put here to serve as a prop to be used during the investigation."

"What are you guys talking about?" Elly wedged herself back into the conversation by literally sticking her head between us.

"Judy's talking about murder mystery tropes all of the sudden. Don't ask why; I don't know either."

"It's very logical, my dear Watson," Judy stated and pointed at the map again. "Imagine the following scenario: someone is found dead in their room. The detective comes around, takes a look at this map, and using the measuring mark at the bottom, he can immediately tell how far everyone else was from the crime scene. Then he interrogates people, and suddenly, eureka. One of the testimonies doesn't add up, claiming that they couldn't have heard someone's cries for help even though they were only twenty meters away. With that, the case is cracked wide open, and soon the culprit is apprehended in a final showdown of deductive might. It's all very elementary."

"… I still don't get it," Elly admitted, and I was just about to agree with her, if not for Judy promptly explaining her rationale.

"We just established that it's highly probable that certain plot developments and tropes in the Simulacrum exist just to prod the Chief into taking certain actions. Therefore, I asked if he had any strong feelings on the whodunit genre, to gauge whether or not we should expect a sudden genre shift."

"I don't know where that 'highly probable' remark came from, but just to reiterate, I don't care much about murder mysteries either way."

My dear assistant clicked her tongue and crossed her arms.

"In that case, we could use this for an experiment. By using self-suggestion, we could have the Chief pretend that he really hates whodunit mysteries, and if it results in a closed room murder, we'll know that the Narrative actively genre-shifts in response to his preferences."

"Sorry, Dormouse, but I can't help but notice that this plan of yours would require someone to be murdered."

"It's a small sacrifice I'm willing to make to prove that I'm right."

"That's… not very funny."

Hearing Elly's comment on the side, Judy soon let out a defeated sigh.

"Fine. Joke retracted." I thought that was the end of it, but then she added, "We could still try it with genres that don't have dead bodies as a pre-requisite though."

"… You're really attached to this new theory of yours, aren't you?" the princess commented again, but before Judy could give a response, I noticed someone coming over, so I raised a palm to cut the conversation short.

"Hey, guys. Whatcha doing?"

I returned Josh's greeting with a lazy wave of the same hand.

"Just checking the map before going to grab something to eat. What about you? Is your training session with Ichiko already over?"

The guy shook his head and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder.

"Nah, Angie is still teaching her the basics. She's enthusiastic, but a total noob. Should've expected from a magical sword spirit fox girl or whatever, now that I think about it. She'll learn. But anyway, I guess that means you saw that we have a Street Kombat II Super Turbo Kollection cabinet, right?"

"It was hard to miss."

My response earned me a toothy grin.

"Of course! It's a classic! Also, while I know this matters little to a bourgeois like you, but all the arcade games are free to use here. They have this big red button where the coin slot would be, and you just have to press it, and presto! Free games!"

"Neat, but I'm pretty sure you didn't come over just to tell me about that."

"And you would be right!" Josh declared with a snap of his fingers. "Since it's free, I decided to organize a tournament. You're in, right?"

"I don't know… What about you, girls?"

"I'm bad with these kinds of games," Judy declined right away, and the princess didn't seem too eager either.

"I never played any fighting games before… but I'm sure it would be fun to watch you compete!"

"Well, that settles it, then," I told Josh with a shrug. "When's this tournament of yours?"

"Probably tomorrow. I have to ask everyone first. Ah, speak of the devil!" I followed his line of sight and found Penny and Snowy entering the lounge at the end of it. "Gotta go! I'll tell you the details once we hammered them out!"

And with those words, our resident protagonist dashed away to intercept my sisters, no doubt doing his best to rope them into his little impromptu project. It was nice to see him being proactive for once, even if it was about something inconsequential like this, and I would've already put the whole topic behind me if not for Judy giving me a skeptical look.

"What?"

"Chief, you're acting self-contradictory."

"… What?" I repeated myself, and my dear assistant once again crossed her arms.

"You fought tooth and nail against even interacting with the previous tournaments, but you immediately agreed to participate in this one. You're being inconsistent."

"Erm… no? This is a gaming tournament, and a small one at that. It's a completely different thing."

Dangerously narrowing her eyes, Judy asked, "So you aren't playing along with a trope you previously hated just to prove my hypothesis wrong?"

"Dormouse, stop. You're being paranoid." Before she could answer, we were both interrupted by Elly's stomach making a low gurgling noise, so I used the opportunity to add, "How about we drop this whole topic and get going before the princess starves to death?"

"I'm not that hungry," she protested with reddened cheeks, but I locked arms with her and followed the arrow pointing towards the second building anyway.

A beat later, Judy caught up to us and entwined my free arm with her own, and before long, we were already outside. The stone garden was about as neat and impressive as expected, and the thick blanket of snow gave it an extra layer of charm, though I could only pay nominal attention to the environment due to the girls.

"Tournaments aren't a hot springs episode trope," Judy told my other girlfriend, no doubt in response to a question I wasn't paying attention to, and Elly let out a thoughtful hum.

"Then what are?"

"The common tropes?" I chimed in, and she nodded at once. "It's usually ecchi stuff." She remained confused, so I further elaborated. "It's racy stuff that's titillating but not very explicit."

"I think you need to give direct examples," my dear assistant noted, and seeing the question marks over Elly's head, I had to agree with her.

"It's scenarios like walking in on someone while they are still changing, or someone's underwear getting stolen causing a scene, or a group of guys walking into the open air bath while the girls are still inside, so they think they came in to peep on them, which causes a huge commotion until they realize that it was the girls at fault because they didn't pay attention to the time and it was supposed to be the guys' turn already, yet despite all that, they still remain offended and blame the guys for being perverts."

"… That last one was very specific."

"It's because the hot spring episode itself is a pretty formulaic affair. It's almost as bad as a beach episode."

"It's also why it's strange to have a fighting game tournament during one, unless it was brought about by the Chief's preferences," Judy noted, and after dramatically rolling my eyes, I did the only reasonable thing and tickled her side.

"Stop harping on that, will you?"

"But it is strange," she continued to argue, even while simultaneously trying to get away from my fingers and yet hold onto my arm. "Arcades aren't part of the usual hot spring episode games, to begin with."

"Hot spring games?" came the next question from the princess. "Like, in the water? Or parlor games?"

"The latter, mostly the card-game variety" I answered her a tad ambivalently, ignoring the other girl trying (and failing) to tickle me back. "I think the most common ones are simple party games, like truth-or-dare and old maid, plus that king's game thing that's just a variation of truth-or-dare, but with colored sticks. Mahjong is also pretty common, and then there's karaoke, but I don't think this place has a booth. Oh, and depending on the age of the participants, and level of inebriation, strip poker seems oddly common as well."

"Oh. I don't like that," the princess murmured with a disapproving frown. "I-I mean, it's still a little embarrassing to undress even if it's only the three of us, and I absolutely wouldn't want to do it in front of others."

I wanted to tell her 'Well, we obviously aren't going to have strip-poker here, to begin with', but before I could do so, my dear assistant let out an inspired 'Oh?', stopping me in my tracks.

"… Dormouse. Stop thinking the thing I think you're thinking."

"Sorry Chief. A thought already thought cannot be unthought. Now I just have to figure out what game we should play where you cannot cheat, and we're all set."

Staring unblinkingly at her, I gave her the opportunity to backpedal, but when she remained entirely serious, I had no choice but to resume our previous tickling efforts. They only lasted for a couple of seconds this time, since we were already at the entrance of the second building, so I had no choice but to stop even though the premonition of incoming shenanigans was still weighing heavily on my mind.

The insides of this place were considerably more western than the main building. The floor was covered in dark brown, marble-printed tiles, while the wood-paneled walls and pillars had the same, vaguely Nordic motifs carved in them. It was a strange mixture of the high class and the rustic, but it somehow worked.

More importantly, right after we entered, we ran into Arnwald and Morgana, each of them holding a wrapped-up pita in their hands.

"Your majesty,"/"My liege," the two of them greeted me at once, and I grudgingly returned the gesture with a nod. I kept telling them to stop calling me that, but my words were like water off a duck's back.

"Are you on your way to peruse the food court?" Mr. Eagle inquired, and raised his pita without waiting for my answer. "If so, I heartily recommend their gyros! It's freshly made, and they use pork and authentic tzatziki sauce. Even Sister Morgana approves."

"You make me sound like I'm some kind of snob," Ms. Gorgon teased him, and the man let out an awkward chuckle.

"Not at all. I'm simply acknowledging your refined palate."

Now it was her turn to chuckle, after which she turned to us.

"My tastes are not nearly as sophisticated as Arnwald makes them sound, but I admit this is one of the better gyros I've had. It reminds me of home."

"We should tell Roland about it," Mr. Eagle proposed all of a sudden. "We often ate doner kebab when we were stationed at the Berlin chapterhouse. I'm sure he'll appreciate the suggestion."

After some thinking, Morgana hummed in agreement, and glanced over to me. I gave them the go with my eyes, but instead of leaving through the door we came in, the two of them headed upstairs.

"Chief? I've been meaning to ask, but do you think there's something between those two?"

Faced with the sudden question, I could only shrug.

"I have no idea. They seem to be invested in each other, but I don't know how far that goes."

My dear assistant would've probably continued this train of thought, if not for Elly's stomach announcing its presence with another low growl. It was probably triggered by the aroma wafting of the gyroses the two senior knights waved around, so we decided to just move on and continue whatever discussion we had once her tummy was satiated. On a side note, I figured I might as well buy myself a portion. I mean, if we were at it, might as well, and it wasn't like I was immune to the smell either.

As such, we followed the signpost, ignored the currently closed restaurant, rounded a corner, and soon found ourselves looking at a neat little booth. It had a counter stacked with sandwiches and other readymade food, a salad bar at the back, and right at the forefront, there was the characteristic vertical rotisserie, along with all the pitas and containers full of sliced onions, salads, and condiments.

It was a small outfit, to begin with, probably because it would only play second fiddle to the restaurant during high season, and now that it was only our small group staying over, things were scaled back even further. Still, the smell of freshly roasted meat was certainly tantalizing, even if it was only covering a fourth of the roasting pole, and even my dear assistant seemed intrigued by the foodstuffs on display.

"Customers coming right… up?"

The guy on the other side of the counter, wearing a bright red apron and a matching branded baseball cap, called out to the back, only to freeze when our eyes met.

"Wazzit, boss?" a short guy, wearing the same outfit, poked his head out from the kitchen area, only to also stiffen when he noticed me.

"Is there a problem? Are we out of the spicy sauce again?" inquired a high-pitched yet nasal voice, its owner busy rearranging the sandwiches on display. When he didn't get an answer, he glanced up at the big guy behind the counter, and he pointed a terrified finger in our direction. At last, the tall one finally looked our way, only to nearly shriek when he saw me. "W-W-What is he doing here?!"

"How the hell should I know, Jones!?" the big guy bellowed in return, causing the small guy in the back to start running around in circles.

"Don't panic, Pepper! Just stick to the plan!" the lanky guy sputtered as he all but climbed back behind the counter. "Don't panic!"

In the meantime, we remained completely stock still, and it was only at this point that Judy asked, "Is that the Goldfish Poop Gang?"

"The goldfish what?" Elly blurted out in response, but after taking another look at the trio, her eyes lit up with recognition. "Oh? Aren't they your friends? You know, from back then? We met them when we went home together than one time."

"I can't decide whether to praise your memory for remembering these guys, or ask about what gave you the impression we were friends," I grumbled, but when she didn't react, I just sighed and pulled the girls along with the words, "Don't be too surprised. It's a small world."