Even after the incident with the 'mysterious' peeper, the hangout in our room didn't run out of steam for a while. It was almost ten in the night when the last stragglers left the place (or, to be precise, got kicked out by Elly, but let's not split hairs about it). Throw some quick clean-up on top of that, plus the girls preparing some snacks to keep our blood sugar levels up and our brains well-fed, and the clock on the wall was already inching past eleven by the time we all sat down around the kotatsu.

"So, to summarize," Judy spoke up between two sips from her canned coffee milk, "You literally got the plot delivered to you."

"You're being too reductionist about it, as usual, but that's the gist of it."

Since this was as good an opportunity as any, I placed the subject of this conversation onto the table. I've already checked its contents, and while the envelope had seen better days (probably due to Mike carrying it in his breast pocket for days), the hand-written message inside was on a fancy, over-engineered enchanted piece of paper that would've probably survived being shot at by a handgun. The address was still plainly visible on the parcel, though the girls obviously couldn't read it, and I was surprised to learn that it was written with golden ink I didn't notice until I took another look at it under lamplight.

"Does that mean the hot springs episode is over?"

Elly sounded a little absent-minded, probably because she was too busy trying to choose which diet soda can she should open, but her question was quite relevant.

"Since we're heading home tomorrow, I think it's safe to say it's officially finished," Judy noted on the other side, then after a long pause, she pointed at the envelope on the table. "Chief? Did you read the contents yet?"

"No. I only checked to make sure it was safe to carry it inside."

My response made my dear assistant hum in acknowledgement and she put her half-empty can down before taking out her phone.

"In that case, why don't we summarize our observations regarding the hot springs arc first, before we discuss the message?"

"Let's do that!" my other girlfriend enthusiastically agreed and opened up the Grape Soda Zero can in her hand, only to twitch is surprise when her phone buzzed. So did I, and after reaching into my trouser pocket to retrieve my phone, I found a new mail from Judy with a text file attached. While Elly was still fumbling in the back, I opened it up and quickly skimmed the notes.

"You're dutiful as always, aren't you, Dormouse?"

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It obviously was," the princess noted on the other side without looking up from her screen.

Meanwhile, Judy put her own phone aside for the moment and cleared her throat.

"You can read the details later, but to summarize, I've found that we didn't experience nearly enough onsen-episode-related tropes or developments during these past three days."

"What do you count as an 'onsen-trope'?" Elly inquired, finally putting her phone down. I figured she was overwhelmed by Judy's meticulous documentation and decided to read it later.

"The tropes we already discussed beforehand. For the sake of analysis, I broke them up into three categories: onsen-tropes the three of us directly experienced, onsen-tropes the whole group experienced, and outliers."

"Outliers?" I echoed her with a curiously raised brow.

"Tropes and developments that aren't traditionally related to hot springs episodes," she clarified. "For example, Joshua's impromptu fighting game tournament, or the peeper-misunderstanding."

"I thought that was a related trope," Elly cut in, drawing Judy's attention to her.

"I discounted it for three reasons: the perpetrator wasn't motivated by the desire to peep on anyone, it didn't result in any enticing or comedic interactions, and it turned out to be the result of a completely unrelated plot hook."

"If you put it that way, it sounds reasonable," the princess granted, and after acknowledging her with a hum, Judy turned back to me.

"In my opinion, we had a good spread of group-related onsen tropes, but we didn't experience nearly enough individual examples of them ourselves."

"To be fair, it's hard to get into any comedic ecchi situations when a certain someone in this room would casually spend the whole night naked," I pointed out in jest, but it still earned me a displeased huff from my dear assistant.

"Wearing underwear is not 'naked'. It's not more revealing that wearing a bikini."

"Uuu… Normally, yes, but in your case…" the princess mumbled, face flushed red, but when Judy sent a sideways glance her way, she fell silent and pretended to be really engrossed by the nutritional facts written on the side of her soda can.

"Your underwear is beside the point," I followed up on my previous point and lightly tapped on the table to get her attention again. "The important part is that we've already left the UST stage far behind, so there was no opportunity for any embarrassing ecchi events. That strikes like half the tropes off the list."

"You're correct in that regard, but it would still only explain half the missing events."

"The other half are related to playing games and chilling in the facilities," I said, and the princess's eyes lit up at once.

"We did a lot of those, didn't we?"

"Most of those activities fall under the 'group-related tropes' category," Judy explained, drawing a shallow groan out of me.

"Obviously. You can't play truth-or-dare or mahjong by yourself."

"Of course I know that."

"Then what exactly were you expecting? Most of the non-fanservice-y tropes revolve around group activities, and we hit most of the major ones. I Ichiko and Xiao even played Old Maid with the Knights."

"Chief, please stop misconstruing my issue."

"Okay, then please tell me what your issue is."

"It's the lack of tropes specifically targeting us, instead of the group as a whole. By raw numbers, everyone else had more onsen-related events than us."

"She's not wrong about that," Elly agreed with her, if tentatively, and after I put some thought into it, I also had to concur.

All things considered, the 'events' and 'plot developments' we encountered were never really centered on us. The fighting game tournament was Josh's brainchild, Penny was the one who proposed the truth-or-dare game in front of the others, while that whole mahjong-table incident was entirely on Naoren. The only event that was specifically aimed at me was the peeper-incident, but that's hindsight speaking. In terms of actual involvement, Josh, my sisters, and even Zihao had more to do with it than I did.

"To be fair though, didn't you two want to avoid them from the beginning?" The princess's unexpected question made us both focus on her, and she hastily expanded her point. "I mean, when we came over, you said we should avoid triggering any of the tropes on purpose. You said it would contaminate the data you were collecting."

"Are you saying that, by avoiding being the instigators of any onsen-related tropes, we accidentally avoided being involved in them altogether?" Elly nodded, so I glanced at the other girl in the room in turn. "Dormouse?"

"Sounds plausible," my dear assistant concluded on the spot. "It would also explain why everyone else was having various nudity-related events other than us."

"They did?" I blurted out, and instead of answering, Judy tapped on her phone.

"I interviewed everyone, and aside from Ichiko and Galatea, everyone experienced at least one such incident."

"Even Snowy?" She nodded, so I felt obliged to ask, "Who saw her in a compromised position?"

"Oh, I've actually heard this one!" Elly cut in before Judy could answer. "It was Penelope and Rinne who walked in on her while changing. Penelope spent all morning avoiding eye-contact with Neige. It was funny."

"Only them? Well, so long as it wasn't one of the guys, I guess it's fine."

"Double-standard?"

Directing a deadpan stare in my assistant's way, I flatly stated, "No. Common sense."

Meanwhile, Elly finished her drink and gave another try at browsing Judy's notes, only to freeze up and ask, "Judy! Did you really have to make a list of all lewdings too?"

"While only loosely related, the laid-back atmosphere and potential for ecchi events leading to sexual encounters could be classified as onsen-episode adjacent," Judy explained herself as matter-of-factly as if she was talking about the weather.

"That's not entirely incorrect, but if you only collaged our lewding sessions, it isn't going to be particularly useful," I commented on the side.

"It's still a data point, and you can't say for sure that we were the only ones in the resort who had intercourse," she argued back and tapped at her phone again. "We can't be sure until we go home and I individually interrogate everyone."

I responded with a token, "Do it in moderation," but to be perfectly honest, unless it was some kind of weird, drunken fling, I seriously doubted there were any such encounters among the rest of the group.

"So, in conclusion, we didn't get involved with too many of these tropes before we accidentally avoided them, while the others didn't, and we lewded a lot," Elly summarized the discussion so far, and after some thought, I tentatively agreed. "Good. Do we have anything else hot spring related to discuss?"

"A lot," I told her frankly, but seeing how she had been unsubtly eyeing the envelope on the table for a while now, I added, "But first, let's get the elephant out of the room."

The princess's face brightened up at once, and even Judy put her phone aside to pay full attention to said elephant. As such, I unceremoniously picked up the envelope and read the address on the front aloud.

"Tsephanyah? It must be referring to Acacius Tsephanyah, the director of internal affairs," Judy noted on the side like it was common knowledge.

"Let me guess: you just accidentally came across his name on the Hub's forums, and you still remember it, because of course you do."

"You know me," she answered unabashedly and urged me to read the letter inside. Elly was also getting impatient, so I decided to just bite the bullet and stop stalling.

The neatly folded baby-blue paper practically unfolded itself the moment I took it out of the envelope, and the girls both leaned over to get a better look at it. Unlike the Celestial Script on the outside, the contents of the message were written in plain English (or whatever this language we were speaking was; with all my inexplicable linguistic skills, I was no longer sure about anything anymore), using fancy, flowing cursive handwriting. By the looks of it, it might've been written by a fountain pen, or one of those quills made of actual feathers.

"'I hope this letter finds you in good health. I am Acacius Tsephanyah, acting director of'—" Elly started reading aloud in my stead, only to pause and send a pleased smile Judy's way. "Hey! You were right!"

In the meantime, I skimmed through the contents of the rest of the letter. It was tightly packed with tiny but neat letters, and flowery language aside, the actual message itself was fairly straightforward and could be divided into three distinct parts. The first quarter was all about very insistently explaining how the writer meant absolutely no harm to me and, in fact, was only sending this letter out of goodwill. In other words, it was safe to ignore.

The second part, which took up about half the message, was considerably more interesting. It was, in essence, a warning. If it was to be believed, some other, vaguely defined Celestial agents would try to make contact with me in the near future, and this Tsephanyah guy (at least, I was pretty sure he was a guy, though with names like this, it was hard to tell) repeatedly emphasized that they, unlike him, didn't have my best interest in mind and that I should not trust them as far as I could throw them.

That was rich coming from a Celestial bigwig, but then he doubled down on it with the last quarter, where he assured me that once 'they' were ready to 'receive me' (which didn't sound ominous at all), he would send out his own men to make direct contact with me, and I would recognize them by the code-words 'Followers of the Sovereign of the Spear'.

"Oh, wait! I think I've heard this one before!" Elly exclaimed and poked the words with her finger. "It was… that thing you wrote for Neige's brother, wasn't it? Judy, you told me about that, so you should remember."

"You're correct," my dear assistant said in a solemn tone before addressing me. "I told you, Chief."

"Yes, yes. As it turns out, the random gibberish I wrote just to confuse Crowey was actually a plot device. Much wow." She was giving me a disapproving look, so after a while, I amended, "For the record, I'm still of the opinion that what I wrote back then really was nonsense, and the Simulacrum used the ambiguity of the Celestial Script for its own nefarious narrative purposes."

"Speaking of Celestial Scripts, what does that say?"

At first, I thought that Elly was still talking about the envelope, but she moved her finger to the bottom of the letter itself, and when I squinted a bit, I found that there really was an extra line of Celestial Script under all the hand-written paragraphs.

"It says that… lemme see… I think it's 'This record/missive will self-destruct in'—"

Before my brain could process what I just read aloud, the entire page abruptly burst into heatless blue flames. Elly let out a high-pitched "Eeek!", and even I was startled into dropping the letter onto the table, where it rapidly disintegrated into a puff of smoke, not even leaving any ashes behind.

"Princess, open the window!" I yelled in a hurry between two coughs, and my girlfriends both moved in unison to help air out the place. Luckily the smoke didn't trigger a fire alarm, but it still took a couple of minutes until the room stopped smelling like burned hair.

"That was… something," my dear assistant noted as she returned to the table.

"Freaking Celestials and their bloody spy movie antics," I growled back in turn, and we waited for Elly to close the windows again before continuing where we left off. "Dormouse? Did you memorize that letter?"

"Naturally. I'll transcribe it later."

"Good. So, any opinions on what's going on?"

"It's obviously a plot hook," Judy stated plainly, and it took inhuman effort not to roll my eyes.

"Yeah, sure, but I wanted to hear a more Watsonian interpretation first."

"I think this means that there are multiple Celestial factions," the princess proposed an answer that sounded much closer to what I was thinking. "They are trying to contact you for some reason, and the person who wrote this letter wants to make sure you don't meet up with the others before he could make his move."

"But why did they choose such a circumspect method to communicate this?" I followed her up with another question that felt obvious to me. "If he wanted something from me, he could've just written it into the letter instead of dancing around the issue."

"It's because it's a plot hook," Judy repeated herself, and when I gave her a sideways look, she doubled down. "It is. It's left purposefully vague to set up a plot development or event in the future."

"Alternatively," Elly spoke up, cutting my assistant short, "It could be that they were afraid their message could be intercepted, so they didn't put any details into it on purpose."

"That's as good as an explanation as any," Judy murmured and then took out her phone to take notes again, "In any case, I think this safely established that our next arc is definitely going to deal with the Celestials. That means we are almost certainly on the Angeline route."

"There you go with your routes again," I grumbled and tapped on the table with my finger. "How about we first deal with the surface-level issues, and then try to work out the meta-aspects once we're actually clear on what's happening? For example, if we presume that the recent upheaval in the Elysium left the Celestial leadership fractured, why would multiple factions look for me at the same time?"

"It's because you are one of the central members of the Draconic Federation," Elly gave the most obvious answer on the spot. "You're probably the only powerful person on this island who'd be willing to hear them out instead of kicking them out on principle, so they probably want to negotiate."

"That's a good point," Judy agreed for once and even looked up from her phone for a moment. "A fractured leadership with different agendas is potentially the first step on the road of a civil war. Since you already had business dealings with them, and the Draconic Federation is technically a neutral organization at the moment, they could be trying to get you on their side before anyone else could."

"That was—" 'unexpectedly Watsonian of you,' is what I wanted to say, but then she continued her previous thought.

"Based on these deductions, it's likely that the Angeline route's main plot is about a civil war where everyone has to pick their sides, and you're being roped into the plot by this hook."

"… Of course you had to bring that up again."

"I did, because you can't divorce the Doylist reasons from the Watsonian ones."

"Of course not. They are just explanations for the same events. What I'm saying is that we should first try to understand the events themselves before we start reaching for conclusions."

"Using deductive reasoning based on established patterns in the Narrative's modus operandi is not 'reaching for conclusions'," Judy retorted in the company of air quotes, but before I could respond, the top of my head received a sudden impact that didn't receive any forewarning from my precognition.

"Bonk!" Elly exclaimed in an altogether too excited voice, and then I finally got a good look at what hit me when she reached across the table to hit Judy too. "And you get a bonk too! Keep things civil!"

The bonking implement in Elly's hand was familiar, yet wholly unexpected. It was a long, folded-up white paper fan with a red handle, and while it looked pretty impractical, any self-respecting fan of Japanese comedy would've recognized it at a single glance.

"Princess? Where exactly did you get that?"

"Oh, this?" Elly hefted the paper fan with an enamored look and flashed a smug grin. "I found it in the closet back there, and it's really handy! Do you think they would mind if I took it home with me? I kind of like it."

"Chief? Are we turning into a manzai-act?" my dear assistant wondered aloud, making me stifle a groan in return.

"If we don't want to, I guess we better behave ourselves."

"You better," Elly echoed me, and after a long beat, Judy let out a shallow sigh and gestured with her hands to get my attention.

"Listen, Chief. Putting Doylism and Watsonianism aside for a moment, I just think you have to be careful with this. We already know that the Narrative intended you to be Joshua's antagonist on the potential Elly route."

"We don't know that; we're only presuming based on strong inferences," I corrected her, but then Elly slapped the fan against her own palm, so I hastily added, "That said, please go on."

"What I'm trying to say is that we already have a potential precedent of you being set up as a villain. It's not unthinkable that the Narrative would pull the same plot device twice, and make you an antagonist by drawing you into the upcoming Celestial civil war on a side that would end up opposing Joshua's relationship with Angie."

"The potential civil war, but yes, I get your point. It's also why I think it's important to figure out exactly what's going on in the Elysium, and not jump to any conclusions, whether meta-informed or otherwise."

"I can agree with that, for the time being."

Following that, we both glanced over at Elly, and she gave us a beaming smile, like this concession was somehow the result of her hard work. In the end, I broke the silence by standing up and stretching my back a bit.

"Anyhow, I think we can't really do anything about this right now. Let's comb the Hub for clues once we're back home, and until then—"

Unexpectedly, my words got interrupted by two timid knocks on our door. The three of us shared an uncertain glance between each other, and checking the clock on the wall, I muttered, "It's almost midnight. Who could it be at this hour?"

The girls didn't even guess, and since I was already standing, I figured I might as well check it out. I could've used Far Sight, but honestly, it took like ten steps to get to the door, so what was the point? So, after walking over and opening it up, I found an oddly nervous Josh on the other side.

"Hey, man. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"No, not really. We just reached a nice spot to take a break," I answered in turn, and he was visibly relieved. It only lasted for a second though, as he frantically waved at me to come outside.

"What? Is there a problem?"

"It's not a problem, just…" Seeing that I wasn't about to budge, he glanced inside, and seeing that the girls were out of earshot, he switched over to gesturing at me to lean closer. That was much easier to do, and so when I did, he whispered directly into my ear. "Listen, I don't know how else to ask this, so I'm going to be blunt. I need protection."

"… From who? Is Zihao still picking a fight with you?"

"No, not that kind of protection!" he hissed, and it was only at this point that it dawned on me that the guy's face was unusually flushed. "You're the only guy here with a girlfriend… or two… but, I mean… I figured that you would have a few extras on hand."

It took me a few seconds to parse his meaning, but then the proverbial light bulb instantly flashed over my head… only to be replaced by a big question mark right away.

"By extras, you mean… condoms?" Josh pursed his lips into a thin line and nodded, while I couldn't keep the pleasantly surprised smile off my face if I tried. "Oh? So you guys are getting to that stage, huh? Congrats."

"No! I mean… we're experimenting, okay? It's not like we're planning to… you know? It's just for practice."

"Suuure. So, what kind do you need?"

"Kind?" he blurted the word back at me, sounding rather confused.

"Yeah? I mean, extra-thin, ribbed, flavored, or…?"

"Just… Just gimme a normal one, will you?"

"Sure thing. I'll be right back, don't go anywhere."

Saying so, I closed the door to a crack and turned on my heels, aiming at the nightstand housing all our supplies. Since I was over-prepared, as usual, I figured there was no reason to be stingy, and I pocketed two whole packs before heading back to the door.

"Here you go, pal. Don't use up all of them at once. It's best you keep a couple of them in your wallet, just to be safe. Oh, and make sure there are no air bubbles trapped between the rubber and your skin, or the whole thing goes pop and you'll have to stop what you're doing to put on another one, and that's just seventeen different kinds of awkward."

"Erm… Thanks?" Josh accepted the packets with the kind of expression that said he didn't know whether he should be thankful or mortified, and after pocketing them, he awkwardly bid his farewells. "I'll return the favor another time… or something."

"Sure. Have fun experimenting."

I waved after the rapidly retreating guy, then closed the door, and only after I turned back to the kotatsu table did I notice that Judy was unusually busy typing on her phone.

"Did you overhear what we talked about?"

Seeing that Elly was flushed and fanning herself with her, well, fan (even though it wasn't what it was made for), I didn't really need to ask, but Judy still answered seriously.

"Yes. I'm already adding it to the hot springs episode sexual encounter list. I'll send you the updated document later."

Yep. My dear assistant was dutiful as always. My draconic girlfriend, on the other hand, was still looking restless, but at the same time, she was focusing all her attention on the paper fan in her hands and carefully inspecting it like it was a family heirloom sword or somesuch. What can I say? My girlfriends were kind of quirky in their own ways, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.