I think I might've already said this before, but it bore reiterating: after going through all kinds of supernatural shenanigans, going to school on a slow Monday morning felt much weirder than it was ought to be, and it doubly applied after the extra-long winter break. Since the last time we walked down the roads leading to Blue Cherry High, we had an attempted kidnapping, a fake duel, two entire tournament arcs, a big supernatural battle with all the bells and whistles and surprise-dragons, and an entire hot springs episode.

Funnily enough, after such as exhausting 'break', I was almost looking forward to school again. While sitting behind a desk for half a day and cramming knowledge one probably won't ever use into their heads didn't necessarily sound like a good time, I welcomed it with open arms. With everything else going on around us, our school lives started to feel like this small oasis, where we could just sit back, focus on the lessons, fool around during the breaks, and just have a nice, relaxing time.

"Am I the only one who feels like winter break was way too short? Why do we already have to go back to school? What is even the point?"

Or maybe it was just me, at least based on Angie's dispirited moans.

Over time, our initially small group had grown fairly sizable, to the point we crowded out the sidewalk. At the front, we had the childhood friend couple leading the charge… though that might've been overstating things a little, considering the Celestial girl's constant complaints.

"I should've called in sick. In fact, I'm sure I've got the flu. Maybe I should go back home."

"Oh, no you don't. Your mum made me promise to take care of you, so no skipping on my watch," Josh chided his girlfriend and linked arms with her, as if afraid that she would actually turn back.

"Traitor. You're supposed to support me in situations like this," Angie grumbled, but considering she was simultaneously snuggling up to him, she probably only did so on principle.

"Brotheeer!" The cozy atmosphere at the front was somewhat overshadowed by Penny's cries from the back, and when I glanced over, she immediately pleaded with me. "I already reflected on what I did! Please stop her already!"

"Not happening," I told her flatly, much to her chagrin. "This is your punishment. Just accept it and be more mindful next time."

"But it's just so… weird!" my knightly sister continued to moan and tried to look as innocent as a newborn lamb, but I wasn't buying it.

Instead, I glanced at the shadow she cast onto the sidewalk.

"Make sure you stick to her all day."

"Roger, ue-sama!" the fluffy little fox declared as her head emerged from the shadow, and she even saluted with her tiny little paw before she dived back down.

"Eeek!" Penny, despite being a dashing knight and all, let out a startled cry, and despite only catching the tail end of Ichiko's tail (pun intended), she honest-to-goodness clung to Mountain Girl for a moment.

"I'm starting to feel sorry for her," the princess noted on my left, but I remained firm.

"Since spanking is off the table, I had to get creative, and it works. It wouldn't be a punishment if she liked it."

"Leonard-dono is right," Rinne agreed, followed by a nostalgic sigh. "Disciplining is an important part of proper upbringing, and Leonard-dono is already very lenient. When Rinne was misbehaving as a young child, Rinne's mother would use a carped duster after tying tie Rinne up with ropes and hanging Rinne upside-down from the ceiling, and then—"

"A-A-Awawa! Too much information!" Penny cried out, and this time she clung to my other sister instead.

"The more we learn about Rinne's younger days, the more sense she makes," Judy noted on my other side, and I wasn't entirely sure I agreed with her on that front.

In any case, we waited for Penny to calm down, during which the ranks got reshuffled, and somehow my sisters ended up at the front, with my girlfriends lagging back to further question Mountain Girl about traditional Japanese punishment. By the time she started talking about her feet being dipped in starch glue, covered in corn seeds and then being forced to stick her legs into the chicken coop until her soles were cleaned up, I was pretty sure that she was either pulling their legs, or that weirdness ran in her family.

More importantly, after the reshuffle, I somehow still ended up in the middle, except this time it was in the company of the childhood friend couple. Angie was still noticeably peevish and reluctant to return to our school life, while Josh seemed like he was already used to these kinds of tantrums. They were also still walking arm in arm, which was something I approved of.

"Keep it up, guys."

"Keep what up?" Josh responded to my sincere encouragement with a skeptically raised brow.

"Being obviously couple-y," I clarified, but his puzzlement didn't abate at all. "Oh, come on. We talked about this in the pool."

"What are you two talking about?" the Celestial girl butted in, doing her best to mimic her boyfriend's expression, and since Josh didn't seem to be any wiser either, I finally resolved myself to fully explain my words.

"I was just trying to tell you to keep expressing your affection for each other in public. I already told Josh about this, but after the tournament, he became the most sought-after bachelor on the island, and the Draconian families are already lining up to entice him. The more obvious it is that you two are already going out, the easier it will be to turn them down."

"Why is this the first time I've heard about this?" Angie inquired in a neutral tone, but her suspiciously narrowed eyes directed at her boyfriend were anything but that.

"Hey, it was only a possibility Leo brought up, and it's not like it's guaranteed to happen."

"I asked Naoren. They're definitely looking into you," I told him flatly, but before he could answer, the Celestial girl waved at me to get my attention.

"Be honest, Leo. What's the worst-case scenario?"

The question stopped me in my tracks for a moment, and after some thinking, I shook my head.

"… I'm not saying that, because I've been tempting fate too much lately, but if you want to hear a 'likely' scenario, imagine half a dozen ultra-wealthy pseudo-noble dragon-girls transferring to the school all at once, with the express goal to marry Josh."

"Wait… Like Elly?"

"Hm?"

My girlfriend's ears perked up in the back, so I glanced over my shoulder and told her, "Don't mind us, princess. We're just talking about a template here. It's more of a hypothetical, really."

Her eyes told me she didn't get it, but she smiled and nodded anyway before returning to their discussion with Mountain Girl and Judy. In the meantime, Angie considered my words seriously, and let out a determined huff.

"Okay, you sold me on it. How do we stop this?"

"For a start, you two should keep acting all dere-dere in public."

"Hey! We're not being… whatever heck you just said!" Josh protested, causing his childhood friend to roll her eyes.

"He means we should act lovey-dovey, you dunce!"

"Then why didn't he say that?"

"He did! If you just read the romance novel I recommended to you last month, you would know all this!"

"I did, and you tricked me! It was a novel about two guys! "

"You see? This is why I keep telling you that you need to broaden your palate. A true connoisseur would've been able to divorce the superb prose and the vivid descriptions from the gender of the main characters. Shame on you. You need to be more cultured."

"That's not culture, that's just thinly veiled smut!"

Josh continued to complain, and while I had no idea what they were talking about, I knew for a fact that it was not only entirely beside the point, but I didn't care about it either. I waited until there was a brief pause in the argument, and the moment I got the opportunity, I loudly cleared my throat to draw their attention.

"So, as I was saying, you two should telegraph your relationship to the whole wide world, so that nobody gets any funny ideas, and the best way to do it is by acting like hormonal, love-stricken idiots both in and out of school. Give it a few days, and the news should spread like wildfire."

Josh still looked fairly unenthused by the idea, but on the other hand, Angie sounded downright thrilled.

"Allrighty then! In other words, we should keep holding hands like this!"

She proudly showed off their interlinked fingers, accompanied by a toothy grin.

"That's a start. You should also whisper sweet nothings to each other, and kiss a lot."

"You mean… in front of everyone?"

Josh went from lackadaisical to alarmed in a split second, so I decided to be even more straightforward.

"Yeah? I mean, that's the whole point." He continued to look at me funny, so I exhaled sharply and said, "We don't live in the Victorian era, you know? Nobody is going to get outraged over a few kisses here and there. Well, except maybe for the four creeps, but once they're convinced that you've settled on Angie, they might actually finally get off your case, so that should be a net positive. In fact, you should try to be extra touchy-feely around them."

"Oh, come on, man!" Josh moaned and threw his free hand up into the air. "We are new to this whole 'couple' thing, and it's complicated as is already! Be a little more considerate, will you!"

"I am considerate. That's why I'm telling you to be very overt about your relationship so that we can avoid any further shenanigans. Not to mention, you two had already gone all the way, so a kiss or two really shouldn't be all that embarrassing anymore."

The childhood friend couple stared at me like I just told them I ate kittens, but before I could further explain myself, Angie let out a surprised noise and pulled Josh over.

"Oh look Ammy is standing by the gates let's go ahead and greet her because we haven't seen her in a while and there are a lot of things to discuss don't you think so Josh all right let's go!"

Before our resident probably-no-longer-harem protagonist could respond, he got dragged past my sisters at the forefront, and the two of them rushed to the top of the hill, where the class rep was already waiting for us, in the company of Armband Guy.

"What was that about?" I mumbled under my breath, and to my surprise, Snowy slowed down to get next to me.

"Um… I think… you made them uncomfortable."

"Did I?" I asked back while moving to the side so that Penny could also join us.

"Obviously," my redhead sister, visibly flushed under her knit cap and scarf, commented in a sulky tone, and Snowy also nodded along.

"They just started going out, so I think they are still very sensitive about the topic of… um… intimacy."

"They shouldn't be though. It's not that big a deal," I pointed out, but my Abyssal sister shook her head.

"Maybe not for you, but you shouldn't presume that it's the same for everyone else."

I mulled over her words for a few seconds, and ultimately shrugged.

"Maybe I'm just desensitized to the topic thanks to… well, you know what I mean, right, sis?"

I was obviously addressing Snowy, yet Penny shook her head first and then pulled her scarf up to further hide her face and turned aside, pretending to be fiddling with her phone.

"I've heard you never had much interest in it, to begin with," Snowy pointed out, and I awarded her comment a certified Single Raised Brow™.

"Did you hear that from Judy?"

She glanced back, and seeing that my dear assistant wasn't paying us attention, she nodded.

To be fair, I was aware that my libido was lacking compared to the average guy my age, to put it mildly, but I didn't know how to feel about my sister learning about it as well. Was this how Josh felt when I brought my knowledge of their 'experimentation' up as well? That was a question worth mulling over, but before I could get any pondering done, Penny pulled her scarf back down and excitedly tugged on my sleeve.

"Stop talking about those kinds of things, and listen to me! I've just got an e-mail from Uncle Percy!"

"You mean Percival?"

"Who else could I mean?" she pouted and then turned the screen my way, only to retract it before I could even see the message. "He says he already bought a plane ticket, and he should arrive tomorrow morning! I should message Uncle Roland and tell him about it!"

"You do that, kiddo," I told her with just a hint of trepidation.

I still knew practically nothing about this Sir Percival, other than the fact that Penny seemed to like him a lot, and while another experienced ally joining my side wasn't a bad thing per se, the timing was a little iffy. Between the Draconic Federation, the obvious Celestial plot, and the Assembly coming over to muddy the waters, I didn't know how much time I could dedicate to this potential parental figure of mine.

Anyhow, while Penny was busy typing, we reached the school gates, where our three friends and Armband Guy were having a lively discussion about something or the other. When we got close, I nodded at Pascal, and he returned the gesture, along with a strained smile. If I had to guess, he was probably taking the old coot's order to 'maintain amicable relations' a bit too literally.

We didn't spare any time for pleasantries, as school was about to start, and Rinne immediately broke off from our group and headed to the faculty office. In her place, Josh and Angie replaced her at the end of our little processions, while the class rep zeroed in on me. Penny was still busy texting, but my other sister immediately read between the lines and pulled her aside, so that Ammy could take their place by my side.

"Morning, class rep," I greeted her with a friendly smile, and after a short beat, she theatrically dropped her shoulders and shook her head.

"Leo. I know that you are being heavily influenced by the culture of the Eastern Draconians at the moment, but when I told you to come to an understanding with grandfather, I didn't mean that you should spar with him."

"… I think you're laboring under some kind of misunderstanding."

"Am I?" She paused to tweak her glasses and then crossed her arms. "Didn't you come to talk with him wearing a sword?"

"I did, but it was for a completely unrelated reason," I defended myself, but she remained unconvinced.

"Nobody shows up to a friendly discussion with a weapon."

"Well, I do," I said, pointing at myself, and after a tense beat, she exhaled a long sigh.

"I've heard you have reached some kind of agreement at the end, so maybe I shouldn't complain too much, but you do realize that challenging grandfather like that could've ended up in a disaster, right?"

"I tell you, I didn't challenge him," I retorted, to little effect.

"In any case, grandfather told me that he's planning to support your case in front of the Assembly, so it worked, but next time you try to 'negotiate' like that, please think twice about it."

"… Are we really doing this? Is this going to be one of those 'persistent misunderstanding' things we're just going to run with?"

As if to prove my point, the class rep ignored my complaints, and while I thought that was the end of it, she approached me once again while I was waiting for the girls after I changed my shoes. She didn't address me right away, but instead she looked me over from head to toe several times, and after peering at me face for an uncomfortably long time, she let out what sounded like a relieved sigh.

"Okay, I bite," I spoke a tad morosely. "What is this about?"

"I'm just glad to see that you don't have any visible injuries."

"What injuries?" I blurted out without thinking, and she appeared genuinely surprised.

"The injuries you suffered after you recklessly challenged grandfather."

"There we go with the misunderstanding again. Listen, class rep. I didn't challenge him, and I didn't get injured either."

"Really? But didn't you lose to him?"

"Who told you that?"

I thought that was a rhetorical question, and I was already working myself up into being angry at the old bastard for twisting the truth into a pretzel to save his own ass, but then the class rep's answer caused my indignation to falter for a moment.

"Penelope sent me a text message yesterday, but I was busy, and I only read it in the morning, and by then Pascal…" Her words trailed off into a mumble as she noticed the look in my eyes. "Is there a problem?"

"No, none at all," I told her in a level voice as I gazed after the hurriedly retreating Penny dragging my confused Abyssal sister up the stairs while trying not to make eye contact. "Did she write anything else?"

"Only that, and that I should talk to you about not picking fights with people you can't defeat."

"I see. I see," I repeated with a nod, and then headed over to my shoe locker, leaving the puzzled Amelia behind.

I checked the time on my phone, and we still had a little over seven minutes before classes started. Not a lot of time, but enough. Screw creative punishments. Spanking was officially back on the menu.