"I tell you, boss, there's nothing wrong with you."

I levelled a skeptical stare at Fred and flatly uttered, "Check again."

"We already checked three times!" he exclaimed and waved a clipboard holding a whole bunch of graphs and data tables in front of my nose. "Look! Everything's normal!"

"Mostly normal," Mr. Plague Doctor noted from the other side of the workshop. He was in the middle of calibrating the soul-analysing machine, and after a long beat, he looked up and added, "The structure of the seat of your consciousness is already rather unique, so I meant 'normal' in relation to that."

"So you say there isn't anything out of the ordinary," I noted. "Can I ask for a second opinion?"

While Fred was confused by my question, Galatea quickly realized I was looking at her, and she walked over to our side. She casually snatched the clipboard out of our chief mad scientist's hand, and her eyes quickly skimmed over the pages.

"Master is correct," she stated flatly and handed the documents back to the man. "There is a sigma of zero-point-two in Grandmaster's readings."

"Meaning?"

"It means Grandmaster's recent readings show no statistically distinguishable difference from the ones taken during the afternoon. In layman's terms, there's nothing wrong with you."

"I see…"

I exhaled hard and closed my eyes. I came here right after the girls returned from the shower (and I managed to catch my breath) to have my measurements taken by Fred's machine, but it apparently couldn't detect any change. Which meant one of two things: either the equipment wasn't up to snuff, or the damage I received was completely unrelated to my 'soul', so to speak. If it was the former, then it just meant some upgrades were necessary, but if it was the latter… it opened up a whole box of worms.

Ever since I first gained my phantom limbs, I rarely stopped and thought about what they were and where they came from. They were simply a very convenient and mysterious form of power in a world already full of convenient and mysterious powers. Yet, this recent incident indicated that there was most likely much more to them than what met the eye. Or what didn't, considering they were completely ethereal, but that was half the point.

From the perspective of the Simulacrum, these intangible tendrils of mine didn't seem to be detectable on the surface-level, yet they could interact with the world's middle-layer of 'magic', and even the bottom-stratum made of souls and seemingly infinite fractal spirals of teacups. On the flip-side, while they could interact with and dismantle magical phenomena, up to and including 'true dragon breath', which was supposed to be the top-of-the-line 'melts everything, magical or otherwise' force of the universe, nothing could meaningfully interact with them in return. That is, until this day.

Focusing on the 'wound' on my phantom limb, I could still feel a low, pulsing sense of pain, disassociated from my body and feeling like it was emanating from my inside. It wasn't an unbearable one; in reality, once the first shock wore off and I could look at the injury with a semblance of rationality, it felt a little more than a large paper cut. It hurt, it was hard to ignore, but it wasn't exactly debilitating.

However, that wasn't the main problem. The issue lied in the circumstances; nothing inside the Simulacrum could affect my phantom limbs, yet something outside the Simulacrum could. Q.E.D., my phantom limbs existed outside the Simulacrum, and they were vulnerable there. What exactly that meant was up to debate, but one thing was for sure; going into the space-between-spaces in general and the not-dark not-room in particular became dangerous all of a sudden.

Shaking my head, I stood up and rolled my shoulders. Simultaneously, I tightly wrapped the other phantom limbs around my injured one. It lessened the pain and gave me a sense of comfort, like applying pressure onto a cut fingertip.

"Thank you for your cooperation at this hour," I spoke in a low voice, and Fred immediately let out a relieved chuckle.

"Kihihi! Don't even mention it, boss." Then, after a beat, he continued in a more serious tone, "You could, however, explain why you wanted us to test you in a hurry."

He was right. I was still a bit panicked when I Phased over, so I only demanded that they run the usual tests on me without clarifying exactly what happened. On second thought, though, how was I supposed to even begin to explain what happened? While I had Fred involved with our research into the various layers of the Simulacrum, I never fully let the cat out of the bag about the nature of the world, and explaining all of that to him at this point would've taken too long.

In the end, I decided to leave the particular details about the jigsaw-man of bones, the star-people, and the not-dark not-room for another day and only told him about the most directly relevant details.

"I was experimenting with something, and in the process, one of my phantom limbs got injured."

"Phantom limb?" Mr. Plague Doctor inquired on the side with an implied raise of one brow.

"Grandmaster's hitherto empirically undetectable means of directly interfacing with mana-driven mystical phenomena," Galatea explained before I could, and the man in the mask let out a thoughtful hum before returning to the machinery.

Meanwhile, Fred looked at me like I just told him my hair was made of ice cream.

"Do you mean those phantom limbs? The one you use for enchanting and everything?"

"Yes, that," I answered a touch sourly. "I'll explain the exact details another time, but suffice to say, I came here in a hurry to see if the wound showed up on the readings."

"It didn't," Fred stated the obvious, and after a brief pause, he let out a delighted chuckle. "Kihihi! Fascinating! Truly fascinating!"

"That's one way to put it," I grumbled and turned to the trio one last time. "I better head back; the girls must be worried about me. I'll come by for another checkup tomorrow."

They nodded, more or less in unison, and seeing that nobody was trying to stop me, I promptly teleported back home.

"Chief?" My sudden presence was immediately greeted by a deadpan voice from in front of the PC. "What was that about?"

"Right!" the princess, standing beside her, followed her up and was just about to pout at me when she turned to me and stopped in her tracks. "Hold on. You're pale! What happened?"

Before I could answer, she skipped over to my side and put her hand on my forehead. Unlike Judy, who was wearing standard-issue pyjamas, Elly opted for a light night-gown, and the way she raised her hands and leaned over made it very obvious she wasn't wearing a bra underneath. Of course, considering the circumstances, I wasn't in the mood to do anything with that information, but it was hard not to notice. In any case, I carefully removed her palm from my forehead.

"I'm not sick, I just ran into an… unexpected situation."

Judy was seemingly browsing the Celestial Hub using my Admin account, but when she heard that, she closed the window and got up from the swivel chair as well. In the end, the three of us sat down on the side of the bed, and after collecting my thoughts, I gave my girlfriends a brief explanation of what just happened. The two of them listened intently, though based on the princess's expressions, my attempts to explain the non-euclidean geometries, as well my translations of the unique terminology used by the people of the not-dark not-room, were inadequate at best. They didn't interrupt though, and patiently waited for me to finish up the tale.

"… and they told me that there was no trace of a change or injury on the readings, so I came home, and here we are," I concluded, and waited for their responses.

"Chief."

"Yes, Dormouse?"

"Normally, this would be the part where I scold you for being reckless," she began, but then she put a hand on my back and started stroking it up and down. "However, considering it's a unique power only you can use, and something we can't help you with, I'm only going to say I'm glad you got away with a bite."

"Agreed," Elly backed her up and tried to pull me into a hug without interfering with Judy.

While their reaction felt nice, I couldn't help but let out a sigh anyway.

"Thanks, girls, but I think I really messed up this time," I admitted, causing Judy to stop stroking my back and look up at me questioningly. Before I answered, I raised my hands to stare at my palms. They were no longer shaking, but I clenched them anyway. "I was complacent. I got too used to having all these powers and being nigh-untouchable, and it didn't even cross my mind that I could be caught with my pants down like that, let alone getting hurt in the not-dark not-room."

"To be fair, you are quite OP," Judy pointed out.

"OP?" the princess echoed her with a raised brow, and so my dear assistant elaborated.

"Overpowered. At least by the standards of the Simulacrum's current power levels." She took her hand off my back and reached for her phone, sitting next to mine and Elly's on the night stand. "I have the data if you don't believe me."

"Dormouse? Did you seriously make another power-ranking list?"

"I did it in my free time."

"You didn't even try to deny it this time!" I griped, but she didn't argue. Instead, she poked her phone and showed a graph to us.

"You see, Chief, you are currently easily one of the top ten most powerful people in the simulacrum, and potentially in the top five when it comes to individual combat abilities. If we count your outside context powers, I would argue you are head and shoulders above the rest."

"I get that, but…"

"Hush, Chief. I'm not finished," she chided me and let her phone down, only to look me in the eye. "The point I'm trying to get across is that this situation could have only been considered hubris if you got injured by someone else inside the Simulacrum, due to your overconfidence. As things stand, you encountered someone who also had outside-context abilities, as shown by them being able to injure your phantom limb. Outside context, by definition, means you couldn't be prepared for it, therefore I officially acquit you of any hubris."

"You have to be more careful in the future though," Elly pointed out, and Judy nodded along.

"Yes. You get a free pass the first time, but now that we know those extra-Simulacral beings pose a potential threat to you, any further thoughtless interactions and injuries will get you scolded, so act prudently."

"That's the plan," I told them with a sigh, and with that, Judy considered the topic closed and picked up her phone again.

"Good. Now, let's consider what we learned from this encounter."

"Let me see…" The princess raised her hands and started counting on his fingers. "Leo's phantom limbs can be hurt by outsiders."

"Which means they are most likely not just outside-context powers within the Simulacrum's magical framework, but likely originate from outside of it altogether," Judy remarked on my other side.

"I theorized as such in the past, but this seems to confirm it, yes," I added, and my dear assistant dutifully noted it down.

"Secondly," Elly contained, showing a second finger, "There is a new… what did you call them?"

"Extra-Simulacral entity," my other girlfriend answered on autopilot.

"I prefer star-people," I added a touch sheepishly.

"Star-people it is then!" Elly declared, and grabbed her second finger again. "So there is a new one of those, and the others seem to work under him."

"Or at the very least, there are rules and a form of hierarchy they adhere to," the girl on the other side reckoned even as her fingers continued to dance on the screen. "That implies there has to be a method and a goal behind the operation of the Simulacrum."

"Third," Elly barrelled on, holding up a thumb next. "This new star-person is scary and weird."

"Which is an important data point," Judy noted with a frown. "It can mean one of three things: either they are fundamentally different from the other four, they purposefully didn't adopt a fully human appearance, or they are so alien, this…" She paused and scrolled back on the screen. "'Humanoid made of a patchwork of bones, claws, and fangs' was the closest approximation your mind could impose on it."

"In either case, it means that they are inhuman," I mused, and Elly looked rather interested in that remark.

"Do you think they are aliens? As in, space aliens?"

"I'm personally more inclined towards elder gods," Judy responded, and I automatically corrected her.

"You mean 'outer gods'."

"No. The elder gods are the humanoid ones," she corrected me back.

"But these star-people are also planets and moons and whatever," I argued, yet before we could get any further than that, the princess raised her voice.

"They are from space either way, right?" Not knowing what else to do, I tentatively nodded. "Then they are space aliens! Let's move on!"

I shared a skeptical look with Judy, but at the end of the day, neither of us wanted to argue the fine print, so we let it go and just ran with it.

"In either case, we know a bit more than we did before," I stated, and everyone agreed on that point. "Now what?"

"For now," Judy began, only to pause while she poked her phone a few more times, and then she put it back onto the nightstand. "For now we know the Simulacrum is not getting shut down yet. We still have a long way to go, but at least now we know there is a definitive goal behind this world, and it lies in these 'Submerged Ones' you mentioned. As soon as we figure out what those are, we'll be one step closer to unravelling the secrets of the Simulacrum."

"And how exactly are we going to do that?" I raised what felt like an obvious question, and to my surprise, Elly had a proposal.

"You could try exploring that space you talked about." I might have looked less than enthusiastic, because she hastily added, "I-I don't mean those dangerous star-people in particular, but the rest of it! You said you once saw a pair of suns in there, and this bone-man had to come from somewhere too! Maybe there are more of them out there you could ask for information?"

"That's… not a terrible idea," Judy admitted, and then she reached out and squeezed my hand. "But only so long as you can promise to be very, very careful while doing so."

I didn't remember agreeing to the princess's idea, yet they were treating it as a given. To be honest, I wasn't exactly thrilled by the prospect, but maybe that was just because the shock and the pain were still fresh. Thinking about it, it wasn't like I stopped Phasing when overusing it made me sick, or using my phantom limbs to manipulate enchantments even though I was suffering constant migraines from it. By ignoring the adverse side effects, I got to the point where I could do both of those things without any negative consequences. So… should I just tough it out and keep exploring the space-between-spaces anyway, I pondered?

"Let's get back to this tomorrow," I proposed a touch wearily, and I even rubbed my temple for show. "I'm mentally exhausted after what just happened, and I'm not sure I'm in the right mind space for this."

"Right! You should rest up!" the princess declared and sprung to her feet. "I'll go and get you something warm to drink."

"Bring cookies too," Judy called after her as she left the room, and Elly gave us a thumbs up from outside.

"So, what's the plan for tonight?" I inquired, and my dear assistant gave my off-hand question a lot of thought.

"Since you are not in the right shape for a serious discussion, we'll go with plan B."

"Which is?"

"We cuddle, then we watch some funny videos, then we cuddle some more, and we'll see how things would develop from there."

"That sounds chill, though I don't know what 'development' you're expecting there."

"We'll see," she echoed herself and snuggled up to me while we waited for Elly to return. All things considered, as much as I was usually dragging my feet, for once since forever, I really wouldn't have minded some physical intimacy, if only to take my mind off a certain featureless face made of bleached bones…