Chapter 72 (1/2)

Part 1

What's up with underground chambers? Or rather, why did my life have so many of them? Why did we even have this many underground facilities on a volcanic island? Was that even safe? Were we just a small earthquake away from being flooded with lava? And that's just a 'mundane' concern; what about the supernatural ones? Should I start getting worried about being invaded by the mole-people? Could mole people even live on a volcanic island in the first place? Wouldn't they get fried by the magma underground? Maybe they were fire-moles? Should I start looking into things that were super-effective against fire-types?

These, and many more thoughts of their ilk kept running through my head while I pretended to listen to the bearded middle-aged man on the pulpit talking about the new advancements his research group made in the field of applied kinetic battery enchantments. He was standing at the bottom of a large underground hall shaped like a semi-circular Greek theater with dozens of rows of seats surrounding the stage in the middle. It also had a domed ceiling with branching beams protruding from its surface in a shape that reminded me of an enormous stone snowflake.

However, said ceiling was currently hard to see due to a giant, semi-transparent three-dimensional projection floating over our heads. There was a tiny version of the same shape in front of the speaker, and whenever he manipulated his piece, the large one over our head also moved in accordance. In short, it was a fairly rudimentary and simplified representation of an enchantment, which was read by a magitech device in front of the presenter's podium and then projected it for everyone to see. In layman's terms, it was a big, fancy hologram, and everyone present could apparently read it.

If the hushed whispers around me were to be believed, it was bleeding edge magitech they considered quite amazing. From my perspective, it was like looking at a terribly compressed image of a famous painting photocopied over a dozen times; sure you could recognize what it was supposed to be, but it was kind of cringe-worthy. It was a sentiment the people behind me apparently didn't share though.

Speaking of which, I was currently sitting in the front row, and I was surrounded by about three hundred freaking artificers filling out the rising rows of seats behind me. They all looked about at imposing as one would expect experts to be, even if a tad placeholder-y from time to time. Worse yet, they were all dressed in formalwear ranging from dapper suits to straight-up white-tie tuxedos, which coincidentally made me feel just a little bit underdressed for the occasion. It was a good thing I was well prepared and not at all nervous by the prospect of stepping in front of all of these people, otherwise all of this would give me cold feet. Thankfully I wasn't nervous at all. Really, I wasn't. I was totally calm. Seriously.

”Hey, Leonard?”

I nearly jumped out of my seat when a certain brown-skinned Arch-mage lightly poked me in the side. It was only because she hit my funny-bone though. I wasn't tense or anything.

”What?” I responded with a hissy whisper, at which point she tilted her head towards the stage.

”Meister Repousser is, like, almost done. It's going to be your turn soon!” She flashed a toothy smile at me and added, ”Gosh, I can't wait to hear your presentation!”

”That makes one of us,” I grumbled, and true to her words, the tall, handlebar-mustachioed man on the podium was already in the process of wrapping up his lecture. Sahi let out a giggle at my expense and faced the stage again, her eyes still sparkling with anticipation. It was a good thing I wasn't cracking under the pressure or anything, otherwise her behavior might have been throwing more fuel onto the fire.

As for why I had her sitting next to me, it was due to being a guest of honor. I mean, not her, but me. Though again, technically she was also one, but it's beside the point. The first row of seats was not only reserved for VIPs, which I ostensibly was due to Gowan personally vouching for me, but the seating itself was also hierarchical. Because of this, a palpably uncomfortable Lord Grandpa was sitting in the chair right in front of the podium, Sahi was on his immediate right due to being his peer (though, on paper, she was here as Saahira's representative), while Gowan was seated on his left due to being the senior artificer of the School and the organizer of the event. Which, by extension, meant that I had the fourth most important seat in the entire hall. Once again, it was really lucky that I wasn't already nervous or anything, or else this might've put more pressure on me or something.

In the end, the Frenchman on the stage finished with a small bow, and once the obligatory applause died down, the amicable local artificer took his place.

”Thank you, Meister Repousser,” Gowan addressed the man about to leave the stage. ”Your findings were most enlightening as usual. I wish you the best of luck in the future.” There was another small round of applause, after which the French artificer promptly left the spotlight and took a seat in the front row. More than a couple of seats away from me, meaning he was at least seven or eight steps beneath me in the symposium hierarchy. Oh boy…

In the meantime, Gowan waited for everyone to quiet down before he cleared his throat to get their attention again.

”For our next speaker, please allow me to introduce you to a young yet brilliant friend of mine. I'm sure you must have already heard of him, as he made quite a name for himself as Critias' famous Chimera Slayer. Please extend a very warm welcome to Leonard Dunning.”

The moment he finished, the whole hall erupted with a cacophony of hushed whispers that became even louder when I stood up and picked up my bag. My legs required a moment to steady me after sitting for so long, so in the interim I took a deep breath and steeled my nerves.

This is it, Leo. No need to fret. You have spent two whole nights cramming the fundamentals of an entire field into your head. You are entirely qualified to stand in front of all of these people and lecture them.

…

Why did I think accepting this invitation was a good idea again? While I pondered that question, my legs carried me to the stage and, following the bearded artificer's prompting, I took my place behind the podium and placed my bag beside the projection stand. It was only then that the answer came to me: I accepted this opportunity because I had a lot to gain from it. I wasn't here for fun. I came here to make connections and get access to as many artifacts and enchantments as possible, as they were my cleanest and most promising way to interact with the supernatural stratum of the world. Doing so was crucial for understanding what made this Simulacrum thing working, so I had to do my best to impress the people here, or at the very least appear competent enough to the point where they would be willing to let me look at their stuff in detail.

In other words, I needed to shock and awe everyone here, or failing that, at least bamboozle them into submission. To do that, I had three tools at my disposal: my reputation, my novel understanding of enchantments, and good old refuge in audacity. I could do this. Or at least that's what I have been telling myself over and over.

”Good evening…” I began, my voice automatically amplified by the arrays on the stage, and wanted to say 'ladies and gentlemen', but then I belatedly realized that aside from Sahi, there were exactly zero other women in the hall. Was that because artificers were an insular club of men, or rather because these guys were probably not supposed to be that important in the grand scheme of things and the Simulacrum just copy-pasted a bunch of them to fill up the seats? I couldn't say. I didn't really have the time to ponder about it either, so after a short pause I continued with, ”… everyone. I'm Leonard Dunning, and this is my first time speaking in front of such an illustrious audience. Please go easy on me.”

That comment earned me a few chuckles and simultaneously lightened the atmosphere a little, which told me I was on the right track. I internally debated whether I should go with an overconfident or a humble approach, and it seems like a made the right choice.

”As I'm sure you are well aware, I'm not an artificer by trade, but I do dabble in the craft in my own way.” After priming the audience with that, I reached into the bag by my side and took out one of the items within. All of these were minor, mostly useless enchanted items I received from Mike in the past, and since I've already analyzed them to my heart's content, I decided to rewrite them for illustration purposes during this presentation. ”However, I do have a few ideas I would like to talk about, and hopefully I can provide a new perspective. I would like to title this presentation…”

At this point I paused on purpose as I put the first item, a battered pocket watch, onto the platform. A second or so later, a series of projections appeared overhead, drawing everyone's attention, and after using a decidedly retro-futuristic dial to move them around a bit, they finally settled in their intended orientation.

”Please debug your enchantments,” I stated, with the projected enchantments forming the same words.

I intended to pause here for a beat before moving on, but the silence was unexpectedly broken by a pair of enthusiastically clapping hands. When I glanced over to the source of it, I found Sahi applauding me with a pair of practically sparkling eyes. I thought she would stop soon enough, but instead, to my shock and confusion, Lord Grandpa also began to slowly clap his hands with a strange mixture of discomfort and astonishment on his face. Since he was clapping, now Gowan also found it pertinent to follow suit, which soon caused a cascading reaction as the whole hall began applauding, leaving me more than a little flabbergasted in the middle.

At last, after a solid minute, the situation finally calmed down and I got the opportunity to take the watch off the pedestal. When the Scottish artificer showed me this device the day before, and I came up with the idea of putting some random enchantments together to form words, it was just a fun little idea I thought would give my presentation some flair. It was pretty much the enchantment equivalent of ASCII art. How exactly was that worthy of standing ovation?

Anyways, I quickly pocketed the item on display and faced the audience again.

”Thank you, you are too kind. So, as the title of my presentation implies, I wish to talk about something I've noticed in a number of enchantments I worked on: the importance of debugging and proper commenting and annotations.” This time the response to my words was a vacant silence, so it was time for a demonstration. ”To better understand, allow me to show you an example.”

Saying so, I placed my second item, a folded-up switch knife onto the pedestal, and a couple of seconds later, a new magical hologram appeared over everyone's heads. It was a faithfully copied version of the enchantment on the dragon-slaying spear, or rather, a fairly big chunk of it. It was still enough for my purposes.

”As you can see,” I began as I used the dials to point out various parts on the floating amorphous blob on display, ”This is part of a weapon's enchantment. Looks functional, isn't it?” It was a rhetorical question, but I still received a couple of nods from the seats. ”Well, just because it's functional, it doesn't mean it's not an unholy abomination of terribly mangled arrays slapped together. For example, look at this spot. That's an entirely superfluous recursive effect array that only exists to give the weapon a glow when another array triggers, except it doesn't work because there is a syntax-bug in the link between these two parts. In other words, if the original creator of this enchantment actually cared enough to debug their work, they should have either fixed the error or removed this part entirely to clean up the end product. Any questions?”

That was another rhetorical question, yet to my surprise, the brown girl in the front row immediately raised her hand high into the air. We locked eyes for a second, and she looked really insistent, so I used my good hand to point at her.

”I'm not, like, an expert or anything, but,” she said, and as she did so, the enchantment of the stage automatically amplified her voice too. ”Can you actually do that? I mean, if you removed that part, wouldn't the strengthening array, like, interfere with the central control array and, like, totally melt the whole enchantment?”

”Um… no?” I answered by reflex, and she looked understandably unsatisfied by my answer, so I elaborated, ”You just have to take rearrange the arrays in a way they don't bleed into each other. It's similar to putting together an electric circuit.”

”I have to agree with the 'young lady',” Lord Grandpa backed her up, much to my annoyance. ”In my understanding, such manipulation is exceedingly hard after the initial engraving process had finished, and it would not affect the final efficacy of the enchantment in question.”

”You see? This kind of attitude is the problem,” I declared with a frown. ”Saying that it's 'good enough' is the bane of progress. You say there is no change in efficiency? Well, let me demonstrate.”

After proclaiming so, I immediately put a finger onto the knife on display while simultaneously plunging my Phantom Limb into it.

”First, let's just remove this part.” The same time as I said that, I made a flicking motion with my other hand, and a second (which felt a bit longer to me due to jumping back and forth between the enchantment and the outside world), the offending redundant array disappeared from the overhead display, earning me a few shocked gasps in the process. ”Now that it's gone, you can see that these interlocking parts now have a gap, so let's remove that. Then we interchange these two parts, then change the trigger-conditions on this one, and presto.”

It was only at this point that I noticed that, aside from Gowan, the entire rest of the audience was giving me absolutely blank looks. That didn't last long, as they soon turned increasingly more flabbergasted the more they looked at the model above; still a mess yet incomparably cleaner than before. I expected that something like this would happen once I showed off my ability to manipulate enchantments on the fly, but the silence was a tad nerve-wracking all the same.

”So, now that we are clear on this, let me show you a couple more examples.”

Following those words, I proceeded to spend the next half an hour showing bits and pieces of other enchantments I have encountered in the past and then discussing where they could be improved. There was another sample for the spear, a few pieces from miscellaneous items, a part from the Magiformers, and I even threw in a segment from the control module of the Chimera-puppet for good measure, and just to see if Lord Grandpa would recognize it. By the way, his face blanched when he saw it, I was pretty sure he did, but then again, his complexion was pretty bad from the beginning, so maybe I was just seeing things.

At last, I reached the final sample of my presentation, and one I picked on purpose to pique the interest of a certain annoying but potentially useful Arch-magess present. As such, I cleared my throat to build some tension before placing a small, golden plaque onto the projector stand.

”And last, but not least, I wish to present you an example of the kind of enchantment I consider to be something to strive for. It combines elegance, efficiency, and a self-explanatory design that is both coherent and functional,” I declared so and then waited in deafening silence for the hologram to show up. It didn't. I waited for several seconds more, and only when I was about to try again when the demonstration showed up, except instead of the enchantment in question, it only displayed a giant smudge of colors. ”Huh? We are apparently having some technical difficulties.”

I picked up the plaque and placed it onto the platform again, but after waiting for it to 'load' in again, we were all greeted with the same result. Seeing my distress, Gowan quickly made his way to the stage and took a closer look at the problem. I let him fiddle with the dials and glowy retro displays for a while (it was his magical machine, after all), which was made slightly more uncomfortable than necessary by being in the crossfire of several hundred gazes.

In the end, the vaguely Scottish artificer let out an embarrassed noise as he directed a hesitant question at me.

”If I may ask, what kind of enchantment did you want to show this time?”

”It's a piece of an old array that I took from a Japanese sword that used to house a soul,” I told him frankly and in a way to make sure the audience could hear it as well. ”Why, is there a problem with it?”

”It is embarrassing to admit, but the fault doesn't lie in your item, but the Atmospheric Magicule Virtualization System.”

Ah, so that's what this thing was called. More importantly though, I couldn't help but raise a brow at his admission.

”Is it broken?”

”No, thankfully not. The issue seems to be that it simply cannot display the enchantment. It is apparently too complex for the system to handle.”

”That can't be right. I mean, yes, it is a fairly dense enchantment, but not by such a huge margin.” Gowan only shrugged his shoulders at my comment, apparently as stumped as I was. For a moment I considered cutting this bit out of my presentation, but I have spent more time transcribing this one enchantment than the rest of them combined, so not showing it would make all that time and effort wasted. Not to mention, doing so would have been really anticlimactic now that I went out of my way to pique Sahi's attention. In other words, I had no choice but to take action. ”Can I take a look at the machine?”

His body language told me that Gowan's first reaction was to tell me 'No', but after a few seconds of consideration he stepped aside and allowed me to step up to the dials. He didn't really have to, as I had no inclination to play around with those, but I gave him an appreciative nod all the same and, without any further ado, I placed my hand onto the device.

Long story short, a subjective age later I managed to inspect every nook and cranny of the enchanted magitech projector, and it only took two more subjective ages to discover the exact nature of the problem. For the record, I would have probably been able to do so much quicker if there were proper artificer comments and annotations on the arrays telling me what they did and how they worked, but then again, if those things were common, I wouldn't have been giving this presentation in the first place.

”Ah, I get it now,” I whispered under my breath when I took a short break. ”Apparently the resolution of the device just isn't high enough to display this one.”

My comment was met with a few uncomprehending blinks by its creator. I really wished I could explain it to him, but then again, I didn't fully understand it myself, only that by tweaking a few settings here and there and twisting a few arrays would fix it. So I did just that.

Not a moment later, the chaotically flickering display turned off, and then a long second later is turned back on to reveal a considerably clearer 3D image.

”There you go. Much better.” I flashed a smile at the artificer by my side, yet he remained rooted in the spot and staring at the magical projector in front of him. I waited for a while for him to leave, but he seemed unwilling to do so, so I shrugged it off and returned to the topic at hand. ”As you can see, this is an enchantment that is not only meticulously debugged, but it is well annotated. This part is particular…”

In the end, I spent about ten more minutes discussing the arrays I copied off the outer shell which used to house Ichiko within Onikiri, but for some reason my audience wasn't nearly as interested in the topic as before. In fact, they were getting a little unruly, some of them going as far as to openly whisper between each other. As such, even though I still had a lot to talk about, I decided to cut things short.

”And in conclusion, I think I have demonstrated the merits of proper debugging, optimization, and annotation. Any questions?”

The moment those words left my mouth, the entire lecture hall exploded into a torrent of noise as practically the entire audience jumped to their feet and vied for my attention, often quite loudly.

”Please, gentlemen! Calm down! One at a time!”

My shouts, further amplified by the stage, finally calmed the room for a moment, which I used to point at a random person in the crowd. When he realized I was looking at him, the man's face immediately lit up and he exclaimed, ”Meister Leonard! I have a niece your age; may I introduce her to you?”

”… That wasn't an enchantment-related question,” I pointed out, only for another voice to nearly overwhelm my own.

”How shameless can you be?!” the mustachioed man who had a presentation before mine thundered in pure outrage, and it took me a second to realize that he wasn't talking to me, but to the previous speaker. ”Meister Leonard, please pay no heed to such crass old men! Trying to openly tempt someone like that! Absolutely shameless!”

”Um… I guess, but…”

”On an unrelated note, have you ever considered moving from the island? If you were to visit our Paris School, the oldest and most prestigious School of the entirety of Europe, if I may add, I can promise full accommodations and your very own research facility!”

”Talk about shameless!” a third overwhelming voice joined the fray from the mouth of a tall, wiry gentleman from the back. ”Trying to entice a young talent away from his home with such paltry promises? Meister Leonard, I implore you that you ignore that lout! If you ever wanted to do proper research, come to our New York School! We might not have the history of Paris, but with our money, you can buy everything else!”

”Errr… Gowan? Help, please?” I pleaded under the pressure of the torrent coming my way, but when I glanced to the side…

”Fascinating.”

… I found the local Meister completely enamored with the recently modified projector. In other words, he was not going to be too much help. Okay then, let's look for the next best thing.

”Lord—”

I got exactly that far when it came to addressing the seat of the Arch-mage, with its occupant conspicuously missing. Not only that, but the seat next to him was also empty. I quickly glanced around, trying to ignore the increasingly louder crowd swelling around me, and before long, I caught a slender brown hand disappearing behind the frame of the main entrance of the hall. I immediately far-glanced over to their side and found myself looking at Lord Grandpa dragging a loudly protesting Sahi along the corridor leading out of the hall and towards the security station.

”I can not believe you actually shouted you wanted him to marry you,” the old man complained while trying to unscrew the cap of a fancy tin canteen with one hand.

”Unhand me, you wizened badger! What is the point of being young if I can't even do that! Quick, let me go before he gets honey-trapped by one of those bastards!”

”You also want to entice him!”

”Yes, but it's for his own good! And mine! But mostly his!” When it became apparent he wouldn't let her go, the girl switched gears and set her foot against the ground in an attempt to keep the old man from moving while simultaneously accusing him, ”Don't act like it's none of your problem! How could you be so careless to allow such a genius to appear in front of those old sharks?! You should have stopped him, or told him not to show all his cards, or something!”

”Do I look like I am in a position where I could do any of that?” Lord Grandpa scoffed back before he took a long sip from his canteen.

He also said something else after that, but I couldn't hear it, as it was at this point that I cut the Far Sight due to the frenzied crowd of artificers leaving their seats and closing in on the stage. For a moment I contemplated Phasing away, but with this many witnesses, I doubt I could pull the 'I was an illusion and wasn't in the room to begin with' card. Not to mention, escaping now would have jeopardized the whole point of coming here and trying to make connections with these people.

At the end of the day I vacillated for too long, and the crowd more or less surrounded me. I spared one last glance at Gowan, and while he apparently finally awakened from his daze, he was just one man against the tide. At last, I resigned myself to my fate, and with a quiet, ”Well, this didn't go as I expected,” I let the wave of rabid recruiters wash over me.

Part 2

The school's library was unusually empty today. Or at the very least it felt like so, though I admit I wasn't a frequent enough visitor to properly judge it. Anyhow, the place being a little deserted was working in my favor. I followed Elly with my Far Sight into the building and waited for her to find a secluded place, which wasn't that hard this time around. My actual body was inside one of the first-floor bathroom stalls at the moment, and I was ready to Phase over at a moment's notice, which came in the form of my draconic girlfriend giving me a not especially subtle thumb up.

”I'm here,” I told her after reappearing behind her. She was hiding between two large shelves in the history section, not far away from the place where I talked with the class rep the other day.

When I arrived, the princess glanced around one more time before she gestured for me to come closer. Once I did so, she whispered, ”Judy?”

”I had Snowy distract her.”

She nodded in approval and hunched her shoulders, a gesture which she then followed up by whispering with one hand shielding her mouth.

”That means it is time to discuss our plans. That's good. Very good indeed.”

”… Why are you speaking like that?”

Hearing my question made a frown settle on my dear girlfriend's face and she retorted, ”Come on, Leo! We are doing cool, hush-hush clandestine stuff now! Act the part!”

”I've been doing a lot of clandestine stuff as of late, and trust me, it's not nearly as fun as it's cranked up to be.”

”Booo… You are such a buzzkill today.”

Seeing her sulk like that made an involuntary sigh leak through my lips, and even though I wasn't in the mood, I forced myself to hunch over and whispered, ”Fine, fine. Let's do this your way.” Since she was still pouting even after that concession, I had no choice but also add, ”After what happened yesterday, I've been a little grumpy. I'll get over it by Saturday, so please bear with me for now.”

”Oh, right. Now that you mention it, I've heard Ammy complaining about how you caused a huge scene last evening,” she noted, the frown disappearing from her brows like it was never there.

”I wasn't the one who caused it; it was all the artificers who wanted to recruit me. The symposium ended in a bit of a stampede and most of them had to be escorted out by the security.”

”Why? What did you do?”

”My usual stuff,” I answered, and she immediately nodded with a face that said 'Oh, that perfectly explains it'. ”At least I didn't leave empty-handed, as I got a lot of business cards and even a few stray gift artifacts to tinker with, but some of the guests were… shall we say, more insistent than the others.”

”Like the Arch-mage girl?” she asked for clarification, and I promptly gave her a nod.

”Yeah. She's been pestering me every time I've put my feet outside the classroom today. She's half the reason why we had to arrange this meeting like this.”

”If she's bothering you that much, do you want me to knock her out?”

”… I'm fairly sure assaulting an Arch-mage, even if she was incognito at the moment, would cause quite a diplomatic incident.”

”I'd still do it. Protecting our family is part of the family creed, so I'm sure dad wouldn't mind. He might even praise me for giving her a solid one.”

To emphasize her point she was swinging her arm like an old-timey cartoon sailor before a punch, which was admittedly one of the gosh darndest things I've seen in my life, but we had some serious stuff to discuss, so I only watched her do it for a few seconds before I forcefully prodded the conversation along.

”I'd still prefer if you didn't, because I still want to try and make a deal with her in the future, but either way, we're veering a little off-topic. We came here to discuss what to do on our anniversary, didn't we?”

”Right, that's why we are here,” Elly responded and let her arm down, then a second later she once again came closer into a conspiratorial huddle. ”I mean, certainly, we are here to discuss our secret plans. Indeed.”

I decided to let her play out her spy fantasies for the time being and focused on the actual subject instead. In just a few short days, we would have our first month anniversary. That is normally not something especially worth celebrating, but in our case, considering our unusual relationship, I figured it was worth at least a little effort. Or at the very least that was my stance on the matter until Judy shared her still-present reservations about our OT3, which called for a more thoughtful approach.

”Let's discuss the schedule first. I have some plans for the morning and the evening, but I'm still looking for the main event.”

”Let's hear what you have, and then we can figure out the rest,” she prompted me, so I did just that.

”My current plan looks like this: We meet up at my place at nine, then we go out around ten. I found a large public aquarium just a short ride from our neighborhood, and it looks pretty neat. They have all kinds of tropical fishes, and even a long tunnel through a shark tank.”

”I don't know… I don't really like that shark part…”

”I can hold your hand while we are there if you want,” I proposed, and her face immediately lit up.

”In that case, like it.”

What can I say? She was quirky, occasionally a bit of an airhead, and scared of the weirdest of things despite being part-dragon, but I wouldn't have her any other way. But putting the general lovability of my girlfriend aside, we still had a lot to discuss, so I pushed onwards.

”I looked into it, and apparently the place has a restaurant serving seafood dishes from all over the world, so we could have lunch there.”

”Isn't eating fish in an aquarium a little bit morbid?”

”I don't think the ones in the tanks mind it very much,” I told her with a shrug. ”But staying on the topic of food, for the evening, I've already reserved a table at a fancy restaurant in the waterfront district.”

”What is it called? I mean, the restaurant?”

”I wrote it down somewhere, but I can't remember off the top of my head. I think it starts with 'mor'-something-something.”

”It must be Morceau Très Délicieux!” the princess suddenly exclaimed with a beaming smile. ”You have great taste, as expected! I had dinner with mom and dad there once, and they had the best ratatouille ever!”

”Then I suppose I'll have to try it.” After telling her so, I waited for a second to see if she had anything to add, but since she remained silent, I stated the obvious issue. ”As you can see, there's a whole afternoon between those two ideas, so I want to hear what you think we should do to fill it out.”

”Let me see…” the princess pondered aloud. It only lasted for a few moments though, and she even startled me by snapping her finger the moment she had an idea. ”How about we go to the bowling alley? You said you wanted to practice some more, and I think it would be fun.”

”That won't do.” She reacted to my response as if I just poured cold water all over her, so I quickly explained myself. ”Just so that we are on the same page: Judy is still having some reservations about our relationship. I want to ease her out of them, and while I agree that we would have some fun if we went bowling as you suggested, it would be counter-productive. You and I both know how to bowl already, even if I'm still struggling with the basics a little. If we went there, wouldn't she feel left out? It would be the exact opposite of what I want this anniversary date to be.”

”I see what you're getting at,” Elly responded in the company of a solemn nod, following which she fell silent once again, this time for a bit longer. ”So we need some kind of activity that none of us have previous experience with.”

”It should also be something readily available on the island. Moreover, something we can do indoors. We are definitely not going to play outdoor games or go to the beach any time soon.”

”So something season-appropriate.” I nodded, and the princess fell into deep thought once more. I patiently waited for her to come up with something while also wracking my own brain, and about half a minute or so later, she suddenly snapped her finger again. ”I have an idea.”

”Let's hear it.”

”Ice-skating!” Her declaration was just a tad overdramatic, and she might've misunderstood my surprise for incomprehension, as she began to hastily explain herself. ”A while back I talked with Judy about that one time we went on a skiing trip in the Alps, and then the conversation changed to talking about winter sports, and then we talked about ice hockey, and I remember she said she doesn't know how to skate!”

”And that's a good thing?”

”I can't skate either. Can you?” When I shook my head in response, my girlfriend flashed me one of her rare yet precious adorably smug grins and declared, ”And that's what makes it perfect! If we're all beginners, we can all learn together!”

”That idea… isn't half bad. It's not cold enough to skate outdoors yet though.”

”I'm sure there must be an ice-skating ring around here somewhere.”

”It's called a rink,” I corrected her, resulting in a blank look.

”That's what I said.”

I wanted to object, but then again, nobody likes a grammar social nationalist, so I decided to quietly drop the issue and focus on the next objective.

”Okay then, ice-rink it is. I don't think it's going to take up the whole afternoon though, so I reckon we need a backup activity too.”

”The cinema,” Elly blurted out right away, and I was honestly a little skeptical of the idea.

”Isn't that a bit too typical?”

”Maybe, but it's foolproof,” she countered, and even though it still didn't sit well with me, I decided to humor her for now.

”Fine, I'll look into what the local movie theaters are showing on Saturday. Any request?”

”I'm fine with anything. Except for horror movies. Also, no mimes.”

”… Oddly specific, but if the lady doth requests so much, I have no choice but to comply.” That earned me a small giggle, which I received with pleasure, but then it was time to get a bit more serious again. ”That takes care of the date side of the issue. However, we have one more thing to consider.”

”What is it?”

”The Knights.” The moment I uttered the word, the princess' countenance immediately changed. ”Just for the record, do you remember the knight girl I talked about in the past?”

”The one that could potentially transfer to our school and I shouldn’t beat up right away?”

”The one and the same,” I told her with a shallow nod, then continued with, ”First off, she's already on the island. More importantly though, I have a sneaking suspicion that she and I might be more closely related than the rest of the knights.”

”By closely related, do you mean… relatives?”

”Possibly, though there is a much more troubling possibility. You see, the more I observe the Knights, the more it appears that she's considerably less concerned about you being a Draconian than the fact that we are in a relationship. In fact, she seems a little too concerned about me and my affairs in particular. That tells me she is either a brocon, or possibly romantically interested in me. Or rather, the me before the amnesia. In the worst-case scenario, we might've even been romantically involved in the past.”

”I have two questions,” Elly cut in with a serious look in her eyes. ”Does Judy know about this?”

”Not yet,” I admitted right away. ”If she's already feeling insecure, the last thing I need is for her to latch onto this possibility. I'll try to either confirm or disprove my suspicion first, and then I'll tell her about it.”

”I see. As for my second question… what's a 'brocon'?”

For a second I could only blink at her, but once I connected the dots, I nearly facepalmed at my own sloppiness.

”Sorry, I keep forgetting that you're still new to this. In short, a brocon is a sibling, usually a sister, who is obsessed with their brother in either a possessive or romantic way. It's a fairly common trope in battle harem narratives, and that's why I think it might be a possibility.”

”But to be that, wouldn't she have to be your sister?”

”It's one of the more distinct possibilities, but in this case, I want to err on the side of caution and assume that she is romantically related to me, which leads to the reason why I brought her up in the first place. Imagine that you are a narrative force of indeterminate origin, purpose, or sentience. We have a nice, friendly, nominally undercover guy in the form of yours truly who is about to take his girlfriends out for a lovely date. We also have an impulsive young girl who is really concerned about the guy's interpersonal relations, and who is part of an organization that already has a precedent of attacking people on their anniversary and getting thrown across rivers for their trouble. What do you think would happen?”

”… The narrative would make her attack us and crash our date?” she ventured a guess, and I let out a grunt of agreement.

”If I was a betting man, I'd put money on that. In order to avoid that, I'll need to figure out a way to keep the Knights busy for the time being, and I'm afraid that will take both time and effort. In other words, I'd like to ask you to take some of the prep-work off my shoulders so that I can focus on my countermeasures for the next two days.”

”You don't even have to ask,” my girlfriend responded with a determined look and a wide smile. ”What do you need me to do?”