The Simulacrum - Chapter 143 - Part 3 (Patreon)

"Good night, princess," I said to my draconic girlfriend after tucking her in her bed, and she must've been even more exhausted than I thought, because she fell asleep on the spot. After taking Judy home, I Phased over to visit her and have the truncated version of the same discussion as the one I had with my dear assistant, and it was already close to two in the morning by the time I convinced her to turn in for the night.

I watched her sleeping face for a few seconds, a small indulgence, and then I turned around and Phased to the other side of the Dracis mansion, and pretended that I just arrived as I walked into the old servants' quarters, a smaller building next to the east wing. Contrary to the name, it was more of a storage area, as well as the place where the family 'detained' people who needed, well, detaining. It wasn't quite a prison, or a dungeon, but more of a 'this place has tiny windows, so people can't escape through them' kind of deal. Or so I figured, anyway.

"Ah, Leonard… I mean, My Liege," Arnwald greeted me, in the company of Morgana, Agrawain, Brang, and Rinne. Naoren and my in-laws were elsewhere, probably dealing with the political side of this whole hubbub, while this group was in charge of taking care of our captives.

To be frank, half of those didn't need any taking care of, as the mighty Colossi were currently quite literally piled up in the next room, on top of each other like a bunch of ragdolls. I was planning to have either Jaakobah or Kane take care of them later. For the moment, I had different fish to fry.

Before I could turn in for the night (as much as that even applied to me), I needed to tie up all loose threads, and everyone else seemed to be on the same page with me, considering they were still awake despite the hour of the day. I gestured for everyone to be at ease, and my eyes looked over the seven Fauns sitting on comically tiny stools lined up next to the far wall. They were nine of them in total, if my memory served right, but two of them were injured by an overly enthusiastic Mountain Girl in the process of capturing them, so they were receiving treatment in a different room.

My eyes only lingered on the Fauns for a moment before returning to my allies on standby, and I nodded in their direction.

"Good work, everyone. Today was hectic, but everyone performed above and beyond the call of duty. You can rest now." Everyone relaxed a bit, except for Raven Boy, who was eyeing me suspiciously. We locked gazes for a few seconds, but when I still couldn't figure out why he was acting this way, I tentatively added, "How's your arm? Did you receive proper treatment?"

"Yes, but…" He continued to scrutinize me, ultimately blurting out the words, "You're acting odd."

"Agrawain…"

Morgana turned a pair of frowning violet eyes at her nephew, but he didn't back down.

"I'm serious. Normally he never gives a damn about me. It's suspicious."

Oh. So that's what the misunderstanding was about. Shaking my head, I told him, "I think I already mentioned this, but you're no longer on my shit-list. It's as simple as that."

"… Seriously?"

I nodded, but he remained skeptical of my claim. I didn't really mind it. Honestly, I had been a bit too stubborn about that whole 'trying to kidnap Judy' thing, anyway, and now that I had more of an understanding of the plot, I had to realize that he targeted her due to Narrative-me trying to keep the plot on rails. Then I kicked over my own arrangements anyway and replaced it all with my ploys, because I didn't understand diddly-squat about the plot back there, but all of that was beside the point.

It did lead me to a belated realization though; while now I understood that Narrative-me had his fingers in many pies while trying to steer the plot, I also gained an acute awareness of the limitations of those 'narrative influence' moments. Narrative-me wasn't omnipotent, nor was he omniscient, and my actions often did catch him by surprise. Or catch me by surprise. Goddammit, trying to wedge this weird pan-Simulacral existence of mine into a language with pronouns not designed to accommodate it is going to be the death of me one day…

Anyhow, didn't that mean that Narrative-me was more of a DM from one of our tabletop roleplaying games than some kind of god? And if so, then that made Leonard S. Dunning me something of a self-insert, used to interfere with the plot without the other players' being the wiser? But if so, who were the 'players' in the analogy? The people inside the Simulacrum, the Emergents, or the Submerged Ones?

"What? Why are you staring at me like that?" Raven Boy blurted out, causing me to blink and belatedly realize that I was so lost in thought for a few seconds that I completely tuned out of the conversation. I still had a lot of things to figure out, and I was itching to finally sort out everything, but I could only do one thing at a time.

For the moment, I focused on our first group of captives and considered what to do with them. As I glanced over, my gazes crossed with a familiar Faun's; he was among the ones who got captured at the hideout, and the one who proudly declared that they would 'never yield to the usurper'. That was referring to me, by the way.

"[What do you want from us, usurper?]"

See? Just as I said.

In any case, he continued to growl at me with his ears folded close to his head, which meant he was either ready to fight, or scared. Maybe a bit of both? Maybe because of all my interactions with Brang, I had a relatively good impression of Fauns in general, and so I didn't take offence. Unfortunately, I had people who did that for me.

"[Cease thine disrespect, Karrga,]" Brand raised his voice and slammed the butt of his spear against the floor for emphasis. The other Fauns all twitched in apprehension, and even though the speaker remained silent, his eyes continued to shift between wary and defiant. Seeing that, the old Faun sneaked a peek at me and then let out a pent-up breath. "[Thou art fortunate that Blackcloak's heart is broad enough to shoulder thine disrespect. Were he any less magnanimous, thou would have seen the wick of thine lives cut short already.]"

"[Better to die with dignity than to bow our heads to the man who turned the sister of our Liege, Lord of Inanna, into a traitor,]" another Faun hissed, and the rest, emboldened by his defiance, grunted in agreement.

"[He's not even a true Lord of the Abyss! How could you betray our Liege for him, general?!]"

"[He even captured our Lady, and no doubt subjected her to all kinds of indignities!]"

Were they talking about Tajana, I wondered. When the word 'indignities' came up, they all glared at me like I was the scum of the earth, so I was certain there was some kind of misunderstanding in play here. I tried to search my newfound memories to see if it was in any way related to the plot, or something set up by Narrative-me as part of the ploy to get these guys to assault the dockyard hideout and kick off today's climax, but I couldn't recall anything concrete. That meant it was probably a genuine, home-grown misconstruction. Lovely.

"[The singular ignominy I have ever inflicted upon the lady of neglectful eyes and haphazard espionage was the forbiddance of audiovisual theatre of the coarsest variety.]" My attempt at clearing things up fell on deaf ears, and seeing the confused expressions on the Fauns' faces, I figured it was pointless to keep trying. Instead, I turned to Brang. "[General. May I bequeath these foolish warriors of the Abyss in your care?]"

"[Aye, Blackcloak… yet first, I have a request to thee.]"

That was unexpected, so I automatically raised a single brow high. Brang must've found it amusing, as he covered his mouth with his fist and let out a low chuckle before gesturing at the captives.

"[I shall enact discipline upon the men-at-arms, and see that they understand thine will and character, yet I sense that doing so would be made more efficient if thou were to set an example.]"

Brow still raised, I was just about to ask what he meant by that, but seeing the subtle orange glow in his eyes quickly made me realize his point.

"[You would entreat me to contest these fools in the Rites of Dominance.]" He nodded, and after considering the pros and cons of the issue, I did the same and turned to Mountain Girl. The Knights already retired for the day, as per my instructions, but she was still diligently doing the retainer-business by sticking to my back like my shadow. "This shouldn't take long. Could you please untie that big oaf over there?"

I pointed at the mouthy Faun (what did Brang call him; Kerrigan? Kurgan? something like that), and while she looked unsure about why I told her to do that, she dutifully took unsheathed Onikiri and cut the ropes tying the big ram-guy's hands behind his back. He rubbed his wrists, weighing his options, but seeing that Mountain Girl still had her sword drawn, his gaze ultimately settled on me.

"What are you waiting for? Get up, and stand over there," I instructed him and rolled my shoulders. "It's late, and I have places to be, so let's get this over with quickly."

"[You want me to engage the general in the Rites of Dominance?]" he asked in a low, rumbling voice, sounding quite wary of the prospect, and when I shook my head, his expression shifted into one of full-blown confusion, complete with rapidly twitching ears and all.

 "I really don't have time for all the ceremony, so just follow my lead."

Saying so, I locked eyes with him, and as our consciousnesses touched, there was the familiar orange light of the Dominance enveloping him from head to toe as a spectral copy was overlaid upon his body. My ghostly version wasn't so lackadaisical, and the moment the ritual started, it dashed out and knocked the Faun's spectre in the nose with a straight punch.

The real guy shuddered in surprise, nearly breaking the connection between the two of us in the process, but he quickly stabilized himself, which I took as an invitation to ramp things up a bit. As such, I released five more spectres, bringing the numbers up to six, and then I automatically tuned out. It was a habit I developed from training with Brang, and let's be honest here; while I was 'fighting' this guy bare-handed, in a cramped room, and even without wearing my Leoformer gear, at this stage he was practically no threat to me, and my transparent copies could beat him on auto-pilot anyway.

Instead, I let my mind wander. For example, where did my ability to engage in Dominance come from? I was pretty sure it was another one of the powers my original 'choose your own villain' role in the plot necessitated and one that would've laid dormant in me if I hadn't broken myself off from me very early on. Did that make sense? Once again, pronouns were my new enemy; joining the axis of evil along with 'hindsight', 'overthinking', and 'accidental flirting'. Quite a nefarious quartet.

Jokes aside, if my hunch is correct, this was probably some kind of situational power for me when I went the way of the Abyssal. Which made me wonder; which route was supposed to be that? I mean, as much as the concept of 'routes' actually applied to the Simulacrum's current plot, anyway.

If Josh picked Elly, I would've stayed a Knight. If he picked Angie, I would become Polemos. In case he picked the class rep, I would've… also become Polemos? Yeah, that sounded right. Then was my Abyssal version for the Snowy route? Nah, Snowy wasn't a heroine, so…

…

Wait. Snowy wasn't a heroine? Why? I tried to look into my memories, but that was all I could gather. She apparently wasn't even supposed to factor into the plot past the intro. That was weird. But if not her, then…

"Ah. Penny."

My whispered words made my shades flicker, but then they continued on like nothing happened. By the way, one of said spectres of mine was currently beating up one of Karr-something-something's ghostly afterimages by using another Faun as a cudgel. It was shockingly visceral, which made me wonder if I might've been in more dire of a need to release some steam than I ever realized.

Putting those thoughts aside, I concluded my previous thought with the realization that Penny was originally the secret surprise heroine, and then my Abyssal version would've been the secret surprise villain. Colour me surprised.

Anyhow, I felt like I was getting too lost in thought, so I refocused my attention and pondered on what to do next. It was late in the night, so I figured that using Far Sight wasn't going to lead me to discover anything new, but then that idea launched me off on a completely different tangent. As in, why was I so good at this Dominance combat thing? No, scratch that, the issue went deeper: why was I so good at dividing my attention when doing tasks like this?

For example, using Far Sight while also battling ten spectral fauns with ten copies of myself wasn't a big deal, but using Far Sight while walking home was just asking for trouble. Was it because while doing mystical stuff, I inadvertently get closer to my self that's, for lack of better words, 'diffused' in the Simulacrum? Or is it the other way around, and it's that when I'm not doing anything magic-related, I'm unconsciously separating myself from myself?

There were lots of things to consider, but then before I could get anywhere with them, suddenly the Faun in front of me fell to his knee and raised his palms in surrender.

"[I… I yield… to you…]" He squeezed out in a daze, his forehead drenched in sweat that made his hair and fur cling to his skin, his breath heavy like he just ran a marathon.

"Oh. That was quicker than expected," I noted with just a tinge of pleasant surprise, and Brang by my side let out a satisfied chuckle.

"[It warms mine old bones to see the Rites of Dominance used for their ordained purpose for once.]"

I could feel some hidden barbs in those words, but when I turned a sideways glance his way, the old Faun flashed an innocent smile, and walked up to the downed ram-man in the middle of the room.

"[Now that thee have seen the qualification of Blackcloak by thine own eyes, let us turn the inquiring eye to thine behavior, young Karrga.]"

He put his big hand on the other Faun's shoulder, and he shuddered like Brang just dropped a whole wooden beam on him.

"Do you need me to be around?" I asked, and after some consideration, the elderly Faun shook his head.

"[Nay, Blackloak. Thou hath done what had to be done. Henceforth, I shall be enough to enlighten the younger generation.]"

"Good. I still have one more place I need to visit before the night is over, so I'll take my leave now."

He nodded, and while I was tempted to just Phase away and get things over with, considering Brang and Rinne were the only witnesses who mattered in the room, I decided against it and left the place, and the Fauns, in the old general's capable hands. I was planning to head outside, and have some people witness my departure from the mansion before I teleported to the last stop, and it was only when I was already out of the old servants' quarter building that I realized that Mountain Girl followed after me.

"Aren't you tired?" I asked, and despite the visible circles under her eyes, she shook her head.

"No, Rinne is fine. Since Leonard-dono is still working, Rinne cannot rest either." She paused and glanced at the lit windows of the main building. "Naoren-san must be working too."

"Probably," I noted with indifference as we kept walking towards the main gates. "It was a crazy day."

"Rinne agrees. Rinne never thought that Rinne would get to fight the monsters of the Empyrean Realm today, and Rinne is feeling really invigilated by the experience."

Despite what she said, her using her own name ever more than usual told me she was more out of it than she wanted to let me on, but I played along.

"Figures. I said this already, but you did well today."

"Of course! Rinne always does well. Even Naoren-sain praised Rinne today."

"Did he?" I spoke absently as we reached the gates, and I waved at the guard on night shift to let us through. He wanted to know if we needed a ride, but I dismissed him, not only because we didn't need one, but also due to Mountain Girl hogging my attention.

"Yes, Naoren-san really did! Naoren-san said Rinne looked gallant, like a fairy."

That… was pretty weird, so I had a feeling that she either used the wrong word, or the guy meant something different. Or maybe in China, fairies were badass? It could be. Whatever the case might've been though, she suddenly grew more enthusiastic.

"Ah, Rinne just remembered! Can Rinne ask for a day of leisure from Leonard-dono?"

"… You mean a day off?"

"Yes, that's what Rinne meant!" She exclaimed with a look that said I was the weird one for repeating the same thing she just said.

"Do you need rest? Were you injured?"

"Hm? No, of course not. Rinne is not so weak." She stopped here, so I gestured for her to continue, yet she seemed unwilling to do so. In the end, she still gave in, and told me, "Naoren-san said Naoren-san wanted to reward Rinne for Rinne's support during the battle, so Naoren-san will host a feast in Rinne's honor!"

Oh god. The name overload is getting worse. Maybe pronouns aren't so evil after all…?

"So, you want a day off to have a 'feast' with Naoren," I summarized, eliciting a nod. "Sure. Ask me again once things calmed down a bit. For now, if you want to come along, then get in my shadow."

"As Leonard-dono commands!" she declared, and after making a couple of hand seals, she merged into the shadow cast by the nearby street lamp.

We weren't fully hidden, but the tree on our left and the hedge on our right provided enough cover. Meanwhile, I couldn't help but exhale a soft grunt in amusement. Leave it to Naoren to grab every opportunity to get what he wants, by any means necessary. Including the seemingly bottomless stomach of a certain dense ninja woman.

I wished him the best of luck, and with those final thoughts, I disappeared from the shady street corner. My destination: the School.