The Simulacrum - Chapter 100 - Part 3 (Patreon)

The living room had been early silent for close to a minute while I patiently waited for Roland to digest everything I'd just explained to him. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling just a touch apprehensive, considering the man's expression was getting steadily darker over time, but this was a bridge I had to cross sooner or later, so I figured it was best to rip off the proverbial band aid in one go instead of drawing it out any further.

Before long, Mr. Griffon let out a thoughtful hum and changed his posture, signifying that he was ready to talk.

"This is a lot to take in at once, so let me see if I understood everything right. You created this alter-ego as a disguise, then used it to keep us in check, and then you tried to frame him as a common threat to help the forming of the Draconic Federation."

"That's the gist of it."

"All right. So now that we're on the same page, I have a few questions."

"Ask away."

After giving him the go, Roland shifted his posture again, leaning back with one arm crossed and one hand pinching his chin.

"First we must make sure this information doesn't spread ahead of time. How many people are aware of the fact that you're Bel?"

"Quite a few, actually." That was apparently an inadequate answer, so I elaborated. "Judy and Elly obviously do. So do the Fauns, Rinne, and Ichiko. I already told you about my encounter with Raven Boy and Morgana, and—"

"Are their Squires aware?" Roland cut in, and I quickly shook my head.

"No, not directly, but they were told I was the one who ordered Morgana and Agrawain to pretend they were mind-controlled by Bel, so they should be aware of a connection. Oh, and speaking of loose connections, Josh, Ammy, and Angie had seen me teleport around while wearing a mask. I talked my way out of that one back then, but they might also draw the obvious parallel."

"I see. Is there anyone else?"

"Well, Fred and Galatea helped make the costume, so they are also aware, and then there's Caledfwlch and Pudding-kun, but they can't talk."

"What about your sister?"

"Penny obviously doesn't know, and I haven't told Snowy either."

"The Feilong patriarch?" I must've looked like I didn't understand the question, as he added, "You told me he conspired with you to create your alibi during the tournament."

"Ah, right. I didn't explain that properly, did I? You see, I told Naoren about what was going to happen, but I never explicitly told him I was Bel, only that I need to orchestrate the events from the shadows. So far, he doesn't seem to suspect that I'm Bel."

"So that's all of them. Next question: who are the people you interacted with as Bel who doesn't know your true identity?"

"You, for a start, at least until a couple of minutes ago, along with the rest of the Knights. Then there's the Feilong grand elder, his body double, and his bodyguards. Plus, you know, everyone present at the arena during the tournament interruption."

"Is there anyone among those who would suspect you?"

"I don't think so? The only two people I'd extensively interacted with were the grand elder and Xiao, and neither of them raised a fuss so far."

"True. There's no way they wouldn't try to use this as a bargaining chip if they were aware. Anyone else?"

"Let me see… There was this Celestial agent called Jaakobah, plus that time I went into the Abyss and I was seen by the spymaster of the Inanna house, but that's all, I think."

I intended those to be stray comments, yet the way Roland's face slacked at the mere mention of those events raised all kinds of red flags in my mind.

"Excuse me? You went into the Abyss?"

"Yes. I can teleport there the same way as I do everywhere else."

"That… Let's put it aside for now. What was that about the Celestials?"

"Right, I guess I forgot to mention that. My right hand was injured before my Arbitration duel with Penny, so I used Bel to trick this Celestial special agent healer into fixing it before the fight, and—"

"Hold on. Please, hold on," Roland stopped me, one hand clasped around his forehead. "You didn't mention either of these events in your previous explanation."

"I… thought they weren't strictly necessary. Weren't we mainly discussing how I could reveal that I'm Bel to the others without anyone strangling me?"

"True, but the longer I'm listening to you, the more I feel like we have already passed the threshold where that is a reasonable thing to worry about," Mr. Griffon grumbled before sharply exhaling to center himself. "Please explain these as well, without leaving out any details."

"Fine, fine," I mumbled, and then shortly launched into a long description of the events, how I might've accidentally caused a Celestial coup d'état with a couple of stray words, how I was caught red-handed by one of Crowey's subordinates while I was trying to cause havoc in the Abyss, and how my Bel persona somehow got mistaken for the Emperor of the Abyss coming back by the people living there.

Roland listened closely to my words, his expression constantly shifting from intrigued to shocked to completely unreadable, and once I finished recounting everything, he all but buried his face in his hands.

"Is that all?"

"Yes, I think so."

"You didn't leave any other major incident that could cause a major political scandal, right?"

"Well… there was that one time I took one of the Assembly's Grimoire Keys, but that had nothing to do with Bel, and I've returned it to its owner already."

"Of course you did," Mr. Griffon continued to gripe. "Give me a second."

I did so, and while he contemplated, I also couldn't help but realize that, when I put all my sneaky, weird, and sometimes coincidental exploits as Bel together like that, they sounded crazy even to my ears.

"All right, let's make one thing clear before we proceed any further," Roland jolted me out of my thoughts, and I gestured for him to speak his mind. "Are you an Abyssal?"

"No, as far as I know, I'm not."

"As far as you know," he repeated after me and pointed at my face. "You have amnesia. Is it possible that you are one without your knowledge?"

"I sincerely doubt it. Elly's folks did some kind of blood test before we started dating, and it said I was one hundred percent purebred human."

"Could it be mistaken? Or could someone fake the results?"

"I… have no idea. I've never seen the test results myself, but my in-laws trusted it without question. Why?"

Roland gave me an odd look and followed it up with a sigh.

"Leonard. It's blindingly obvious that you aren't human. We've already talked about this after your Arbitration with Penelope, but your physical capabilities are obviously superhuman, you are able to freely teleport as far as the Abyss, you could block dragon fire with your bare hands, and you manifested spectral wings while doing so. I don't know if you're an Abyssal, or something else entirely, but you're definitely something other than a purebred human, as you put it."

"I can't really say anything about the superhuman aspect, but blocking those beam attacks was just an application of my ability to dispel magic, and as for the wings, those are related to an entirely different matter that doesn't really factor into this discussion. Let's just say we're already looking into that, and it probably has little to do with being an Abyssal or not."

"If you say so." Needless to say, Roland wasn't entirely convinced by my explanation but didn't press the issue, at least for now. "In any case, the fact that you are not human remains, in fact, a fact. More importantly, after hearing all of that, I have to strongly advise against telling anyone else about your second identity."

"It's more of a disguise, but… Wasn't the whole point of this talk to figure out how to do that?"

"I'm afraid it's impossible at this point. If we were only talking about your previous interactions with us, we might've been able to spin it in a positive light to diffuse any lingering hostilities. An act of benign deception for the sake of a greater good we couldn't perceive or comprehend at the time. Unfortunately, with all the rest of your actions combined, this is no longer a localized ruse, but a wide-reaching conspiracy. The first rule of those is to keep the number of conspirators at an absolute minimum."

"Is it really that bad?"

"Yes, it is," he emphasized, on no uncertain terms. "This no longer concerns just us, or the Draconic Federation, but the Celestials and the Abyssals as well. We cannot be too cautious in this situation. There are already too many people aware of your dual identities, and if even just one of them betrays you, it could spell doom for not only you, but all of us. Speaking of which, can your current co-conspirators be trusted?"

I didn't like the way he was phrasing things, but since I was the one who involved him and asked for advice, I had no choice but to grudgingly go with the flow.

"The girls are obviously trustworthy. The Fauns are loyal to me so long as I take care of Snowy, so they are fairly safe too, and considering their personalities, the ninjas are also okay. I have a fairly strong hook on the science duo, and they like working for me, so I doubt they'd betray me any time soon, and as for the rest, they literally cannot communicate with outsiders, so they are as safe as they get."

"What about Morgana and Agrawain?"

"They cannot betray me, at least about this topic." Seeing the skeptical glint in Roland's eye, I hastily explained, "It's a side-effect of the tweaking I did on the Oaths the last time. Don't worry too much about it."

He was still eyeing me with skepticism, but ultimately pressed on without getting bogged down on this issue.

"Very well. While I doubt Penelope, Arnwald, or Duncan would willingly disclose your information—"

"Oh, wait, I wasn't precise enough," I cut in, now that I finally realized the source of our misconnection. "They can't do that either. I mean, none of you can."

"Another side effect?" Roland guessed with a frown, and I confirmed his guess with a nod.

"It's why I was more worried about Duncan trying to beat me up than him spreading the news about my secret alter-ego."

"That… changes the equation somewhat, but whether we involve them in the conspiracy or not must wait."

Once again, I wanted to point out that letting them know was the whole reason why we were sitting here in the first place, but he continued speaking without allowing me to interject.

"As of now, the Celestials are fully aware that you're connected to Bel due to you establishing it yourself. We can't do much about that. On the other hand, we have to defuse the ticking bomb that is Joshua's group. You said they already know about your ability to freely teleport, right?"

"Yeah, though not to its full extent. I made a few excuses about how I require specific targets to teleport to, and that I needed a special artifact to teleport without them."

"Specifics, Leonard. Specifics. What are these targets and artifacts you speak of?"

"Um… For the former, I said I could only move next to the Magiformers, while the artifact was to explain why I wore the carnival mask during your attack on the Dracis mansion."

"Oh? This might be actually beneficial to us," Roland stated with a thin-lipped smile that didn't reach his eyes. "For the record, as far as the Celestials are aware, what is the nature of the partnership between Leonard Dunning and Bel of the Abyss?"

"It's… supposed to be something of a trade. I said I gave him info about the modern world, and in exchange… well, now that I think about it, I didn't exactly establish what Bel gave me in return."

"Great. We could definitely use this. Here's the scenario I have in mind: Bel had no money to pay you with, and he had no concept of what's valuable in the present time, so he offered to impart some of his abilities to you. This way, we can explain your capabilities, and we could claim the artifact you used at the time was something that belonged to Bel. While it's not air-tight, this explanation should hopefully placate your friends' suspicions at the very least. It also falls in line with the Celestials' expectations, so we kill two birds with one stone."

"Sounds… reasonable, I suppose."

Roland nodded, and then immediately launched into another idea.

"Next, we'll need to further establish Bel as a person entirely separate from you."

"I've already done my best to do that," I pointed out, and Mr. Griffon responded with an approving hum.

"True. If your description of the events was accurate, the Celestials wouldn't suspect you, and so long as the Feilong patriarch doesn't stab you in the back, your alibi for the events that transpired during the arena is rock solid. However, we need to go even further."

"Such as?"

"It would be best if we could arrange that Leonard Dunning and Bel of the Abyss could appear at the same time. If it was at the same place, even better."

"… You know, I can do many impossible things, but cloning myself doesn't happen to be one of them."

"No need for cloning when a body double would suffice," Roland told me with a shrug.

"I suppose."

He nodded, and continued in an eager, almost excited tone.

"First off, we have to establish a hostile relationship between your two identities. Your attitude towards Bel during the conference after the tournament was a good start, but we need to strengthen that impression. Ideally, it would be best if we could have Leonard and Bel have an argument, or better yet, a fight in front of a group of credible witnesses."

"Sounds neat, but I have no idea how we could arrange that," I admitted, but my words didn't dampen Mr. Griffon's mood at all.

"We should ask Sir Percival once he finally arrived on the island. He used to work as a stage magician after his retirement, so I'm sure he has a couple of tricks up his sleeve." Once again, my blank stare was probably hard not to notice, as Roland soon paused and asked, "Leonard. You haveinformed Sir Percival about what happened, right?"

"I… can't say I have."

This time he remained silent and only blinked at me like he just heard the most absurd thing ever, culminating in another facepalm.

"Right, your amnesia. I keep forgetting about it." Letting his hand down, Roland shook his head and regained a semblance of seriousness. "Does that mean you've yet to contact him?"

"No. I don't even know how to do that."

There was another beat, followed by a shallow sigh.

"My apologies. I simply took it for granted that you would immediately inform him at the earliest opportunity, and it didn't even cross my mind that you wouldn't. I should've realized it sooner."

"I don't think that's something you should apologize for, but—'

"In that case, I'll contact him tonight. Knowing him, it will take him at least a week or two to arrive at the earliest, so his arrival shouldn't interfere with the upcoming event at the resort."

I didn't know how to feel about this. On one hand, I felt ever-so-slightly mortified that he completely slipped my mind, between all the other things I had to worry about. On the other hand, I was suddenly feeling anxious about this ex-Knight coming to the island. After all, based on what I gathered over the past couple of weeks, he was not only the closest thing to a parental figure Penny and I ever had, but he was also somewhat… so to say… 'eccentric'. Needless to say, the last thing I needed in my life is another eccentric old guy, but on the other hand, I couldn't exactly avoid making contact with him forever.

"Let's put the matter of Sir Percival aside for now," Roland proposed, and I agreed on the spot. "So, to summarize, for this conspiracy to work, we need to do four things. First, we need to firmly establish, for all observers, that Leonard Dunning and Bel of the Abyss are, without a shadow of a doubt, two entirely separate entities."

"That goes without saying."

"Next, we have to ensure that the number of people in-the-know remains as small as possible. For this reason, I would advise against involving Penelope, Duncan, and Arnwald for now. As an added benefit, since Penelope is your sister, so long as she keeps professing her eternal hatred of Bel, it would help obfuscate your identity even further."

"Well, so long as it doesn't cause another misunderstanding. Like the last time."

Hearing my comment, Roland leveled a flat stare at me and said, "At the time, I was working with all the information I had available to me. Now I'm working with a considerably more extensive set of information. I do not accept any blame."

"I wasn't blaming you, just… Eh, never mind. What's part three?"

"For part three, we have to use the identity of Bel of the Abyss to his fullest. You've already laid down the groundwork for a wild card, and with careful application, we should be able to utilize Bel to keep both the Abyssals and the Celestials in check until we fully stabilized the Draconic Federation's foundations."

"So… Keep doing what I've been doing until now?"

"More responsibly, and with some oversight, but yes, that's the long and short of it."

"I can live with that. So, what's the last part?"

"This might be the most difficult part," Roland said in a heavy tone. "After all of that, we have to cover all our tracks."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we need to find a believable way to get the freely teleporting, dragon-bullying, untouchable, potential reincarnated Abyssal Emperor out of the picture." He paused here, then gravely concluded with, "In other words, we have to somehow figure out how to kill Bel."