Chapter 116: ~Chapter 41~ Part 1

"Ouch!" My entire upper body jerked back as a hiss escaped my mouth against my will, much to my eternal (or at the very least momentary) shame and embarrassment.

"Sorry," Snowy yanked back her hand as if she just touched a hot stove, nearly dropping the swab of cotton wool in it.

"I'm fine, don't worry about it," I reassured her and gestured for her to continue. She showed me an apologetic smile and, after just a moment of hesitation, she resumed her basic but much-needed treatment of my wounds, which quickly managed to draw another pained hiss out of me.

"No matter how much you play it up, I'm not going to feel sorry for you," Judy grumbled nearby, prompting me to send her an annoyed glance.

At the moment all three of us were in my room, and my dear assistant was sitting on the side of my bed with one of our first aid kits on her lap, and yes, I did use plural there. I bought half a dozen of them the moment I realized we were in a battle-shounen setting, just in case someone inevitably got hurt.

Speaking of getting hurt, while Judy's initial description of my condition painted a grim picture, I actually only suffered small cuts, albeit quite a number of them. Whatever a 'Plasma Disintegrator' was, it apparently turned solid objects into tons of small fragments moving at high speed, but with little penetrative power. Either that, or I made my departure just the nick of time and managed to avoid all but the first wave of the shrapnel sprayed out by the exploding wall.

Speaking of shrapnel… well, I did have a few pieces of sharp concrete fragments stuck in my face and my right shoulder, but they barely pierced past my skin, so it was easy (if not exactly pleasant) to extract them with a pair of tweezers.

Anyway, I sent a reproachful glance at Judy and told her in an especially neutral and in no way whiny voice, "I'm not hissing for attention. When something hurts, it hurts."

"Such cutting insight," she responded sourly while raising a bundle of bandages to her eye level and inspecting it like she hasn't seen one in her life. It was probably her way of showing her dissatisfaction by pointedly refusing to look at me. In the meantime Snowy began disinfecting another scrape on my cheek, so I let out a silent hiss that somehow still didn't escape her notice, prompting my assistant to let out a soft huff that I could easily translate as a snappy 'Serves you right.'

After subtly rolling my eyes I turned in my swivel chair so that I was facing her (which also forced Snowy to move, but she didn't seem to mind), and I grumpily told her, "You know Dormouse, you're being so grouchy, one would think you were the one who almost got blasted by a murderbot."

Judy sent me a sharp look in return, after which she put the bandages back into the box and then put the first aid kit onto the bed beside her, and only then did she answer, "Yes Chief, I'm angry. With you in particular." Her straightforward confirmation took me aback for a moment, but before I could formulate a proper response, she continued, "I thought we agreed that our safety, which incidentally includes yours as well, was very important, yet you went ahead and got yourself injured. Again."

"Hey! I didn't go over there with the express purpose to get injured," I objected with a forceful wave of my hand. Snowy, in the meantime, completely avoided both our argument and my hand and continued to treat the smaller scrapes on my shoulder and chest. My little sister was such a trooper.

Nevertheless, Judy was only giving me the same cold look, so I explained to her, "Listen Dormouse, I told you I only went over to tag the mad scientist guy while the rare window of opportunity presented itself. It was a once in a lifetime deal!"

"You still should've been more cautious about it," she retorted with the same disapproving look on her face… which actually didn't look all that different from her normal expression, but trust me, it was so scathing it could intimidate water into boiling at room temperature.

"I was careful!" I objected maybe a smidgen louder than strictly necessary. "I made sure to hide and I distracted them and everything! How was I supposed to know his android had a buster cannon and that she wasn't three laws compliant?"

"If you didn't know her capabilities, then it should've been all the more reason to be careful and not rush things," she countered. "You should've waited until they were separated."

"But I had no way of knowing if they would! Did you expect me to stake them out for hours just on the off-chance that they might separate for a moment?"

"No, I didn't, because you didn't tell me where you disappeared to."

I had a snappy comeback on the tip of my tongue, but then I thought things over, and settled on, "Well, okay, I admit that's true, but it was a sudden opportunity. If I didn't act right away, then I might've never got another one."

"Or you might have calmed down, thought things through, avoided running headlong into danger, and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Oh, please! I told you, I was simply blindsided! It happens to everyone! I was simply a victim of the circumstances."

"If you are a victim, then why do you keep defending yourself so vehemently? Could it be you have a guilty conscience?"

"No, I obviously don't," I fumed. "What about being innocent until proven guilty? Where is my attorney? Can I at least get my phone call before anything else?"

"Stop doing that," Judy grumbled, but then her eyes suddenly sparkled with some kind of realization and she turned to Snowy and told her, "See? Whenever he knows he cannot win an argument, he derails the conversation. You should really keep an eye on that if you plan to live in the same household with him."

"Hey!" I interrupted before Snowy could respond to my assistant's attempt at character assassination. "Don't try to turn my sister against me!"

"I'm not turning her against you; I'm simply delineating some important advice for her which just happens to include her reckless, irresponsible stepbrother."

"No, you're not!" I continued my protests. "You're the one who cannot prove that I was careless and not just a victim of blind chance, so you are trying to get me to back down by using peer pressure!"

"I'm not," Judy denied everything, then she pointed at the hapless girl glancing back and forth between the two of us and proposed, "Why don't you ask her whether she thinks you are a careful person or someone who refuses to take responsibility for his reckless actions?"

"You know what? I will do just that!" I answered defiantly before facing Snowy and asking her, at point-blank range, "So, sis? Do you have anything to add to our discussion?"

Snowy was obviously taken aback by how she was suddenly thrust into the spotlight, but after a short moment of fidgeting she glanced between each of us one more time, and then she told me, "I… I'm sure Leo wanted to be careful and didn't put himself at risk for no reason." At this point I wanted to direct a giddy grin at my grumpy girlfriend, but before it could materialize on my face, Snowy continued by saying, "But… I think you should be even more careful. I mean… um… I really don't want to sound selfish, and I'm sure you are doing your best, but if you made a mistake and something really, really bad happened to you I… I really don't know what I would do, or where I could go. So… um…" she paused again, sent one helpless glance at each of us in turn, and then she blurted out, "So, please take care of yourself?"

For a moment there was a strange silence in the air as Judy and I glanced at each other. I figured Snowy's reaction wasn't exactly what either of us was expecting, but it was my brotherly duty to break the ice, so I carefully placed my hand on my fidgeting sister's head and began to gently rub it.

"If you put it like that, I can't really argue, now can I?" I spoke with an easy smile to put her at ease. "I promise I will be even more careful in the future, all right?"

"O-Okay," Snowy responded by awkwardly nodding, and we were just about to have the inkling of a cozy atmosphere when Judy butted in.

"How come that when I tell you the same thing you argue tooth and nail, but when Neige does it, you immediately fold and agree to the same thing?"

"What can I say? It's the power of a little sister. I'm powerless against it," I replied with a suitably brotherly grin.

Judy's eyes told me she was still pretty peeved with me, but for the moment she remained silent. I considered that as a tacit admission of defeat, a conclusion that was entirely reasonable and in no way a convenient interpretation of the situation. No sir.

Anyhow, I reluctantly stopped petting Snowy, and while drawing back my arm I also limbered up my shoulder a little.

"So, how's my treatment? Are we finished?" I asked in a fairly transparent attempt at directing the conversation into a more neutral direction.

"I think I did what I could," Snowy began, but then immediately stopped in surprise when Judy sidled closer to her and began stroking her head in turn, probably as a show of her competitive spirit. Either that, or maybe seeing me doing the same simply got her into the mood. Either way, after a brief spell of confusion my sister continued, "None of your wounds were deep, but you should have Angie take a look at you tomorrow."

"I'll do just that. Thanks," I told her with a smile before I rose to my feet and checked out my band-aid-covered right side. All in all, while my fresh new collection of scrapes and cuts stung quite a bit every now and then, they didn't actually hinder my movements. Bearing in mind our unpredictable and oftentimes dangerous circumstances, my mobility was a vital thing to consider, especially since I just promised Snowy that I'd be really careful. If nothing else, now I felt reasonably certain I would still be able to get out of the way of another stray Plasma Disintegrator blast coming my way.

"Before that, you should try avoiding getting attacked in the first place," Judy warned me with a strained frown, which she no doubt found hard to maintain due to the amazing soul-mending effects of petting a little sister. I tell you, if they didn't exist, we'd have to invent them… which, now that I thought about it (and considering our unusual familiar circumstances) I kind of did.

Anyhow, I gave my assistant an odd look and asked, "Did you just read my mind?"

"No, I simply extrapolated from the 'I feel tubular! I'm gunna totes avoid any gnarly men in grey suits next time! Mondo cool!' look on your face."

At first I wanted to outright deny her words, but instead all I could say was, "Wait, why does my inner monologue sound like surfer lingo!?"

My dearest assistant only shrugged her shoulder, as if I was the silly one for even asking, and I felt that if I continued with my questions, we would either get bogged down in another argument, or we would end up with one of Judy's skits. I wasn't in the mood for either, so I simply ignored her and addressed Snowy again.

"Thanks for dressing my wounds sis, I owe you one. That said, if I don't need any more treatment, I think you should go and finish your homework. It's getting late."

My stepsister hesitated for a moment, but when Judy finally removed her hand from her head, she ultimately yielded and stood up as well.

"You're right. I have a lot of catching up to do." Saying so, she made her way over to the door, but then after opening it she glanced back and quietly said, "Don't fight," before quickly walking out and closing it behind herself.

After the first moment of surprise passed, I couldn't help but let out a mirthful little chuckle. I sat back down on my chair and told my still sulky assistant, "You know, I think adopting Snowy was easily the second-best decision I've ever made."

"What was the first?" she asked back without batting an eye.

"I'm not telling," I replied with a positively impudent grin.

"That does it," Judy responded as she crossed her arms. "If only you said it outright, I would've let you sweep your previous faux pa under the rug. Now I'll have to—"

"Later, Dormouse. Later," I cut her off in a considerably more serious voice. "We have more important things to discuss first."

She gave me a long, hard, critical look, but at last she sighed in resignation and said, "I'm listening."

"You do that," I replied as I moved to a more comfortable position in my seat, after which I began by explaining, "Since I didn't have the chance to clarify what just happened while I was away, I think I'm going to start with that. I don't want to bore you with the nitty-gritty details so, in a nutshell: The nurse works with the guy who ambushed you. Using him as an anchor point, I teleported over to their base. The guy had a hilariously dressed fembot. I overheard that they are working with Lord Grandpa, that they are planning further ambushes, and that they are wary of me and Snowy. After learning all of this I set up some diversion and managed to mark the guy, but after that, his fembot blew up a wall and I got hit by the debris. You know the rest. Any questions?"

"Where is their base?" came the first one right away.

"Somewhere underground. I don't know its exact location yet, but I should be able to figure it out soon enough."

"How exactly is Mr. Peabody related to Dr. Robatto?"

"He called the nurse uncle, so probably familial, though I can't be sure yet. Also, stop calling him Robatto, it's obviously a fake name."

"Do you know his real name then?"

"No, I still don't know, but I should learn it any time now."

"In that case, since the only name by which we know Dr. Robatto is Dr. Robatto, I will keep calling Dr. Robatto Dr. Robatto until we learn the alleged true name of Dr. Robatto."

Initially I wondered if she was serious, and since it seemed like she was, I let out a tiny little groan.

"... You know, I think I won't even ask if you are doing it on purpose, because you didn't even bother to be subtle about it. Instead will just ask you to stop it."

"I'll stop it if you stop being reckless," Judy responded sharply.

"Ugh, not this again…" I groaned, this time aloud, after which I stressed, "I wasn't reckless. Everything was perfectly under control."

"Until a wall exploded."

"Well, yes, I admit that wasn't in my calculations, but only because it is hard to account for something so randomly over the top. By the same logic, you might as well say that walking outside is reckless because a random, unexpected thunderbolt could hit me at any time."

"No, Chief," Judy shook her head hard as her expression was getting frostier by the second. "The reckless part would be going out in a thunderstorm while yelling at the sky and calling Zeus a pansy who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."

"... Ooookay, I kinda lost the tail end of this analogy, but I am pretty sure I didn't do that." I responded a little awkwardly, but then I forcefully inhaled and firmly stated, "We are getting so off-topic I'm afraid soon we will make a full circle and get on topic again by accident."

Judy's expression was still colder than the tundras, so I let out an exasperated breath and decided to try a slightly less confrontational approach by softly pleading, "Come on Dormouse, cut me some slack already. If you want me to apologize for scaring you, then will. I'll even apologize for leaving without telling you where I was teleporting to. However, I still think that I did the objectively right thing in the situation. I've successfully infiltrated an enemy base, gained critical intel, and marked the leader for surveillance. Was a few scratches really such a bad deal in exchange for all of that?"

"There was a four centimeters long piece of jagged concrete in your shoulder," Judy countered with a flat voice that told me she was slowly getting fed up with the argument. She wasn't alone, but I tried my best to keep things civil.

"Yes, but it was only one centimeter deep in. You are making it sound like a bigger deal than it actually was."

My assistant was still giving me a disapproving look, but after a short while the tension seemed to slowly seep out of her shoulder, followed by a small sigh.

"Listen, Leo," she began, and I'm not going to lie, just the fact that she was suddenly using my actual name made me twitch in apprehension. "Since you are incredibly dense about this, I'm going to spell it out for you so that there could be no way you can misunderstand or make a joke out of this." Once she raised the tension of the room like that, she took a deep breath and told me, "Neige is not the only one who is relying on you. If something were to happen to you, I would be just as lost. Actually, no, I would be even worse off. She's a major part of this world. Even if you disappeared, she would have Joshua and her own importance in the narrative to fall back to. Me? Chief, if it wasn't for your influence, the 'me' you are talking to right now wouldn't even exist." She looked me in the eyes for a second at this point, probably to gauge my reaction, and she must have found it lacking, as she soon added, "You have to understand I'm not worried about you just because I love you. I am also worried because if something were to happen to you, I would lose the literal reason for my existence."

"Oh please, Dormouse," I cajoled her as I rose from my seat again and sat by her side instead. "I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel unduly flattered by the fact that you find me so important in your life, even if the way you express your concern is a little naggy, but we both know that's a straight-up hyperbole." She wasn't too receptive to my words, so I immediately changed my approach. "Okay then, how about we put all that aside for a moment and instead we address the proverbial elephant in this room?"

"Which is?" Judy obediently prompted me.

"It's obviously the fact that you are laboring under the false impression that I'm some kind of daredevil taking risks left and right," I clarified with just a hint of indignation. "It's almost like you think I'm seeking dangerous situations on purpose, but it's the exact opposite! Everything I do is to reduce the amount of danger all of us, including myself, are exposed to. I scouted out the enemy, discovered some of their plans, and I successfully marked my target so that I could find out their future plans as well, and best of all, they are none the wiser about my involvement. No matter how we look at this, it was a rousing success that will ensure that we can stay one step ahead and avoid any future dangers from that front."

"And that is your excuse for willingly putting yourself in harm's way," Judy stated with an edge of vitriol in her voice, but I could still feel that I already had a foot in the door.

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"No," I responded while putting an arm around her waist. "I feel like a broken record, but it seems like I have to repeat this again: This was a covert operation. I didn't go there to pick a fight, and the only reason things got even remotely dangerous was because the fembot decided to blow up a wall for practically no reason. However, even if we say that my injuries weren't just the result of an unreasonable reaction by an unpredictable android-person-thing but a risk I took, I'd still say it was better to expose myself to a small risk now than to be in the dark about a much bigger danger in the future."

"Fine, I understand," It appeared Judy finally threw up the white flag, and she leaned against me a little before she continued. "I think… I know that I'm irrational right now, but—"

"I get it," I interrupted her as I squeezed her a little closer. "You were scared when I showed up covered in blood and bits of concrete, it turned into anxiety, and then you pestered me out of frustration. You just explained that to me."

My girlfriend glanced up at me and her previously thawing expression froze over once again.

"Chief, are you picking a fight with me?"

"No, I'm not. I'm just summing things up on no uncertain terms so that we can both move on and can have make-up-snuggles," I responded. After a short but intense standoff, Judy sighed and rested her head against my shoulder, and my hand automatically reached around her waist to hold her even closer.

"I understand that you can't help taking some risks. I also understand that you don't do it on purpose. However, I want you to understand something as well. If something like this were to happen again, and you return covered in blood, I'm going to get Elly, Neige, and everyone else, and we are going to do an intervention so traumatic you won't even dare to think about being reckless for the rest of your life. Are we clear on that?"

"Crystal," I told her with a small chuckle that she didn't seem to appreciate at the moment, as she immediately slipped out of my embrace and put a nominal distance between us.

"Very well. So, since we buried the hatchet for the time being, could you put on some clothes?"

"What?" the question fell out of my mouth in surprise and I looked myself over. "Is there a problem?"

My dear assistant gave me an 'Is this guy serious?' look (which was admittedly still vastly preferable compared to her sub-zero frowns from before), but since I still couldn't decipher her precise meaning, she slowly explained to me, "While I don't feel strongly for or against bandages, I have to admit that they give you a rugged look that is somewhat… distracting."

Even after that, it took me several long seconds to figure out what she was getting at, but when I did, I couldn't help but grin like a well-fed cat.

"Oooooh? I get it now," I spoke between two chuckles, and while my instincts told me to tease her for a while, I figured that since we just reached a common ground, doing so would've been counter-productive. Instead, I stood up and proceeded to put on a clean t-shirt and a sweater before I sat down by her side again. The atmosphere was a little tense, in a different way from just a few minutes ago, but I decided to simply ignore it.

"So, where were we before you got distracted by me?"

"We were discussing your recklessness," Judy supplied the wrong answer with a straight face.

"No, I meant before that," I clarified.

"Marking Dr. Robatto."

"Right, that," I said with a shallow nod, then after a moment of thinking I continued by telling her, "So, the plan, for the time being, is fairly simple: I keep an eye on the guy and foil future ambushes. I also have a bit of a side-plan, so to speak, inspired by our discussion on the rooftop."

"About avoiding being a protagonist?"

"Precisely," I answered with an over-exaggerated nod. "I plan to set Josh up to capture the guy. This way we can hit kill two birds with one stone; we can put an end to the sentai shenanigans, and at the same time we can have Josh take a more active role and reassert himself as the protagonist."

Judy looked at me oddly for a while, then she eventually asked me, "Chief, just why are you so against sentai?"

"… Was that a serious question?" I asked back with a suspiciously raised brow.

"Yes. I did a little research while you were gone, and to be honest with you, if we really are experiencing a genre shift, we could do a lot worse than that." She quickly realized I was far from convinced, so she clarified, "According to what I found, sentai appears to be less bloody and has less competent antagonists than any form of harem battle or shounen narrative. Their main plots are also simpler and more predictable, which would help with setting up controlled scenarios for testing narrative hypotheses."

"Is that all?" I inquired after waiting for a few seconds to see if she wanted to add anything else.

"Actually," she suddenly perked up and added, "Mentors seem to have a very high survival rate in sentai, so you might want to consider that for the future."

I sneakily rolled my eyes at her remark and reiterated my previous question.

"Anything else?"

"I only had a few minutes to look it up, so that's all I have for now," my assistant admitted a little uncomfortably. Whether that was because she felt bashful about her lack of knowledge or because of my blunt mannerisms, I didn't know.

"I see," I muttered under my breath with a sagely nod before I raised my right hand (ignoring the stinging pain in my shoulder) and showed her three fingers. "I can give you exactly three reasons why genre-shifting into a sentai would be absolutely horrible." I halted for a moment as I curled two of my fingers and shook the remaining one for emphasis. "First and foremost, it's this little thing called 'villain of the week'. I think you should be familiar with the term." Judy gave me a nod in confirmation, so I didn't bother to explain it, instead I immediately went into what it implied. "Imagine that we collectively would have to deal with a new mustache-twirling villain or monster showing up at regular intervals, only for them to get defeated and never to be mentioned again. And then another. And then another. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum."

"I don't think our current situation is dissimilar," she offered a counter-point without missing a beat. "A week after Noire, we had the monster hunter and Dr. Robatto appear in quick succession."

"Precisely," I nodded in agreement. "Imagine if this kept happening all the time, except with mostly unremarkable fodder opponents. It would be one unremarkable fight after another, day in, day out."

"Wouldn't it be a good way to train Joshua and the others?" Judy suddenly proposed.

"That's…" I wanted to dismiss the idea out of hand, but at the end of the day, I closed my mouth and thought about the option with maybe a bit more seriousness than it deserved. "I mean, it's not a horrible idea, especially now that I can track our 'villain' and make arrangements before his ambushes to make sure they would turn out well for us, but I feel it would be simply too much work."

"You're probably right," Judy readily conceded the point, much to my surprise. "We already spend too much time dealing with these diversions, and we are behind on our experimentation schedule by a country mile."

"That's true; we didn't really have the time and opportunity to focus on further studying the world as of late," I mused for a moment, but then I quickly added, "Although, now that I think about it, trying to prevent a genre shift would certainly qualify as a grand experiment, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose," Judy shrugged her shoulders in a decidedly non-committed way. Somewhere along the line she also took out her phone and began taking notes and she encouraged me to continue by stating, "You said you had two more reasons to stop the genre shift."

"Yes, I had," I confirmed as I raised my hand again, this time with two fingers extended. "The second serious problem is about secret identities. In a sentai series, the main characters, which would be us in this context, would always fight the big evil doughnut monster in space or whatever while keeping incognito. That, of course, means silly costumes and even sillier transformation sequences. I think we have our hands full with the already existing masquerade and keeping Josh's status as the prophesized chosen one of everyone a secret, we don't need alternate superhero identities to further complicate things on top of that."

My dear assistant faithfully typed what I said into her notes.

"I suppose that is a valid concern after all. What was your third point?"

"It's silly," I answered right away.

"Your point?"

"No!" I answered with a huff. "Sentai. It's silly."

My girlfriend's fingers stopped mid-tap and she glanced up at me with an extra-deadpan expression.

"Is that really your capstone argument?"

"Actually, yes, yes it is," I doubled down without a moment of hesitation. "If you want to know why, just take my previous two points, and add the fact that instead of not-demons and shape-shifting monsters, we would be dealing with ridiculous looking robots and stuff like bulky, mechanical, half-aardvark-half-elephant-half-octopus creatures with giant stop-signs on their backs doing martial arts and ninja flips."

"That would be certainly weird," Judy concurred, and I immediately nodded for emphasis.

"Precisely. And, in the immortal words of a certain spiky-haired person whose name eludes me at the moment, 'If everything is bloody weird, nothing is bloody weird.'"

"Was that a real quote?"

"I might've been paraphrasing a little but the sentiment is the same," I responded along with a confident nod. "We've been trying to catch the coattails of the rules that run this world by picking at things that conflict with our common sense. If we genre shift into a sentai, it follows that space alien invasions that no one notices and apocalyptic kaijuu battles that somehow cause zero collateral damage are going to become a norm. If that becomes the norm, then common sense goes out the window. If it goes out the window, our research is screwed. It's like when we discovered the supernatural, but ten times worse."

"That objection was actually considerably more nuanced than I expected from the initial premise. Good job, Chief."

"Thank you, I'm trying," I answered with a modest smile. "So, as I said, we really need to avoid this scenario. I'm personally in favor of setting things up so that Josh could deal with Labcoat Guy himself while we are still in the battle-harem genre, and then quickly disassemble his operation to prevent any resurgence of the sentai shenanigans."

My dear assistant remained silent for a second, not even typing, and ultimately asked, "How is calling him Labcoat Guy better than Dr. Robatto?"

"It's in the principle, my dear," I told her with fake condescension before switching back to normal and asking, "Do you have anything else to add?"

"I still think we should consider exploiting them at first," Judy proposed. "If Dr. Robatto and his group really serve as ineffectual introductory villains who exist to give free group combat experience to Joshua and his love interests, then it logically follows that such experience would be required by the narrative for later events and antagonists. Depriving them of it might cause more harm than good in the long run."

"That's true, but only if we presume that it is their Doylist 'purpose'," I countered. "If we consider them in the Watsonian context, they could easily be just a cog in a bigger plan."

"Are you still convinced that the Arch-mage is behind everything?"

"More or less, yes. Now we know the Masked Science Bandit is working with him, and since I have him marked, it's only a question of time before I'll catch him red-handed and we learn all the juicy details."

Judy sent me a flat look and then she, unexpectedly enough, began to straight-up plead with me.

"Chief, could you please just call him Dr. Robatto?"

"No, never, not a chance," I answered her firmly. "Seriously though, based on what they said, I think they might serve as some kind of distraction."

"For what?"

"I'll be damned if I knew, but that's also something I should be able to find out soon-ish," I paused here and gave my assistant a cocky little grin. "You see? Marking Mr. Panda-eyes McSpikyhair opened up so many new avenues to approach the current situation."

"I'm not even going to comment on the new name," Judy grumbled quietly, yet loud enough for me to hear.

I stifled a chuckle and absent-minded added, "I should try and mark Lord Grandpa next. The moment I did that, we should be able to unravel this whole plot like a tasteless knit Christmas sweater."

"You should also mark the huntress," my assistant added. "Preferably without any flirting in the process."

"I know, I know," I muttered, but then I had a sudden idea. "Now that we are talking about this, give me a second to check my marks."

Judy shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, but at the same time she was obviously a little apprehensive after what happened last time.

"So, let's start with Crowey. ... He is staring at the ceiling, not particularly riveting. Nothing with Josh. Nothing is going on over at Angie's place either. Ammy is still doing paperwork, so same old, same old. The sentai wannabes are currently... filing for insurance over the wall. How oddly mundane. The Fauns are currently..." I was just about to describe the situation, but then my words trailed off and I simultaneously jumped to my feet.

"Don't you dare...!" Judy hissed as she hastily rose from the side of the bed as well.

"They found her," I told her curtly while I untangled my slightly damaged coat from the back of my swivel chair.

"You are injured," she insisted and tried to take my coat away, but I didn't let her.

"Only a little, and this is important," I argued back. "I'm not going there to fight anyone. I'll just get in, mark her, and get out."

Judy didn't say anything right away, only glared at me, but at last she let out a shallow sigh and told me, "If there is even the slightest hint of danger, you are coming home right away."

"I promise," I responded with a smile.

"I'm serious. If there's a single new scratch on you when you return, I can't promise I won't strangle you."

"Then I better return unscratched," I told her, and then I quickly followed it up by leaned over and planting a small kiss on her mouth. "I'll be super safe. Love you, xoxo."

And with that, I immediately teleported away.

This time I had to be very thorough, both in terms of safety and anti-harem countermeasures, lest Judy would declare a cold war on me right after we made up. But then again, with my recent track record, it might happen anyway no matter how well-prepared I was. Oh well, I decided I'd swim under that bridge when I got there, and instead I focused on accomplishing my new self-imposed mission while staying safe. I had a feeling it was easier said than done, but such was my life.

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