The Simulacrum
There was an odd, tense silence in the dark trophy chamber, which lasted exactly until the knights outside rammed the barricaded door of the neighboring room for the umpteenth time. The dull sound of the impact made the large man in the middle twitch as if he just woke up and he hastily raised his heavy blade to assume a defensive stance. The squires, as the security guy called them, also overcame their momentary stupor at the same time and bunched together in the doorway. They all raised their kite shields and blocked the exit with something that, if you squinted hard enough, might be possibly considered the second-removed step-cousin of a proper shield wall.
Once everyone was in place, the big guy in the middle took an almost comically heavy step forward and pointed his blade at me with one hand. It was all veeeeeery dramatic, and not at all silly, I swear.
"Wha urr ye? Eydentify yersel' a' wance!"
I inhaled a sharp breath and was about to give a suitably snarky reply, but as I opened my mouth I stiffened for a second and then snapped it shut with a slightly painful clank of my teeth.
"That's... actually a very good question," I mused aloud, much to the belligerent men-at-arms' bafflement.
I mean, really; who was I? And no, I didn't mean that as some kind of profound question of Jungian psychology or the like, but as an entirely practical matter. As in, I sure as hell wasn't Leonard Dunning at the moment, especially after the trouble I went through to disguise myself. That naturally meant that I wasn't 'Blackcloak' or the resident 'Chimera Slayer' either. What other options did I have?
Admin? The guy was supposed to be on the other side of the globe, so if it got out that 'he' was here, it would undoubtedly raise a few Celestial brows, which was bad for my sustained espionage efforts. If not him, then who else could I be? I needed a context-appropriate, non-conflicting, and at least reasonably cool fake name.
The Jester? Nah, too on the nose. Persona? Too Jungian. Bel of the Tenebrous Flames? Too chuuni. Nyarlathotep? Too eldritch. The Kingpin? Too copyrighted. Shadow, the True Self? Heck, that's both Jungian and chuuni!
Okay, screw it, my brain was obviously too much of a mush at the moment to come up with something fitting, so...
"Give me a second, I'll be right back."
My words caused no small amount of confusion amongst the men in front of me, but I reckon not nearly as much as my subsequent disappearance from the room.
"Hey, Dormouse," I greeted my ever so slightly surprised girlfriend, but to her credit, she only looked stupefied for a moment before she directed a welcoming poker-face at me, which was made only slightly ridiculous by her party-glasses-shaped communication artifact. I also noted that, judging by the faint light of the magic circle under our feet, we were inside the fake teleportation closet for some reason, but that was beside the point.
"Hi, Chief. What are you doing here?" I was about to formulate an answer, but then her expression subtly darkened and she added, "Why are you swaying like that? Are you injured?"
"Nah, I'm just a little light-headed," I told her while indiscreetly leaning against the nearby wall. "Too much teleporting around in a short time. I'll live. More importantly, I need your brain."
This time my girlfriend's face was the spitting image of the anthropomorphic personification of skepticism.
"You look bad, but I don't think you're a zombie just yet, so please elaborate in a way I can actually understand."
I took a deep breath, and once I felt steady enough, I quickly explained myself.
"I'm currently planning to verbally engage some dastardly knights and tease some info out of them before the inevitable hostilities, but I need a fake identity for the charade. I want to pretend to be a mysterious, powerful, and knowledgeable villain of indefinite origins."
"So the same thing you used to do in the past, just with a mask on your face."
"And ambiguously evil."
"So an outside-context villain?"
"More or less. Do you have any ideas?"
Judy's brows once again furrowed ever-so-imperceptibly, and after a few seconds of consideration, she ultimately proposed, "How about masquerading as an Abyssal, like when you got Neige's ID forged?"
"That's… something I totally should've thought of myself," I muttered, after which I flashed an appreciative smile at her. She didn't react, and it was only then that I belatedly remembered that I was still wearing the carnival mask, so I voiced my sentiment as well. "Thanks, Dormouse. You're the best."
"You're welcome."
I was about to leave so that I wouldn't let the gaggle of swordsman wait for long, but before that, I quickly added, "Also, could you support me? I'm a little slow right now, so I think I might have further need for your grey matter."
"Sure. I can multitask," she responded with just the barest tinge of smugness in her voice. Or was it just run-of-the-mill confidence that only sounded weird when it came from her? While I pondered on where the line was between the two, I gave her a small nod, and promptly reappeared inside the trophy room again, eliciting a series of shocked gasps from the agitated antagonist populating the premises.
"Whit manner o' foul sorcery…!?"
"Please do forgive my tardiness. I had urgent matters to attend to, but now you may enjoy my undivided attention," I cut him off with my best sleazy villain impression. I'm not going to lie, it came out way easier than I expected.
"Ye! Wha th' hell's bells urr ye!?"
To further emphasize his question, the big man vigorously waved his weapon in my general direction, but I didn't feel any threat from him, so I casually ignored his attempts at intimidation with a shrug.
"You may call me…" I began in a casual tone, only to pause as I realized that I forgot to actually come up with a proper cover name. Worse yet, now that I began to give my answer, I couldn't backpedal out of it without ruining the image I was building right now, so after another moment of hesitation, I blurted out. "Bel."
"Bel?" came the befuddled whisper from one of the squires in the pseudo-shield-wall.
"{Bel?}" echoed the voice of my girlfriend, her tone a curious mixture of puzzlement and skepticism. Normally I would've made an excuse to the effect of 'Hey, they put me on the spot! At least I didn't accidentally add 'of the Tenebrous Flames' to it!', but considering the circumstances, I concluded that directly communicating with Judy would've only made things even more confusing.
"Bel of the Abyss," I stated off-handedly, and a second of hesitancy later I also added a scraping bow for the sake of showmanship. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
What followed was exactly half a second of silence before the big guy in the middle let out a stifled battle-cry and lunged towards me with his weapon held high. Oddly enough, my danger sense still didn't warn me about any incoming grievous bodily harm, but it was better to be safe than sorry, so I immediately Phased two meters to my right and well out of his immediate range. Oh, and I did that while still maintaining my bow, not on purpose, but because that's how Phasing worked.
In retrospect I probably shouldn't have bothered with it at all, as the big guy stopped his vertical swing midway, and based on his posture, he would've most likely done so whether I tried to get out of the way of the strike or not. The sudden attack also awakened my adrenal glands, as I was feeling a sudden rush that finally dispersed some of the fog dulling my thoughts, and I soon came up with a working hypothesis for his odd behavior.
"Now, now, sir Minotaur; do be careful." Saying so, I straightened myself and controlled my body language to appear as laidback and non-threatening as possible. "You almost broke one of your oaths there. Hurting poor, innocent me would've been quite a blunder, I say."
"If yer innocent, then a'm th' queen o Sassenach land!" the horny knight scoffed, his odd dialect still as hard to decipher as ever, but at the very least it didn't seem like he would try to turn me into minced meat again. For the moment, at least.
"Really?" I responded with a sneering grin that wasn't visible, yet it was important all the same. It's a lesser-known fact, but even when people's faces are hidden, their expressions subtly change their voice; just enough so that the perceptive listener could pick up on it. "My apologies, your Majesty. I didn't recognize it was you under all of that metal, and… oh my, did you put on some weight?"
"Ye think yer funny?"
"No, I know I am," I answered without a shred of shame before unceremoniously Phasing to the other side of the room, startling everyone and pushing them even further off-balance. For a short while the big guy was looking left and right in mild alarm, and for some reason he failed to notice me twice, so I let a resigned sigh slip out between my teeth and walked forward until he finally managed to see me in the dark. At this point, he took up another aggressive stance with his weapon held high, but he didn't seem to be about to take another swing at me just yet.
For the time being, I decided to stay silent and used this lull in the hostilities to draft out my priorities. First off, I had to find the magic jammer. It apparently wasn't on mister Minotaur, but then again, he was shining from head to toe, so it was still possible that the glowing tree was just hidden in the eye-sore forest. Secondly, I needed to mark at least one of the knights here, a prospect made quite tricky by the fact that they were wearing full plate armor with gambeson under it and full helmets, leaving little to no skin exposed. Thirdly, I wanted to squeeze some info out of these guys, and there was no better way to make them talk than to have them think we were already on the same page and they weren't actually telling me anything I didn't already know. In other words, my old and trusty fallback plan for teasing information out of others.
Now then, with my priorities set, I decided to get the ball rolling by some small talk.
"Jokes aside, you're quite rude, sir knight," I addressed the guy in the middle as I began to slowly circle around him. He constantly turned in place to face me as I did so, and I couldn't help but notice that that the eyes glaring at me through the slits of his horned helmet were of an unusually piercing, icy blue color, a bit of data that I immediately filed in the back of my brain before I continued with, "To think that you wouldn't even introduce yourself even after I did so! How unchivalrous!"
"{The name of the current Minotaur Knight is unknown,}" Judy chimed in, immediately picking up on my subtle request for support. "{However, according to records on the Celestial information network, the mantle is passed down in the mac Cumhail family.}"
At first I could only blink in surprise when I heard Judy's info, but even though what she said sounded incredibly silly, the way she said it was anything but, so I had no choice but to trust her. That said, it meant that the Minotaur knight was a Scottish man with an Irish name. At this rate, I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out he was an Asian man with blue eyes and red hair who grew up in Australia and was raised by a Polish immigrants. But putting my confusion over the man's ethnicity aside, I raised my hand to my temple, and after feigning concentration for a moment, I snapped my finger as if I just recalled something.
"Ah, don't tell me! You must be the descendant of old mac Cumhail, aren't you!"
The moment the word left my mouth, there was a series of shocked gasps coming from the sideline, with one of the bricks in the faux-shield-wall even muttering an almost pitiful, "He just pushed the 'Cumhail' button…", which incidentally caused Mr. Minotaur to start literally shaking with what I presumed was bottled up fury.
"I's spelled MacCool, you feckin' bampot!"
"Really?" "{Really?}"
Judy and I quite literally echoed the same sentiment, but I didn't have the time to dwell on how you could possibly read it like that, as following his exclamation my opponent immediately rushed forward to swing his blade at me, and this time my danger sense told me it wasn't a feint. I quickly Phased out of the way of the incoming strike and reappeared behind him, but before I could get a word in, the armor-clad man turned on his heel and swung his sword in an almost three hundred and sixty degrees arc.
"I'll kill ye!" he shouted, his voice barely stifled by his helm, but he naturally only cut the air.
"{For your interest, the Minotaur Knights of the past were infamous for their short temper.}
'Oh really? I couldn't have noticed if you didn't say so!'... was what I would've said if I wasn't too busy getting out of the way of the next diagonal slash coming my way.
"Now, now. Calm d—"
I tried to speak up, only to get interrupted by a low slash aimed at my legs, so I immediately Phased out of the way.
"Listen to—"
This time it was a half-swording stab targeting my neck, forcing me to Phase back to my previous location.
"I..."
And now he was using the same half-swording grip to spin his weapon around and try to clobber me with the pommel. As for my reaction, it could be best summed up as, 'Oh, come on! Could you let me finish just one nefarious sentence? Pretty please?' Oh, and also Phasing out of the way, but at this point I believe that was a given.
My unspoken pleas naturally fell on similarly deaf ears, so for the time being I kept Phasing out of the way of the egregious equestrian hell-bent on inflicting grievous harm on poor old me. To be fair, I was fairly certain that if push came to shove, I could probably avoid his graciously well-telegraphed strikes without relying on Phasing, but at the moment I was pretending to be a mysterious and powerful Abyssal of unknown affiliations, so abusing my short-range teleportation ability felt more fitting for the role. Thankfully doing so within the bounds of just one room didn't strain my already battered brain that much, and the adrenaline-rush of the bulky knight repeatedly screaming and swinging at me kept the vertigo at bay as well. On the other hand, the same yelling was also giving me a headache, so I couldn't say everything was just peachy either.
However, just as I was about to get into the rhythm of the battle, my danger sense suddenly threw up a warning sign right after I Phased out of the way of yet another unnecessarily elaborate twirly slash, and I instinctively twisted my upper body just enough to avoid an armored fist sailing past my torso. My opponent spun around, apparently still carried by the momentum of his swing before he came to a halt by stomping his feet hard and turning his weapon towards me.
"Surprised, aren't ye?" he sneered at me, and even though I obviously couldn't see it, I had a distinct feeling that the burly man of indecipherable ethnicity had his mouth set in a wolfish grin behind his face-plate. "A've git yer wee trick figured oot awready! "
"You do?" I blurted out in a mixture of surprise and apprehension, only to remember that I was supposed to be a mysterious trickster type at the moment and hastily added, "I mean, please go ahead, do tell."
"Ah admit yer trick wis gey unexpected, fiend, bit ye hae tae git up earlier tae deceive me!"
"Did Sir Duncan already figure out his opponent?" came another stray comment from the peanut gallery, followed up by an enthusiastic, "Of course! Sir Duncan is the second-best duelist of the Brotherhood! There's no way someone shady like that could match him!" from another amateur battle commentator.
The big guy let out a grunt in response and used his sword to confidently point at three spots on the ground.
"A dinnae ken wha yer, bit tis ah kent that awreedy yer 'ere tae buy time fur th' dragons!" For a moment I honestly wanted to point out that if anyone was wasting time here, it was him, but I never got the chance to voice my opinion. "Ye aimed tae deceive me, bit ye hae chosen th' wrong opponent tae speil yer petty trickeries upon! Fur a'm th' Knight o' th' Minotaur!" By this point even I was a little curious about where he was going with this, so I decided to ignore the impressed gasps and stray comments coming from the direction of the shield palisade in the entrance and subtly gestured for the big guy to continue, and he did so with a confident grunt.
"Ah bear th' marc o' th' Minotaur," he repeated, for some odd reason, only to then immediately expound, "Ah possess th' Authority o' th' Maze!"
"Uh-huh, neat," I muttered with a nod while waiting for the rest of the strangely smug explanation.
"Ever sin oor brave squires o' th' th' knightly brotherhood o' th' maist heroic bloo'lines barred th' doorway, this room became mah domain, 'n' by spreading mah aura oan th' flair, ah hae discovered that ye ainlie shaw yersel' oan them three plooks!"
I glanced around for a moment, figuring that he was talking about the three places where he was pointing at not long ago, and I could already feel my head getting filled up by question marks. I mean, yes, that's where I 'appeared' when Phasing around, because those were the only free spots in the room not taken up by chairs or coat-hangers or what have you near the knight guy. There wasn't anything special about them.
"Ye wanted tae mak' me think that yer fleet, bit in fact, ah kin tell that yer feet ne'er touched th' ground anywhere else ither than they three places! Ye ne'er moved!"
There was an incoherent noise already trapped in my throat at this point, and I nearly let it out of form an uncertain 'Eh?' or a stupefied 'Uuurm?', but neither was destined to be, as I was interrupted by Judy's voice, forcing me to swallow my reaction noises back down.
"{Chief, what are you doing?}"
"You mean, right now?" I asked back in a whisper, my voice hidden by the continued and boisterous explanation coming from the armor-clad man and his eagerly cheering audience by the door. "I'm listening to the big bad knight explaining his ability and how it allegedly counters mine."
"{So you're having an Explaining Your Power to the Enemy moment.}"
"Yes, it's a… Wait, that's a trope?"
"{Of course it is,}" my assistant replied with just a hint of disapproval. "{Did you really never hear about this? It's very common in Japanese battle manga and—}"
"No, I know that the trope exists," I cut her off just a tad indignantly, "I just didn't know it was called that. Don't tropes usually have snappier names than that?"
"{Not every trope can be 'Aluminium Christmas Trees',}" she stated with undue solemnity. "{On a separate note, can you actually understand what he is saying?}"
"More or less."
"{Odd. I can only recognize about half of the words. Maybe he is half-Faun?}"
I almost told her that, considering this guy's size, he might as well be, but Mr. Minotaur didn't give me the chance to do so.
"Awright! Urr ye listening tae me, fiend?!"
"{Chief, you are breaking character,}" my dear assistant warned me, but I couldn't help and roll my eyes in return.
"Well, I can't very well break something this guy never let me establish in the first place," I answered in an angry whisper, following which I cleared my throat and turned to address the man in the horny helmet again. Or, at the very least, I wanted to, if not for…
"WHA URR YE CAWIN A CRETIN YE RADGE WEE SHITE?!"
… that. Also, to punctuate his very eloquent response, the knight immediately raised his weapon over his head and lunged at me, his whole armor suddenly shining even harder than it already did. That looked mildly fatal, an assessment which my danger sense wholeheartedly agreed upon, so I quickly Phased to the right… only for my sixth sense to add a 'P.S.' to its previous warning and force me to Phase again to avoid a follow-up kick. Since I wasn't really keen on the current situation, I decided to put a bit more of a distance between us this time around.
"Yer trick is auld!" the big man bellowed in a triumphant voice even before I fully reappeared and reoriented myself in the corner. "Noo ah ken whaur yer true body hides!"
I would've asked just what the hell he meant by that, but then my attention was once again occupied by my sixth sense screaming at me, accompanied by the sound of something cutting through the air.
Now, here's the thing: there is this common idea that when someone is in mortal danger, time comes to a crawl. This was, unfortunately, something that I've already experienced once, courtesy of my little sister. What I'm trying to say is that I should've been, if not used to, but at the very least familiar with the phenomenon. However, familiar or not, nothing in this world could possibly prepare me for the sight of a heavy warsword very, veeeeeeery slooooowly hurtling towards me in the air while spinning like the world's least practical boomerang.
Now, I think we can all agree that being caught flat-footed by a flying sword of all things was a pretty dangerous situation. Also, very novel. I mean, just how many people can claim that someone threw a sword at them? That's a conversation started, that's for sure.
However, my rambling aside, my brain currently felt like one of those spinning loading icons stuck at eighty-nine percent; this close to finishing processing just what kind of fresh hell was careening towards me, yet seemingly in perpetual limbo. Then, just like that… my weapon-catching training got validated! Again!
My right hand, with little conscious input from my frontal lobes, reflexively reached out towards the weapon sailing through the air with a distinctly dangerous-sounding whistling noise, and before I knew it, my fingers were unceremoniously grasped around the grip of the sword with my mouth involuntarily uttering an elated "Zoink!"
Now, I don't toot my own horn often, but I have to say that this was, without a doubt, a perfect, ten out of ten catch. Go, me. After dispersing its remaining momentum with a small flourish, I held the softly glowing blade vertically in front of me, and couldn't help but grin in satisfaction.
…
And then the grin slowly withered from my face as I realized what I just did.
…
What the bloody hell was I thinking?! That was insanely dangerous! If my timing was off by just half a second, I could've lost a finger or four! Thank god or Buddha or whoever that Judy currently didn't have a visual feed, or she would kill me!
"{Is everything all right?}"
Oh, look. Speak of the devil. How utterly unexpected.
"Yes, everything is perfectly and one hundred percent fine and absolutely safe. There is no reason for you to worry, none at all," I spluttered in a hurry, and this time my ever so slightly panicked words must have been heard by the knights around me, no small part due to the fact that the silence in the room was downright deafening at the moment.
{Good,} Judy responded, sounding a little absent-minded, before quickly adding, "{There's still a lot of noise coming from the main hall over here. Could you tell me what's happening? I'm getting a little worried.}"
"Can't you check?"
"{You told me to hide,} she huffed. "{I'm still in the closet, and I'm not coming out until everything is over.}"
"Fine, I check," I relented before once again clearing my throat and sending a carefree (if mostly hidden) look at the knights still rooted in place, including the big one who still didn't completely come out of his throwing posture. First things first, I theatrically hefted the weapon in my hand and made a show about inspecting it before nodding to myself. "A gift? Oh, you shouldn’t have! Still, I must sincerely thank you for your generosity. This is a fine blade indeed."
"Wha…?"
Based on his dazed voice, the burly knight still hasn't completely digested the situation, so before he could do so, I flourished the blade one more time. Strangely enough, even though it was a heavy sword with a high point of balance, it was deceptively easy to handle, and unlike the temperamental dragon-slaying spear, this one not only didn't give me any nasty shocks, but felt outright comfortable in my hands. Anyhow, after I was done with that, I pointedly tapped the rounded tip of the blade against the floor and subsequently leaned onto the pommel like it was a walking cane.
"Whit dae ye think yer daein'!?" came a sudden bellow from the armored man in the middle of the room, apparently finally nudged out of his momentary stupor by the sharp sound of metal meeting the ground.
"As a matter of fact, I'm thinking about adding this outstanding gift to my collection," I told him with as much forced schadenfreude I could muster at the moment, and then I gleefully added, "In fact, I can't wait to do so! I will be back shortly!"
Needless to say, I didn't wait for the owner of the sword to make a complaint, and instead I immediately Phased over to the secret base. It was also at this point that it became obvious that I didn't pretend to use the sword as a cane only for show, as it actually served me in that purpose at this moment. I felt, for lack of better terms, supernaturally exhausted. Each long-distance teleport felt harder than the last, kind of like when I was working out and my muscles started getting tired; I felt like I still had a couple of push-ups in me, but I could also distinctly tell that I was slowly but surely reaching my limit.
Anyway, once I caught my breath, I finally looked around and… what the hell?
"[Blackloak!]"
Brang called my name the moment he laid his eyes on me, but he might as well have screamed for help by the looks of it. Somehow the training area was in even worse shape than when I left, and there were even cut-marks on the concrete floor around the area where the lion's share of the battle between Brang and Rinne must have taken place. Speaking of which, the general was currently in a sorry state. His beard and his clothes were caked in blood, and while he was standing firmly, a single glance was enough to tell that he suffered several small wounds since that last time I saw him, and at least one deeper cut on his right forearm, which was dripping blood even at this moment. Not only that, but the rest of the Fauns were more-or-less down for the count, with only Pip and Karukk trying their best to support the old Faun.
More surprisingly, while Rinne's usual pantsuit was torn at a few places, she didn't seem to be worse of wear, and based on the enormous (and equally creepy) grin on her face, she was having the time of her life. When she heard him call out to me, she glanced over, and when she realized I wasn't right next to her, she apparently decided to use the unexpected distraction I provided to lunge at the wounded Faun.
"Oh no, you don't!" I whispered through gritted teeth as I forced my body to move and Phased next to Brang, just in time so that my rising blade could parry her descending one. When metal met metal, there was a familiar outburst of magical sparks, but my 'borrowed' weapon held out and deflected Onikiri with little trouble, forcing Mountain Girl to retreat a few steps in order to regain her balance.
In the meantime, I glanced at the ex-general by my side, and while a certain, indignant part of me wanted to yell 'You had one job! One! Job!', my more reasonable side tempered my reaction into a more appropriate, "[Is the condition of your earthly coil severe?]"
"[Nay, only wounds of the skin,]" he responded with what I was sure he thought was a reassuring smile.
"[Please clarify the nature of the events that transpired in our abode. Myself was laboring under the notion that by the means of the succor of the endowment I provided to you, the aggravation of facing the leering hunter would be momentously diminished.]" I told him, and even though I tried to be extra-concise, somehow I ended up even more long-winded than usual. Faunish, am I right?
"[Facing thine wayward companion is… difficult,]" the old Faun told me, followed by a pained sigh. "[Standing by her side makes us dull. It's akin to facing a warrior of the merfolk in their element.]"
Okay, so I learned two things from this: being in Rinne's presence somehow weakened the Faun, and mermaids were real. I didn't remember Judy ever talking about the latter, so it was quite a shocker, but for now, let's focus on the first issue: even if he had a proper weapon to use, apparently Brang and his merry band were still at a disadvantage against her. I had no idea of the mechanics of that, but for now, the important thing was that I needed a way to keep her busy without putting my self-appointed minions at risk.
"Leonard-san."
"Hm?"
The way Rinne suddenly addressed me threw me on a loop for a moment.
"Have you left the premises of this blood-drenched field of battle to properly arm yourself? Good. Rinne was afraid that Rinne would have to search for you after Rinne dispatched these brutes of the netherworld. Facing your demise in the company of your underlings is commendable."
"Thanks, I suppose," I responded on autopilot while the gears in my head slowly began to spin until they came up with an idea that seemed really dumb on the surface, and it was probably pretty dumb even under the surface, but with today's track record, I had a distinct premonition that it would one hundred percent certainly work out precisely because it was so. With that in mind, I unsubtly cleared my throat, pushed the mask up to the top of my head, and raised my voice as I addressed the creepy huntress. "Say, Mountain Girl? Since I'm already going to be demised with extreme prejudice and everything, could you maybe tell me, in excruciating detail, how and why you can weaken these guys? It must be some kind of amazing secret technique, right?"
Rinne was just about to take up a stance, but my words made her hesitate, and at the end of the day she let her sword down and declared, "You're correct, Leonard-san! The weakening of the foul spawn if the netherworld is due to the ancient technique of yada yada inherited in the third century blah blah blah and my ancestor of something something clan of…"
Okay, first and foremost… wow. Just wow. I didn't think that would work right away, let alone that well. I was honestly a little floored at the moment, and I wasn't the only one utterly baffled by the ease of this development either.
"{Did you just get her to monologue?}"
"More or less," I whispered back to my assistant before hastily adding, "More importantly, please pay attention for me and give me the abridged version after all of this was over."
"{Roger.}"
With that settled, I only had to come up with a plan before Mountain Girl reached the end of her explanation about something called a 'Night Parade Suppressing Divine Aura of Amaterasu'. I had no idea what it was, but I was sure Judy will write a neat report on it. Anyhow, the first and arguably most obvious option was to just sneakily grab her from behind and Phase her out of the secret base. While simple and sound in theory, there were only two practical problems with it: I didn't have any anchors I was comfortable dropping an angry, psychotic swordswoman upon, and more importantly, doing so would've not only been a temporary resolution, but it would also reveal one of my hidden trump-cards to an 'enemy'.
In the end, I discarded the idea and looked for an alternative. Actually beating her was also an option, and now that I 'borrowed' an enchanted sword as well, Brang and I could theoretically tag-team her into oblivion, or at the very least submission. However, after thinking it through, I also dismissed this idea. The general was already injured, even if he was enduring it with a stiff upper lip and pretending to be fine, and I really couldn't waste time with dueling her when the Knights were still running loose in the Dracis mansion.
In short, I needed something to, at least temporarily, hold her attention. Something other than the Faun. Something that she would focus on, but wouldn't get cut after a single swing of Onikiri. Something that was already here…
"Crap, I have to use that thing, don't I?"
"{What thing?}"
"Nothing, never mind," I answered by reflex, but then amended to, "For the record, things are probably going to get extra-noisy out here. Don't come out of the closet."
She didn't respond, which I interpreted as agreement. Now then, first off, I needed to warn Brang while pretending to be listening to Rinne's history lesson about the joining of this demon-hunter clan and that orthodox sect or whatever, so I tried to aim my voice at him while remaining still.
"[General, I shall attempt to create a sustained diversion until my ability to deal with her shall no longer be obstructed. I request that you retain your pelt in a single piece in the interim.]"
"[I will strive to adhere to thy order,]" he told me right away, though I could tell he didn't have his heart in the answer. I didn't let it bother me, as I was pretty sure that if he knew my plan, he wouldn't have had any other body part in his answer either.
I took a long, deep breath, and prepared myself for something that I felt would make me really, really hate myself this time tomorrow, granted I was alive and/or conscious to do so. Once I felt mentally ready, I sharply inhaled through my nose before growling out a decisive "[Scatter!]", interrupting Rinne's diatribe in the process.
When they heard the word, the Faun immediately followed suit, much to Mountain Girl's initial bafflement. I, on the other hand, simply disappeared out of her field of view and Phased over to the middle of the training grounds, and without any further ado, plunged my Phantom Limb into the limp body lying on the ground there. The process was subjectively long, confusing, and tasting like the sound of an electric guitar underwater… in short, it was the same as usual, so instead of mincing my words, let's cut the chase shall we?
Once I was out, the previously limp body of the Chimera twitched and shook from head to toes as if it was being tazed by an entire police squad, but at last it opened its many redundant eyes and ponderously rose to its four feet. Once it found its bearings, it quickly locked onto its target, and a moment later the injured yet far from harmless semi-dead beast broke into a limping dash towards the apparently very confused huntress. Needless to say, I was nowhere near the creature by the time it got up, and I observed all of this from the safe sidelines on the other end of the main hall, right next to Brang and Karukk.
The younger Faun was just about to unroll a pack of bandages to treat the ex-general, but he paused mid-motion to send a skeptical look at the rapidly unfolding rematch by the training grounds.
"[My… um… Boss? Are you sure this was a good idea?]"
"Not at all," I replied between suppressing two dry-heaves, and once I was sure I was going to be able to keep my lunch down, I carefully pulled the mask back onto my face and continued with, "In any case, the Chimera was programmed to consider her its main target. She also can't cut it all willy-nilly, so it should keep her busy for a while. For now, just keep an eye on them and hold the line."
"[As you command,]" Brang noted, and would have probably given me a salute if the other Faun wasn't in the process of bandaging his arm.
I waited for Karukk to finish patching the old Faun up before I gestured for him to pay attention to me, and after a brief moment of hesitation, I ultimately handed my newly acquired weapon over to him. It was a shame, as I actually really liked this sword, but it was best to keep the Knights as far from their weapons as possible, and considering that I was just about to go back to the Dracis mansion, I figured it was the prudent thing to do.
"If the need arises, you can use this to defend yourself."
The friendly Faun first only blinked at me, his eyes repeatedly moving between the sword and my face and ultimately settling on the former as he gingerly, almost reverently took it from my hands. I had a feeling that there was another misunderstanding in the making there, but I have run out of damns to give to such a degree that my damnlessness was about to reach the level of the national damn-deficit, so I ignored him and simply turned on my heel.
"Stay safe."
Since I felt that things were… well, I wanted to say 'less chaotic', but that would've been a lie. Let's go with 'in state of directed chaos'. Anyhow, I didn't dare to dawdle for too long, so after I made sure that the Chimera was still resistant to Onikiri, I took a deep breath to steel my nerves and Phased over to the Dracis mansion.
Upon my arrival, I had to blink a few times to make sure I was at the right place, but on closer inspection, it was definitely the trophy room, though it had definitely seen better days. I wasn't away for too long, yet it looked like an entire season's worth of hurricanes passed through here in the meantime. Mr. Minotaur and his flunkies were nowhere to be seen either, so I figured that he was the most likely cause of the mayhem in front of me. Even the poor gnu head on the wall couldn't escape the havoc and was currently sitting upside-down on the antique (and slightly broken) chair on which Abram sat the first time I met him.
Speaking of which, I quickly Far Glanced in his direction, and to my relief, it seemed like he was already in a car and heading back to the mansion in the company of Sebastian, and based on the urgency of their expressions, they probably already knew about the attack. Good; that should be a nice bargaining-chip… so long as I could meet a Knight I could properly talk with.
Anyhow, there was nothing to see in the room, and I couldn't hear the battering coming from outside either, so I cautiously stuck my head through the door. I couldn't see anyone in either direction, but I could hear something that sounded like muffled speech in the distance. To be perfectly honest, with Papa Dracis and the annoying butler on the way, I felt that things were much less perilous than before, and I even entertained the thought of leaving the mop-up to them, but then I remembered that I technically didn't achieve any of my stated goals. I only hesitated for a moment, and then ultimately disappeared from the doorway.
I repeatedly Phased through the mansion, following the sounds of someone talking (or rather, yelling), and I soon arrived at the foyer of the mansion. Upon my arrival, I immediately hid behind the stairs leading to the first floor and observed the situation. At a single glance, it seemed like all of the knights were gathered inside, forming a semi-circle and keeping watch around a pair of men in the middle. One of them was the familiar robust knight with the horned bucket on his head, and he was animatedly yelling at his colleague while wildly gesturing with his hands.
As for the other man, I figured he was the Entitled Knight that Melinda saw during the evacuation. He was almost a head shorter than the big guy, yet he somehow had an even more imposing presence. If I had to say why, it was probably due to his bearing; his back was ramrod straight, and he had one hand on the hilt of the cavalry saber hanging from his waist while his other hand was raised with his palm pointing at the enraged Mr. Minotaur. He was also wearing a lighter set of armor, with the light blue of his gambeson being clearly visible through the gaps in the shiny metal plates. Most strikingly, he had a golden-plated, large winged helmet on his head with a beaked face-guard that completely hid his face.
"Calm down, MacCool," he chided the large man with the air of a teacher scolding a student, his deep, rich voice simultaneously authoritative and yet reassuring.
"Howfur cuid ah calm doon!? That bas teuk mah sword!"
"All the more reason you should keep your head cool. Shouting won't make him appear."
Now, that was an invitation if I've ever heard one, so I figured I should oblige before the conversation moved along.
"Once again, good evening, gentlemen," I greeted the group after Phasing into the ring of knights, and after the first moment of shock passed, the squires immediately closed the circle around the three of us.
"Ye! Gimme back mah sword ya hackit bawbag, or ah—!"
"Duncan!" the second Knight sharply raised his voice, silencing his comrade before turning a pair of sharp green eyes hidden under his helmet towards me, and after a long and tense beat, he returned my greeting in a composed, borderline courteous voice. "Good evening to you as well, stranger. I don't believe we are familiar yet."
Oh? Ooooh!? Did I hear that right? An actual, level response? Finally!
I forced my body language to stay calm and not betray my excitement as I repeated the same scraping bow I did when I introduced myself the first time.
"You may call me Bel, sir Griffon Knight," I told him with a smirk hidden by my mask.
Refuge in Audacity Two: Electric Boogalo was about to start. Let's hope this time it's going to be smoother than the first…
Chapter 171: ~Chapter 61~ Part 1
Once everyone was in place, the big guy in the middle took an almost comically heavy step forward and pointed his blade at me with one hand. It was all veeeeeery dramatic, and not at all silly, I swear.
"Wha urr ye? Eydentify yersel' a' wance!"
I inhaled a sharp breath and was about to give a suitably snarky reply, but as I opened my mouth I stiffened for a second and then snapped it shut with a slightly painful clank of my teeth.
"That's... actually a very good question," I mused aloud, much to the belligerent men-at-arms' bafflement.
I mean, really; who was I? And no, I didn't mean that as some kind of profound question of Jungian psychology or the like, but as an entirely practical matter. As in, I sure as hell wasn't Leonard Dunning at the moment, especially after the trouble I went through to disguise myself. That naturally meant that I wasn't 'Blackcloak' or the resident 'Chimera Slayer' either. What other options did I have?
Admin? The guy was supposed to be on the other side of the globe, so if it got out that 'he' was here, it would undoubtedly raise a few Celestial brows, which was bad for my sustained espionage efforts. If not him, then who else could I be? I needed a context-appropriate, non-conflicting, and at least reasonably cool fake name.
The Jester? Nah, too on the nose. Persona? Too Jungian. Bel of the Tenebrous Flames? Too chuuni. Nyarlathotep? Too eldritch. The Kingpin? Too copyrighted. Shadow, the True Self? Heck, that's both Jungian and chuuni!
Okay, screw it, my brain was obviously too much of a mush at the moment to come up with something fitting, so...
"Give me a second, I'll be right back."
My words caused no small amount of confusion amongst the men in front of me, but I reckon not nearly as much as my subsequent disappearance from the room.
"Hey, Dormouse," I greeted my ever so slightly surprised girlfriend, but to her credit, she only looked stupefied for a moment before she directed a welcoming poker-face at me, which was made only slightly ridiculous by her party-glasses-shaped communication artifact. I also noted that, judging by the faint light of the magic circle under our feet, we were inside the fake teleportation closet for some reason, but that was beside the point.
"Hi, Chief. What are you doing here?" I was about to formulate an answer, but then her expression subtly darkened and she added, "Why are you swaying like that? Are you injured?"
"Nah, I'm just a little light-headed," I told her while indiscreetly leaning against the nearby wall. "Too much teleporting around in a short time. I'll live. More importantly, I need your brain."
This time my girlfriend's face was the spitting image of the anthropomorphic personification of skepticism.
"You look bad, but I don't think you're a zombie just yet, so please elaborate in a way I can actually understand."
I took a deep breath, and once I felt steady enough, I quickly explained myself.
"I'm currently planning to verbally engage some dastardly knights and tease some info out of them before the inevitable hostilities, but I need a fake identity for the charade. I want to pretend to be a mysterious, powerful, and knowledgeable villain of indefinite origins."
"So the same thing you used to do in the past, just with a mask on your face."
"And ambiguously evil."
"More or less. Do you have any ideas?"
Judy's brows once again furrowed ever-so-imperceptibly, and after a few seconds of consideration, she ultimately proposed, "How about masquerading as an Abyssal, like when you got Neige's ID forged?"
"That's… something I totally should've thought of myself," I muttered, after which I flashed an appreciative smile at her. She didn't react, and it was only then that I belatedly remembered that I was still wearing the carnival mask, so I voiced my sentiment as well. "Thanks, Dormouse. You're the best."
"You're welcome."
I was about to leave so that I wouldn't let the gaggle of swordsman wait for long, but before that, I quickly added, "Also, could you support me? I'm a little slow right now, so I think I might have further need for your grey matter."
"Sure. I can multitask," she responded with just the barest tinge of smugness in her voice. Or was it just run-of-the-mill confidence that only sounded weird when it came from her? While I pondered on where the line was between the two, I gave her a small nod, and promptly reappeared inside the trophy room again, eliciting a series of shocked gasps from the agitated antagonist populating the premises.
"Whit manner o' foul sorcery…!?"
"Please do forgive my tardiness. I had urgent matters to attend to, but now you may enjoy my undivided attention," I cut him off with my best sleazy villain impression. I'm not going to lie, it came out way easier than I expected.
"Ye! Wha th' hell's bells urr ye!?"
To further emphasize his question, the big man vigorously waved his weapon in my general direction, but I didn't feel any threat from him, so I casually ignored his attempts at intimidation with a shrug.
"You may call me…" I began in a casual tone, only to pause as I realized that I forgot to actually come up with a proper cover name. Worse yet, now that I began to give my answer, I couldn't backpedal out of it without ruining the image I was building right now, so after another moment of hesitation, I blurted out. "Bel."
"Bel?" came the befuddled whisper from one of the squires in the pseudo-shield-wall.
"{Bel?}" echoed the voice of my girlfriend, her tone a curious mixture of puzzlement and skepticism. Normally I would've made an excuse to the effect of 'Hey, they put me on the spot! At least I didn't accidentally add 'of the Tenebrous Flames' to it!', but considering the circumstances, I concluded that directly communicating with Judy would've only made things even more confusing.
"Bel of the Abyss," I stated off-handedly, and a second of hesitancy later I also added a scraping bow for the sake of showmanship. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
What followed was exactly half a second of silence before the big guy in the middle let out a stifled battle-cry and lunged towards me with his weapon held high. Oddly enough, my danger sense still didn't warn me about any incoming grievous bodily harm, but it was better to be safe than sorry, so I immediately Phased two meters to my right and well out of his immediate range. Oh, and I did that while still maintaining my bow, not on purpose, but because that's how Phasing worked.
In retrospect I probably shouldn't have bothered with it at all, as the big guy stopped his vertical swing midway, and based on his posture, he would've most likely done so whether I tried to get out of the way of the strike or not. The sudden attack also awakened my adrenal glands, as I was feeling a sudden rush that finally dispersed some of the fog dulling my thoughts, and I soon came up with a working hypothesis for his odd behavior.
"Now, now, sir Minotaur; do be careful." Saying so, I straightened myself and controlled my body language to appear as laidback and non-threatening as possible. "You almost broke one of your oaths there. Hurting poor, innocent me would've been quite a blunder, I say."
"If yer innocent, then a'm th' queen o Sassenach land!" the horny knight scoffed, his odd dialect still as hard to decipher as ever, but at the very least it didn't seem like he would try to turn me into minced meat again. For the moment, at least.
"Really?" I responded with a sneering grin that wasn't visible, yet it was important all the same. It's a lesser-known fact, but even when people's faces are hidden, their expressions subtly change their voice; just enough so that the perceptive listener could pick up on it. "My apologies, your Majesty. I didn't recognize it was you under all of that metal, and… oh my, did you put on some weight?"
"No, I know I am," I answered without a shred of shame before unceremoniously Phasing to the other side of the room, startling everyone and pushing them even further off-balance. For a short while the big guy was looking left and right in mild alarm, and for some reason he failed to notice me twice, so I let a resigned sigh slip out between my teeth and walked forward until he finally managed to see me in the dark. At this point, he took up another aggressive stance with his weapon held high, but he didn't seem to be about to take another swing at me just yet.
For the time being, I decided to stay silent and used this lull in the hostilities to draft out my priorities. First off, I had to find the magic jammer. It apparently wasn't on mister Minotaur, but then again, he was shining from head to toe, so it was still possible that the glowing tree was just hidden in the eye-sore forest. Secondly, I needed to mark at least one of the knights here, a prospect made quite tricky by the fact that they were wearing full plate armor with gambeson under it and full helmets, leaving little to no skin exposed. Thirdly, I wanted to squeeze some info out of these guys, and there was no better way to make them talk than to have them think we were already on the same page and they weren't actually telling me anything I didn't already know. In other words, my old and trusty fallback plan for teasing information out of others.
Now then, with my priorities set, I decided to get the ball rolling by some small talk.
"Jokes aside, you're quite rude, sir knight," I addressed the guy in the middle as I began to slowly circle around him. He constantly turned in place to face me as I did so, and I couldn't help but notice that that the eyes glaring at me through the slits of his horned helmet were of an unusually piercing, icy blue color, a bit of data that I immediately filed in the back of my brain before I continued with, "To think that you wouldn't even introduce yourself even after I did so! How unchivalrous!"
"{The name of the current Minotaur Knight is unknown,}" Judy chimed in, immediately picking up on my subtle request for support. "{However, according to records on the Celestial information network, the mantle is passed down in the mac Cumhail family.}"
At first I could only blink in surprise when I heard Judy's info, but even though what she said sounded incredibly silly, the way she said it was anything but, so I had no choice but to trust her. That said, it meant that the Minotaur knight was a Scottish man with an Irish name. At this rate, I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out he was an Asian man with blue eyes and red hair who grew up in Australia and was raised by a Polish immigrants. But putting my confusion over the man's ethnicity aside, I raised my hand to my temple, and after feigning concentration for a moment, I snapped my finger as if I just recalled something.
"Ah, don't tell me! You must be the descendant of old mac Cumhail, aren't you!"
The moment the word left my mouth, there was a series of shocked gasps coming from the sideline, with one of the bricks in the faux-shield-wall even muttering an almost pitiful, "He just pushed the 'Cumhail' button…", which incidentally caused Mr. Minotaur to start literally shaking with what I presumed was bottled up fury.
"I's spelled MacCool, you feckin' bampot!"
"Really?" "{Really?}"
Judy and I quite literally echoed the same sentiment, but I didn't have the time to dwell on how you could possibly read it like that, as following his exclamation my opponent immediately rushed forward to swing his blade at me, and this time my danger sense told me it wasn't a feint. I quickly Phased out of the way of the incoming strike and reappeared behind him, but before I could get a word in, the armor-clad man turned on his heel and swung his sword in an almost three hundred and sixty degrees arc.
"I'll kill ye!" he shouted, his voice barely stifled by his helm, but he naturally only cut the air.
"{For your interest, the Minotaur Knights of the past were infamous for their short temper.}
'Oh really? I couldn't have noticed if you didn't say so!'... was what I would've said if I wasn't too busy getting out of the way of the next diagonal slash coming my way.
"Now, now. Calm d—"
I tried to speak up, only to get interrupted by a low slash aimed at my legs, so I immediately Phased out of the way.
"Listen to—"
This time it was a half-swording stab targeting my neck, forcing me to Phase back to my previous location.
"I..."
My unspoken pleas naturally fell on similarly deaf ears, so for the time being I kept Phasing out of the way of the egregious equestrian hell-bent on inflicting grievous harm on poor old me. To be fair, I was fairly certain that if push came to shove, I could probably avoid his graciously well-telegraphed strikes without relying on Phasing, but at the moment I was pretending to be a mysterious and powerful Abyssal of unknown affiliations, so abusing my short-range teleportation ability felt more fitting for the role. Thankfully doing so within the bounds of just one room didn't strain my already battered brain that much, and the adrenaline-rush of the bulky knight repeatedly screaming and swinging at me kept the vertigo at bay as well. On the other hand, the same yelling was also giving me a headache, so I couldn't say everything was just peachy either.
However, just as I was about to get into the rhythm of the battle, my danger sense suddenly threw up a warning sign right after I Phased out of the way of yet another unnecessarily elaborate twirly slash, and I instinctively twisted my upper body just enough to avoid an armored fist sailing past my torso. My opponent spun around, apparently still carried by the momentum of his swing before he came to a halt by stomping his feet hard and turning his weapon towards me.
"Surprised, aren't ye?" he sneered at me, and even though I obviously couldn't see it, I had a distinct feeling that the burly man of indecipherable ethnicity had his mouth set in a wolfish grin behind his face-plate. "A've git yer wee trick figured oot awready! "
"You do?" I blurted out in a mixture of surprise and apprehension, only to remember that I was supposed to be a mysterious trickster type at the moment and hastily added, "I mean, please go ahead, do tell."
"Ah admit yer trick wis gey unexpected, fiend, bit ye hae tae git up earlier tae deceive me!"
"Did Sir Duncan already figure out his opponent?" came another stray comment from the peanut gallery, followed up by an enthusiastic, "Of course! Sir Duncan is the second-best duelist of the Brotherhood! There's no way someone shady like that could match him!" from another amateur battle commentator.
The big guy let out a grunt in response and used his sword to confidently point at three spots on the ground.
"A dinnae ken wha yer, bit tis ah kent that awreedy yer 'ere tae buy time fur th' dragons!" For a moment I honestly wanted to point out that if anyone was wasting time here, it was him, but I never got the chance to voice my opinion. "Ye aimed tae deceive me, bit ye hae chosen th' wrong opponent tae speil yer petty trickeries upon! Fur a'm th' Knight o' th' Minotaur!" By this point even I was a little curious about where he was going with this, so I decided to ignore the impressed gasps and stray comments coming from the direction of the shield palisade in the entrance and subtly gestured for the big guy to continue, and he did so with a confident grunt.
"Ah bear th' marc o' th' Minotaur," he repeated, for some odd reason, only to then immediately expound, "Ah possess th' Authority o' th' Maze!"
"Uh-huh, neat," I muttered with a nod while waiting for the rest of the strangely smug explanation.
"Ever sin oor brave squires o' th' th' knightly brotherhood o' th' maist heroic bloo'lines barred th' doorway, this room became mah domain, 'n' by spreading mah aura oan th' flair, ah hae discovered that ye ainlie shaw yersel' oan them three plooks!"
I glanced around for a moment, figuring that he was talking about the three places where he was pointing at not long ago, and I could already feel my head getting filled up by question marks. I mean, yes, that's where I 'appeared' when Phasing around, because those were the only free spots in the room not taken up by chairs or coat-hangers or what have you near the knight guy. There wasn't anything special about them.
"Ye wanted tae mak' me think that yer fleet, bit in fact, ah kin tell that yer feet ne'er touched th' ground anywhere else ither than they three places! Ye ne'er moved!"
There was an incoherent noise already trapped in my throat at this point, and I nearly let it out of form an uncertain 'Eh?' or a stupefied 'Uuurm?', but neither was destined to be, as I was interrupted by Judy's voice, forcing me to swallow my reaction noises back down.
"{Chief, what are you doing?}"
"You mean, right now?" I asked back in a whisper, my voice hidden by the continued and boisterous explanation coming from the armor-clad man and his eagerly cheering audience by the door. "I'm listening to the big bad knight explaining his ability and how it allegedly counters mine."
"{So you're having an Explaining Your Power to the Enemy moment.}"
"Yes, it's a… Wait, that's a trope?"
"{Of course it is,}" my assistant replied with just a hint of disapproval. "{Did you really never hear about this? It's very common in Japanese battle manga and—}"
"{Not every trope can be 'Aluminium Christmas Trees',}" she stated with undue solemnity. "{On a separate note, can you actually understand what he is saying?}"
"More or less."
"{Odd. I can only recognize about half of the words. Maybe he is half-Faun?}"
I almost told her that, considering this guy's size, he might as well be, but Mr. Minotaur didn't give me the chance to do so.
"Awright! Urr ye listening tae me, fiend?!"
You are reading story The Simulacrum at novel35.com
I exhaled a long sigh and responded with, "You made this place into your territory by spreading your Aura or whatever, which created a bounded field upon which you could enforce your Authority, whatever that is, and so now you oh-so-inescapably cornered me with your super-special-awesome Cretan Labyrinth Magic or what have you. I've heard everything loud and clear.""{Chief, you are breaking character,}" my dear assistant warned me, but I couldn't help and roll my eyes in return.
"Well, I can't very well break something this guy never let me establish in the first place," I answered in an angry whisper, following which I cleared my throat and turned to address the man in the horny helmet again. Or, at the very least, I wanted to, if not for…
"WHA URR YE CAWIN A CRETIN YE RADGE WEE SHITE?!"
… that. Also, to punctuate his very eloquent response, the knight immediately raised his weapon over his head and lunged at me, his whole armor suddenly shining even harder than it already did. That looked mildly fatal, an assessment which my danger sense wholeheartedly agreed upon, so I quickly Phased to the right… only for my sixth sense to add a 'P.S.' to its previous warning and force me to Phase again to avoid a follow-up kick. Since I wasn't really keen on the current situation, I decided to put a bit more of a distance between us this time around.
"Yer trick is auld!" the big man bellowed in a triumphant voice even before I fully reappeared and reoriented myself in the corner. "Noo ah ken whaur yer true body hides!"
I would've asked just what the hell he meant by that, but then my attention was once again occupied by my sixth sense screaming at me, accompanied by the sound of something cutting through the air.
Now, here's the thing: there is this common idea that when someone is in mortal danger, time comes to a crawl. This was, unfortunately, something that I've already experienced once, courtesy of my little sister. What I'm trying to say is that I should've been, if not used to, but at the very least familiar with the phenomenon. However, familiar or not, nothing in this world could possibly prepare me for the sight of a heavy warsword very, veeeeeeery slooooowly hurtling towards me in the air while spinning like the world's least practical boomerang.
Now, I think we can all agree that being caught flat-footed by a flying sword of all things was a pretty dangerous situation. Also, very novel. I mean, just how many people can claim that someone threw a sword at them? That's a conversation started, that's for sure.
However, my rambling aside, my brain currently felt like one of those spinning loading icons stuck at eighty-nine percent; this close to finishing processing just what kind of fresh hell was careening towards me, yet seemingly in perpetual limbo. Then, just like that… my weapon-catching training got validated! Again!
My right hand, with little conscious input from my frontal lobes, reflexively reached out towards the weapon sailing through the air with a distinctly dangerous-sounding whistling noise, and before I knew it, my fingers were unceremoniously grasped around the grip of the sword with my mouth involuntarily uttering an elated "Zoink!"
Now, I don't toot my own horn often, but I have to say that this was, without a doubt, a perfect, ten out of ten catch. Go, me. After dispersing its remaining momentum with a small flourish, I held the softly glowing blade vertically in front of me, and couldn't help but grin in satisfaction.
…
And then the grin slowly withered from my face as I realized what I just did.
What the bloody hell was I thinking?! That was insanely dangerous! If my timing was off by just half a second, I could've lost a finger or four! Thank god or Buddha or whoever that Judy currently didn't have a visual feed, or she would kill me!
"{Is everything all right?}"
Oh, look. Speak of the devil. How utterly unexpected.
"Yes, everything is perfectly and one hundred percent fine and absolutely safe. There is no reason for you to worry, none at all," I spluttered in a hurry, and this time my ever so slightly panicked words must have been heard by the knights around me, no small part due to the fact that the silence in the room was downright deafening at the moment.
{Good,} Judy responded, sounding a little absent-minded, before quickly adding, "{There's still a lot of noise coming from the main hall over here. Could you tell me what's happening? I'm getting a little worried.}"
"Can't you check?"
"{You told me to hide,} she huffed. "{I'm still in the closet, and I'm not coming out until everything is over.}"
"Fine, I check," I relented before once again clearing my throat and sending a carefree (if mostly hidden) look at the knights still rooted in place, including the big one who still didn't completely come out of his throwing posture. First things first, I theatrically hefted the weapon in my hand and made a show about inspecting it before nodding to myself. "A gift? Oh, you shouldn’t have! Still, I must sincerely thank you for your generosity. This is a fine blade indeed."
"Wha…?"
Based on his dazed voice, the burly knight still hasn't completely digested the situation, so before he could do so, I flourished the blade one more time. Strangely enough, even though it was a heavy sword with a high point of balance, it was deceptively easy to handle, and unlike the temperamental dragon-slaying spear, this one not only didn't give me any nasty shocks, but felt outright comfortable in my hands. Anyhow, after I was done with that, I pointedly tapped the rounded tip of the blade against the floor and subsequently leaned onto the pommel like it was a walking cane.
"Whit dae ye think yer daein'!?" came a sudden bellow from the armored man in the middle of the room, apparently finally nudged out of his momentary stupor by the sharp sound of metal meeting the ground.
"As a matter of fact, I'm thinking about adding this outstanding gift to my collection," I told him with as much forced schadenfreude I could muster at the moment, and then I gleefully added, "In fact, I can't wait to do so! I will be back shortly!"
Needless to say, I didn't wait for the owner of the sword to make a complaint, and instead I immediately Phased over to the secret base. It was also at this point that it became obvious that I didn't pretend to use the sword as a cane only for show, as it actually served me in that purpose at this moment. I felt, for lack of better terms, supernaturally exhausted. Each long-distance teleport felt harder than the last, kind of like when I was working out and my muscles started getting tired; I felt like I still had a couple of push-ups in me, but I could also distinctly tell that I was slowly but surely reaching my limit.
Anyway, once I caught my breath, I finally looked around and… what the hell?
"[Blackloak!]"
Brang called my name the moment he laid his eyes on me, but he might as well have screamed for help by the looks of it. Somehow the training area was in even worse shape than when I left, and there were even cut-marks on the concrete floor around the area where the lion's share of the battle between Brang and Rinne must have taken place. Speaking of which, the general was currently in a sorry state. His beard and his clothes were caked in blood, and while he was standing firmly, a single glance was enough to tell that he suffered several small wounds since that last time I saw him, and at least one deeper cut on his right forearm, which was dripping blood even at this moment. Not only that, but the rest of the Fauns were more-or-less down for the count, with only Pip and Karukk trying their best to support the old Faun.
More surprisingly, while Rinne's usual pantsuit was torn at a few places, she didn't seem to be worse of wear, and based on the enormous (and equally creepy) grin on her face, she was having the time of her life. When she heard him call out to me, she glanced over, and when she realized I wasn't right next to her, she apparently decided to use the unexpected distraction I provided to lunge at the wounded Faun.
"Oh no, you don't!" I whispered through gritted teeth as I forced my body to move and Phased next to Brang, just in time so that my rising blade could parry her descending one. When metal met metal, there was a familiar outburst of magical sparks, but my 'borrowed' weapon held out and deflected Onikiri with little trouble, forcing Mountain Girl to retreat a few steps in order to regain her balance.
In the meantime, I glanced at the ex-general by my side, and while a certain, indignant part of me wanted to yell 'You had one job! One! Job!', my more reasonable side tempered my reaction into a more appropriate, "[Is the condition of your earthly coil severe?]"
"[Please clarify the nature of the events that transpired in our abode. Myself was laboring under the notion that by the means of the succor of the endowment I provided to you, the aggravation of facing the leering hunter would be momentously diminished.]" I told him, and even though I tried to be extra-concise, somehow I ended up even more long-winded than usual. Faunish, am I right?
"[Facing thine wayward companion is… difficult,]" the old Faun told me, followed by a pained sigh. "[Standing by her side makes us dull. It's akin to facing a warrior of the merfolk in their element.]"
Okay, so I learned two things from this: being in Rinne's presence somehow weakened the Faun, and mermaids were real. I didn't remember Judy ever talking about the latter, so it was quite a shocker, but for now, let's focus on the first issue: even if he had a proper weapon to use, apparently Brang and his merry band were still at a disadvantage against her. I had no idea of the mechanics of that, but for now, the important thing was that I needed a way to keep her busy without putting my self-appointed minions at risk.
"Leonard-san."
"Hm?"
The way Rinne suddenly addressed me threw me on a loop for a moment.
"Have you left the premises of this blood-drenched field of battle to properly arm yourself? Good. Rinne was afraid that Rinne would have to search for you after Rinne dispatched these brutes of the netherworld. Facing your demise in the company of your underlings is commendable."
"Thanks, I suppose," I responded on autopilot while the gears in my head slowly began to spin until they came up with an idea that seemed really dumb on the surface, and it was probably pretty dumb even under the surface, but with today's track record, I had a distinct premonition that it would one hundred percent certainly work out precisely because it was so. With that in mind, I unsubtly cleared my throat, pushed the mask up to the top of my head, and raised my voice as I addressed the creepy huntress. "Say, Mountain Girl? Since I'm already going to be demised with extreme prejudice and everything, could you maybe tell me, in excruciating detail, how and why you can weaken these guys? It must be some kind of amazing secret technique, right?"
Rinne was just about to take up a stance, but my words made her hesitate, and at the end of the day she let her sword down and declared, "You're correct, Leonard-san! The weakening of the foul spawn if the netherworld is due to the ancient technique of yada yada inherited in the third century blah blah blah and my ancestor of something something clan of…"
Okay, first and foremost… wow. Just wow. I didn't think that would work right away, let alone that well. I was honestly a little floored at the moment, and I wasn't the only one utterly baffled by the ease of this development either.
"{Did you just get her to monologue?}"
"More or less," I whispered back to my assistant before hastily adding, "More importantly, please pay attention for me and give me the abridged version after all of this was over."
"{Roger.}"
With that settled, I only had to come up with a plan before Mountain Girl reached the end of her explanation about something called a 'Night Parade Suppressing Divine Aura of Amaterasu'. I had no idea what it was, but I was sure Judy will write a neat report on it. Anyhow, the first and arguably most obvious option was to just sneakily grab her from behind and Phase her out of the secret base. While simple and sound in theory, there were only two practical problems with it: I didn't have any anchors I was comfortable dropping an angry, psychotic swordswoman upon, and more importantly, doing so would've not only been a temporary resolution, but it would also reveal one of my hidden trump-cards to an 'enemy'.
In the end, I discarded the idea and looked for an alternative. Actually beating her was also an option, and now that I 'borrowed' an enchanted sword as well, Brang and I could theoretically tag-team her into oblivion, or at the very least submission. However, after thinking it through, I also dismissed this idea. The general was already injured, even if he was enduring it with a stiff upper lip and pretending to be fine, and I really couldn't waste time with dueling her when the Knights were still running loose in the Dracis mansion.
In short, I needed something to, at least temporarily, hold her attention. Something other than the Faun. Something that she would focus on, but wouldn't get cut after a single swing of Onikiri. Something that was already here…
"Crap, I have to use that thing, don't I?"
"{What thing?}"
"Nothing, never mind," I answered by reflex, but then amended to, "For the record, things are probably going to get extra-noisy out here. Don't come out of the closet."
"[General, I shall attempt to create a sustained diversion until my ability to deal with her shall no longer be obstructed. I request that you retain your pelt in a single piece in the interim.]"
"[I will strive to adhere to thy order,]" he told me right away, though I could tell he didn't have his heart in the answer. I didn't let it bother me, as I was pretty sure that if he knew my plan, he wouldn't have had any other body part in his answer either.
I took a long, deep breath, and prepared myself for something that I felt would make me really, really hate myself this time tomorrow, granted I was alive and/or conscious to do so. Once I felt mentally ready, I sharply inhaled through my nose before growling out a decisive "[Scatter!]", interrupting Rinne's diatribe in the process.
When they heard the word, the Faun immediately followed suit, much to Mountain Girl's initial bafflement. I, on the other hand, simply disappeared out of her field of view and Phased over to the middle of the training grounds, and without any further ado, plunged my Phantom Limb into the limp body lying on the ground there. The process was subjectively long, confusing, and tasting like the sound of an electric guitar underwater… in short, it was the same as usual, so instead of mincing my words, let's cut the chase shall we?
Once I was out, the previously limp body of the Chimera twitched and shook from head to toes as if it was being tazed by an entire police squad, but at last it opened its many redundant eyes and ponderously rose to its four feet. Once it found its bearings, it quickly locked onto its target, and a moment later the injured yet far from harmless semi-dead beast broke into a limping dash towards the apparently very confused huntress. Needless to say, I was nowhere near the creature by the time it got up, and I observed all of this from the safe sidelines on the other end of the main hall, right next to Brang and Karukk.
The younger Faun was just about to unroll a pack of bandages to treat the ex-general, but he paused mid-motion to send a skeptical look at the rapidly unfolding rematch by the training grounds.
"[My… um… Boss? Are you sure this was a good idea?]"
"Not at all," I replied between suppressing two dry-heaves, and once I was sure I was going to be able to keep my lunch down, I carefully pulled the mask back onto my face and continued with, "In any case, the Chimera was programmed to consider her its main target. She also can't cut it all willy-nilly, so it should keep her busy for a while. For now, just keep an eye on them and hold the line."
"[As you command,]" Brang noted, and would have probably given me a salute if the other Faun wasn't in the process of bandaging his arm.
I waited for Karukk to finish patching the old Faun up before I gestured for him to pay attention to me, and after a brief moment of hesitation, I ultimately handed my newly acquired weapon over to him. It was a shame, as I actually really liked this sword, but it was best to keep the Knights as far from their weapons as possible, and considering that I was just about to go back to the Dracis mansion, I figured it was the prudent thing to do.
"If the need arises, you can use this to defend yourself."
The friendly Faun first only blinked at me, his eyes repeatedly moving between the sword and my face and ultimately settling on the former as he gingerly, almost reverently took it from my hands. I had a feeling that there was another misunderstanding in the making there, but I have run out of damns to give to such a degree that my damnlessness was about to reach the level of the national damn-deficit, so I ignored him and simply turned on my heel.
"Stay safe."
Since I felt that things were… well, I wanted to say 'less chaotic', but that would've been a lie. Let's go with 'in state of directed chaos'. Anyhow, I didn't dare to dawdle for too long, so after I made sure that the Chimera was still resistant to Onikiri, I took a deep breath to steel my nerves and Phased over to the Dracis mansion.
Upon my arrival, I had to blink a few times to make sure I was at the right place, but on closer inspection, it was definitely the trophy room, though it had definitely seen better days. I wasn't away for too long, yet it looked like an entire season's worth of hurricanes passed through here in the meantime. Mr. Minotaur and his flunkies were nowhere to be seen either, so I figured that he was the most likely cause of the mayhem in front of me. Even the poor gnu head on the wall couldn't escape the havoc and was currently sitting upside-down on the antique (and slightly broken) chair on which Abram sat the first time I met him.
Speaking of which, I quickly Far Glanced in his direction, and to my relief, it seemed like he was already in a car and heading back to the mansion in the company of Sebastian, and based on the urgency of their expressions, they probably already knew about the attack. Good; that should be a nice bargaining-chip… so long as I could meet a Knight I could properly talk with.
Anyhow, there was nothing to see in the room, and I couldn't hear the battering coming from outside either, so I cautiously stuck my head through the door. I couldn't see anyone in either direction, but I could hear something that sounded like muffled speech in the distance. To be perfectly honest, with Papa Dracis and the annoying butler on the way, I felt that things were much less perilous than before, and I even entertained the thought of leaving the mop-up to them, but then I remembered that I technically didn't achieve any of my stated goals. I only hesitated for a moment, and then ultimately disappeared from the doorway.
I repeatedly Phased through the mansion, following the sounds of someone talking (or rather, yelling), and I soon arrived at the foyer of the mansion. Upon my arrival, I immediately hid behind the stairs leading to the first floor and observed the situation. At a single glance, it seemed like all of the knights were gathered inside, forming a semi-circle and keeping watch around a pair of men in the middle. One of them was the familiar robust knight with the horned bucket on his head, and he was animatedly yelling at his colleague while wildly gesturing with his hands.
As for the other man, I figured he was the Entitled Knight that Melinda saw during the evacuation. He was almost a head shorter than the big guy, yet he somehow had an even more imposing presence. If I had to say why, it was probably due to his bearing; his back was ramrod straight, and he had one hand on the hilt of the cavalry saber hanging from his waist while his other hand was raised with his palm pointing at the enraged Mr. Minotaur. He was also wearing a lighter set of armor, with the light blue of his gambeson being clearly visible through the gaps in the shiny metal plates. Most strikingly, he had a golden-plated, large winged helmet on his head with a beaked face-guard that completely hid his face.
"Howfur cuid ah calm doon!? That bas teuk mah sword!"
"All the more reason you should keep your head cool. Shouting won't make him appear."
Now, that was an invitation if I've ever heard one, so I figured I should oblige before the conversation moved along.
"Once again, good evening, gentlemen," I greeted the group after Phasing into the ring of knights, and after the first moment of shock passed, the squires immediately closed the circle around the three of us.
"Ye! Gimme back mah sword ya hackit bawbag, or ah—!"
"Duncan!" the second Knight sharply raised his voice, silencing his comrade before turning a pair of sharp green eyes hidden under his helmet towards me, and after a long and tense beat, he returned my greeting in a composed, borderline courteous voice. "Good evening to you as well, stranger. I don't believe we are familiar yet."
Oh? Ooooh!? Did I hear that right? An actual, level response? Finally!
I forced my body language to stay calm and not betray my excitement as I repeated the same scraping bow I did when I introduced myself the first time.
"You may call me Bel, sir Griffon Knight," I told him with a smirk hidden by my mask.
Refuge in Audacity Two: Electric Boogalo was about to start. Let's hope this time it's going to be smoother than the first…
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