Chapter 183: ~Chapter 64~ Part 2

The morning of the first day of November was mild for the season yet otherwise fairly unremarkable; especially considering it marked the beginning of the third month I've lived in this weird world of ours. This kind of occasion normally warranted standing by a window and looking at the dawning sun with a forlorn expression, with either a warm cup or a cuddly cat to complete the picture, but considering that I was feeling like ten pounds of agony packed into a five-pound bag, I graciously refrained from doing so. I was, however, standing near a window, if only so that I would have a good view of the street outside. It was exactly at nine in the morning, not a minute later, when a black passenger van with tinted windows leisurely rolled into our street and came to a halt in front of my driveway.

"Chief, I think they are here," my dear assistant called out to me as she walked down the stairs, wearing a set of 'backup clothes' she stored in my guest room in case she would be staying over, and her hair was still slightly damp after taking a shower not too long ago.

"Yeah, but not all of them," I answered as I absently observed the generic-looking yet impeccably dressed men-in-black letting our friends out of the car one at a time.

"I'll let them in."

I wanted to quip something about how it was obvious she would, as I probably couldn't drag myself to the door even if I tried, but by the time I formulated something suitably snappy, she was already out of the room. I didn't dwell on the missed opportunity for… doing something unnecessary? Why did I want to do that again? Man, my brain was a mess.

Anyhow, since there was no reason for me to stay by the window any longer, I hauled myself over to my traditional sitting spot, dropped my posterior onto my trusty comfy chair, and waited for our group to arrive. Oh, and incidentally, Ichiko was also in the room, and once I moved, she also scurried behind my seat with a guarded expression. She was also in her human form at the moment, because after we discussed things with Judy, we decided it was best to quickly come clean about her so that everyone would be aware of her and her abilities.

Speaking of abilities, it turned out that the way she shifted between her fox and her little girl form was not at all like how Chimeras transformed. If anything, it was closer to Elly's way of changing into her Draconic form, but with some extra magical lights thrown into the mix to hide the process. Oh, and not only that, but she didn't adhere to the laws of conservation of mass either, which wouldn't have been all that weird, except both the Chimera and Elly did! Or rather, I can only speculate regarding the Chimera, based on what I saw when I encountered it, but for the princess, I actually asked her to tell me her weight before and after transformation… and she didn't, because apparently that was something I shouldn't aske from a girl. Go figure. In the end Judy did the experiment in my stead using our bathroom scale, and she assured me that her mass remained the same. The little miko, on the other hand, weighed less than half as much as a fox as she did as a human.

That was a fairly interesting thing to think about… or maybe not, and I was just zoning out again. Either way, I rubbed the bridge of my nose to compose myself, and in the meantime the new arrivals entered the living room. There were only four of them present, with Snowy at the front, followed by Angie and Elly, and finally Josh closing the procession, though I could barely see him because he was all but completely hidden under a pile of colorful boxes.

"Wow, Leo! You look terrible!" Angie declared the moment she laid her eyes on me, much to my chagrin. I mean, she wasn't wrong; I was currently in my casual clothes, wrapped in a blanket around my shoulders, and a wet towel on my head, but the upbeat way she made the remark was still annoying.

"Yeah, I second that," Josh agreed after placing the boxes onto the table. "You look like you didn't get a wink of sleep last night, and you weren't even the one who got imprisoned in a room underground for the night! "

"Hey! Leo has been working the hardest out of all of us yesterday!" the princess sprung to my defense right away, and both Snowy and Angie were in wholehearted agreement with her.

"Hey, I never questioned that! I just find it peculiar, that's all," my friend defended himself, and to be fair, he had a point.

For one, they were wearing their magiforms while they were fighting, so even though they went through quite a scuffle, their actual school uniforms were perfectly clean. Not only that, but even though they were officially 'in custody', they were given the opportunity to clean up themselves, so unlike me, they looked like perfectly healthy and lively high-schoolers ready to go to school.

"Where's Amelia?" Judy cut in between the three frowning girls and the rapidly backpedaling Josh, and he immediately took the opportunity to change the subject.

"Ammy and Pascal are coming with the next car. She said they have something to take care of first, and then they will be joining us later."

"So Pascal's coming too. That means I need to prepare eleven drinks," Judy murmured and, after sending one last glance at me (probably to see if I was still alright), she headed towards the kitchen.

"Wait, I'll help!" Snowy proposed right away and she dashed after my girlfriend.

"Eleven? That doesn't add up," Josh whispered while obviously counting on his head, but no one paid him any notice at the time.

In the meantime, the princess made her way over to my side and leaned closer to take a better look at me.

"You really look sick," she noted before gingerly extending her fingers towards my forehead, and her eyes opened wide as saucers the moment she made contact. "Wait, you don't just look bad, you have a fever!"

"Well, yeah. I overworked myself a little. Again." I was only very slightly downplaying my current condition, but my draconic girlfriend refused to have any of it.

"Angie, come over here! Leo needs healing!"

"I can check!" the upbeat Celestial proposed right away and bounced over to my side, much to my momentary annoyance. I mean, being worried about me was sweet and all, but we had more important things to discuss, and I could ask Angie myself later.

"Don't look at me like that, Leo!" Elly protested in a low voice, followed up by her trademark pout. "Your health comes first, we can talk later."

"… Princess, did you just read my mind?"

"I don't need to! I just know how you think," she stated with just a hint of that subliminal smugness that I found so adorable, so before I knew it, I gestured for her to come closer.

She didn't understand at first, but then she must've figured out what I wanted, as she carefully put her arms around my shoulder and leaned in for a kiss, which would've probably landed right on the intended target if not for a sudden squeal coming from behind the back-rest of my favorite chair.

"U-u-ue-samaaa! What are you doing!?"

After the expected moment of complete bafflement passed, I heaved an exasperated sigh befitting the situation and gently pushed Elly back, if only so that I could lean to the side and take a look at the little girl hiding behind the chair.

"The better question is, why are you curled up behind me like that?" I asked the first thing that came to mind, and the tiny fox-girl immediately stiffened in response.

"I-It's because he is scary!" she declared in a heated yet at the same time mousy voice while pointing in the general direction of Josh, though even if she wasn't, considering that he was the only other 'he' in the room beside me, it wasn't hard to figure out who she was talking about. However, before I could ask just why exactly she was wary of him, she collected herself and let her hand down, facing me again. "More importantly, why is ue-sama cheating on Judy-ue in front of everyone?"

"I'm not cheating. She's also my girlfriend."

"Really?" Her eyes opened wide for a second as she digested the new information, but then she finally registered that she was in the crossfire of everyone's attention. A blink of an eye later she blushed crimson in embarrassment and exclaimed, "I will ask Judy-ue!"

And just like that, the little miko dashed out of the living room and into the kitchen, leaving an odd silence in her wake.

"Soooo… Who was that?" Josh voiced the question on everyone's minds while trying to peep into the kitchen, but when he couldn't catch a glimpse of her, he turned back to me and reinforced his question by directing one of his world-class single raised eyebrows at me.

"Her name is Ichiko," I told them, my voice feeling a little weary even to myself, so I quickly cleared my throat and continued in a more normal tone. "She used to be a shrine maiden who then turned into a sword, but now she is a Chimera that turned into a girl. Also a fox, but not right now."

The people in the room shared an incredulous glance between each other, and it once again fell on Joshua's shoulders to ask, "Which part of that was the punch line?"

"Neither. I'm entirely serious," I responded, but since they still seemed skeptical, I decided to move things along. "I'll explain in detail when they are back."

After saying so, I gestured for my draconic girlfriend to come closer again, so that she could receive the welcome kiss she missed because of the interruption, while Angie took the situation in stride and began to hum some kind of song, no doubt as part of either her diagnosis or treatment of me. I wasn't holding my breath, since she couldn't do much about my fever the last two times I overworked myself, but considering I had a couple of other injuries, I wasn't going to turn her down.

"So, I counted again with the kid included, but we are still short of eleven people," came the unexpected comment from Josh, and after some consideration, I decided to straight out tell him what's going on.

"It's because Labcoat Guy and his android are also coming."

"Wait, what? Why?"

This time the question came from Elly, and she seemed baffled and outraged by the prospect in equal measure.

"I've made a deal with the Arch-mage. They are not going to be prosecuted for the mess they caused, but instead they are going to be in our custody, and I'm planning to put them to work in the secret base."

"Custody? Since when are we allowed to do that?" Josh followed up with yet another skeptically raised eyebrow.

"It's not really a question of being allowed or not, but necessity. For now, I plan to stick them into one of the unused rooms in the base."

"And who's going to guard them?"

"These guys," I answered while pointing with my left thumb, and it took an embarrassingly long time for the two Fauns in the corner to realize I was talking about them and remove their cloaking.

"Ack!" Josh of all people reeled in surprise, but once he regained his wits, he let out an embarrassed groan followed by a peevish, "I hate it when they do that!"

"Apologies," Karukk said in the characteristic, rumbling voice of the Faun, while Vurrok beside him averted his eyes and pretended this situation had nothing to do with him.

"Hold on! Why are they like that?" Elly spoke up again as the obvious white bandages failed to avoid her eagle eyes.

"We had a bit of a battle in the secret base, there was some collateral damage, the perpetrator was detained, and her sword is now the little girl you just saw." I noticed that Josh was giving me another 'Is this guy pulling my leg?' look, but before I could clarify myself, Angie called out to me for a change.

"Collateral damage? Is the hockey-table safe?"

Now it was my turn to give someone a doubtful look.

"I'm glad to see that your priorities are the same as usual," I jested. "And yes, it's fine."

"That's good. We still need to have our rematch with Elly," the Celestial girl noted while moving her hand in a circular motion in front of me, only to then pause and ask, "You have a small cut on your stomach. Do you want me to treat it?"

"While you're at it, might as well," I shrugged, and she gave me a happy-go-lucky 'Yessir' before resuming her humming. "So, hockey-tables aside, I'll explain everything in detail once everyone arrives. Now, here's a question from me for a change: what's with those boxes?"

"Oh, you mean these?" my friend asked back as he raised the top-most one to show its front to me. "I have no idea why, but Ammy's grandpa gave all of these board games to us last night. We didn't even have time to try them out yet, but then when we wanted to give them back in the morning, he told us we can keep them."

"They look pretty sweet!" Angie chimed again. "I really wanted to try the one where one player has a castle and the other has an army, and you have to shoot each other with catapults and cannons!"

"Of course you'd want to play the one game where your goal is to break stuff," Josh scoffed on the side, earning him a not at all unexpected glare from his childhood friend.

"Says the guy who only wanted to play the game where you crush clay figures with a Rube Goldberg machine!"

It looked like the two of them were just about to descend into yet another one of their usual childhood friend spats, but then it was cut mercifully short by the reappearance of Judy and the two youngest girls following behind her, all carrying trays with either soft drinks or snacks. For some inexplicable reason, my kitchen had those stocked all the time, but it was a mystery I was already used to.

Judy and Snowy looked the same as usual, but Ichiko in particular was unusually twitchy, and while on her way to the table to place her tray, she kept sending sneaky glances at me, Elly, and Josh, in that order. Then, the moment her hands were free, she dashed away from the others and came to a screeching halt in front of me before melodramatically falling to her knees and doing that weird bowing thing when her forehead touched the ground.

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"I'm sorry, ue-sama, for lacking faith in you! I couldn't know that Princess-ue is also your lover! I brought shame upon myself!"

"Please get up and stop being so overdramatic. You're embarrassing me." The moment I said that she immediately jumped to her feet, but didn't quit bowing her head. "Stop that too. Also, only I'm calling her princess, her name is Eleanor."

"We call her Elly," Josh commented on the side, pretending to organize the boxes while obviously paying full attention to our conversation.

"So it is like with Judy-ue and her second name! I should have known!" Saying so, she immediately bowed to Elly in turn. "Please excuse my lack of etiquette, Elly-ue!"

My draconic girlfriend looked at the newcomer with considerable confusion, and after some consideration she eventually concluded, "She's weird."

"Yep, she is," I agreed before pointedly clearing my throat. "So, I think it's about time I properly introduced her. Everyone, this is Ichiko. As I said, she used to be a sword, but due to some circumstances, right now she is inhabiting the empty body of the Chimera that we encountered during the incident with Crowey. Oh, and as I said, she can also turn into a fox."

"Seriously?" Elly suddenly asked with a surprised look on her face.

"A fluffy one," Judy added with a solemn nod that was way too serious considering the situation.

"Can I see it?" came the next interjection from the Celestial girl by my side, and I shook my head.

"I know you guys like cute things, but this is really not the time. Also, let me introduce you guys too." I waited for the little miko to pay attention to me, and then I began our roll-call by pointing at the people present one at a time. "You already know Judy and the big guys in the corner, so let's skip them. This lovely girl is Elly, my other girlfriend, and she is Draconian. This silly girl over here is Angie, and she is Celestial. That scary guy over there is Josh, and he is weird, so you better not get too close to him."

"Hey," Josh protested, but I summarily ignored him.

"Finally, that cute girl is Snowy, currently my little sister, and she's from the Abyss. We are also soon going to get more company, but I'll introduce them when they get here."

"I see, I see…" Ichiko nodded a couple of times. "So it's Elly-ue, Angie-san, Josh-san, and…" Suddenly she paused when she got to Snowy, and after wracking her brain for a second, she sends a pitiful glance at Judy, and somehow my girlfriend could read her intention right away.

"Snowy is what the Chief calls her. Her real name is Neige."

"So it's Neige-ue!" she beamed like a well-fed cat or, well, fox, and once again nodded to herself in satisfaction.

"So first Lily, and now her… Are you going to adopt her too?" Josh teased me with a smirk, but I kept my cool and shook my head.

"Nah, I'm perfectly satisfied with one little sister, thank you very much."

"In other words, she's going to be your daughter. Ichiko S. Dunning, huh?" Josh remarked with absolute seriousness, and if I had any suitable projectiles in arm's reach, I swear I would've totally thrown something at him. Oh, wait. I did.

"Blegh!" my friend yelped out as I flung the towel from the top of my head at him, which earned me a scolding from Judy and a few stray giggles from the rest of the girls, so it was a net positive.

Things quickly calmed down afterwards, allowing the little fox-miko to personally introduce herself to each member of our group in turn while we waited for Ammy and co to arrive. As luck would have it, we didn't have to wait long, and we still had more than half of the snacks left when another black van pulled up to my house.

"Leo, they are here!" Snowy reported from the window, and I gave her a thumbs up with my left hand before reaching behind me and pulling the blanket off my back and handing it over to Judy.

"Please put this away. Also, am I in a presentable condition?"

"More or less," she told me in a deadpan tone, but knowing her, she would've at least combed my hair if I wasn't, so I straightened my back in my seat and assumed the closest thing I could manage to a self-assured, complacent posture.

I didn't mind the class rep seeing me under the weather, but in front of Armband Guy and our two new 'recruits', I had to pretend that I had no chinks in my armor. Once I felt suitably poised, I gestured for the Fauns using one of the hand-signals that Brang taught me, and they grudgingly put down the cheese scones they were eating and silently walked upstairs with their cloaking sigils turned on. I already knew that the fembot could see through their invisibility, so I had to send them away, lest she drew attention to them while Armband Guy was still around. With that done, I glanced down at the girl on my right, but she was too engrossed with her work to notice, so I had to let out a small cough to get her attention.

"Angie?"

"Hm? Yes?" The celestial girl glanced up at me with a distracted look in her eyes, and after finally realizing what I was getting at, she shook her head. "No, I'm still not done."

"Then how about we continue later?" I proposed, only to be immediately shot down.

"No, I'm at an important part. Just stay still."

We locked eyes for a second, but considering how unusually serious she was, I figured it was better not to get into an argument right now. I mean, everyone knows that if you know what's best for you, you never mess with the party's white mage.

As such, I had to let Angie continue her work, and in the meantime the new guests finally arrived at the front door and my sister and the princess both rushed out to let them in. A short time later, Ammy finally entered the room. Unlike the rest of the group, she was no longer wearing her school uniform, but a thick orange turtleneck sweater with matching skirts instead. She also procured a spare set of glasses, and since the ones she was wearing right now had thicker rims, the combination with the rest of her ensemble made me think she was about to jump into a garish van and start solving monster mysteries with a talking dog at any moment.

Jokes notwithstanding, the look fit her surprisingly well. On the other hand, Armband Guy behind her stuck out of the environment like a sore thumb, as for some reason he was dressed in a khaki business suit with a blue tie and a matching hat. On second look, I figured he was trying to emulate the style of Lord Grandpa, but he simply wasn't pulling it off at all.

Finally, behind these two stood the pair of Labcoat Guy and Galatea. The fembot being tied up no longer surprised me anymore, though at least they had the courtesy to put a loose grey trench coat on her so that it wouldn't be obvious at first glance, but Labcoat Guy was another matter entirely. Gone were the yoke, the frayed lab coat, and the silly clogs. No, he was actually wearing a perfectly sensible pair of washed jeans, sneakers, a plaid flannel shirt, and most importantly, he had his semi-long hair properly combed and parted in the middle. In fact, if I didn't know him already, I would've thought he was one of those stereotypical otaku types from certain shows, only missing the big swirly glasses and the headband. I was so surprised by his appearance that it took me several seconds to collect myself and greet the newcomers.

"Um… Hi, class rep. You guys too. Come in, we still have some snacks."

Armband Guy ever so slightly narrowed his eyes, but otherwise didn't react, and instead he walked over to me. It was at this point that I noticed that he had a briefcase in his hands, and the moment I laid my eyes on it, he instantly offered it to me.

"The Lord told me to give this to you. It contains the inventory of all the items confiscated at his hideout, which will be delivered to a location of your choosing by the end of the week. You can also find the necessary forms to requisition further resources, pre-signed documents you may use to employ specialists contracted to the School, as well the required forms to file for tax-exemption on the island."

"I'm happy to see that bureaucracy is alive and well even in the supernatural underbelly of the world." I followed my words up with a sigh and gestured towards the spot next to my chair. "Just put them over there, I'll give them a look later."

Armband Guy immediately followed my instructions and placed the briefcase next to me, after which he added, "The Lord also instructed me to give you all courtesies, and to forward the following message: in the future, his doors will be always open for you, but he would kindly ask you to announce your intent to parley in the future."

"Of course. So long as he keeps his side of the bargain, I'm happy to be the very model of courtesy," I told him with a smile, and that seemed to be enough for him, as he gave me a nod and immediately turned on his heel.

"Please excuse me, but I'm afraid I cannot stay. The delegation from the Assembly will arrive soon, and the Lord requested my presence by his side."

"No problem, have fun."

He completely let the words in through one ear and out the other, and after giving a meaningful glance at Ammy, he bid his farewell to the rest of the group, including the slightly baffled Ichiko, and left the house as quickly as he came.

"Well, that was unexpected," I whispered with a wry bend in my lips, but before I could say anything else, I was suddenly assaulted by the class rep breaking right into my personal space and glaring at me from a hand's width away.

"Leo. What exactly did you do to grandfather?" she hissed through her teeth, and after overcoming my first surprise, I gave her a flat look, put my index finger on her forehead, and gently but firmly pushed her away.

"I made a deal with him. For now, please be satisfied with that explanation. We have to take care of a few other things first."

"Such as?" she asked back, so I pointed at the two captives silently glaring at us in on the side.

"Those guys, among other things. But even before that…" I put my fingers in my mouth and let out a loud whistle, and a few seconds later, the Faun dashed back down the stairs. "Take those two. Also those boxes and this briefcase. You know the rest."

The two invisible Fauns nodded in unison, gave me a salute, and then immediately jumped into action.

"Wait, Leo?! What's going on?!" The class rep raised her voice in protest, so I raised a hand to calm her down while Karukk picked up the flabbergasted fembot (which incidentally turned her invisible in the process) and headed towards the kitchen back-door leading to the garage.

"Don't worry, it's something I've already planned for," I told her while gesturing for the panicked Labcoat Guy, who also disappeared a moment later when he got picked up. "Since your grandpa learned that I can detect his surveillance balls, I figured he, or someone else, might try something more mundane to spy on us, so I bought an anti-surveillance kit online and taught the Fauns how to use it. We're first going to check those two and everything else we received from him for bugs, and only then would we take them to the secret base."

Ammy gave me a withering look, and ultimately uttered, "There's no way grandfather would do something like that."

"You can never know. After what happened last night, I wouldn't be surprised if he went even further than just a few listening devices. Oh, speaking of which," I gestured for the Faun who was just about to pick up the briefcase, and told him, "Just to be on the safe side, first take that outside and open it from a distance with a rake or something, just in case there's a bomb in it."

"Leo!" Ammy cried out in pure, undiluted outrage, apparently completely revolted by the mere idea I was suggesting.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," I told her without any room for disagreement.

"Chief, that's not really convincing when it's coming from you of all people…"

"Hush, Dormouse. I'm trying to be a responsible leader-type here. Please don't undermine me."

I took my girlfriend's subtly rolled eyes as a sign of agreement, and soon things calmed down after the helpful Fauns left the room. In fact, things might have been a little too quiet, as everyone was giving me odd looks. As such, since we were all present, and there were no further hindrances in the way, I decided to stop delaying the inevitable.

"All right. I believe I promised that I would explain things in detail once we were all here."

"Yep," Josh nodded.

"You said that," Elly agreed with an even bigger nod, for some reason.

"Yes! I also remember that ue-sama said that!" came the third, and this time wholly unnecessary agreement from the little girl in green.

"… Who's she?" Ammy broke the chain with a small frown and a habitually menacing tweaking of her glasses.

"Well, I suppose I might as well start there…"

And with that, I began my long, detailed, and mostly white-lie-free description of the last day's events.

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