Chapter 229: ~Chapter 76~ Part 1

Why did the island have so many French restaurants? No, seriously, there were about as many of them as there were secret underground bases and hideouts, which was… kind of a strange comparison, now that I think about it. Anyhow, my question wasn't apropos of nothing, as I was sitting in one at the moment. As far as my experience with restaurants was concerned, this one was on the smaller side; a single main hall, with three smaller, more secluded sections near the windows. I was currently sitting by the smallest of these private tables, and even though we were on the ground floor, I've got a pretty nice view of Timaeus's harbor at night. Add in the full moon and the old lighthouse in the distance, and it was definitely scenic.

"Does your head still hurt?" came an unexpected question from the others side of the table, and I reflexively glanced over.

Judy, wearing a quite flattering black dress (courtesy of the princess) was sitting in front of me and giving me a questioning look. She had makeup on her face, which I still wasn't entirely used to, and she was wearing the ribbon I gave her not too long ago. It didn't really fit the rest of her outfit, but I obviously wouldn't point that out in this situation. I found her cute anyway, and it wasn't really important what others were thinking about her. Or rather, if they were thinking anything about her in the first place, considering we were surrounded with some especially bland Placeholders at the moment.

More importantly, when I didn't answer right away, my girlfriend used a finger to point at my face.

"You're holding your head. Judybot's medical database says that means your head must hurt."

For a moment I didn't know what she was talking about, but then I realized that, without noticing it, at some point I started massaging my temple. I stopped doing so, and after a momentary beat I told her, "A little, but it's not that bad. It's just the music."

As for what I meant by that, the restaurant actually had live music in the form of a quartet in the corner. It apparently added class or what have you, but while they weren't exactly bad, the high notes were playing havoc with my head, even though it's been three days since my disconcerting experience in Saahira's hotel suite. Three oddly quiet days, if I may add. I expected that 'Sahi' would transfer in, or the hubbub around the 'death' of an Arch-mage would cause us trouble, or even just that Ammy's 'great secret' would be dramatically revealed, but there was nothing. Really, the only oddity in the past couple of days was Angie acting strange ever since she found Ammy in Josh's bathroom, and my friend being oddly blasé about it. In fact, he was just unusually quiet in general.

Anyhow, since things were calm at the moment, I opted to use the opportunity to get a couple of things done while the peace lasted. I proceeded with my plan to arm the Fauns with enchanted weaponry (in retrospect, that might've been the cause of my continued headache), I discussed magic theory with Fred and his android companion (unfortunately, not much was accomplished), I further interrogated Cal about all things Knightly and, last but not least, I took Judy out for a solo-date, just like I promised her a while ago.

Speaking of her, my girlfriend was apparently considering something, and before long she called one of the waiters over and whispered something directly into his ear. The man nodded in the affirmative and left our table, and before I could even ask what she said, I noticed the volume of the quartet going down a few notches. That… was surprising. I didn't even know you can just adjust the volume of string instruments like that, but apparently it could be done, as the much softer music attested.

"Thanks, Dormouse. I didn't even consider that an option, but it definitely helps," I said with a self-deprecating smile, and my girlfriend responded with a bright one of her own. Well, by Judy standards, I mean.

"You're welcome," she answered before taking a sip from the glass of cold water in front of her. In fact, she did it so deliberately I had a feeling she tried to communicate something by doing it, but I had no idea what it was.

"So, what were we talking about before we sat down?" I asked mainly as a way to get the conversation rolling, and my dear assistant answered right away.

"You mentioned something about plot armor before we sat down."

"Oh, right. That." I remained silent for a moment to collect my thoughts, during which she took another very long sip. Nope, still had no idea, but I refused to let it bother me. "Long story short, Josh's encounter with Sahi made me wonder: do you think he might be losing his plot armor?"

"Did he ever have one?" Judy asked back, and that made me pause.

"I… think he did? I mean, he survived an encounter with Crowey as a total greenhorn, and he got away with some weird stunts when we tried to capture Fred. Not to mention, he's the protagonist, and protagonists have plot armor by default."

"In that case, I'd like to encourage you to become the protagonist," she commented, and when I remained in stunned silence, she clarified, "It would help my peace of mind a lot, and it's not like you weren't already acting more like a protagonist than him."

"I get it, but… Do you think that's actually possible? I mean, could Josh be losing his plot armor because of me?"

"It's possible. A protagonist moves the plot by definition, and you've been doing that way more than Joshua."

"… I can't really argue with that," I admitted, if a little reluctantly. "Though again, he had this whole thing with Ammy and breaking into Magi warehouses going on, so he was definitely involved in some plot threads."

"Speaking of which," she cut in with a tiny frown, and I could see her fingers rhythmically tapping against the table. It was most likely because she really wanted to take notes, but phones weren't allowed in the restaurant. It was a fancy place with old-school rules. Anyhow, she posited, "I think this chain of events could serve as a strong indication that we are not in a route-based Narrative."

"Oh? What makes you think that?"

"Joshua and Amelia were spending time together during multiple events. Normally this would indicate that Joshua was on her route, but since they aren't romantically involved anymore, it implies that this was instead her personal arc. According to my research, it's common in harem stories for every love interest to have their own arcs one after the other before the protagonist picks one of them at the finale," she explained, and I couldn't help but nod along.

"That's certainly a possibility… but then again, it could be that we're still in the common route, with arcs you just described, and the branching point into individual routes would be when Josh picks one of the girls from his entourage," I countered on principle, only to then pause and say, "Wait, what do you mean by 'no longer romantically involved'?"

My dearest assistant slightly cocked her head to the side and told me, "I was under the impression that she's already going out with w1ng3d n1nj4."

By the way, she actually spelled out the numbers. Don't ask why, I don't know either. More importantly, after I decoded what she meant, I promptly shook my head.

"Nah. Mike is definitely enamored with her, and she didn't seem completely unreceptive, but I don't think they are in an actual relationship."

"They aren't? That's odd," Judy responded while cocking her head even further. "Elly and I both agreed that, based on the way she was talking about him, they were already dating."

"I still don't think they are, but… when exactly did you talk about something like this?"

"It was girl-talk," she told me like it was obvious.

"I see…" For a few seconds it felt like the conversation was getting bogged down in the backwater, so I quickly cleared my throat and said, "Either way, the important thing to consider is whether Josh's loss at Sahi's hands has any deeper narrative implications."

"It could've been just a Hopeless Boss Fight," Judy proposed, and my brows immediately descended in response.

"Like in a JRPG?" She nodded, so I continued with, "So you think the Narrative wanted them to lose the fight?"

"Entirely possible," she stated, though she sounded less certain than her words implied.

"So maybe it was supposed to be a catalyst for character development for him," I guessed, only for a sudden realization to hit me like a bolt of lightning from clear skies. "Wait. But if he was supposed to lose there, then wouldn't my interruption get in the way of that?"

Judy remained silent for a while, yet even after thinking it through, she shrugged her shoulders and answered with an ambivalent, "Possibly. On the other hand, a third party showing up to save the protagonist at the end of a Hopeless Boss Battle is also a trope, so maybe you were supposed to defuse the situation from the very beginning. We can't say for sure without knowing how the original scenario was supposed to go."

Her words immediately triggered a sigh from me, and I followed it up by a generally annoyed, "You know, I'm getting a little tired of all of our theories running into this wall as of late. So long as we can't get a grip on the exact nature of the Narrative, and whatever plotline it may or may not try to adhere to, it feels like we're just blindly shooting into the dark, hoping to hit something by accident."

"True," Judy agreed, followed by a shallow sigh of her own. "We managed to come up with some plausible descriptive hypotheses using tropes, but without being able to see how the Narrative works and whether our actions affect it, they have no predictive applications."

"We really need an outside perspective, don't we?"

"We have one, it's just not very accessible," she pointed out, and it took me a moment to recognize that she was talking about me.

She wasn't exactly wrong though. It was thanks to some hard-to-explain insight that we knew that the world around us was called a 'Simulacrum', and that it was a constructed setting with multiple entities responsible for it. Granted, I still didn't know where that knowledge came from, but...

No, that actually wasn't entirely true. That information probably came from me. As in, the me who moved both Ichiko's and Sahi's souls like it was child's play. The me who knew things I didn't. And the weirdest part was that it didn't feel like that 'me' was another personality or identity, but just, well, me with a few extra layers. It was kind of like when you wake up from a dream, and while you can remember bits and pieces of a swashbuckling adventure you had, one which made perfect sense at the time, now that you're awake the whole thing just falls apart and you can't remember why you thought it made sense in the first place.

Anyhow, I slowly shook my head too clear it of idle thoughts. My dearest assistant probably misunderstood the gesture, as she hastily told me, "I'm not trying to pressure you into doing something unpleasant, let alone potentially dangerous, but even you have to admit that if you possess further external knowledge on the Simulacrum, it would be the biggest breakthrough we could hope for short of finding the original script of the Narrative."

"Maybe, but it's not exactly simple," I answered just a little sourly. "I told you; while I was hyper-aware and strangely knowledgeable when I was zoned out back then, I've no idea where all that information came from, and I can't quite recall any of it anymore."

"It probably came from you being a glitch in the system," Judy casually commented, earning her a critically raised brow in return.

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"Glitch?"

"Would you prefer being called a bug instead?"

"I'd prefer neither," I grumbled, and now it was my girlfriend's turn to shake her head.

"Chief, look at all your abilities that defy the metaphysical rules of the Simulacrum. At this point they are way beyond just outside context powers; I'm convinced that everything you do is thanks to you somehow instinctively exploiting holes in the Simulacrum's code."

"That wouldn't make me the glitch, not to mention, there's no code. The strata of the world are more like... I think organic is the closest word I can think of. This is all beside the point though."

"What was the point?"

"I... Huh. Now that you mention it, we wandered a little bit off-topic. We started out with Josh's plot armor, didn't we?"

"Yes. We also concluded that if the incident during the weekend was because of him losing it, it was due to you stealing his position."

"We didn't 'conclude' that, it was just a possibility," I grumbled back.

"You've taken Elly, you've taken his leadership position, and you even took his sword in the stone and his chosen one status for the Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines. Usurping his protagonist's status altogether should be but a formality at this point."

"And now I'm usurping of all things..." I whispered under a sigh. "And why do you sound so excited about the prospect? I thought taking the protagonist role was a bad thing."

"Why would it be?" Judy asked back, and for a moment I could only blink in lack of comprehension.

"What do you mean 'why'? Becoming the protagonist would completely mess up the Narrative."

"I was under the impression that we were already doing that."

"Yes, but this way it would get me very directly involved with it. I thought you were against that."

"That boat sailed a loooooong time ago, Chief. Bringing that up right now would be just silly."

"Okay, that's fair, but what about the harem part of being a battle harem protagonist? Don't tell me you are suddenly okay with that."

Judy very slowly narrowed her eyes into an annoyed squint, and then she emphatically asked, "Do you want a harem?"

"Well, no, of course not. I'm kind of having my hands full with just the two of you already."

"Then I see no issue," she told me, much to my bafflement.

"… I know this is a cliché, but let me say this anyway: Who are you, and what did you do to my Dormouse?"

My girlfriend awarded me a wry look and bluntly stated, "Since pleading, warnings, and threats of violence weren't particularly effective so far, I decided to borrow a page from Elly's book and try to focus on positive reinforcement instead." She paused here to let her words sink in, and then added, "Also, if your hypothesis about being a protagonist automatically coming with plot armor was true, it's all the more reason for me to give my full support for your usurping efforts."

"I'm still not usurping anything, it's just a result of weird circumstances with my powers and the sword and whatnot," I griped, but Judy didn't react in any way. In fact, the conversation came to a fairly lengthy halt, so much so that I thought we would remain in silence until our food arrived.

Fortunately, my prediction was off the mark, as she soon casually asked, "Speaking of Caledfwlch, do you really intend to become the leader of the Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines?"

"Honestly, it sounds like the easiest way to end the blood feud between them and the Draconians," I answered with complete sincerity, yet she didn't seem entirely convinced.

"Let's presume you actually succeed and make them bury the hatchet. It would probably cause huge ripples in the Narrative and it might even cause the next arc to start in advance again. What then?"

"Well, if it happens and, say, the Celestials show up out of nowhere in force even though we should know of their movements ahead of time, it would at least confirm that we're working with an arc-based plot structure and that it can be sped up by our actions. Also, even if I somehow manage to get the Knights under control, I'd still have to deal with the other side of the conflict, so I'd rather worry about that than any possible arc-shenanigans."

"True, I suppose," Judy concluded, but then a second later she began tapping her fingers again as she mused, "On second thought, could it be that we are already in a situation where there are two overlapping arcs?" I raised a brow, which she must've interpreted as 'Go on', so she did. "Wouldn't dealing with the Knight girl, presumably the archetypal late comer love interest for Josh, be one arc, and dealing with Amelia a separate arc?"

"I don't think so. Josh made no contact with this Penelope girl yet, so if it is an arc, it's probably the class rep's."

"Is that so? In that case, do you think it's already over with their defeat at the hands of Arch-mage Saahira's proxy?"

"Maybe," I answered, and truth be told, I was even more uncertain than my word implied. "I mean, it was pretty climactic from Josh's point of view, and it had this big secret that was built up for a while, and it would've been revealed if not for my intervention at the last second, so I guess it could've technically been an arc-ending finale," I granted her, only to catch myself and add the obligatory, "If we're really having an arc-structure, that is."

Judy didn't respond to my dogged determination to not jump the gun, but instead she cocked her head again, though this time in the other direction.

"Secret? What secret?"

"Well, I kind of promised the class rep that I wouldn't tell anyone else. It's something about her in particular."

My dear assistant fell silent for a while, but then she tilted her head upright and uttered, "She's a homunculus."

"Wait, you knew?" I blurted out in surprise, only realizing my mistake when I noticed the hint of a shadow of a pale imitation of a smug smirk on her lips.

"Not until now."

"Hey! You tricked me!"

"No, I didn't. It was a question," she pointed out, this time audibly smugly.

"No it was most definitely not," I fumed, but seeing her being so triumphant made me let out a soft groan and I decided this wasn't a hill worth dying for, so instead I asked, "You must've had an idea to bring it up in the first place. What gave it away?"

"It was just a hunch," she readily admitted. "Considering the Arch-mage was experimenting with the creation of homunculi capable of magic, and that we never met Amelia's parents, I deduced that there could be a strong correlation between these two pieces of evidence. Quite elementary."

"It sure is," I agreed and let her enjoy herself a little longer. "Do you also know why she would try to jump through all those hoops just to hide this fact?"

"I don't know. It doesn't seem to be a particularly big deal to me."

"You took the words right out of my mouth," I agreed, and before I could say anything else, I noticed that a waiter was coming our way with a serving trolley, so I figured this was as good a way to end the discussion as any. Not to mention, we still had some date plans left, so I dusted off my best boyfriendly attitude, waited until all the food was on the table, and then I theatrically picked up my champagne glass and raised it for a toast.

Our glasses met a little clumsily because Judy wasn't holding her glass quite right, but I naturally ignored such a small faux pas and gave her a reassuring smile before I drank my share in one go. It was, of course, non-alcoholic champagne, because I might be a filthy rich, polyamorous, teleporting King of Knights who may or may not be a glitch in the system, but before all that, I was a law-abiding citizen, and if my ID said I was a minor, then non-alcoholic champagne it is. It's all about the principle, you see.

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