Chapter 90: ~Chapter 30~ Part 2

"Let's get started," I spoke solemnly after sitting down on my padded swivel chair in front of the PC. Once Snowy finally calmed down, I told her to get familiar with her room and to put her new clothes away. Afterwards, Judy and I left the premises and immediately entered my room in order to have a much-needed discussion about all the recent developments, so I took my usual spot right away.

"Before we begin," my girlfriend suddenly spoke up as she sat down on my bed, "it's imperative that you sit over here."

"Why?" I inquired while practicing my single-eyebrow-raising skill. "Do you want to use the computer?"

Judy shook her head, but instead of clarifying what she wanted, she began to mechanically pat the space next to her.

"... You want me to sit next to you," I stated rather than asked, and she immediately nodded in the affirmative. "You just want to cuddle, don't you?"

"That's correct," she confirmed my suspicion with a shameless nod, then added, "You already gave me permission."

"Yes, but... Don't you think this should be a little higher on our priority list?" I asked as I picked up a certain manila envelope and gently waved it in her direction.

"We can do both. Judybot is powered by a state-of-the-art dual-core processor, so she is good at multitasking."

"... I can't decide what disturbs me the most; the fact that you still beat the dead horse about the robot thing, that you talk about yourself in the third person, or that you think that a dual-core processor is state of the art."

When I said that, my girlfriend finally stopped patting the bed beside her and instead her eyes narrowed into a small frown.

"Chief, stop nitpicking already and come over, or I will be forced to take drastic measures."

"Such as...?" I cautiously asked her.

"I will go over and sit in your lap."

I gave my unusually intense girlfriend a subtly baffled look, then I tentatively asked her, "And that is supposed to be a threat because…?"

At this point Judy let out a grunt of displeasure and stood up, but instead of unexpectedly hopping onto my lap as I expected, she deftly snatched the envelope right out of my hand and then sat back down onto the bed with an unmistakably pouting expression.

"There. Now you either come here, or I won't let you read this."

"Are you seriously blackmailing me into cuddling right now?" She only gave me a rather severe glare (by her standards) in return, so I quickly raised my hands in surrender. "Okay, I get it. I'm already moving."

Saying so, I quickly got onto my feet and sat down on the spot she was patting before. A split second later Judy swiftly entwined our arms while simultaneously depositing the envelope back into my lap. Unfortunately, her mood already seemed to be quite sour, as she kept pouting at me with undaunted vigor. I thought this was the perfect moment to change the subject, but my plan was torpedoed when my girlfriend lightly kicked my shin.

"You are still so bad at reading the mood, I don't even know why I'm trying," she grumbled with a sulky voice, her words punctuated by another entirely harmless kick. "You even said you would put in more effort."

"I do!" I protested, if a little weakly.

"Then why does it take an entire song and dance routine to get you to act like a proper boyfriend?"

"Fine, I get it," I told her with a sigh, but since she was still pouting, I decided to be a little assertive for a change, so I disentangled our arms and, before she could complain, I quickly reached around her and put my hand on her waist, then I pulled her close enough so that our thighs touched.

Judy only blinked at me in surprise at first, but then she sharply exhaled through her nose in a way I could interpret either as a stifled chuckle or a derisive snort, and after a beat she leaned even closer and rested her head against my shoulder.

"That's a start," she said, her voice still containing a tiny bit of sulkiness, so I leaned down and planted a small kiss on her forehead. It was a weird sensation. My extended research on romance told me that these kinds of interactions should be firing me up and getting my heart to beat faster, but while I did feel a kind of cozy warmth in the pit of my stomach, the situation felt oddly calming instead.

Anyways, I let my girlfriend snuggle to me to her heart's content for about two minutes before I carefully picked the envelope up from my lap and asked her, "Can we get started?"

Judy glanced up at me, then after a moment of thinking she replied, "Five more minutes."

"Oh come on, Dormouse! Didn't you say you can multitask?"

"Yes, but that was before I realized that high-level cuddling algorithms use up way more processing power than I expected."

"That's just silly talk. You don't need algorithms for cuddling, it's entirely analog!"

"… I don't know enough about computers to come up with a snappy answer to that. Now I feel sad," my girlfriend said in a tone that was anything but sad.

"Oh, fine!" I gave up with a small sigh. "Would hugging for five minutes cancel it out?"

"Yes, but then I would be back at the baseline, so… ten minutes?"

I didn't answer her, instead I just pulled her even closer, and then I did nothing for ten minutes, which I didn't enjoy at all, and I definitely didn't have anything silly like warm, fuzzy feels in the pit of my stomach. Anyways, once the allocated snuggling time was over, I tapped my fingers on Judy's waist to get her attention, following which I removed my hand so that I could actually open the package.

"Time's up! Let's take a look," I said as I carefully pried the seal on the back of the envelope open. I was paying very close attention to what I was doing, with extra focus on any magical tomfoolery the infuriating old man might have put on it. My disposition might've been infectious, as Judy also stared unblinking at the object in my hand while holding her breath.

Then the envelope finally opened and... nothing in particular happened. I would be lying if I said it wasn't a bit of a letdown, but I quickly dismissed any such thoughts as I reached inside and carefully pulled out the contents. What we found was... considerably more mundane than what I expected, and based on the small frown on my girlfriend's brows, she shared my sentiment.

In total, there were a couple of standard A4 pages filled with words, a map of what I quickly recognized as Timaeus and its surroundings with several bright red circles drawn on it with a permanent marker, and four honest to goodness Polaroid photographs.

After a moment of skimming through everything in my hands, I turned to my assistant.

"What do you think?"

Judy visibly pondered for a moment before she replied, "Very noir."

"I know, right!?" I agreed with a smidgen of my previous excitement returning to my voice.

The 'leads' in my hand looked like the standard package any self-respecting hardboiled private detective would be guaranteed to receive on a cold and stormy evening to kick off a noir murder mystery of some sort.

The trope would've been perfect, except for a small but glaring flaw: in a noir detective story, the one kicking off the plot by delivering the leads was supposed to be a pretty femme fatale walking into my office, but instead all I got was a grating old wizard, and I was the one who had to walk into his office to boot!

But then again, maybe that was for the best. We already had too many pretty girls around these parts, we really didn't need another one, especially now that I was in a relationship and could get into trouble for messing around with femme fatales.

I lightly shook my head to clear it of such miscellaneous thoughts and turned my attention towards the papers in my hands in order to study them a wee bit more closely. Judy apparently already memorized the contents, but she quietly waited for me to finish while she continued to rest her head against my shoulder. It took me about five more minutes to reach the end of it, at which point I separated the 'clues' into three groups and said, "We have three leads."

"Mm," Judy agreed, followed by a nod during which her head somehow didn't break contact with my shoulder. "The research society, the monster sightings, and the unknown swordswoman."

This time it was my turn to nod as I put two of the bundles down beside me and focused on the last one.

"Let's start with this one," I proposed. "According to this, the Non-causative Science Research Society has increased their presence on Critias during the past two weeks. At least one new research base, location unknown. An unknown number of operatives, estimations range between ten and twenty. Possible connections to both the Abyss and the Celestials. Combat forces numbering in the hundreds. Also…" I paused for a moment to study a certain paragraph again, just to make sure I read it right the first time, "Also, they have giant robots with drill hands. Apparently those are a thing now."

"That's what it says," Judy confirmed my reading with a slightly bemused voice, by her standards, then she quickly added, "I don't understand this lead."

"Me neither," I agreed with a frown.

There were three huge issues with this particular 'clue' we were given. First off, it was way too vague but at the same time way too confident. It made hard claims, but then it failed to back them up with any numbers or sources. Sure, the way it was written made it look like a legitimate compilation of reports and intel, but I was fairly sure it wasn't, due to issue number two: I knew better. Or rather, the Celestial Hub knew better, and since I was sneakily perusing their intelligence network, it meant I had up-to-date information on the Research Society. Granted, I didn't pay them much attention in the past, but that didn't mean I didn't keep tabs on them… or rather, I didn't delegate one of the anons on the site to keep track for me. I'm a busy man, I can't do everything myself.

Anyways, the third and biggest issue still remained: what was I supposed to do with this information? Was I supposed to contact them? To gather information about them? To fight them? How? Or was this part of his test, to see if I was really an information broker and could find out more for the old man? Wait, no, that couldn't be; I only told Ammy about it today, and he should not know about my cover yet. What else could it be? Is it just a straight-up warning about them? There's not a single word on these pages about the NSRS actually posing a threat to me or Josh, only that they exist and that they are allegedly mustering their forces for some reason. As far as this tells me, they could be planning an all-out war on me or a company picnic; both possibilities had about the same weight.

"Could it be that the School simply has a poor information agency?" I ventured a guess, but my assistant promptly shook her head.

"The other leads should answer that question."

"True," I admitted as I put the papers down and reached for the next bunch. "Let's verify the parts about the Research Society on the Hub, just to be safe. I don't think we can do much more on that front right now, so let's move on."

"Mm," Judy agreed as she also focused on the second lead.

To summarize, it was a compilation of eyewitness accounts, rumors, and what looked like snippets from police reports, all of them pertaining to the sightings of some kind of large cryptid animal roaming the streets of Timaeus at night and wreaking havoc in butcher shops.

"There are no timestamps," I noted after skimming through the page one more time and ultimately settling on a specific witness testimony. "Three pairs of eyes. Sounds familiar?"

"The Chimera," Judy confirmed my suspicion. "Another one?"

"Maybe," I wondered aloud as I thought about it. Giving me this particular lead made a bit more sense, if a twisted kind of one. After all, I recently had the title of 'Chimera Slayer' stapled onto me against my wishes, so the old geezer telling me about another one wandering around the neighborhood was at least somewhat logical from his point of view. Anyways, I carefully read the descriptions given by the witnesses and tried to put together a mental image of the creature.

Six eyes, four legs, a doglike head without ears, thin fur, a long tail. That did vaguely remind me of the second form the Chimera transformed into when it was chasing me around the school building, but there were two things that still bothered me. First off, there were no casualties of these sightings. Not even an injury. That was weird enough, considering the temper of the thing I 'fought', air-quotes implied, but I was also somewhat baffled by the size of the creature. Or rather, sizes, as the witnesses couldn't agree on just how big this thing was. Some claimed it was the size of a person, while others put it more in the stray cat range.

"Either there are multiple Chimeras running around, or this one can change its size," Judy pointed out the discrepancy before I could, and I promptly shook my head.

"The one in the school obeyed the laws of thermodynamics when it transformed, at least to some degree, so it's probably not the latter. As for multiple Chimeras of different sizes..." I paused for a beat as a new idea formed in my head, and I quickly bounced it off my assistant. "Listen, Judy, I know this might sound silly, but I think this could be the first Chimera's arm." She gave me an intrigued look, so I quickly explained myself. "You see, when I was holding its attention at first in the courtyard, it bit off one of its limbs. It's possible that while we were busy with Crowey, it grew legs and escaped, and then went into hiding after the main body got liquified."

"Are Chimeras proliferous?"

"I have no frickin idea, but the size roughly matches, and I've seen it grow new heads in the span of minutes. I see no reason why a part of it couldn't grow limbs to scurry away."

"How do you explain the conflicting reports on its size?"

"Maybe it grew?" I responded with an uncertain shrug. "Either that, or it tore of smaller pieces of itself, and then those grew legs. I'll be damned if I knew."

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"That's troubling," Judy spoke with a frown. "What are we going to do about it?"

That simple question threw a bucket of cold water on my enthusiasm. Discussing the ways freakish shapeshifting monsters reproduce was somewhat intriguing; discussing ways to 'deal with' said monstrosities was a whole lot less so.

"Honestly, I don't think we can do much about it right now," I gave my answer after ruminating on it for a short while. "It's not something the guys on the Hub can help with, and unless we organize a search party and comb the streets, I doubt we would stumble upon this bugger. I say we just tell the others to be vigilant at night and hope it doesn't have a vengeful streak and try to find me instead."

"If it really is a piece of the old Chimera and not a brand new one," Judy commented a little absent-mindedly and then glanced over at the final pile of papers. "What about the last one."

"That… might be trouble," I spoke solemnly as I picked up the last lead and pointed at the words under one of the polaroids. "It says an 'unknown swordswoman'."

"A knight?"

"It's about time one of them showed up, so that's the most obvious possibility, yes," I answered absent-mindedly while inspecting the photo.

It was a somewhat grainy picture of a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties by the looks of it, standing on a pier. I figured it must've been made on one of the docks around the island, and recently as well. But back to the subject of the pictures, for she had multiple photos done from multiple angles. She had short, black, or at the very least very dark hair in a pixie cut, with a single, bright red streak in it. That already made her a prime candidate of being important, due to the fact that the complexity and uniqueness of one's hairdo seemed to be linearly corresponding to the narrative importance of people around these parts.

She was also wearing a dark blue full pantsuit with her sleeves and the bottoms of her trousers fanning out a bit, and she had a pair of large sunglasses (even though the weather on the pictures was quite cloudy) to complete the 90s 'no-nonsense corporate career woman' look. What went against said look was a certain long object wrapped in a bundle of bright purple cloth and what looked like Buddhist prayer beads, which she was carrying with some leather straps slung over her shoulders.

I spent some more time studying the images, after which I let out an irritated sigh.

"This is fishy as all hell," I stated, then waited to see if Judy would have something to add, but since she only looked at me expectantly, I decided to elaborate. "Let's put the written reports aside for a moment. Look at these photos. Do you see the problem I'm seeing?"

Judy followed my finger and gave them a good long look, then she posited, "They are made with an instant camera."

"Exactly," I nodded with approval. "These aren't screenshots from a security camera feed or long-distance photographs with a telescopic lens. Someone actually had to get up to the face of this woman with a bulky Polaroid camera and had to take several photos of her, yet at the same time all they know about her is that she is an 'unknown swordswoman'. Look." I picked the accompanying papers up again and pointed at various parts in turn. "'Name unknown', 'affiliation unknown', 'didn't make contact with School officials', 'destination unknown'… According to this 'lead', they had no idea who she is, where she's from, and what she's doing on the island, yet they just happened to have a dedicated paparazzi on the docs to take multiple photos of her even though the only strange part about her is the thing on her back, and we don't even know if it's a sword for sure either. This makes no sense."

"… I'd like to say maybe they took pictures of her by coincidence, but I don’t think those exist anymore," Judy answered my musings with her own. "If they didn't know who she is, they would have no reason to take the photos. If they knew ahead of time and prepared for her arrival, then the lead you were given is a lie."

"Which one do you think is more likely?"

My dear assistant fell silent for a moment as she pondered, then after a few seconds she stated, "I think the latter. In fact, I believe it's reasonable to assume that all of the leads are either incomplete or purposefully misleading."

"My thoughts exactly," I agreed with a frown. "We already discussed the Research Society one. This one is also obviously fishy. I wonder if the Chimera sightings lead also has more than meets the eye?"

"At this point, I would bet on it."

I grunted in agreement, after which we both fell silent for a few long minutes as we reorganized our thoughts. Or at the very least that's what I was doing, and I was hoping Judy found the time to do so as well while she continued snuggling. Anyways, I ultimately let out a heavy breath and stated, "We need to be even more vigilant. It's obvious the old man is up to something."

"Maybe you shouldn't have picked a fight with him," my girlfriend replied with a flat voice, then added, "Speaking of which, I don't think I have scolded you enough."

"Not now, Dormouse," I soothed her by grabbing her by the waist again. "We have more important things to do now."

"I think making sure you stop making enemies out of the most powerful people on the island is plenty important."

"About that… Remember how I joked about having poor impulse control? I think there's more to it." My girlfriend once again gave me a look that said 'go on', so I did just that. "I told you I had felt irrationally irritable around Crowey and Sebastian in the past, right? I had the same reaction when meeting with the old man today. Furthermore, I was actually acutely aware of it, but my temper still got the better of me, and to be frank with you, I don't like it."

"So you have reflected on your actions? That's a first."

"Ha-ha. Very funny," I grumbled, followed by a precisely timed roll of my eyes.

"Do you think it was the narrative influence? Can you describe it?" Judy inquired as she finally let go of me and took out her phone to take notes.

"Before that, I have a separate theory." She glanced up at me with a questioning frown urging me on, so I told her, "You see, you guys were talking about some kind of pressure emanating from the old guy, right? The thing I didn't feel at all? What if the two are related?"

"So you posit that, instead of feeling a psychological pressure, you get a hair-trigger from the presence of powerful supernatural entities?"

"I think so," I confirmed with a nod. "The rate at which I was getting angry at the old man corresponded pretty well with the rate the rest of you got pushed back. As for the second point of data, I had a similar reaction whenever I met with Sebastian in the past, but ever since he stopped actively threatening me, I didn't really feel especially irritable around him."

"You are still at each other's throats all the time."

"That is neither here nor there. Just because I don't get supernaturally short-tempered around him doesn't mean he stopped being annoying. Anyways, the point is that the source of my irrational irritation might not be the narrative trying to screw with my head, just my unique way of dealing with magical influence."

"Possible," Judy relented with a conflicted look. "We should ask Sebastian to help test it."

"I guess we should, though I doubt he will be cooperative. But speaking of testing…" I paused for a moment as I considered how I should break it to her, but ultimately I decided to be blunt and just said, "Listen, Judy, I think we should put our research into the mechanics of the world on hold, at least until we make sure everyone is safe."

"I agree."

"Well, I… Wait, did you just agree?"

"Yes," Judy nodded with a determined glint in her eyes. "As much as I hate to admit it, staying alive is more important than research."

"That's a peculiar way to put it..." I mumbled, but she didn't seem to care about my half-hearted objection to her choice of words.

"So, what are we going to do instead?"

"I'm glad you asked," I answered as I tried to stand up and start walking up and down as I usually did during our discussions, but she didn't let me, so I resigned myself to the fate of continued cuddling and said, "First, we have to figure out the 'plot', so to speak. Whether we are dealing with routes or arcs, think we can conclude that with Josh's exposure to the supernatural parts of the setting, the preambles are over."

"I concur," Judy agreed, then fell silent for a moment. "If we presume a route structure, things should start happening around either Angeline, Amelia, or Neige. The Eleanor route is most likely off the table, since you snatched her up."

"It wasn't exactly my original intention to do so, but yes, you are correct. However, if it's an arc-based structure, we might see some completely different developments."

"Such as these plot-hooks?" Judy asked while gesturing at the pages laid out next to us, and I promptly shook my head.

"Nah. Lord Grandpa gave these to me, so they are probably supposed to be side-plots or background events," I mused as I absent-mindedly tidied them up. "We should keep an eye on unusual things happening around Josh, and then once we got a handle on the plot, then we can start coming up with counter-measures."

"Or we could play into it if it is beneficial," Judy proposed, and I gave her an ambivalent grunt in return. I mean, it could happen, but I doubted it.

"For now, let's try and solve the homework Lord Grandpa gave us. While we know these 'leads' are fishy, we have to figure out exactly how fishy they are. The Hub should help with the Research Society and the swordswoman. As for the possible Chimera, should we ask the Dracis for support?"

"Sebastian is always concerned about the family's safety, so I think he will cooperate, so long as you don't pick another fight with him."

"I won't make any promises."

Judy gave me a flat look, but then she wisely decided not to retort, and instead she continued with, "Should we also tell them about the alleged knight?"

"No," I replied immediately. "We don't even know if she is hostile, let alone one of the knights. First we should make contact and determine where she stands. If she is not a knight, siccing Sebastian on them could cause an incident. If she is a knight and she poses a threat to Elly and her family…"

I purposefully didn't finish my sentence. Not for dramatic effect, but because of the realization that I really didn't know what I would do. I mean, I didn't want to fight per se. I had a strong inkling that this was a world where supernatural battles were common, but I had my fill of those during the last weekend. If at all possible, I would've preferred if someone else did something about her. Like, say, Josh. I mean, he was the designated hero, so it was about damn time he did something heroic, and based on my memories of his capabilities as a pseudo-Draconian during the school incident, he should be more than capable to do so.

Speaking of Josh, that reminded me of another issue, so I quickly voiced it by saying, "The Hub had a list of emergency safe houses for Celestial operatives, right?" Judy gave me a tentative nod, apparently so used to my sudden non-sequiturs she didn't even raise a brow at them, so I continued with, "Next time you are up, please look into them and how we can re-appropriate one, preferably a spacious one that we could use as a hidden training ground."

"I already have two in mind," my girlfriend replied with a somewhat conflicted expression. "But wouldn't taking a physical property like that be risky? We might get found out."

"We'll figure that out. Maybe we can fake some reports saying that the Magi found the place and keeps it under surveillance or something. Be creative, and I'll back you up with the authority of Admin."

"I'll try." Judy sounded less than enthusiastic, but she still proceeded to type out a small novella into her notes.

"We should get it ready by the weekend, Sunday at the latest. The sooner we can get Josh to act like a proper, battle-ready, hot-blooded shounen protagonist, the better."

"I think he wouldn't be happy to hear your plans. Also, don't plan anything on Sunday. We are going to have our first proper date then."

"Oh, right," I muttered as I recalled my girlfriends' earlier declaration, then I quickly added, "Let's try to set things up by Saturday so we could relax on Sunday then."

"That's the plan."

"Great. Speaking of plans, here's a rudimentary one: We double-check all the leads on the Hub. Then we'll contact Sebastian about the Chimera. Then we secure a secret hideout where we can train Josh and learn about everyone's abilities in a controlled environment. Finally, we should make contact with the swordswoman to see who she is and what she's after." I paused for a moment, as I suddenly had a distinct feeling I was forgetting something really obvious, and at last I had the proverbial lightbulb light up over my head as I hastily added, "Of course, Snowy's paperwork should come before all that. I really don't want the police or some government agency with an on-the-nose acronym to get involved. As ridiculous as it may sound, at this point I feel more confident about dealing with the supernatural authorities than the mundane ones. To give you an example, I have no idea how I could get Snowy legally out of a jail."

"You can do it illegally?" Judy inquired while glancing up from her phone with an expression that was half intrigued and half exasperated.

"Well, yeah," I answered, slightly unbalanced by the unexpectedly oblivious question. "I mean, I can just teleport in and teleport her out, right? It would make her a fugitive though, and that would put a bit of a damper on our school life adventures."

"Oh, that," she muttered flatly.

"That indeed," I answered with a toothy smile. "Now then, I think my first priority should be finding someone who can forge some new papers for Snowy."

"Do you actually know someone like that?"

"Well, no, I don't…" I answered with a slightly mischievous smirk. "But I happen to know a guy who does."

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