The Simulacrum ~Chapter 65~ Part 2

"I'm not going to lie, I didn't expect lunch to turn out as well as it did," I noted as I closed the door of my room behind . "Good job."

"I just tried my best to replicate the taste I rembered," Elly replied in a modest manner while already sitting on the edge of my bed, but the smug little smirk at the corners of her lips told she was quite proud of herself. I figured so more praising was in order.

"You did really well. Even Ichiko thought it was good, and she's a native. Well, at least as native as a sword-spirit inhabiting a Chira can be, but that's beside the point."

My girlfriend let out a low, satisfied giggle. In the anti, I walked over and sat down by her side, slightly rocking the bed and eliciting another chuckle from her. It was Snowy's turn to wash the dishes, and I unsubtly prodded the tiny miko into helping her, so for now it was only the two of us in the room. Normally, this would have been a cozy occasion, but not this ti. In fact, I was feeling a little tense at the mont, and it had nothing to do with being all alone in my room with a pretty girl.

I promised Elly that I would let her in on a couple of my secrets. The problem was that, while I had no intention of going back on my word, the exact details of how much I should say and in which manner were sothing I planned to figure out over the night. Needless to say, my sudden loss of consciousness threw the mother of all monkey-wrenches into that plan, so I figured I would have to wing most of it on the spot.

I mulled over how I should proceed for a while, took a deep breath, and decided to break the ice. I turned to the girl at my side and was just about to open my mouth when she sidled closer to and linked her arm around mine. I did my best imitation of Josh's eyebrow-wiggling, and in response she swiftly declared, "I'm multitasking."

"Multitasking?" I repeated after her, and she gave a firm nod in return.

"It's what Judy always talks about. This way, we can both have a discussion and cuddle! At the sa ti!"

"... How is that any different from how we usually do things?"

"I don't really know either, but she was really adamant about it, so it must be important to do things this way," she explained, though her tone sounded considerably less certain than her words implied.

"Well, if nothing else, it's good for my mood," I half-jested as I pulled her even closer.

"I know! Kinship always makes feel better too," she noted as she rested her head against my shoulder. For a mont I considered whether I should correct her, but I figured that if the last five tis didn't work, the sixth ti wouldn't make a difference either.

"So, princess? I think it's ti to let you in on so classified information. It's… probably going to be hard to believe, so please don't freak out." She didn't say anything, only giving a determined look… which was a little bit ruined by how she was doing it while still leaning her head against , but it was neither here or there. "Let start with sothing simple, and ease you into the weirder stuff. You see, I have more 'unique' abilities than the ones I told the rest of the guys about."

"Such as?"

"First off, rember the whole thing you guys figured out about my ability to teleport yesterday?" She nodded, so I continued, "Most of it is correct, but not really. You see, I don't actually need physical anchors to do it. I can mark people, and then I can freely teleport anywhere in a small radius around of them. Also, the thing about needing the mask was also a white lie; I can do it whenever and wherever I want."

"Wait a mont," Elly interrupted and simultaneously moved back a little so that she could look in the eye properly. "So you didn't teleport to the bracelet, but… to ?"

"Yep."

"But… but wait! Wouldn't that an you had to do it when I was near Sebastian's room?" I confird her deduction, and her brows imdiately furrowed. "But I only went to Sebastian's room that one ti to put the bracelet on the doorknob. If you teleported to … that ans you knew when I would be there?"

"That kind of ties into another one of my abilities. You see, I can actually remotely view people I marked," I explained, and her brows sohow managed to furrow even further in response.

"Remote view? As in, you can see through people's eyes?"

"No, just straight-up watch and hear them like I was in the room. I can even change my viewing position and float around. Judy and I call it 'Far Sight'."

"And you can do that at any ti?" I gave her a nod in lieu of an answer, and suddenly my dear girlfriend jumped to her feet and stood in front of with her arms crossed. "Leo… You weren't peeping on , were you?"

"No, of course not," I answered with only slight exasperation, as I more or less expected this reaction from her. "I'm not a voyeur."

"Good. That's a bad thing," she declared with a huff, before adding, "I an, I don't really mind that much if it's you, but doing it without asking for permission is a cri."

"I'm not going to peep on you, even if you gave permission," I stated a tad dryly, and the princess imdiately turned a shade redder and pointed a familiar yet lately seldom seen finger at .

"I won't! You are not allowed to peep at Judy either! And if you look at other girls, I will tell dad!"

I wondered just how she would even know, but before anything else, I reached out with my good hand towards her extended arm and gently pulled her back towards .

"Easy there, princess. I told you, I'm not peeping on anyone."

I stopped for a second as I pondered whether I should reveal that Judy at one point gave explicit permission to peep on her, during that awkward period when her aggressively clumsy efforts at awakening my libido were at their peak, but I figured it would only complicate things. Not to ntion, I didn't even take her up on her offer to begin with. Well, except that one ti, but that's even more beside the point, and I didn't even see that much, and I should really move on before I dig myself into an even deeper hole.

"Please don't even joke about telling about these things to Abram. If you did that, you would have to explain how my power works first, and that would completely ruin all my efforts to keep them secret."

"Ah, you are right," she muttered as she finally cald down and let herself be guided onto my lap and, after a few seconds of silent contemplation, she ultimately asked, "But… can you really look at anyone you… errrm… 'marked' was the term, right?"

"Yes, and yes," I confird. "I can only watch one mark at a ti, and I can't watch everyone all the ti, so you don't have to worry about it too much. Even if I would observe you when you were in the bath, it would be a coincidence at best, and I would leave."

"You better," she grumbled before lowering her head and adding in a low, awkward voice. "I an, if it's an accident, it's fine, just don't stare too much."

"I'm not going to be staring at all. Now, can we actually move past this topic and focus on sothing more important?" She let out a grunt in the affirmative, so I proceeded to the next topic. "So, those two powers are apparently impossible by the common sense of this world, therefore I want you to keep them secret so that I can use them to blindside the bad guys." She let out a sound of agreent again, so I resolved myself to finally let the cat out of the bag. "Okay, so here's the big secret. It is sothing that you absolutely have to keep that way, so only ever talk about it with Judy or , no one else."

I waited for her to promise , and only after that did I take a deep breath and explained our narrative theory to her… or at the very least, a very simplified, Watsonian version of it, for the ti being.

In short, my explanation focused on the idea that there was so unknown force, possibly so kind of vast magical construct, which subtly influenced people and events in order to play out so kind of script. I left out a few bits here and there, such as our working theory of this is being a recently established simulation of the world, with people's mories of the past being implanted and possibly unreliable, and instead focused on the island itself being artificial and the nebulous Narrative being sothing that might possibly be explainable with in-universe magic. I an, there was no reason to throw her into the deep water right away; at the very least I wanted to avoid her going through the sa kind of existential crisis that happened to Judy due to my lack of foresight.

I also brought placeholders to her attention, but she had a hard ti wrapping her head around the concept without clear examples of 'placeholder behavior', so I promised to show her so instances at school. The entire thing ended up as a fairly long discussion, though calling it that might have been a misnor, considering that I was the only one talking.

At last, after nearly half an hour, the well of my explanations ran dry, and for so ti we sat in silence as the princess processed what she just heard.

"And you figured out all of that because of your amnesia?" she inquired in a voice that said she already took my words for granted, yet she was still curious about the details.

"Yes. I was probably supposed to be the representative of the Knights hovering around Josh, but then I managed to break out of my role and ended up ssing up the script."

"And you told all of this to Judy because…?"

"Because I needed an assistant with an outside perspective early on, and she was eager to help."

"I see. And now you told ."

"Because you are my girlfriend, and leaving you out for this long was already getting a little awkward," I admitted, and she gave a huff and a nod in return.

"Well, it's better later than never," she asserted, then puffed out her cheeks a little. "But on the other hand, now I have so many secrets to keep it's becoming distressing. It's also a lot to absorb at once."

We stayed silent while I waited for her to organize her thoughts, and it actually happened much faster than I expected. First, she gestured for to stay still, and then she clumsily turned around on my lap so that we would be face to face before she spoke her mind.

"If I understood this right, you are saying that we didn't all gather around Josh because of the prophecies, but the prophecies exist to justify all of us being around him. Did I get that right?"

"Yes, more or less."

"So… does that an that I ca to this island just to play out this 'Narrative' thing you talked about?" I nodded, and my girlfriend made a strange face, kind of as if she just bit into the world's sourest lemon. "Does that an I never liked Josh, and instead I was manipulated into thinking I like him?"

"I have no idea. I can't see into your head, so I don't know if you liked him or not, but either way, tracking down a friend years later with the express purpose to capitalize on a childhood marriage promise is both very trope-y and weird, so you were most like influenced into it."

That is, if there was anything to be influenced, and she wasn't poofed into existence on the first of September with the desire to drag Josh in front of the altar already in her head, but that was beside the point.

"It's not that weird," Elly objected with just a hint of a pout on her lips. "My great-grandma did that too."

"Yeah, about that. You see, princess, your family doesn't count, because they have no common sense at all. I'm sorry you had to learn it this way."

"Cut out the jokes, Leo. I'm serious," she rebuked , once again reminding that she was also in need of so common sense rehabilitation. In the anti, she readjusted her posture on my legs and told , "So if we didn't get entangled on the rooftop that day, I would have…"

"You would've probably ended up in Josh's harem. As in, not an actual 'harem' harem, but the fictional kind where a bunch of girls are all vying for the romantic attention of one guy without moving the relationship forward at all, and yet everyone's still getting along with each other."

"I don't know… That's more or less how grandpa lived with my grandmas," the princess mused aloud, much to my chagrin.

I gave my girlfriend a wry look and stressed, "Elly, my dear, let repeat myself: your family is not exactly normal."

"If so, then our relationship isn't normal either," she argued back with a frown, and I imdiately shook my head.

"No, it's not, but 'not normal' and 'bad' are not synonyms. I just want you to be a little self-aware about that."

It looked like she would continue arguing back, but in the end she let out sothing that was at the borderline between a sigh and a growl and instead stated, "Never mind. Where were we?"

"At the point where we discussed that you were probably influenced into coming here and pursuing Josh, but then I accidentally knocked you off the rails, and now you are sitting on my lap."

"And it's a very comfortable lap too, but are you sure about that? What if I just switched from the 'Josh' track to the 'Leo' track?"

"I… honestly can't answer that. Maybe?"

I was just about to start wondering if and how my unintentional grabbing of the protagonist-ball could have resulted in the current state of affairs, but before I could gather montum, she poked my sides with her fingers hard enough to draw a surprised hiss out of .

"Don't be a dummy, Leo! I'm teasing you!"

"Ah, yeah, I get it, but what you said is not entirely impossible," I answered while poking her back. "I an, if I didn't get in between you and Josh the day you transferred, things would have ended up completely differently."

"That's just silly-talk," my girlfriend huffed as she forcefully removed my poking finger and held my hand in her own. "You might as well say, 'Oh, but if your mom and dad never t, then we would not have started going out, because you would not even exist'."

"That's… not entirely analogous," I countered a little weakly as I considered just how I could get my point across.

"Say what you want, I still think it's silly thinking about 'what ifs' like that," my girlfriend stated with a disinterested shrug, "Whatever I might or might not have been subconsciously influenced to do, the only important thing is that you showed up, pestered into liking you, and now I got the cooler boyfriend. I don't see the problem."

"I don't rember ever pestering you and… wait… cooler?" I repeated after her, both a little embarrassed and surprised by her choice of words. "I an, I don't want to sound diffident or anything, but to be fair, Josh is pretty cool too."

"He can't teleport anywhere he wants," Elly countered imdiately and with an unusually flat look to boot.

"Maybe, but he can turn into all kinds of magical folks. That's pretty neat."

My response elicited an indifferent huff and a shake of her head.

"A little, but still not as cool as being a Chira-slayer."

"Ugh, you just had to bring that up," I grumbled. "But then again, isn't being the foretold chosen one of multiple prophecies cooler than that?"

"No, not at all," Elly declared with her cheeks puffed out like a hamster's. "It doesn't matter anyway! Just having as your girlfriend automatically makes you a hundred tis cooler!"

"I suppose I can get behind that, but… by that logic, does that an that Judy is also automatically cooler than Josh?"

It was at this point that my girlfriend got fed up with my teasing, and before I could react, she puffed up her cheeks with the power of a thousand exploding suns and directed an absolutely devastating pout at from just a few centiters away from my face.

"Ouuuu! Will you stop arguing and just take the complint already?"

"Fine, fine," I gave up with both my hands raised in surrender. "I'm cool."

"The coolest," she proclaid with a self-satisfied nod, and before I could let my hands down, she gave a bear-hug that was simultaneously pleasantly soft and just a tiny bit backbreaking.

"Easy there, princess. I'm still recuperating," I chided her, and once she separated herself and her squishy bits from my chest, I added, "Also, I think we went wildly off-topic here."

"We were talking about this magical mind-control thing you call the Narrative, right?" Elly mused aloud, and after a second of thought, she gave an ambivalent shrug. "Is it really that big of a deal? I an, even if all of the incidents we faced were orchestrated by so kind of higher power, didn't you resolve all of them without any losses? Well, except your injuries." She paused here while a frown settled on her brows. "By the way, please stop getting injured all the ti."

"Please, princess. Judy is constantly pestering about this already, please don't dog pile on too…"

"But it's important! Even if your life is not in danger, seeing you being injured and sick is—"

"I know, I know," I cut in, my voice barely hiding my exasperation. "Listen, I'm doing my best, okay? It's not easy, or safe, going against the Narrative, and sotis things get out of hand. I can't really help it."

"Then why do you go against it?" My expression might have been just a tad flabbergasted, as the princess hastily clarified her sentint. "You said that this Narrative entity or thing follows all kinds of rules. You called them tropes, I think?" I nodded, and then she continued with extra gusto. "If so, then why don't you try to use them to your advantage? For example, there was this show that I watched as a child where a group of girls transford with mystic jewels."

"So a magical girl ani?"

"No, it was French, I think. Or was it French Canadian? More importantly, it was a fun show, and hardly anyone got injured in it. What if you used the 'tropes' to make things like that, and then everyone would be safer?"

For the next five seconds, I had to do my best to maintain a poker-face while simultaneously suppressing any and all stray ntal images about my girlfriends prancing around in frilly, colorful magical girl outfits. Though again, Elly was already energetic enough to take to the role, while Judy would certainly appeal to the gap-moe sensibilities and... No! Bad brain, very bad!

Anyhow, once I was sure I wasn't going to break into a grin any ti soon I took a breath and slowly shook my head.

"It's not that simple. Without understanding the underlying chanism of the world and how the Narrative reacts to our actions, it's impossible to tell what effects our ddling would have. For example, do you rember that small crisis your father's company had with record sales suddenly dropping?"

Once she nodded, I proceeded to explain to her how my unwitting influence on the world sohow force-marched everything through a good thirty years of technological developnt overnight. At first she seed confused about what I was talking about, but as I went into more details and given her multiple examples, her bewildernt slowly faded and got replaced by a wide-eyed realization.

"Wow… You're right! How co I never noticed this until you pointed it out? It's so weird!"

"Probably the sa reason why you couldn't notice that the placeholders are acting strangely. More importantly, this all ca about because of my expectations for the world, and things changed accordingly."

"So this Narrative thing not only influences people, it can completely warp reality," she muttered before all of a sudden her eyes lit up as she looked at with a gaze that made slightly uncomfortable. "Wait a minute! If we really got smartphones and flat screens and music streaming because of you, doesn't that an that you warped reality?"

"Kind of, I suppose, but indirectly at best, and you see, this is the point I was getting at. If sothing as small as this could have such large-scale effects, then just imagine what kind of unforeseen consequences it could lead if I tried to do it on purpose!"

"I understand," the princess said, her voice just a little bit disappointed, but she quickly bounced back by asking, "But still, you were expecting all of these things, and then made money out of it. Do you have any other technologies that could show up like that, so that we can make lots of money?"

"… I suppose we could, but aren't you rich enough already?"

"You can never be rich enough. The richer you get, the harder it is to get even more money."

"You know, princess, not everyone wants to have all the money in the world," I pointed out, but I got overruled by a haughty huff.

"But you should. You are building your own organization, aren't you?"

I wanted to imdiately deny her assertion, but as I thought about it… I had a base, a group of minions, an intelligence network (even if it was borrowed from the Celestials), the plans for a future research division, and even the local supernatural figurehead acknowledged as an 'equal', at least if the contracts he sent over were any indication. Once I mulled over all of these things, my shoulders slacked a little on their own into sothing resembling a shrug.

"I suppose I do now," I admitted, and Elly nodded twice in response.

"That needs a lot of money, you know? You're also going to provide for a big family, so you have to keep that in mind."

"Yes, I know, and I do," I grumbled before voicing sothing that has been bothering for a while. "Don't take this the wrong way, but aren't you even a little bit distressed by this entire discussion?"

"Which part?" she asked back as if my question itself was inexplicable.

"The whole of it? With the Narrative and the reality-warping and the tropes," I clarified broadly enough that I wasn't even sure I made anything clearer, but it apparently worked, as Elly gave an 'Oh, you an that?' kind of expression right away.

"Oh, you an that?" she said, and quite redundantly, if I may add. "I don't see why I should. It's not like I was negatively impacted by any of it, and even if I would be, I can't do anything about it. I would rather worry about things I can change rather than sothing that's beyond my reach."

"I… suppose that's one way to look at it," I acknowledged a little reluctantly, yet that seed to completely satisfy her.

"Also, I might need to sleep on all of this to digest the details."

"Probably. If you get an existential crisis in the process, make sure you call ." She was looking at funny for a mont, so I explained, "It happened to Judy at one point, and if you need too, I'm always here to talk with you."

"That's sweet," the princess remarked with a giggle and then, after a long beat of silence, she asked, "So, now that I learned all of your secrets, do you have any other plans for the day?"

I considered pointing out that she didn't learn all my secrets by a long shot, but she seed pretty adamant about changing the topic, so I ultimately told her, "I figured I would go and visit the secret base in the afternoon and deal with Labcoat Guy. Until then… we cuddle?"

My proposition fell on receptive ears, as Elly imdiately tightened her grip on my waist.

"We cuddle indeed!" she declared with an impish smirk, followed by a long and sowhat tongue-y kiss. We were still in the experinting phase with that one, and it was harder than it looked.

And just like that, my downti with my girlfriend continued unabated in a more physical direction. That is, until she rembered that we made a promise not to cross a certain line until Christmas, at which point she switched gears and continued to pester about money-making opportunities. In conclusion, my princess was a material girl, and her ideas about monopolizing the market for certain possible future technologies made it abundantly clear that she was the descendant of businessn with questionable trade practices, but I loved her all the sa.

…

That said, maybe making my very own subscription-based streaming service wasn't such a bad idea after all…