The Simulacrum

~Chapter 126~ Part 3

As far as fancy dinner parties were concerned, this was…

Wait. It was still in the morning, so was it more of a 'breakfast party'? Was that even a thing? It didn't really matter either way, but now it was bothering me, and…

"Chief? What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, you know? Important stuff?" I told my dear assistant, currently glued to my side.

"Sir, Lord Archon, sir?" Armour-guy tried to get my attention, so I let out a sigh and faced the eight Celestial guards clustered behind me, and cut in before he could say something silly and embarrass himself.

"The greetings may take a while, so use this opportunity to mingle a little. You're going to be seeing these people a lot from now on, so show your faces and introduce yourselves."

"Sir, that would be a gross display of negligence, sir! We're here to protect you and—"

"Just follow the Prefect's example," I cut him off again and pointed at Jaakobah and Arnwald. The two of them were standing not far from us, and exchanging outwardly polite words.

"… of the Lord Archon's Praetorian Guard."

"I have heard much about you," our Eagle Knight responded amicably and the two of them shook hands. "Once the reception is over, I would like to invite you to discuss the logistics of your mission and your accommodations."

"I was just about to suggest the same."

Seeing the two of them get along, at least on the surface, made the rest of my alleged honour guards relax a bit, and after some further urging, they finally stopped following after me like a bunch of ducklings. With that particular issue out of my hair, I glanced around, and my eyes met with many a familiar face. Sebastian was standing some distance away from us and was keeping an eye on the newcomers, but when our eyes met, the corners of his lips lifted a little and he gave me a shallow nod.

As I returned the gesture, I also noticed that, not far from the incognito dragon, stood a bald man wearing a colourful robe with huge wooden beads around his neck. It's been a while since I've last seen the Kage elder, but at the moment, he was distracted by having a discussion with one of the Western Draconian matriarchs, so the greetings had to wait.

As my gaze continued to wander, I noticed that Lord Grandpa was staring intently at me, but he couldn't approach me due to being trapped in conversation with my draconic in-laws. As for the Feilongs, Zihao was nowhere to be seen, while Naoren was currently chatting with Mountain Girl.

"… glad to see that Lady Rinne is in good health."

Rinne nodded.

"Were there any complications during your mission with Brother Leonard?"

This time, she shook her head.

"You are… unusually taciturn today. Is everything all right?"

She nodded again, and so I rolled my eyes and called out to her.

"We're no longer in the Elysium, so you can take off your helmet and talk, you know?"

Her head snapped to me, and when I nodded for emphasis, she hurriedly began to unbuckle her headgear, much to the amusement of the Feilong patriarch and the undisguised interest of the Praetorian Guards. However, she wasn't the only one who heard my words.

"Oh, feaking finally!" Josh exclaimed and started fiddling with the buckles as well. "I'm so sick of this stupid stuffy piece of—"

"Wait, I'll help," Snowy proposed, but since she wasn't too familiar with how these things worked, my other sister, more versed in this kind of bootleg knightly gear, had to help as well.

The guy, befitting his protagonist status, was currently surrounded by his girlfriend, my sisters, Ammy, Sahi, the mini-moe pair of Xiao and Ichiko, and even Elly was there. To be fair though, most of them seemed to be way more interested in Angie and her Deus outfit than anything else.

"Ah! You have helmet hair!" Angie exclaimed, drawing the Praetorian Guards' attention to her in turn, and their faces went slack when she raised her arms and used her fingers to comb her boyfriend's head into a halfway presentable shape. "Here you go, you silly-goose."

Even as I looked at them, from the corner of my eye, I could see Lord Grandpa trying to make his way over to me, but then he was intercepted by the rest of the Assembly delegation. They were probably having a last-minute strategy meeting, I reckoned, but I couldn't use Far Sight to listen in on them, as I was approached by my in-laws instead.

"Haha! Welcome back, son!" Papa Dracis greeted me in his customary lack of an indoor voice.

"Honey, can you keep it down?" Mama Dracis followed him up with a moan and massaged her forehead.

"Is there a problem?" Judy, defiantly attached to me still, inquired with a voice ever-so-slightly tinged by worry, but Emese shook her head.

"No, it's nothing serious. There are just too many unfamiliar scents, and it's making my head hurt." Then, as if on a whim, she leaned closer to me and gave me a sniff. "You are also smelling remarkably more like those people than you used to."

I followed the way her thumb was pointing and found Rinne, Naoren, and Jaakobah there, surrounded by all eight of the Praetorian Guards.

"So you could talk all along?" the phlegmatic Celestial inquired with a brow raised. When she nodded, it turned into a frown. "Then why did you keep silent?"

"Rinne was ordered by Leonard-dono," she explained, and it caused the rest of the Celestial honour guards to animatedly whisper among each other.

"Lady Rinne? Why is this man addressing you so discourteously?" Naroen cut in with a frown of his own.

"Jaakobah-san is Rinne's colleague. Jaakobah-san is also Leonard-dono's retainer, so there's nothing strange about Jaakobah-san speaking to Rinne like that."

The bespectacled patriarch's face practically screamed 'I still don't like it though', but as much as I would've liked to spectate, my attention was drawn back to Mom-in-law when she blatantly looked me over from head to toe.

"Is this how you always dress in the Elysium?"

"Only when I'm Polemos," I answered a touch apprehensively. "Why? Is there a problem with it?"

"Are you this 'Polemos' right now?"

"Officially, yes, but…" Pausing, I considered her words for a moment and let out a soft hum. "I still have to figure out how to marry all my official titles together, so it's a pretty complicated issue."

"Then can you return to being just Leonard Dunning for now?"

Before I could answer, the princess ambushed me by attaching herself to my free arm, and she exclaimed, "Mom! Don't bother Leo! He just came back!"

"I'm not bothering him; I'm just trying to hint that everyone would feel better if he didn't look so… Celestial."

"It's the color, isn't it?" Abram butted in with a cheeky grin, and his wife exhaled a soft groan.

"White doesn't suit him. It looks strange."

"Ah! So I wasn't the only one who thought so!" Dad-in-law exclaimed with a toothy grin, and under their ministrations, I had no choice but to turn off the Leoformer. Once I did, my outfit was immediately replaced by the clothes I was wearing during the 'kidnapping incident'. I put them on ahead of time, because these were my own clothes, and I didn't want to bring any of the ones prepared by the directors with me, and while the casual jeans and shirt combo didn't fit the ballroom's ambience at all, Mom-in-law was happy all the same.

"Much better," she told me with a satisfied smile. "These suit you. And also, your scent changed again. So strange."

"The Chief looks good in anything," Judy noted.

"Even in a diving suit?" Elly chimed in, and it made my dear assistant consider her response carefully.

"I think he could make it work."

"I'm glad you think that, but if anything, you two are the ones who look unreasonably great today," I cut in, feeling the need to pass the compliment ball back before I would start getting embarrassed.

I wasn't speaking nonsense though. Elly was always pretty, but this time she went above and beyond, wearing a dark blue ball gown with semi-transparent long gloves, and a pretty necklace with lots of blue gems in it. Judy was no slouch either, and her long, frilly white dress, combined with her hair bow, a pair of clip-on earrings, and a touch of make-up, made her look cuter than I'd ever seen her. Honestly speaking, standing between these two made me feel even more under-dressed, but they didn't seem to mind it at all.

"Distance does make the heart grow fonder," Papa Dracis stated in an unusually subdued voice, only to immediately turn on the volume again by adding, "But I have to say, our girls do look amazing tonight, don't they, honey?"

"They certainly do. And contrary to that, closeness can also make relationships grow. Isn't that right, girls?"

Emese flashed a knowing smile, and the way she was looking at my girlfriends was slightly troubling, but before she could drop any more thinly veiled hints at the ubiquitous rumours about the two, we were all surprised by Lord Grandpa elbowing himself into our circle.

"My sincerest apologies for interrupting your long-awaited reunion," he said the moment he arrived, his eyes practically glued onto me. "May I borrow Leonard for but a short moment?"

"It's hardly appropriate to monopolize the party's guest of honor," Abram noted, but the old man remained steadfast.

"I once again apologize, but I must absolutely discuss something in private. It is of the utmost importance."

The way Lord Grandpa was practically pleading with me with his eyes gave me goosebumps, but at last, I exhaled a long breath and nodded.

"If it's that important, then sure. I'll just greet everyone a bit later." After a beat, I turned to Dad-in-law. "Can I borrow the secluded parlour room for a while?"

"This is our house, son!" Abram exclaimed with a grin. "Why do you even ask?"

"Force of habit, I guess?" I said a tad sheepishly as I carefully slipped out of the arms of my girlfriends. I was just about to tell the old Magi to follow after me when I suddenly remembered something. "Hold on. I have to do something first. I'll be right back."

Saying so, I turned on my heels and headed to the group crowding around Josh.

"… and then I called him my Joshticar!" Angie exclaimed between giggles.

"Ahaha! That's, like, totally wicked!" Sahi laughed along, apparently finding it genuinely hilarious.

"I don't get it," Ammy frowned, as if it was a complicated match problem she had to figure out.

"And you slept in the s-same bed!?" My knightly sister was apparently focused on a part of the conversation that I didn't hear, and her face was flushed red from imagining it. "T-That's lewd!"

"I don't think so," Snowy countered with a contemplative look on her face. "We sleep in the same bed too."

"B-But we're sisters! It's completely different!"

It was nice to see all the girls getting along like that. As for Josh, he was too distracted by midriff-woman and tunic-man, who were trying to drill him about his relationship with Angie.

"I tell you, we're dating," he grumbled with audible distaste.

"But that doesn't make any sense!" midriff-woman hissed, as if she couldn't believe her ears. "Then what about Polemos?!"

"What about him?" Josh argued back quite vehemently and pointed a finger in my general direction. "Can't you see that he has—" It was at this point that he realized I came over, and he let his hand down. "Oh. Is there a problem?"

"Nah, continue as you were," I told him with a wave of my hand. "I have a promise to keep. I'll do it, and then I'll leave you to your discussion."

"What promise?" Angie chimed in, and before she could respond, I extended a hand and flicked her on her forehead in one smooth motion. "O-Owie!"

She reeled back to a comical degree, like a community theatre actor pantomiming getting hit by a bat, and after a beat, she backed away with both hands on her forehead and hid behind her startled boyfriend. With my purpose fulfilled, I gave a small wave to the flabbergasted onlookers and returned to the equally stumped Lord Grandpa.

"Sorry for the intermezzo; I had to do it before I completely forgot about it." I paused for a beat and then gestured for the old man. "Follow me. I'll lead the way."