The Simulacrum

~Chapter 148~ Part 1

"Things are quiet," I murmured ominously before biting into my sandwich. "Too quiet."

"Chief. We just established the other day that jinxing is still a universal force whether the Narrative operates or not," my dear assistant, sitting next to me on the usual bench on the school's roof, chided me before using a napkin to casually wipe the corner of my mouth. "Stop it."

Talk about mixed messages. But putting whether Judy was annoyed or doting aside for the moment, I cocked my head to the side and let out a hum.

"The other day, you say? It's been more than a week."

"Eleven days," she corrected me and wiped my cheek. "Be careful. You have sauce all over your face."

"Because it's good," I told her unashamedly and took another bite. Needless to say, it was from the lunch box she prepared, and since I was praising her cooking (I was sure these fancy ham sandwiches had enough work put into them to qualify), she graciously let my previous faux pas slide and picked up a sandwich herself.

So, just to re-iterate: the weather was nice, we were eating Judy's sandwiches on the rooftop, and there was no immediate threat or convoluted plot weighing down on my shoulders. Wasn't that nice? And nostalgic, now that I thought about it. It reminded me of the early days, with the initial brainstorming sessions about the Simulacrum and the experiments on the placeholders and Robatto and…

Wait. Did I just look back fondly on the whole Robatto affair? Damn. I had a hard time deciding what was more distressing; either my rose-tinted glasses had a much higher dioptre than I ever thought, or the recent events roughed me up so much it made even our hodge-podge sentai arc felt nice and sensible in comparison. Both options were pretty bad, but for different reasons.

That said, there was no point in stressing over something so silly and ruining the moment, so I shook the notion out of my head and finished up my sandwich, focused on enjoying the scenery, the company, and the peace of the moment.

The rest of the gang were all doing their own things as we spoke. Elly joined Angie and Josh, and the three of them were checking out the equipment of the tennis club in preparation for practising for some spring championship or the other. The class rep was running some errands for Mrs. Applebottom, while Jaakobah and Rinne resumed their work at school under their respective covers. Last I checked, my sisters were being pestered by Sahi, trying to get them to join the disciplinary committee because they were short on hands. To this day, I still had a hard time digesting that she, of all people, ended up joining, but I could probably chalk that up to Pascal's influence on our rejuvenated arch-mage.

Speaking of arch-mages, the four of them (not counting Lord Grandpa, who had been doing his job as a principal for years) had completely assimilated into the school, and Lord Gulliver even hinted that they would continue to act as teachers until we graduated. I didn't quite know what to think of that, as I was pretty sure leaving their official posts at the Assembly vacant for years on end would cause some trouble, but it was theirs to deal with, so I decided not to concern myself with it.

Since the Assembly came up, it was worth mentioning that the negotiations between the Magi, the Elysian Congregation (placeholder term for the new Celestial government, final name still pending) and the Draconic Federation were going swimmingly. We already have a non-aggression pact in place, and the first official cooperation agreement was hot on its heels. And the best of it was that I didn't even have to get involved in any of that.

In conclusion, everything was peaceful. Really, really peaceful.

"It's too peaceful," I grumbled, causing my girlfriend to let out a shallow sight.

"Chief. What did I just say?"

"I know, Dormouse. I know. Jinxing and all that, but can you say that I'm wrong?" I waited for a beat to see if she had anything to say. When she hadn't, I made a gesture with my hand that said 'You see?' and quickly scarfed down the last bite of my sandwich before continuing. "I'm telling you, without Narrative-me stirring the pot, things are getting a bit stagnant."

"I don't think that's a bad thing though," she pointed out while unscrewing the top of her thermos. "You said that after the last climax, we have some leeway with the Plot, and some of us definitely need a break."

"Yeah, I can't argue with that. Josh and Angie were hit the hardest by what happened, so it's probably a good idea to give them some space to breathe and do their love-comedy shenanigans."

"True, but I was also referring to you."

I turned a sideways glance at my girlfriend.

"Do you also want to have love-comedy shenanigans?"

"Don't we always?"

"… A fair point." With that, we both nodded with all the weight and gravitas that only a silly inside joke could have and moved on as if the previous exchange never happened. As usual. "Seriously though, all this peace and quiet is making me restless. It's like… how should I put it? You know those 'calm before the storm' situations? When you realize that the current easy-going status quo can and will go wrong at any moment? It's kind of like that, but because now I know I'm the Narrative, or at least supposed to fill in the vacuum left by Narrative-me, it's more like an itch. Like… Okay, you remember that whole thing with the Vritras?"

"Sure." While I talked, Judy poured tea onto the portable cups by her side and handed one over to me. "They were rather reasonable."

"Yes, that's the problem!" I responded a bit vehemently, but quickly toned things down with a soft, "Ah, thanks," as I accepted the drink and took a gulp.

Okay, context. Smack dab in the middle of last week, the Vritra family showed up on the island. They were a prestigious Draconian family from Northern India who had historically strained relations with the Feilongs. In any kind of proper Plot, them showing up in force on Critias would've meant a conflict was brewing. On one side, we had the Feilongs led by Naoren, with their weird Chinese wuxia allusions, while on the other side, we had a gaggle of inflexible old antagonistic Draconians ready to pick a fight and challenge the Draconic Federation's authority. Super-straightforward stuff. Even a middling writer with more hipster plaid shirts and Starbucks bills than brain cells could squeeze some drama out of that.

Yet, they just showed up, and after some initial blustering, they signed a petition with Roland and Dad-in-law to join the Draconic Federation, and then they left. I repeat: they left the island! We had a whole bunch of exotic Draconians with unique names and powers and deep-seated grudges just begging for some conflict or scheming, or… Damn it, I couldn't believe I was saying this, but even just throwing the younger generation into a small tournament would've worked!

But no! They left! Who does that? Why would they even be introduced, only to then get taken out of the Simulacrum's scenario without any drama? Didn't that go against one of those writing principles? I mean, there's 'Chekhov's Gun', which states that if a plot device is established in the first act, it should be used in the third act for a dramatic climax. Conversely, if it doesn't get used, then the plot device shouldn't be introduced, because it would just take up space and confuse the audience. Unless of course it was meant to do that, but then it's no longer a Chekhov's Gun, but a Red Herring, and I'm rambling.

The important bit is that we had a setup for a side plot, or maybe even a whole arc, and then they negotiated a peaceful resolution instead and unceremoniously left the scene the way they came. While I rationally understood that this is how things would 'normally' go, and that sudden tournament arcs were wholly unnatural tropey stuff that wouldn't happen in 'real life', it… it…"

"It just feels so anticlimactic," I groaned after finishing my drink, my shoulders drooping on their own. "I just feel so… conflicted. On one hand, I'm happy that I can finally relax and just stretch my legs a little, but I also feel like I should stir up the plot and capitalize on tropey stuff that presents itself, but at the same time I know I really shouldn't act recklessly, but it just keeps bugging me. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"No, not really. It sounds altogether too conceptually alien to me, but then again, I'm not 'Narrative adjacent', as you once put it."

"I… can't argue with that."

"Just make sure to keep your urges in check for now, please. At least for a little longer." In the meantime, she put away my empty mug and the lunch box and turned to face me. "Or at the very least, channel your plot-stirring energies into something productive."

"Like manipulating the stock market?" I blurted out, and my dear assistant gave me a deadpan gaze and pinched my cheek.

"Do I look like Elly to you?" When I shook my head, she let go. "No. I was talking about your big plans for the 'ultimate epic ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny'."

"That was one ultimate too many," I pointed out, but when she just continued to stare at me, I pulled myself together and considered things a bit more seriously. I also glanced around a bit, just to be safe. It was only the two of us on the roof, and that's why I felt comfortable discussing such Doylist topics, but it never hurt to be sure. "Okay, so I think I told you about this, but I'm planning to make use of Bel for the finale. He's already set up to be the big bad, so it's the obvious thing to do."

"Yes, I'm clear on that. Have you figured out how to do it?"

"It's a work in progress." I shrugged and glanced at the blue sky over our heads. "There are a lot of moving pieces I have to consider. There's Bel himself, but Angie and Josh also have to be involved."

"You too," Judy pointed out. "Since you're building it on top of the failed Celestial Route, Polemos not getting involved would be suspicious."

"Right. I have some plans for that too, but more on it later. Honestly, the part I still need to decide upon is whether I should broaden the scope, or tighten in." Judy was looking at me attentively, so I took a deep breath to collect my thoughts. "The first option would make more sense from a consistency standpoint. So far, the scope of our final, climactic showdown always kept increasing, with more and more people being involved. I think I have a solid idea of how to increase the scale of the conflict so that everyone would have a chance to shine, but doing so would logically mean that there would be a lot of fighting at lots of different places, so making sure everyone makes it out of it alive and unharmed would be really hard. Conversely, I could shift the scope to only involve the most important actors of the scenario, but then I would have to set up a plausible and convincing set of circumstances to ensure that the others wouldn't get involved, which is also hard."

"You're being rather vague here," Judy noted, sounding unamused by my choice of words.

"I can't help it. We just talked about how jinxing is still a thing, and if that's still a thing, there's a good chance of Unspoken Plan Guarantee is also still in effect."

"The trope where a plan's success rate is inversely proportional to how much the audience knows about it." My dear assistant explained in a disinterested voice, and I would've loved to point out that what he just said suspiciously sounded like an 'As We All Know' line, a fairly maligned exposition trope in and of itself, but then she used it as a springboard to ask, "Are the audience the Submerged Ones in this case?"

"Metaphorically? Yeah, though I'm still not entirely sure they are actively listening or perceiving us… but it's better to be safe than sorry, so the plan remains vague until the last moment."

"Sounds reasonable," she granted. "Back to the previous topic: What you're saying is that you have only two options, but both of them are difficult."

"Right now, I can only think of those two, yes. I would prefer if I could literally take the third option with some clever subversion, but those are hard to come by." Letting a soft groan pass between my teeth, I rubbed my forehead out of habit. "And then we didn't even talk about the twist! Every good story needs a last-minute twist, and I have to come up with something for that too. Also, maybe a MacGuffin. I kind of set one up beforehand, but I don't know what to do with that, and… You know, Dormouse?"

"Yes?"

"I take back whatever bad things I've ever said about Narrative-me. This is hard work, and I shouldn't have treated him/me so harshly. Tell me to give him/myself a pat on the back if we ever get to meet."

"I'll make a mental note." After saying that, there was a long beat, and then Judy asked, "Where does that leave us?"

"Well, for the time being, I guess I'll just keep working on the plan-to-end-all-plans, and hope that the interpersonal dramatics tide us over for a while. Otherwise, we have to improvise. Say, when's our spring break going to start?"

"In two weeks," she responded promptly. "From the 30th of March till the 10th of April."

"So a little over ten days…"

"Technically, since it starts on a Monday and ends on a Friday, it's fourteen days in total."

"That's generous," I noted, the gears in my head already turning. "It should be more than enough for a short vacation, I think."

"Any ideas for that?"

"Nothing yet. Your dad and Abram have been low-key planning a fishing trip for a while, as a sort of family outing, so we might get roped into one during the break."

"I would personally prefer something that doesn't involve camping, but that doesn't sound terrible either," Judy concluded.

The discussion had been meandering for a while, so I checked my phone, and seeing that lunch break was almost over, I got up from the bench and stretched my arms.

"Let's continue this conversation in the afternoon."

"Don't be silly, Chief," my dear assistant all but huffed as she also rose to her feet and picked up the empty lunch box and thermos. "Today is my solo day with you, so I already have plans, and having serious discussions isn't compatible with them."

"Plans?"

"We're going on a date," she stated bluntly, and I couldn't help but smile.

"I'm down with that. Where did you want to—?"

However, before I could finish the sentence, I noticed that someone was walking up the stairs leading to the rooftop access, and when I glanced over, I saw Mountain Girl poking her head through the open metal door. Was she the teacher in charge of locking it after lunch break was over, I wondered.

"Ah, Leonard-dono. It's time to vaccinate the premises."

"Vacate," I corrected her on autopilot and headed her way, feeling satisfied that my hunch was right.

"Yes. Rinne just said that."

She responded a touch defiantly, yet I couldn't help but notice that her heart wasn't in it. If anything, she seemed distracted. Almost depressed in a way.

Wait. Was that a kind of plot hook I was seeing? Or was my mind just getting oversensitive to these kinds of things because of the previous discussion? In any case, she was acting odd, and that meant one or two things; either some weird shenanigans, or there was drama afoot. I was sure it wouldn't hurt to check.

"Why's the long face?"

"Rinne's face isn't long."

"The Chief is asking why you're dispirited," Judy came to the save, and it made the woman in the doorway look genuinely startled.

"R-Rinne isn't dispirited! It's just that… Rinne has a lot on Rinne's mind at the moment!" she denied with clearly suspicious vehemence.

"Can I help?" I probed her a bit, just to see her reaction, and for a second or five, she was clearly torn about how she should respond.

"Rinne… doesn't want to burden Leonard-dono, but…" She vacillated a bit longer, but then she resigned herself and finally spilled the beans. "Rinne is troubled."

"We can see that," Judy noted on the side, not taking more than a passing interest in the discussion, and messaging to someone on her phone instead. Probably the princess, I surmised.

"What's eating you?" I prompted her again.

"It's… about Naoren-san," she admitted, suddenly sounding downright gloomy in a strange, timid way that didn't really fit her usual character. "Rinne isn't sure that Rinne is a good fit for Naoren-san."

Oooh? Would you look at that? When did their relationship progress to this point, I wondered. It must be a recent development, I surmised, and I flashed a smile to ease her into the conversation.

"Now, now. Don't put yourself down like that."

"Rinne isn't putting Rinne down. Rinne just thinks that by marrying Naoren-san, Rinne will interfere with Naoren-san's happiness."

…

"Come again?" came the natural response from Judy, her finger frozen mid-motion on her phone screen as she stared at Mountain Girl with eyes wide open.

"Naoren-san already told Rinne that he has a lady Naoren-san likes, and so Rinne feels that getting between Naoren-san and this lady is—"

"No, stop," I halted her with a palm raised. "What was that about marriage?"

"Naoren-san asked Rinne to marry Naoren-san," she stated bluntly and seemingly without any emotion, as if it was the least important matter in this conversation. Seeing that we were both baffled by her words, she quickly clarified. "It's a contract marriage. Naoren-san said it is necessary to silence the elders who want Naoren-san to enter into a political marriage, so Naoren-san asked Rinne to get married for a year, but Rinne isn't sure it's the right thing to do when Naoren-san already likes a lady, and…"

While she prattled on, I finally digested the new information and turned to my lovely assistant.

"Sorry, Dormouse, but today's date is postponed." Saying so, I pointed a finger at Mountain Girl. "I need to get to the bottom of this ASAP."

"Understandable. Keep me updated."

And with that, we both nodded, while the adult woman next to us kept waxing about her bloody contract marriage of all things. I had to admit though; I didn't see that coming.