The Simulacrum

~Chapter 149~ Part 1

"O-Ow! Hey! Careful!"

Hissing, I glanced over my shoulder at the girl straddled on the back of my thighs, and she let out a dismissive huff.

"Oh, don't be a baby," Angie chided me and continued to knead the small of my back with extra vigour.

"Your Grace, please pay attention to these areas," Jaakobah noted in a disinterested voice, pointing at my lumbars.

"Thank you, I'm on it!"

With that, the Celestial girl on my back let out a determined grunt and started humming a catchy tune while lightly poking me all over the place, like some sort of post-apocalyptic martial artist.

I tried my best to ignore the stinging sensation and relaxed as much as I could. We were inside the nurse's office after classes were already over. Angie, hyper as ever, was in her PE outfit, with the white shirt and the short shorts and everything. So was I, since PE was the last class of the week. As for the phlegmatic Celestial agent, he was still fully dedicated to his cover identity as the new school nurse, though he also had a familiar magical monocle clenched over his right eye in addition to the usual white coat and stray stethoscope.

As of this very moment, I was serving as Angie's training dummy while she practised her healing hymns under the watchful guidance of Jaakobah. It would've been a pretty nice and wholesome scene, if not for two issues. First off…

"La-laaa!"

"Ow! Hey, no punching!" I hissed again.

"I can't help it!" Angie fumed on my back, interrupting her aria. "You have very high magic resistance, and without a catalyst, this is the best way to inject mana directly into your astral body and help you with your internal injury. Right, Mr. Arpachshad?"

"Precisely, Your Grace," Jaakobah responded in his usual, unenthusiastic voice. Angie giggled and continued to roughly knead my muscles.

That was already vexing, but then there was the second issue. Namely, that we weren't alone in the room.

"I don't know how to feel about this," Josh muttered, his arms crossed and his mouth set in a thin line of slight disapproval. He tried to remain mature and calm about it, yet it was plain to see that her girlfriend straddling me and giving me an enthusiastic, magic-infused massage didn't sit well with him.

"Agreed," Judy, sitting on the other bed of the infirmary, noted with similar levels of dissatisfaction. "I'm currently hovering around a six. What about you?"

"I don't know," Elly noted absently, one finger on her chin. "I don't think it's that bad, but… I think I'm also around a three."

"That's low," my dear assistant noted without looking away from me, her eyes boring holes into my forehead.

The three of them were also still in their PE attires, and while the girls were sitting on the bed, Josh opted to remain standing and lean against the wall near the entrance instead. Anyhow, Judy's relentless stare was bothering me the most, so I turned my head to face her directly.

"Is there something you want to tell me, Dormouse?"

"Just what I've already told you," she answered in a level, dispassionate voice. "You're not allowed to enjoy this, or we'll hate you for at least three days."

"Wait, me too?" the princess blurted out in alarm, but I was too busy squinting at my non-draconic girlfriend to pay her much heed.

"Do I look like I'm enjoying myself right n—? Ow! Angie! Cut it out with the elbow!"

"I'm experimenting!" I couldn't see her face at the moment, but her response sounded like she had an impish grin on her face. "Come on, Leo! It's not my fault you have such a good physique! I have to work hard to push through all those tough muscles!"

"I'm slowly starting to figure out how I feel about this, and it's not good," Josh noted with a frown and Judy nodded along.

"I'm getting closer to a seven."

"Still three!" the princess followed it up as if by reflex, but before I could get a word in, the door of the infirmary was thrown open so hard that it nearly whacked the guy by the entrance in the nose.

"Hey! Watch it!"

The newcomer didn't care about his objections and instead she exclaimed, "Brother! I've heard you were injured! Are you all ri—!?" Penny, looking a bit dishevelled at the moment, rushed into the nurse's office, only to freeze on the spot when she noticed me on the bed with Angie on top. "A-A-Awawa! B-Brother! That's inappropriate!"

"What happened?" Snowy poked her head through the entrance a beat later, and after seeing the scene with my other (and considerably more mortified) sister in the middle, she walked in and closed the door behind herself before turning to Angie and Jaakobah. "Is he all right?"

"He'll be fine!" Angie declared with gusto and cracked her knuckles. "I'll whip him back into shape in no time!"

"O-Oh… So you're just healing him?" Penny let out a relieved sigh. "Thank god. But we can't let Judy and Eleanor see this!"

"We're here, actually."

"Kyaaah!"

Ignoring the skit on the side (or how she could miss my girlfriends), Snowy looked me over with clear concern reflecting in her eyes. Seeing that we were getting nowhere fast, Josh walked over to explain the situation.

"As far as I've heard, Leo was showing off yesterday and strained his back."

"It's a little bit worse than that," I pointed out, but he ignored my comment and continued with the same breath.

"We played basketball during PE, and as tradition, we had a bit of a contest." He crossed his arms again and sent me a stoic look. "And because he was losing, your brother overexerted himself and got a cramp."

"Again, this is a bit more complicated than just a cramp, and my team wasn't losing. It was only a two-point difference, and there were still five minutes left of the match," I grumbled, which put a smile on Snowy's face, for some reason. Maybe because she was relieved that I was well enough to complain like that? Little sisters were complicated.

Anyhow, as I had already alluded to, my current predicament wasn't as simple as pulling a tendon. The day before, I picked up Naoren (together with his heavy wooden chair) twice, just for shits and giggles, but what I failed to consider was that I was only wearing the school uniform version of my Leoformer. That one had the least robust physical enhancement suite out of all my enchanted outfits, and I also didn't have Cal or Teeny at the ready to fuel it with extra mana.

Because of that, while I did manage to lift Naoren and his seat over my head twice, I didn't notice that I had to run the enchantments past the redline, and because most of the effort was coming from my lower back, I ended up receiving minor mana burns there. Worse yet, because of the same physical enhancements, I wasn't feeling it until I turned off my Leoformer in the evening, at which point all the strain and pressure hit me at once with a vengeance.

Then… well, I didn't like to admit it, but maybe I really did over-exert myself during PE. Just a little bit. I couldn't exactly help it; Josh was cheating with his stupid Celestial specs, so I had to give my A-game to keep up. If anything, it was his fault.

Thus concluded, I was about to chew out my friend, but then I tensed up when Angie lightly patted down my back, without any healing magic infused.

"You know, I always knew you were muscly, but I didn't know you were this muscly!"

"We're getting dangerously close to an eight," Judy noted in a low, almost threatening voice.

"Eight of what?" came the confounded inquiry from Penny, and Elly was champing at the bit to explain.

"We're calibrating our jealousy-meter."

"Your what?"

"It's part of our efforts to rework and improve our anti-harem countermeasures," Judy noted absently and then poked Elly in the side with her elbow.

"Hm? Oh, right! It's… um… A five?" When my dear assistant narrowed her eyes, the princess hastily added, "I-I mean, Leo always had a really attractive physique, and it only got better ever since he came back from Elysium, so Angie is just telling the truth. There's nothing wrong with that… I think."

In the meanwhile, my knightly sister kept blinking at them with invisible question marks circling around her head like a flock of hungry birds.

"I don't get it."

I was just about to tell her she shouldn't worry about that, but then Angie slapped the small of my back and snapped her finger.

"I know, right? Even Grandpa Deus is saying Polemos wouldn't be Polemos without the muscles!" She paused for a second, probably listening to the disembodied voice of the Celestial founder in her head, and then she added, "He also says that Polemos used to be even manlier in the past."

"Manlier?" I echoed her, moving my torso a bit so I could once again glance at her over my shoulder, and she nodded with a childish grin plastered on her face.

"Yes! With even bigger muscles and one of those lantern jaws! Like that actor, from that movie! You know which one I'm talking about, right?" When I didn't respond, she glanced over at her boyfriend. "Josh, support! You know who I'm talking about, right?"

"… You have to be a bit more specific than 'that actor in that movie'."

"Boo! You're supposed to use your boyfriend magic to figure out what a girl thinks!"

"There's no such thing," he denied reflexively, only to pause and send me an uncertain glance. "… Right?"

"Nope," I confirmed, much to his relief. "Trust me, if something like that was an actual, metaphysical thing, I wouldn't have had half as many problems in my relationship."

"Why are you saying that?" Elly chimed in, cheeks puffed and mouth set in a pout. "We have a great relationship, right, Judy?"

"I won't comment on that, but I do admit that we're a statistical anomaly."

"How very politician of you," I quipped, turning around to face Judy again. "Have you thought about running for the position of student council president?"

"I haven't, but maybe I will now."

Judy's response was deadpan as ever, to the point even I wasn't sure if she was joking or not.

"Hihi. You guys are so cute," the Celestial girl on my back exclaimed with a giggle. "You know what Grandpa Deus just said? He says that it's okay not to be as manly as before, because this time you at least aren't single!"

"This time?" Snowy interjected, head cocked to the side, but then her eyes lit up with realization. "Oh. You mean Polemos?"

"Of course I mean Polemos. We're talking about him, aren't we?" Angie huffed, and then repeatedly poked my back. "Can you believe that this guy used to be super-popular back in the day, but he never got married? All the most beautiful women of the era were practically throwing themselves at him, but he didn't even give them a second glance!" After a pause, she stifled a chuckle. "Grandpa Deus says it's good that you're no longer a workaholic and have lovers, but he warns you that you shouldn't go from one extreme to the other and become a womanizer in this life."

"She's… I mean, he's right, Brother!" Penny rejoined the conversation with gusto. "You must set a good example to everyone! You shouldn't get involved in e-easy to misunderstand acts with other girls!"

"What are you talking about?" Angie blurted out, clearly picking up on the message between the lines.

"E-Even if it's for healing, doing something indecent like this in the open is… inappropriate!"

"But we're not doing anything like that!" Angie protested, but then she suddenly put her hands on my buttocks. "See? This would be indecent."

"Ten! That's a ten!" Judy exclaimed with as much emotion as I've ever heard from her in public.

"Seven!" the princess followed her up, and when she got glared at for her trouble, she hastily amended," I-It's supposed to be a joke, so it's not that bad, and…"

"Oookay, that's about enough," Josh grumbled, and grabbed her girlfriend by the waist, lifting her off my thighs.

"Eeep!" Angie yelped in surprise, but then the moment her feet touched the ground, she immediately glomped the guy in a bear hug. "Hehe. A jealous Josh is good too."

Oh. So this whole thing wasn't about me, but teasing her boyfriend? Still, that last bit was a bit too risqué. If the sexes were reversed, we could've said goodbye to our PG-13 rating.

…

Wait, did the Simulacrum have a rating? Who was watching? How old were the Submerged Ones anyway? Or… if they were watching our regular naked wrestling matches with the girls, then we might already have an M rating, wouldn't we?

Putting those silly considerations aside, I raised my upper body off the bed and directed a critical stare at the childhood friend couple. Angie was busy nuzzling up to her boyfriend and teasing him, but Josh's eyes quickly met mine, and he let his shoulders droop in a kind of 'Sorry pal, she can be weird like that sometimes' sort of gesture.

"Please don't make a ruckus in the infirmary," Jaakobah warned the group, and soon everyone settled down a little. "I'll finish the Lord Archon's treatment, and then we can—"

"Ue-sama! Are you in there?"

Before he could finish, the door opened wide, startling everyone. However, none were as startled as I was when I noticed the group on the other side of the door.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Arpachshad," the boy in the front, with his unmistakable bowl-cut hairstyle, greeted Jaakobah with a disinterred voice.

"We're here to deliver these two lost children," the second member of the creepy quartet, Mr. Buzzcut, noted and gestured at Ichiko and Odango-girl in the doorway.

"With our duties fulfilled, we shall leave now, before this scene could erode our reason," Mr Spiky spoke solemnly, and the last amigo, Mr Bedhair, crossed his arms with a "Hmpf!" that he must've thought was really cool, because he looked quite proud of himself.

With that, the four creeps ushered in the kids and disappeared the same way they came, leaving a slightly weird atmosphere in their wake. In the meantime, I sat up and squinted at the two of them.

"What are you doing here?" Penny asked, and I just noticed that she was hiding behind Snowy. I thought she would get along with Ichiko by now, but if anything, her reactions to the mini-miko were getting worse with time.

"More importantly, did those four do anything to you?" I asked out of concern, but the girls looked at me like I was weird.

"No, of course not," Xiao responded first. "The gentlemen were very helpful."

"That's right! We visited Ue-sama's classroom, and Ue-sama wasn't there, but then when we didn't know where to go, they offered their help."

"They were very nice. Just a little weird," Xiao noted with a small frown. "They said some incomprehensible things."

"I'm sure we're just not knowledgeable enough about how high school students talk," Ichiko insisted.

"But they said we aren't in their strike zone yet! Why would they want to strike us?"

"Stop, stop!" I interrupted their little skit before it could get any more cringeworthy and levelled a pair of critical eyes on them. "Putting those guys aside for the moment, why are you here, and why are dressed like that?"

They were sporting matching blue dresses, with palm-sized name-tags pinned on their chests, bright red plastic school backpacks, and equally vivid yellow caps with rims, which almost looked like one of those safety hard hats people would wear at construction sites. I vaguely recognized it as the stereotypical Japanese elementary schooler uniform, but I couldn't figure out why they were wearing it.

"We disguised ourselves to infiltrate Brother Leonard's school!" Odango-girl declared proudly and picked up the hems of her skirt.

"Hm!" Ichiko went as far as to twirl around in place to show off her outfit, and she came to a stumbling halt before striking a pose with one hand on her hip and the other showing a victory sign.

"But why?" Penny asked on the side, and the little girls turned to her, and then back to me.

"Ah, right! We were supposed to meet with Ue-sama in private!" the foxy miko exclaimed in faux despair, and the other girl played along by desperately tugging on her hand.

"What do we do now, Ichi? Is the plan ruined?"

"No-Not yet! Ue-sama is one of us, so he should understand, and we're in the endgame, so it doesn't matter if others also hear about it. No, this might be even better!"

"One of you?" Josh asked with a critical brow raised high, and the two nodded in unison.

"Yes! Brother Leonard is also trying to help Brother Naoren and Sister Rinne, right?"

"Right?" Ichiko doubled down, turning a pair of puppy-eyes at me. "That's why you told him to introduce her in public during Sunday's banquet, right?"

"I'm not following. Am I the only one who's not following?" Penny blurted out, and for once, Josh backed her up with a grunt.

"You're not. Welcome to the club."

"So you came here to… do what exactly?" I rolled the conversation along, and the girls' eyes lit up.

"To have a tactical meeting, and coordinate our efforts!"

"Because Ue-sama is now one of us!"

"One of us! One of us!" Odango-girl chanted with a grin, her fingers balled into fists and moving up and down.

"One of us, one of us," came another chant from the side, and when I glanced at her, Judy immediately stopped and pretended it wasn't her.

"So? What are Ue-sama's plans for the banquet?"

Before I could respond though, someone else raised her voice.

"What banquet? There's going to be a banquet on Sunday?"

Hearing Angie's question, Penny responded with an off-handed, "There are always banquets on the weekends."

"How come this is the first time I've heard about this?" the Celestial girl frowned, making her boyfriend look just a bit pensive.

"What? Do you want to attend, or something?"

"Why not? Leo's going, right?"

"Well, yes, but…"

"You see?" Angie cut me short with a triumphant huff. "Grandpa Deus has been complaining about how I shouldn't just study all the time, but show myself to the public every once in a while, anyway. Let's do it! It should be fun!"

"… Fun? You do realize that the last time you attended a Draconian party, I got into a scuffle with Zihao and we broke a balcony, right?"

"Ah, right. I was meaning to ask you not to do that this time around."

That comment made Josh's eyes open wide in alarm.

"Wait, I'm attending too?"

"Of course, silly squirrel! You're my Joshticar, remember? How could I show up in public without my Joshticar?"

"Are you going too?" Snowy asked my girlfriends, and they nodded in unison.

"It's an important experiment, at least according to the Chief."

"Event," Elly corrected her. "Calling it an 'experiment' makes us sound weird."

"Do you want to go too?" Penny asked my other sister in turn, but didn't even wait for her response before declaring, "I-If you do, I'll come with you! That way, we can get rid of the annoying flies more easily!"

"I don't know, but…"

I couldn't hear the end of Snowy's response, because I was suddenly besieged by two little girls from two sides as they jumped up to the infirmary bed and sandwiched me between them.

"So, what's the plan, Ue-sama?"

"Tell us! What's Brother Leonard's plan?"

As if afraid that I would run away, they each grabbed hold of one of my forearms, eyes sparkling with expectations, and I couldn't help but sigh. Yep. I should've known things would get more complicated; I just didn't expect that they would start spiralling out of control this soon. Still, it was better to deal with some over-the-top romance novel scenario than a life-or-death one, I supposed, and hey? Maybe this way I could finally figure out what the two kids grabbing onto me have been cooking all this time, and…

"Three. Getting closer to four."

Blinking, I turned to my girlfriend and directed one of the flattest stares I'd ever stared in my entire life at her.

"Not funny, Dormouse. Not funny."