The Simulacrum

Day nine of our vacation.

With Josh's training arc finally reaching its conclusion, things were rapidly winding down. Our plans for today were likewise pretty mundane; a simple morning picnic on the beach was just perfect as a kind of dénouement after everything. No more volleyball matches, no ball games in the sky, no fishing trips, nothing strenuous. Just hanging out, all together, and relaxing on the blankets laid out in a circle while chatting, snacking, or both at the same time.

"Chief, say 'Aaah'."

"Aaah."

I did as instructed and Judy put a spoonful of fruit salad into my mouth. It was both cool and so sweet it made my tongue feel numb, but it still felt pretty refreshing.

"I'm next!" Elly followed her up with another spoon, and I obediently opened my mouth again.

As for why they were suddenly so adamant about feeding me, it must've had something to do with the childhood friend couple on the blanket next to ours.

"Here you go, silly-squirrel," Angie cooed and scooped some ice cream out of her bowl, then presented it to Josh.

"I can eat by myself," the guy grumbled but chomped down all the same.

"No way, Jose! You're taking it easy today. Doctor's orders."

"Nurse, but whatever," he shrugged, and unabashedly opened his mouth again.

Josh's forearms and hands were wrapped in a thick white gauze, and while it was hard to see it under direct sunlight, it was gently smouldering with a warm orange light. His stunt yesterday not only caused a fright in the onlookers, but he also suffered some sort of magical backlash. It wasn't anything major, just minimal mana burns, but I knew how much those sucked, so I could empathize with him.

He was also being spoiled by his girlfriend, though that wasn't a recent development. Right after the fact, Angie looked like she was about to whip him for being careless and injuring himself, and since I was in the splash zone, I didn't escape unscathed either. She completely mellowed out since then, as shown by the way she was feeding him with a dopey grin on her face.

Things were looking pretty idyllic, all things considered. On our left, the parent group was engrossed in small talk, the Assembly group on our right (along with Michael, who became an honorary member over the past days) were snacking while having a not-so-rigorous discussion about magic theory, while directly across us on the ring of blankets, Josh and Angie were still flirting without a care in the world. As for my sisters, they were on a separate blanket a bit further back, under the shade of a lonely tree growing at the edge of the sandy beach and playing that Celestial TCG with the two kids.

Had I ever been so relaxed, I wondered. Maybe during the hot spring excursion, but even then, this vacation felt like it was in a league of its own. It felt nice, but also… how should I put it? A bit melancholic, maybe. Probably because deep down I knew that as soon as it was over, I would be neck-deep in trouble all over again. I felt like I should be used to that by now, but I just wasn’t.

The Abyssal situation wasn't going to boil over right away, but it was only a question of time, and a quick Far Glance told me that Crowy wasn't sitting on his laurels. Even at this moment, he was sitting cross-legged in the depths of Castle Inanna, and channelling the power of the Mana Well into himself. In other words, Josh wasn't the only one getting a power-up, which was both troubling and expected. I mean, we more-or-less beat the guy during our first encounter with him, so he needed it to be a credible threat at this point. Narratively speaking, I mean.

But speaking of Josh and his power-up…

"No!" Angie declared on no uncertain terms, pulling back her ice cream with a scowl. "You're not training until your injury is fully healed, mister! One more mention of that, and I'll have Grandpa Deus deal with you again!"

"Again?" I murmured, feeling like I might've missed a crucial development last night. I couldn't help it though; Elly kept me busy. Also, since my mouth was open, she used the opportunity to stick another spoonful of fruit salad in it with a giggle.

"Fine, fine," Josh backed down in the meantime and stared at his bandaged hands. "It's just that I finally feel like I'm onto something, so I'm just itching to try it out."

"You won't be just itching if you don't listen to the girl," Angie, or rather, Deus commented, followed by an even sulkier. "Yeah! I'm gonna tie you down again if you don't behave!"

"Again?" I repeated for the second time, even more baffled. Seriously, what did I miss?

"No need for that. I'll be good," Josh conceded, raised a hand with the open palm facing him, and after a dramatic beat he clenched his fist. "I've already found my path forward."

Oh, wow. If the Simulacrum was a manga, this would've totally been the low-angle shot of the hero with harsh shading to emphasize his determination, wouldn't it? It was nice to see Josh playing more of these tropes straight. It meant he was now fully embodying his protagonist status, meaning I could hopefully shunt (I meant to say delegate) more narrative responsibilities onto him. I'd be busy either way, but it would be nice.

In the meantime, Judy's mom called out to my sisters.

"Cubbies! We need more watermelon for the salad!"

True to her words, she had a chopping table and a large bowl laid out in front of her on the blanket, along with a variety of fresh fruits. She was the only one cutting and mixing them, yet she was all smiles and even made small talk with the rest of the parent group. Though again, Dame Morgana was a novice in the kitchen, and while I didn't know much about Emese's culinary talents, I had a feeling she was the 'we have a chef at home' type. Of course, it didn't mean they couldn't help her with dicing stuff, but since she didn't mind, I wouldn't nag them either.

"On it!" Penny jumped to her feet and picked up the wooden sword lying on the blanket, but only to hand it over to my other sister. "It's Snowy's turn now!"

"A-Are you sure?"@@novelbin@@

"Yeah, it'll be fun!"

"Good luck!" the kids cheered her on, already holding a ripe watermelon, so my Abyssal sister hesitantly got up and the whole group strolled out of under the shade, and they didn't have to walk for long before they arrived at a curious sight.

"Polemos! Please stop this! It stopped being funny a long time ago!" a certain Celestial ex-director whined, making Snowy even more hesitant.

"Are you sure we should do it here? I'm feeling a bit sorry for her."

"Don't worry! Brother said she deserved it, so it's fine!" Penny declared with completely unfounded confidence. She was still entirely correct, so I made a mental note to spoil her a bit in the future.

In the meantime, the kids placed the watermelon onto the plastic sheet right next to Savir. Or rather, her head sticking out of the sand. I was a man of my word, and if I said I would bury her, then I jolly well would.

"Ready!" the boy, Pais, exclaimed between giggles and the Celestial kids skipped over to Snowy's side. In the meantime, my girlfriends also joined the fun, leaving me alone on my blanket, but I didn't mind. So long as they were having fun, especially at Savir's expense, I was fine with it.

"Spin! Spin!" Kóre yelled, and following the little Celestial girl's mark, the two of them started running circles around Snowy.

"Wait! First we have to put on the blindfold!" Penny interrupted, holding a thick white shawl. She expertly tied it onto Snowy's head, and once she was satisfied, she flashed a toothy grin and gave a thumbs up. "All right! Now you can spin her!"

She didn't have to say it twice, and the kids started running around my other sister, this time holding onto her so that she turned with them. Snowy was hugging the wooden sword to her chest to make sure it wouldn't accidentally hit anyone, and while she looked a bit awkward, she was also smiling. After a few turns they let her go and she staggered for a moment before clumsily grabbing the hilt.

This was the last but maybe most iconic trope common to all classic beach episodes. At least as far as Japanese tropes were concerned. Heck, it even had a proper name: suikawari, which directly translated to 'watermelon splitting'. It was… very literal. Personally, I didn't see the appeal, but if we were doing all of the other beach episode tropes, we couldn't just leave this one out, so I gave it the appropriate amount of attention and preparation it deserved.

First off, the watermelons. While the weather in Elysium would easily fool anyone, it was important to remember that we were still in mid-spring, so not exactly the right season for them. But fear nought! When things seem hopeless, you can always rely on globalization for the rescue! For a hefty price, plus shipping and import tariffs, of course.

Seriously, one could order literally anything on the internet nowadays. Coincidentally, that's where much of the ingredients of Second-mom-in-law's fruit salad came from, in addition to the locally available specialities of Elysium. But back to the melons: I ordered half a dozen of them, just to be on the safe side, and Penny already broke open two of them, meaning this would be the third.

Secondly, the breaking implement wasn't just any run-of-the-mill piece of wood either. It was a 'bokken', a traditional Japanese wooden training sword in the shape of a katana, just without the round handguard. I mean, if we're doing the trope, we might as well do it right, am I right? As for how I managed to get my hands on an authentic Japanese bokken… Say it with me kids: Globalism, ho!

Meanwhile, Snowy adopted a clumsy stance and took a step forward. Except, because she was just spun around, she was walking away from the watermelon.

"No! Turn around, turn around!" Penny yelled, making her turn on her heels.

"Too much! I little to the left!" Elly joined in.

"Left! Left!" the children echoed her making Snowy nearly stumble in her hurry to comply.

That was pretty much the whole game. The player would get blindfolded, then spun around, and then the onlookers would try to guide them to the location of the watermelon so that the player could smash it, and… that was it. Again, I never really 'got it', but the girls had fun with it, so it wasn't a wasted effort. That said, I wasn't sure they liked the game itself, or the part where it made Savir squeal.

"Ah! No, stay away! I won't stand for this!" she screamed from the top of her lungs and struggled to move, but that was the magic of the sand necktie: she couldn't. And it was funny.

"A bit to the right now," Judy instructed Snowy, making Savir squeal again.

"No, not that right! The other right! Left!" Penny shouted, making my other sister stop in her tracks.

"W-Which one?"

"Ten degrees to the left, and one step forward!" Elly put a hand on Judy's mouth and added, "Just listen to me! You're almost there!"

"O-Okay…"

My dear assistant struggled to free her mouth, but she couldn't win against the princess, so she soon surrendered and let her guide Snowy away from Savir's head.

"Am I at the right place?"

"Yes! You just need to swing!"

"No, don't do it! You're too close!" Savir whined, halting Snowy once again.

"Don't worry, sis. Even if you hit her, she'll live!" I chimed in from the side. "At worst, we'll just get a replacement!"

"I told you this isn't funny! Dig me out!"

Snowy must've deduced her location from her incessant cries, because she took half a step to the side, and with some further guidance from the kids, she finally managed to find the watermelon. She raised her bokken overhead and, with a firm yet somehow clumsy swing, she hit it with all her might. It wasn't quite on the mark, but she still managed to crack it in one go, much to the peanut gallery's delight.

"Yay! Her Grace Snowy did it!"

"Hurray!"

The kids rushed in and picked up the two halves of the melon, while Snowy took off her blindfold and let out a relieved breath.

"Thank goodness, I didn't hit her."

At the same time, Judy clicked her tongue so hard I could hear it all the way over here.

"Next time, I'll be the one playing."

"No, Judy! You can't!" Elly put her arms around her, as if struggling to restrain her. "I can't let you become a criminal!"

"Don't worry. We've got political immunity."

"Even so, you shouldn't do it in the open!"

"Cubbies! I'm still waiting for my watermelons~!" Judy's mom called out to them, and Savir tried her best to turn her way.

"Gwyneth! Please tell them to dig me out!"

"Oh, don't worry Eris. I'm sure the children are just teasing you," she responded with a completely guileless smile. "Not to mention, didn't you say you could use a break the other day? Just relax and enjoy the beach."

Realizing that her pleas had fallen on deaf ears, Savir tried her best to move her shoulders and dig herself out, but to little avail. The kids have already brought the broken watermelon to Judy's mom in the meantime, and the girls also headed over to help her with the cutting and the dicing, leaving Savir behind for the time being.

Leaning on my hands, I looked up at the bright blue sky and closed my eyes. Today, more than any other day, was probably the most therapeutic one of this whole vacation.

More importantly, where was I before my attention was grabbed by the suikawari? Right, I was checking on Crowy with Far Sight. I decided to pick up where I left off, Far Glancing his way, but there was little to no change. He was still manipulating the Inanna Mana Well, and at most his hair got a bit more purple. Moving on, I checked the rest of the usual suspects.

Fred was sleeping in, taking full advantage of the fact that his boss (read: me) wasn't around, while Galatea was playing chess with Peabody. Brang's company were discussing how to integrate Tajana's Fauns into their ranks after her seemingly inevitable change of allegiances, while Duncan and Agrawain were eating breakfast in the cafeteria and making small talk. It didn't really concern me, so I quickly moved on, and after making full rounds, I had to conclude that things in the base were about as peaceful as they could get. Which was good, but also played into that whole, foreboding, calm-before-the-storm kind of feeling I was getting.

Next, I checked on the arch-mages, and I caught Lord Grandpa drinking his morning coffee in the company of Lord Taika, Lord Ambrose, and Lord Gulliver in the spacious living room of the old man's mansion. That was a relatively rare sight, as from my previous observations, I knew that the arch-mages on the island rarely interacted outside of work and meetings. Except for the bearded man and the lanky redhead, but they were a special case.

"She is still refusing the summons of the Assembly?" Lord Grandpa inquired with undisguised irritation, his hand mechanically stirring his coffee in rhythm with his words.

"She's acting suspicious!" Lord Ambrose gritted his teeth and jumped to his feet, jostling the table and nearly knocking over Lord Gulliver's cup. "That's it! If she's not coming on her own, I'm bringing her here myself!"

"Ease up, big guy," the red-headed arch-mage sighed and put a hand on his colleague's shoulder, pushing him back down into his seat. "We don't have any evidence yet."

"What about the testimony of that French lout?" Ambrose continued to fume, and this time it was Lord Taika's turn to speak up, though not before she finished pouring milk into her cup.

"We're talking about Lord Marzanna here. We can't just accuse her of being the mastermind behind the recent assassination plot without solid evidence, and a single testimony won't do."

"But it's enough to bring her in for questioning!" the irate arch-mage argued back, but fell silent when Lord Endymonion raised a palm.

"Even if we accuse her, she is a Key-holder, just like you and I. We cannot force her to do anything without a vote from the Assembly backing our demands."

"But then what are we supposed to do!? Your granddaughter needs her Key of the Grimoire!"

To punctuate his point, the bearded arch-mage pounded on the table, but this time Gulliver was faster and already picked up both his own and his furious colleague's cups, lest they would be overturned.

"Does she though?" he asked provocatively and took a sip from his cup.

"Of course she does, you clown!" Ambrose snapped, while Lord Taika hastily raised her voice.

"No, hold on. Gulliver has a point. We don't really need the last Key; we already have two of them, we can just perform the replacement ritual and make the third one. Once it's registered, Marzanna's will become useless, and Amelia will be able to unlock the Grimoire"

"I have also considered this," Lord Grandpa spoke morosely, linking his fingers on the table. "However, doing so would not only be a flagrant display of disrespect towards the due process of the rules and laws governing the Assembly, but if Lord Marzanna were to operate her Grimoire Key during the ceremony, it would invalidate our attempt and make all the effort and resources involved go to waste. As much as I trust Gowan, I am not certain that if I entrusted this task upon the Artificer Lodge of Critias, news of our actions would not proliferate before the process would be finished."

"Then just ask Leonard to do it," Gulliver said with a shrug, as if that was self-evident, and took another sip from his cup. "He'll do it."

"If possible, I would like to avoid being indebted to him, especially while the ink on the peace treaty between the Assembly and his Celestial nation has yet to dry."

"You're overthinking it," the lanky arch-mage grumbled, followed by a sigh.

"Realistically speaking, what other options do we have?" Taika asked the question on everyone's mind, and Ambrose raised his fist again.

"I can just drag her out of her tower, and—"

"Realistically speaking," Lord Grandpa echoed her, and everyone fell silent.

Well, crap. I'll probably have to take care of that once we're back home, huh? Shaking my head, I left the arch-mages to their arguments and quickly flipped through all my other major marks. Ichiko had a sleepover at Naoren's place with odango-girl. So did Rinne, but as far as I could tell, nothing happened between her and the Feilong patriarch yet, because they were still in that weird tip-toeing phase. Yseult, in turn, was in the Albion mansion on the island and already dealing with official business in the morning, even though it was the weekend.

There was nothing interesting to see at either of these locations, so I moved on to the last mark, and…

"Seriously?"

The whisper escaped my mouth before I could stop it, nearly jolting me out of my Far Sight, but I refocused my attention in time. My disembodied viewpoint was currently within the guest room of my house, also known as Tajana's room, presently occupied by two people in a conspicuous state of undress while lying under the blankets and vacantly staring at the ceiling.

"We need to stop doing this," Sir Roland muttered, his voice drained of life.

"You already said that," the dishevelled woman lying by his side sulked, trying her best to sneakily glance at him without being too obvious.

"How did we even end up like this again?"

"You asked that too! And I told you, it was an accident!" Tajana continued to gripe, pulling the blankets up to hide the lower half of her face. "I-It's not like I fell on you on purpose!"

As if suddenly jolted awake, Roland blinked and turned on the bed to face her, if only so that he could squint at her.

"Speaking of which, what were you doing, running down the stairs with just a towel wrapped around you?"

"I-I just said it wasn't on purpose! It's just that…" She pulled the blanket even higher, so that even her eyes could barely be seen anymore, and whispered. "I… thought I've heard Lord Bel call out to me from somewhere, just as I was about to step into the shower, and I was… startled."

"So you rushed out of the bathroom, wearing only a towel."

"… Very startled," she insisted, clearly pouting at this point, and after locking eyes with her, Roland exhaled hard and laid down on his back again.

"Fine. Let's just say it was a mistake. We have to make sure not to repeat it."

"Y-Yes! My thoughts exactly!"

"We must also ensure that Leonard and the others won't realize what happened. You must act natural. Or at least try."

"Hey! I'm a spymaster!" Tayana fumed, pulling down the blanket enough to reveal that she was indeed pouting. "I know how to act."

"You could've fooled me."

"M-Maybe I did! Have you ever thought of that?"

Hearing her defiant words, Roland sent her a sideways glance.

"Did you?"

There was a long beat of silence, followed by a whimpering, "No…"

"Good. This is embarrassing enough already. If you actually tricked me into this, I would never live it down."

"W-Why would I even want to trick you into anything!? You're the worst!"

"And you're a crybaby."

"Because you're a bully!"

"When have I ever bullied you?"

"All the time! And, l-like… last night too."

"Well, you didn't seem to mind at the time."

"Because I knew you're a brute, and can't do it any other way!" she cried out, causing Sir Roland to sit up and lean over her, the blanket falling over to reveal his toned upper body, right out of a cheap bodice ripper book.

"Was that a challenge?" he asked in a low voice, and the Abyssal woman's breath quickened as she turned beat red, and…

"Okay, that's about enough spying for the day…" I murmured and left them to do whatever two healthy adults do in a bed while naked.

I only just noticed that my girlfriends returned to my side in the meantime, and Elly beamed at me.

"You were doing Far Sight, right?" she whispered excitedly. "Did you find something unexpected?"

"It's not entirely unexpected, but…" I trailed off and shook my head. "I'll tell you later."

It was around this time that my sisters noticed that I was available, and they came over to our side as well, with the kids in tow.

"Brother? It's getting hot! Can we play in the water?" Penny pleaded, taking me aback for a moment.

"Sure, you can. You don't need my permission for that."

"No, that's not what Penny meant," Snowy came to the rescue. "She meant you too."

"Oh, right." Now that she mentioned it, I'd done a lot of stuff around the water, but not much in it, let alone with my sisters. Seeing that they also had a beach ball at the ready, plus that the kids were staring at me expectantly, I gave in and got up. "All right. Let's get wet!"

"Chief, don't be lewd," Judy jested (or at least I hoped she did) and got up as well. "However, since you're going, I'll go change and join you."

"Ah? Are we swimming?" Angie perked up on the side. "We're coming too! Only in the shallows though, because Josh's injured."

"They know, you don't need to tell them all over again," the guy grumbled as he got up, and before long, not only the childhood friend couple, but even the Assembly group joined in on the fun.

Even the parents gave in to the temptation, and soon literally everyone on the beach was frolicking in the water. Or rather, everyone save for one.

"Polemos! I know you can hear me! I told you this isn't funny! … Polemos! Leonard?! Anyone?! Please, somebody dig me up!"

Blue skies, warm waters, playful company, and Savir's cries. The perfect way to put a bow on this vacation, am I right?