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The Simulacrum - Chapter 108 - Part 1
🕑 Added 2023-03-20 19:39:24 +0000 UTC"Yowza! I know that they say a man's home is his castle, but this place is fortified like the Maginot line!"
Ignoring Percival's spirited exclamation, I tried my best to hold my temper under control and my mind on track. This… irritation-thing had a pretty spotty track record, but I couldn't ignore the fact that it also identified about two-thirds of the 'antagonists' I've met so far.
"Cool, isn't it?" Penny chimed in while coming back outside. She picked up a bag, and on her way back, she continued with, "Snowy made them, and they are super-sturdy!"
"Who?" the old man asked back from inside, and while they continued their discussion, I took several deep breaths and began to categorize my thoughts.
First off, having this instant reaction didn't necessarily mean that he was a bad guy. Let's look at this objectively: what was the common thread between all of the people who triggered this response from me?
The first thing that came to mind was that they were all people in positions of power… except, if this was the trigger, I should've reacted strongly to dad-in-law and the other Draconian big-wigs too, shouldn't I? Or what about Sahi? She never prompted the reaction, either in her young body or in her original one, and she had the same rank as Lord Grandpa.
"Brother! Don't just stand there! Help!"
Nodding along on autopilot, I grabbed the other end of the huge bag Penny was struggling with, but my mind was still bogged down with the problem at hand.
So, 'position of power' was unlikely. How about them being powerful in the literal sense, then? Well, Sahi once again threw a wrench into that idea. However, what if we narrowed things down further by adding another criterion? After all, literally every single person who gave me the urge to drown them in a spoonful of water were men, so maybe it was a combination of 'powerful' plus 'male'?
That sounded relatively plausible, but then came the question of intensity. The strength of my reaction, from highest to lowest, went something like this: Crowey and Percival, then the arch-mage and the Feilong grand elder, followed by Sebastian, and then finally the Kage elder and Naoren. That's… all over the place.
If it was about political power, shouldn't Naoren have been near the top, or at the very least higher than the grand elder? And if it was about individual power, Sebastian should've given me a much stronger reaction, being an ancient dragon and all.
"Um… Leo?"
"Yes?" I asked back, still on autopilot, and turned to Snowy. "Did you ask something?"
"Yes. I was wondering where Sir Percival was going to stay? Should we bring him over to the base?"
"No!" I responded by reflex, startling my Abyssal sister, so I hastily cleared my throat and tried again. "I mean, he just came to the island, and I'm sure Penny has a lot to discuss with him. I think we should let him stay in the ground floor guest room for now."
Snowy didn't seem entirely convinced, but nodded along all the same. In the meantime, Penny and Sir Percival carried in the last of the latter's bags, and he was listening to her bragging about her new phone.
Anyhow, where was I? Right, the intensity of my reactions. So, either the strength of the irritation was random and not tied to any external factors, or there was a completely different explanation, and since I was running low on Watsonian ones, I was starting to feel that it had to be a Doylist one. Such as that it was all related to how much of a nuisance they would be in the long term.
In fact, their ratings of the 'antagonist scale' lined up scarily well with my personal 'punchability index'. Crowey required no explanation, Lord Grandpa and the Feilong grand elder were both scheming bastards who made my life more difficult, while the remaining three had the potential to be a pain-in-the-neck, but once we came to a consensus, my negative reaction to them more or less evaporated. So… where did that leave this guy?
"Oh, really? Well, look here, beansprout!"
"What!? You've got a full lightning team? How?"
Following my knightly sister's exclamation, I glanced over at the two of them sitting on the couch, huddled around Sir Percival's phone. By the sound of it, they were most likely talking about that mobile RPG that Penny was enamored with lately, and he appeared incredibly smug as he showed it off to her.
"Ah! You even pulled Indra! I couldn't get him during his event!"
"It's all about luck," Sir Percival answered with a sickeningly grandfatherly grin and rubbed her head. "Luck, and a deep wallet."
"I knew it! That's cheating! Free to play, or go bust!"
The old man let out a hearty chuckle and continued to rub my fuming sister's head. Snowy, on the other hand, might've picked up on my reservations towards our guest, as she stuck to my side and watched over them from a distance. This wasn't lost on Percival, as after glancing our way, he flashed a supremely aggravating smile our way and waved at us.
"Come, you two! Sit down already! We have a lot to talk about, don't we?"
"Yes. We do."
After squeezing those words through my clenched teeth, I subtly gestured at Snowy, and once I had her attention, I whispered, "I have to step out for a moment. Please make some tea and keep an ear on him."
"Will do," she whispered back, and after exchanging one last glance, I turned to the knightly duo on the couch.
"I have to go upstairs for a moment. In the meantime, make yourself at home."
The old Knight acknowledged what I said with a shallow nod, but then Penny noticed something else on his phone, and they soon returned to their previous discussion. Note to self: look a bit deeper into what this mobile RPG was about, because it suspiciously sounded like a gacha game. Nothing against them on principle, but she was about to get her first paycheck from the Federation, and I would've preferred if she spent her money on something more worthwhile. That was, of course, for a later occasion, as my first priority was to get my temper under control.
In the meantime, Snowy walked into the kitchen, so I also crossed the living room and headed upstairs, all the while practicing the breathing technique that Naoren showed me. It didn't help much, but at the very least it slightly diverted my attention. Just to be sure, I tried my best to appear as casual as possible, so I regulated my steps, right until I closed my room's door behind me.
A few more measured breaths later, I moved over to my PC and turned it on. While it was booting up, I looked around the room, and I couldn't think of any potentially incriminating evidence in the open. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry, and after some more thinking, I recalled the original spiral notebook I used to take notes, before moving everything to the PC. In retrospect, I should've destroyed it a while back, but I just never got around to it, and I kind of forgot about the whole thing after a while. I hid it at the bottom of my desk, under all my other school supplies, but this time I dug it up and put it under my armpit.
In the meantime, the PC reached the login screen, and after getting to the desktop, I initiated 'Emergency Plan C'. It sounded fancy, but in reality, it was just hiding the primary partition using a third-party software. After the process was over, on the next reboot, the computer would automatically log into a dummy account. The current user profile, including all the documents and the browser with my login information to the Celestial Hub, was still there, but it could only be accessed by running the program in safe mode, from a USB drive, which was currently hanging from my key chain.
Some might call me paranoid, relying on the nebulous predictive power of this strange irritation, but as I had often told Naoren, it was always best to plan for the worst. If it was a false alarm, I would only feel slightly silly about it later, but if it wasn't… well, I had no idea, as knew diddly squat about Sir Percival, let alone his agenda, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Anyhow, I waited for the PC to reboot, and once I was sure it was now auto-logging into the dummy account, I turned it off, slipped into one of the shoes I kept in my room, and turned on the flashlight on my phone. A moment later, I reappeared inside the dark, abandoned corner of one of the especially chaotic warehouses inside our underground base. The moment I did so, one of the nearby chairs jumped.
"It's just me," I whispered, and a beat later, the chair disappeared into a puff of smoke and turned into a basketball-sized ball of flesh and tentacles, with one overly expressive eye. Pudding-kun blinked at me, probably getting used to the light coming from my phone, but then he let out a delighted squeal and used its myriad fleshy appendages to skitter over to my side.
"Has anybody been here other than me?" I asked absently while searching for a certain thing, and the disturbingly cute eldritch horror repeatedly shook his entire body left and right. "Good."
Meanwhile, I found the large plastic box I was looking for, under the same tarp that used to hide Cal before I took it out of its stone for the second time. Inside, there was a whole pile of old documents; some in manila folders, others just hastily piled up every which way. They were the papers the class rep entrusted to me a while back, and true to my words, I kept them hidden away until now. This was as good a place as any to hide the notebook, at least until I actually got around to burning it or something.
For now, I put the lid back onto the box, then strewn the tarp over it, and then turned to the tiny creature expectantly staring at me with its one huge, unblinking eyeball.
"Good work. Please keep looking after this spot."
He still looked expectant, so I gave in and lightly scratched it under its… well, it wasn't exactly a 'chin', but let's not get bogged down in semantics. I knew from Ichiko that Pudding-kun liked it, and as if on cue, he let out a series of purring noises. I kept scratching him for a few seconds, and when I stopped, he hopped in place a couple of times before he tried to imitate a salute with one of its chubby tentacles, then returned to the spot where he came from, and after waving its many tendrils around for a while, he turned back into a weathered metal chair, as usual.
For a moment, I was nearly lost in thought, wondering which of my many life decisions led me down the path where a strangely affectionate eldritch horror expy turning into an inanimate object squarely fell into the 'business as usual' bracket, but I had no time for that. After waving at the chair, I turned off my flashlight and Phased over to my next destination.
"[Ah? I welcome thee, Blackcloak,]" Brang greeted me without even looking up from his work at the weapons workbench. He was wearing his full protective gear, including an eye shield, and he was busy sharpening something on a grinding wheel, so I didn't mince words and got to the point.
"Hello. Where's Cal?"
"[I finished maintenance in thine armament. Thou can find it over there.]"
"Thanks. I leave you at your work."
He nodded without looking up from the grinding wheel, and after a quick glance across the armory area, I quickly found Cal, resting in its scabbard on top of a cushion next to the sword racks. Talk about preferential treatment.
"{Good day, young kni—}"
"Yes, hi. I need to you help me with that circulation thing, right now."
"{… By perchance, have you become reliant on it? I believe I have told you that you should not cavort with such esoteric techniques.}"
"Cal. Not now."
The sword in my hand sighed (and no, I still didn't know how he did that without a lung), and after just a few seconds, I could feel the mana circulating in my system taking up its familiar course. Before long, the residual annoyance I felt mellowed out quite a bit, and I let out a breath of relief.
"{So, as I was saying—}"
I didn't let Cal finish, but instead I strapped them to my belt (the scabbard had a few convenient clamps just for that) and after waving at the busy Faun general, we Phased right back to my room. First, I kicked off my shoes, then did a couple of breathing exercises while circulating my mana, and only then did I head downstairs while doggedly ignoring the sword's comments about whether or not practicing 'esoteric eastern energy circulation' was addictive or not.
By the time I got back to the living room, Snowy already made the tea I requested, and was sitting apart from the two Knights. From the fragments I caught, Sir Percival was doing the whole 'embarrassing parent' routine, where he was talking about Penny's childhood in embarrassing details. How droll.
Pausing, I took another deep breath and focused inwards. The calming effects of this meditative technique or whatever weren't able to fully cancel out the irritation I felt in the presence of Lord Grandpa, and the same was true here, but the difference was still night and day. With this in tow, I finally felt confident I could potentially have a civilized talk with the old man without fully antagonizing him. While logically speaking, there was a solid sixty-to-seventy-percent chance that he was going to end up either as an antagonistic actor in the Narrative's grand design, or at the very least a major pain in the ass, it was best to keep my hunch in bay for now and pretend that everything was normal.
My considerations, however, were soon interrupted by a jaunty whistle.
"Now look at you!" The geezer in the middle looked at me with his arms crossed, seemingly impressed. "You really do have Caledflwch! That's amazing! You're amazing! Color me amazed!"
"Keep it in moderation," I told him a touch flatly, and for some reason it caused Penny to start giggling uncontrollably.
"Oh, wow. I never thought I would see brother get bashful like that!"
I really wasn't, but I wasn't in the mood to get bogged down by something like that, so I completely ignored her and walked over to my customary seat on my comfy chair and sat down without further fanfare.
"To think that ancient curmudgeon would choose you of all people," Sir Percival mused, one hand gently stroking his beard before abruptly slapping his knee. "I can still remember the way it shouted at me when I tried pulling it myself. Uuunwooorthyyy!!! Hah! It's like it was just yesterday!"
"That's exactly how it was for me too," Penny backed him up with a bunch of nods, while Snowy seemed rather left out and awkward. I wasn't a fan of that, so I lightly cleared my throat, set Cal across my lap, and after a few more rounds of circulations, I forced an amicable smile onto my face.
"That's how we started out too, but then we reached an understanding."
"O-ho? I would love to hear more about that!" Sir Percival mirrored my expression, and the two of us entered into a short smile-off before I slowly shook my head.
"It's a long story, but we can discuss it later. First, girls?" My sisters didn't expect me to address them, and they glanced at me in unison. "For now, why don't you go upstairs and finish your homework for the day?"
"What? But… Uncle Percy—!"
"You can talk to him to your heart's content later, but if you do that now, you're going to lose track of time, and then you'll completely forget about your homework."
"He's… got a point," my other sister backed me up, if a little half-heartedly.
"Aw, come on!"
Penny tried to protest, but I maintained my poked face and emphatically stated, "Kiddo. Please."
We locked eyes for a second or five, but in the end, I naturally won the staring contest and my sister's shoulders drooped in defeat, right before she jumped to her feet with renewed vigor.
"Oh, fine! Come on, Snowy! Let's finish everything quickly, and come back!"
"Do it properly!" I called after her, but by then she was already halfway up the stairs, so I turned my attention to my other sister instead, and I didn't even have to say a word for her to understand me.
"I'll make sure she doesn't slapdash it."
"Please do."
I waited until she also went upstairs, and only when I could hear their door getting closed did I turn back to my guest, currently leaning forward and scrutinizing.
"Well, well. It's just the two of us now," he noted with the exact same, practiced smile that had been plastered on his face all this time. After a beat, he straightened his back, without breaking eye contact, and let out a soft chuckle. "Why so tense? When you look at me like that, it almost makes me feel like you didn't bring Caledfwlch here just to show it off to your dear mentor and friend."
"Think of it what you will," I responded with my deadpannest of voices, which earned me another chuckle.
"Ah, here it is. I was worried that losing your memory might have dulled you, but on the inside, you are still the same as always." While I wondered whether that was supposed to be an insult or a compliment, Sir Percival pinched the end of his beard and asked, "If you really did lose your memory, that is."
"I did."
My straightforward answer didn't seem to convince him, and after a beat, he pointed a finger at me.
"The Sun and Moon can be both blinding."
He kept poring over me, and since I had no idea what kind of reaction he was expecting, I uttered a straightforward, "… What?"
"Hm. I thought you might have been just messing with me, but it seems you really have lost your memories… And to think you could achieve all of this without your training! Mind-boggling!"
"Yes, yes. I'm very impressive. Have lots of fancy titles, too. Much wow."
"Indeed," Sir Percival nodded, and after some further consideration, his body language eased up and he put on the friendly, grandfatherly smile that made me want to punch him even harder. He didn't seem to be aware of my inner tug-of-war between the calming effect of the meditative circulations and the waves of pure, undiluted irritation radiating from his mug, and he clapped his hands, as if to signal a shift in the conversation. "Oh well. It is a pity indeed, but it makes many things much simpler, so maybe it's for the best. So, since you have the Kingmaker with you, I suppose that means you are officially the King of Knights. That means you're my boss for now. That's going to take some getting used to, but oh well. Please treat me well, your majesty!"
"Cut it out." Percival only chuckled at my response, and after reining in the sudden urge to kick him out of the house, I exhaled hard. "All right, Uncle Percy. Let's talk business."
Comments
Enrico Snipes
I think it's more related to their roles as antagonists to himself
SV
My theory for the annoyance Leo felt was that it was a result of people projecting their 'intent' at him. Something like a killing intent or Conqueror's Haki to make him sweat, but because Leo is (related to) an eldritch being it gets interpreted as attitude from rowdy uppstarts. Like a yappy dog that thinks it is bigger than it really is. But it no longer seems applicable based on recent events.
carebear90
I suddenly am rather worried about what this 'training' Percival supposedly gave him entailed.
