egathentale

The Simulacrum - Chapter 80 - Part 2

"I'll be—"

"Don't you dare just say 'I'll be right back' and leave me here with these two!" Josh cut me off before I could finish my sentence, and I couldn't help but groan in frustration as I turned back to him.

"Well, I can't call the girls from inside the Purple Zone, so I have to go out," I told him and pointed at the knightly duo sitting on the trunk of the first victim of today's impromptu logging efforts.

"It's still two on one," Josh pointed out, ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 80 - Part 1

Sword fighting in media always has a kind of primal charm to it. Arcing swings meeting in the air, sparks flying, and combatants gracefully stepping out of the way of incoming harm. The back and forth is easy to follow and has a rhythm like a dance. No, scratch that; such fights are, in fact, a dance. A choreographed, rehearsed, and meticulously performed one that just happens to involve weapons. Real swordfights were rarely so glamorous. Case in point...

"Take this!"

The Knight g...

Update

Hello, Dear Readers.

Just a bit of a heads-up: my publisher came back to me with the edited manuscript of the first volume. It's ready for publishing... except they want me to manually accept or reject every single edit, from sneaky typos to wording suggestions. That... will take a while, so here's my plan for now:

First, I'll finish Chapter 80. I'm almost done with the first part with the rest of the duel and it should be up tomorrow. I'm going to finish the rest of the ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 79 - Part 3

"I finished the inspection," Sir Griffon declared with frankly unnecessary gravitas after making the rounds inside the small Purple Zone. "I've found no anomalies that could prevent the commencement of the Arbitration. Do you have any objections?"

It took Josh a solid second to realize he was talking to him, but then he hastily shook his head.

"Erm, no, nothing. It can certainly commence and whatnot."

The Griffon Knight apparently wasn't fully satisfied with his response, ye...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 79 - Part 2

"Make sure you stay safe."

"That's my line," my dear assistant deadpanned back at me as she straightened the XXL-sized coat strewn over my armor. For the record, I tried to buy one in a different color, but everything in this size was black. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

On a more serious note, I carefully looked over everyone else gathered in my living room. The 'home sitter team', as I jokingly called it, consisted of Judy (still in the process of arranging my apparel), Snowy (...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 79 - Part 1

The morning commute to the school. It was one of those classic backdrop things that you couldn't help but take for granted after a while, like brushing your teeth before you go to bed. It was one of the more relaxed parts of my day too; half an hour of easygoing fun with the guys before one more day spent trying to memorize mathematical formulae and dates we won't ever use for the rest of our lives.

Honestly, sometimes I wondered why we even bothered attending school, considering all th...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 78 - Part 3

"Good evening, Melinda."

"Welcome, future young master."

The braided maid greeted us the moment we entered the foyer of the Dracis mansion, and she held out her hands towards us. Josh looked a little confused behind me, but this wasn't my first rodeo, so I naturally knew that she was asking for our umbrellas. When I handed mine over, he awkwardly followed suit.

"Milady and the rest of the guests are already in the parlor. Let me show the way."

Considering I've been vis...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 78 - Part 2

The sword in my hands felt weightless and yet simultaneously heavy as a mountain as I slowly raised it over my head. My hands tensed, and the breath trapped in my chest burned like a bonfire. It only lasted for an instant, and then I stepped forth and swung Cal. It was a simple, diagonal overhead strike, and the motion felt very familiar, as if I've already repeated it countless times. In a way, I have, just not in the real world.

More importantly, the pent-up heat scattered through my ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 78 - Part 1

"Morning!"

Angie's greeting practically exploded into my face the moment I opened my front door. It wasn't just her though; the rest of the gang was also behind her, including my girlfriends and yet curiously missing the class rep. Also my sister, but considering that she was still in the process of butting on her shoes behind me, that was a given. In the meantime the guys all said their morning greetings as well, though theirs were slightly less over the top.

"I've heard you're d...

Volume 3 Extra 5: Duels are serious business

<<Author's note: This bit is slightly spoilerous for the $1 folks. Proceed with caution.>>

"I can't believe you did this…"

The deadpan yet at the same time scathing words practically echoed in the mostly empty grand hall inside the former headquarters of the Knightly Order of Knightingly Knighting Knights. As for why it was demoted to its current, borderline desolate state, it apparently had something to do with the building getting infiltrated by an uninv...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 77 - Part 4

Cheap faux-Persian carpets, simple kit furniture, and some of the most garish bright yellow wallpaper in existence. As far as cheap motel rooms were concerned, this one was definitely one of the tackiest the city of Timaeus had to offer, and it was made even worse by the contrast provided by the man sitting on the sofa in the middle of the space serving as both living room and bedroom. The current occupant, a certain Celestial field agent, was sitting ramrod straight while still dressed in a ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 77 - Part 3

"Do we really need snacks for an emergency meeting?"

I considered my question entirely reasonable, but I yet my girlfriends were looking at me like I was some kind of weird space-alien.

"They are entirely necessary," Judy stated with absolute certainty, and she even opened another pack of breadsticks to punctuate her point. "Snacks keep your blood sugar levels high so that your brain could operate at maximum capacity, helping you focus. It's quite self-evident."

"It is, isn'...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 77 - Part 2

The last lesson of the day ended with the same unceremonious finality as it tended to do every day. The rain outside eased into a light drizzle sometime after lunch, and while things were relatively peaceful (Angie's sustained complaining about a certain TV series notwithstanding), I was feeling unusually under the weather.

"Chief? Are you spacing out?"

See, that's what I'm talking about. I didn't even notice Judy coming over to my desk until she spoke up. If it was the class rep ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 77 - Part 1

"The weather forecast said it's going to rain all week," Josh noted absent-mindedly, and I responded with a similarly half-hearted grunt.

"I guess that means rooftop lunches are over for the foreseeable future."

"Probably."

He was apparently really distracted, as I had to nudge him a little so that he'd notice that the line in front of the cafeteria counter already moved.

"Are you all right?" Josh gave me an uncertain glance, so I guessed, "Are you still stressing over...

Volume 3 Extra 4: Like, reports of my death have been totally exaggerated.

It was a quiet, unassuming morning inside the study of one Amadeus Endymonion, at least as far as the clock on the wall could be believed; peeking out through a window to check would've been a little tricky after all. The Arch-mage of the island was currently hunched over his work, his wrinkled robe hastily strewn over his suit and his white hair in bewildering disarray. In front of him the heavy mahogany desk, covered under an eclectic collection of dossiers, artifacts, office supplies, and ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 76 - Part 4

"How?! How did you become so powerful so quickly!?"

"I'm not that powerful," I answered humbly, but apparently it wasn't satisfactory enough.

"Not that powerful my ass! I leave you alone for just a little while, and when I check on you again, you suddenly have an army of demons!"

"I wouldn't really call that an army, at least not yet," I tried to excuse myself, but I was cut short.

"Whaaa?! Why do you have fifty pit fiends?! This is total bullshit!" Josh excla...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 76 - Part 3

After leaving the classroom, I quickly checked the location of the old badger, and to my surprise, I found him in an office on the ground floor instead of his usual hidey-hole in the School. Since that was the case, I decided to visit him on foot. Sure, Phasing right next to someone had more flair to it, but overusing it for superfluous reasons was a bad habit I had to curb.

As I walked down the stairs, I noticed that we still had a lot of placeholders idling in the hallways. I didn't b...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 76 - Part 2

"Morning."

My greeting sounded soulless even to myself, and Josh returned it with a lazy wave of his hand as I sat down at my desk. I was honestly feeling a little under the weather, and quite literally at that; it's been raining nonstop since last night, and it came with a cold wind that chilled me to the bone by the time I got to school. In retrospect, refusing Elly's offer to come to school in her family's limo wasn't a great idea, but there's no point crying over spilled milk now. 2021-08-29 17:55:43 +0000 UTC View Post

The Simulacrum - Chapter 76 - Part 1

Why did the island have so many French restaurants? No, seriously, there were about as many of them as there were secret underground bases and hideouts, which was… kind of a strange comparison, now that I think about it. Anyhow, my question wasn't apropos of nothing, as I was sitting in one at the moment. As far as my experience with restaurants was concerned, this one was on the smaller side; a single main hall, with three smaller, more secluded sections near the windows. I was currently s...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 75 - Part 3

The face looking back at me in the bathroom mirror had definitely seen better days, but on the bright side, it was nowhere near as awful as I expected it to be. … Wait, that wasn't a silver lining at all! Not even low expectations could make me brighten up, so I cupped some water in my hand and splashed it over my mug, and… nope, it still wasn't looking or feeling any better. It was time for more drastic measures.

One shallow groan later I reached into the nearby cabinet and popped ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 75 - Part 2

Moving a soul was tricky. That might've been the understatement of the century, but it wasn't untrue. Here's the thing: the giant metaphysical yarn balls I called 'souls' weren't just the intangible consciousness of a person. Each soul I've interacted with so far contained everything about the being in question. Memories, current thoughts, information about their bodies and metabolism, even the connections they had to other people. In many ways, it would've been more accurate to say ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 75 - Part 1

"Are you, like, sleepy or something?"

The question made me open a single eye and glance at the girl in the driver's seat. Honestly, this was one of those 'just how the hell did I get into this situation again?' kind of moments. Like, if my life was a movie, this would be the moment when time slowed to a freeze-frame, all the color drained from the environment, and I would cheekily ask 'I bet you wonder how I ended up in a sports car speeding down the highway, driven by a circa thirteen ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 74 - Part 4

It was around half past eight in the evening when I reappeared in my living room without even bothering to announce my arrival. I didn't exactly need to either, as the only other person in the room was the unnecessarily energetic little girl glued to the TV. She was watching a nature documentary about meerkats by the looks of it. I could've used my sister as an anchor as well, but she was really immersed while drawing something, and I didn't want to bother her.

Anyhow, I sat down in my ...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 74 - Part 3

"Continue as you were," I said offhandedly, and the Fauns (plus Rinne) all nodded in unison and returned to their hand-eye coordination training with renewed vigor. That was, of course, still the code-word for playing air hockey, and the increasingly less annoying huntress integrated into their group well enough where she was invited to 'train' with them as well. Galatea also tried to play the game once, but apparently she needed 'calibrations', so for the time being she was only watching the...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 74 - Part 2

"Your home is commendably inconspicuous," my slightly unwanted guest stated as we walked into the living room. I was about ninety percent sure it was a compliment, but I couldn't be sure. I had a hard time reading the guy.

He already peeled himself out of his trench coat, and he was wearing a real, authentic, one hundred percent genuine tux under it, complete with a little white flower on his lapel. Without his hat, I could also take a better look at him, and while he had a fairly borin...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 74 - Part 1

"Leo! I think they're done!" my sister announced without looking away from the front window.

She, along with the tiny miko, was glued to it since the early morning, when the repair crew arrived to fix the damage done to the utility pole in front of our house. The experience was apparently really novel for both of them, as they watched them do their job like it was magic. Though again, maybe from the point of view of a person of magical persuasion, comparatively more mundane things like ...

Final re-editing update

Hello, Dear Readers!

Pop the champagne, guys! I'm FINALLY done with the re-editing, and now I can return to writing new stuff again. It's been way, waaaaay more of a hassle than I could ever imagine in my worst nightmares, and I never imagined I missed sooooo many typos, but I'm finally done! Yay!

There's actually no big changes in the second half of the volume. I mostly just fixed typos, inconsistencies, and most importantly, added a ton of contractions where appropriate. There w...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 73 - Part 3

"Sister Penelope. Your conduct was… foolish."

Following the red knight's remark, the bare room housing the round-ish table descended into a tense silence. The four Entitled Knights seated around said table remained completely still as well. They were all wearing their entire armor sets, as usual, and if not for the agitated eyes visible behind their visors, one might've even mistaken them for props at an especially high-budged medieval fair.

This was, naturally, the infamous cal...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 73 - Part 2

"... In summary, today's date was a rather pleasurable experience. Four and a half out of five stars," Judy concluded on our way home from the restaurant. We originally planned to come home by car, but since the weather was pretty mild and we had a hearty meal with calories asking to be worked off, we decided to walk instead. I'd like to say it was a romantic late evening stroll under the stars, but they were barely visible under the lit streets of the city, so it was semi-romantic at best. B...

The Simulacrum - Chapter 73 - Part 1

"Here, let me show you again. First, you point one foot where you want to go, and then use the other like this to push against the ice, and presto! You're skating!"

To demonstrate, I kicked off with my right leg, propelling myself towards my girlfriends, changing my direction at the last second so that I drew a full circle around them before coming to a halt in the front. It was pretty elegantly done if I say so myself, and while I wasn't expecting applause, the 'Boo!' I received from t...