The Simulacrum
~Chapter 168~ Part 2

If I wasn't already used to weird development and rising tensions, I would've been probably completely stumped at the moment. Yet, even while somewhat compromised (or maybe exactly because of it), I took it all in stride and glanced around the room first.

The arch-mages were understandably startled and confused by the situation. Except for Sahi, whose eyes were sparkling like she was watching the greatest show on Earth unfold before her eyes. Pascal was the most proactive out of all the people present, as he already conjured a barrier around the two of them, plus Peabody, while Roland… Actually, he's been here all along, but he didn't say a word. In fact, I could sense some thinly veiled hostility under his deadpan veneer, so there was a non-insignificant chance that he was a wee bit mad at me. I mean, Bel. I mean… whatever. I'd have to talk with him, but later, because there was something more important that needed sorting out post-haste.

No, I wasn't talking about the weird hologram in front of me, but the girl behind it. Because Ammy was on the verge of a panic attack.

"W-W-What is this? Why am I—? W-Wait, why's everything glowing!? What's going on right now!?"

"Class rep!" I yelled out, startling her (and everyone else in the room). "Everything's fine. Take a deep breath and—"

"Report: Synchronization with Spear of Destiny is seventy-two percent comp—"

"You, shut up," I cut in with a finger aimed at the face of the hologram woman. "I'll deal with you in a moment, so don't say or do anything."

She stared at me, but didn't speak, which was… what I told her, I guessed? Good riddance. With that out of my hair for the moment, I sidestepped the semi-transparent lady and approached the class rep.

"Ammy?"

"Y-Yes?"

"Where was I before she interrupted me?"

My question was entirely sincere, but her distressed expression immediately gave way to an annoyed one and she reached for her glasses. Needless to say, I was on the receiving end of her glasses-tweaking of disapproval, but at least she looked better than before, so… mission accomplished?

"Do you seriously think this is the time to joke around?"

"I'm not joking. I'm a bit out of it," I confessed on the spot and took a closer look at her. "More importantly, how are you feeling? Any pain or discomfort? Sudden inexplicable knowledge? Other side effects?"

"N-No, nothing like that. I just…" She let her hand down and slowly looked around the room. "Things just look… strange. There's this peculiar glow around everything, but I can't tell what color it is, and…"

That sounded familiar, so I quickly raised a finger to interrupt her.

"Who's glowing the most in the room right now."

"Right now?" She paused and pointed at armband guy. "It's the most intense around Pascal and his… barrier spell? It's hard to make out under all the bright lights."

"So you're just seeing magic. Phew. For a moment I thought it was something serious."

"What do you mean 'just' seeing magic?!" she snapped at me, her hand once again reaching for her glasses.

"It's no big deal. You'll get used to it eventually."

"You almost sound like you speak from experience," Lord Gulliver chimed in from the side, and from his tone, it almost sounded like he was trying to ease the mood with a joke.

"Obviously." A shrug later, I turned back to the class rep again. "I get it, it's annoying, but it's really not a big deal. Nowadays I only ever notice the most glaring magical light-shows. Though again, considering the number of enchanted artifacts and arch-mages surrounding us, it's still a lot, but there's not much we can do about that. You just have to get accustomed to it one step at a time, and everything will be fine."

My impromptu pep-talk only resulted in stunned silence, but I didn't let it bother me and put my free hand on the class rep's shoulder. I carefully guided her to sit on my previous seat, and she did so without any resistance. Curiously, even though she wasn't looking at her, the hologram woman remained stationary at the exact same spot, patiently waiting for us to finish.

"Now what?" came the stumped question from Lord Ambrose on the bed, so I flashed a (hopefully) reassuring smile in his direction.

"Now, we get some answers." With those words, I turned to face the hologram and sucked in a deep breath, only to deflate a moment later when I realized I didn't know her name. Or if she had any. "Hey? What do I call you?"

"Response: Autonomous SOPHIA System, ORACLE Communications Subsystem, Dedicated Interface Alpha."

"… That's a mouthful if I've ever heard one," I grumbled under my breath and rubbed my forehead with my thumb and forefinger. "You're related to the Grimoire, so I'm just going to call you… erm… let's go with Grimmy."

"Acknowledgement: Designation registered."

I was just about to start asking some pertinent questions, but then a new voice sounded in my head.

"{Report: Synchronization complete. Interface:Grimmy entered into the list of contacts.}"

"{Further Observation: Interface:Teeny discovered a persistent pattern in Archon Polemos's naming methodology. Requesting permission to update Interface:Cal's designation to 'Caly'.}"

Stifling a groan, I lightly shook the spear in my hand.

"I'm really not in the mood for your heckling right now, Teeny."

"{Response: Understood. Interface:Teeny will make the request again at a later time.}"

I had something to say about that too, but I held it back and focused on the hologram, or Grimmy, as I just christened here. But first.

"Okay, before we get started, does anyone else have anything to get out of their system?" I glanced around the room, looking everyone in the eye one by one. "Nobody? Good." Facing the hologram, I started again. "I have questions."

"Response: I'm at your disposal, Administrator."

"First off, why are you talking like that?"

"Is that seriously the first thing you're going to ask her!?" the class rep burst out behind me, but I completely ignored her. I gave her a chance to speak up, but she didn't, so I was perfectly in my right to disregard her.

"Response: My communications subsystems based my response pattern on the language data absorbed from the host."

"So the same as with Teeny," I noted, and my spear responded with a quiet, "{Affirmation: Affirmative.}"

"W-Wait! She learned the language from me?" Ammy interjected again, so I glanced over my shoulder.

"Of course. She's some kind of magitech AI made in antiquity. How else do you think she speaks our language? Also…" I narrowed my eyes to make my displeasure more evident. "Can you leave the questions for after I'm done with her?"

"Y-Yes. Sorry."

She conceded unusually quickly, but I didn't mind, as I already had a lot to dig through without any interruptions.

"So, Grimmy?" As soon as I spoke her name, the hologram woman… well, 'perked up' might not have been the right term, but she certainly became more attentive. "Let's start with the basics. Did the Celestials make you?"

"Answer: Affirmative."

That was a bit of a shock to the Magi in the room, but I stuck to my principles and didn't let them cut in.

"Does that make that the Grimoire of the Last Truth was also made by Celestials?"

"Error: Designation not found. Please wait." There was a long beat of silence, and then she lightly nodded. "Response: The term 'Grimoire of the Last Truth' appears to be synonymous with the SOPHIA System. Therefore, affirmative."

"P-Preposterous!" Lord Grandpa burst out, but again, I ignored him and barrelled on.

"What were you made to do?"

"Answer: This interface exists to facilitate communication with the SOPHIA System."

"… Okay, let me rephrase that: What's the purpose of this 'SOPHIA System'?"

Her expression went more rigid for a moment. More rigid than normal, at the very least.

"Query: Accessing sensitive information requires administrator privileges. Do you wish to proceed?"

"Yes."

Her expression eased up imperceptibly.

"Answer: The SOPHIA System is the core of the Global Mana Grid project, serving as its a data-repository and control mechanism." She paused here, and asked, "Query: Would you like to hear more?"

"Of course, but first…" I raised a hand. "Let's get some chairs and sit down. I have a feeling this will take a while."

My call was the right one, because oh boy, we were treated to the mother of all info-dumps. It lasted for well over an hour, and it took me inhuman effort not to zone out during the technical bits, but I bit my lips, squared my shoulders, and endured until the very end.

So, here's the footnotes version of the whole thing:

"I can't believe it…" Ammy muttered in a daze, interrupting me just as I was about to summarize things. "To think that we… I mean the Magi… could we really have been created by the Celestials?"

"Response: Affirmative," Grimmy told her without batting an eye, and since that came up, I figured we might as well start there.

So, we have to go back quite a bit in time, all the way to the Great War between the Celestials and the Abyssals. It ended with the former retreating to Elysium, and the latter being locked away in the Abyss. So far, nothing new.

For a few centuries, everything was fine. At least until the Mana Wells started behaving erratically. According to Grimmy, those things were drawing energy from the outside world to maintain Elysium, and this drain over time created mana currents, which the Magi now call the Ley Lines. To correct this, the Celestial equivalent of scientists came outside and started investigating the problem.

The first hurdle they encountered was that they couldn't directly interact with these mana currents, so they genetically engineered a whole bunch of 'enhanced humans' to do the heavy lifting in their stead. Over the following decades, they created a control system for the Mana Wells that would adjust their throughput to match the flow of the Ley Lines, and everything was fine in the world. The enhanced humans worked diligently under the guidance of the SOPHIA System, while the Celestials in Elysium were safe and snug once again. The End.

…

Yeah, no. Those enhanced humans were obviously the ancestors of the Magi, and they were pretty much treated as slaves and indentured servants. Some might say that the Celestials should've known better than to try to keep a whole population of magic-wielding humans in slavery, but it was kind of the style at the time, so for once, I was willing to cut them some slack. The Magi didn't though, and once their numbers grew and their magic matured, they did a Spartacus, except with more success and waaay fewer crucifixions by the Appian Way.

The victory came with a price though, as they lost access to the SOPHIA System. Since it was used as the repository of all their knowledge and data, they had to 'reinvent the wheel', so to speak. The individual research groups stationed over the crossing points of major Ley Lines, known as Nexuses today, would do their best to write down and preserve as much of their magic theory as possible. It led to the creation of the first Schools over time, and while their origins were either forgotten or deliberately erased, their hostility towards the Celestials remained to this very day. Which, to be fair, they mostly deserved, but that was neither here, nor there.

Now, let's take a step back and look at the Celestials' track record. They first slept around with the Dragons (and presumably other Phantasmal Races), creating the Abyssals, which led to a huge schism that saw them going into self-imposed exile in their pocket space. Then, they created the Magi to maintain the Ley Lines and the Mana Wells, but then it led to a rebellion and the creation of a hostile global organization of spell-slingers that absolutely hated their guts. Then, when the Draconians started getting too much traction, they created the Brotherhood to keep them in check, and this time they gave them magical Oaths to ensure their loyalty… only for them to get fed up with their bullshit, break their Oaths anyway, and go rogue.

That level of incompetence and self-destructiveness was almost impressive in a way.

And now, back to the present.

"I have two more questions," I spoke up as I raised Teeny, now in its shortest, almost dagger-like form. "Why were the administrator rights keyed to Teeny?"

"Answer: The holder of the Spear of Destiny holds administrative rights over the Mana Well Network. The SOPHIA System and its sub-systems are part of the Mana Well Network infrastructure, and therefore the same rights apply to them."

"That… actually makes sense, I suppose," I muttered as I let my blade down.

The Mana Wells and the whole sub-space thing were created by the original Deus and Polemos. Or rather their entire team of smart magitech researchers and engineers, but I digress. It was used as a trading chip between them and the original Bel of the Abyss in exchange for his reincarnation technique, so it made sense that the spear of the Polemos would be used for authentication, or maybe even backdoor access to the whole system, which then carried over to this SOPHIA system and her.

Now, there was only last one thing I needed to know.

"You said that this SOPHIA thing exists as a sort of control system for the Mana Wells, right?"

"Answer: Affirmative."

"Does that mean the Conduit of the Grimoire also has control over the Mana Wells of the Abyss?" The hologram woman's face remained stock still, which told me there was something in my question she didn't understand. Who would've guessed that all my experience with reading Judy's facial expressions would come useful like this one day? Anyhow, I pointed at Ammy. "I mean her."

"Response: Updating designation. Yes, the host, the Conduit of the Grimoire, has partial access to the Mana Well Network's configurations."

With that, the last piece fell into place. Now I understood why future-me was insistent on resolving Ammy's 'side plot' first, and suddenly a lot of the things written in the notebook he gave me made a whole lot more sense. Oh, and speaking of him…

"What's the time?" I muttered absently while already holding my phone in my free hand, and as soon as the screen turned on, I let out a low hum. "Well, damn. It's later than I thought." I stood up from my seat, stashed Teeny in the storage enchantment, and pocketed my phone, in that order. "I've got to go."

"W-Wait! You can't just leave like that!" Ammy protested, so I raised both my palms.

"Easy there, class rep. I have another meeting I need to attend."

"Meeting?" the quietly smouldering Roland echoed me from the back, sounding just a tad critical.

"Yep," I told him a bit cheekily, but he didn't ease up at all. Oh boy. I was going to get an earful for that whole Bel fiasco as soon as we were in private, wasn't I?

I figured I'd endure that bridge when I got there and focused back on Ammy for the time being.

"Oh, come on! Don't look at me like that!"

"But we still have so many questions to ask!" she argued back, and I admit, that took me aback for a moment. Just not for the reason she expected.

"Class rep, I know that you're probably not in top shape right now. Neither am I. No shame in it." I pointed at her forehead. "You are the Conduit of the Grimoire now. You have all the time in the world to ask Grimmy any questions your heart desires."

"Corrections: Any questions that fall within the host's clearance level."

It took an inordinate effort to stop myself from groaning, and once I got it under control, I sent a sideways glance at the hologram woman.

"Any. Questions. Her. Heart. Desires," I emphasized word by word, and after a long beat, Grimmy slightly inclined her head.

"Response. Affirmative. Clearance restrictions lifted."

"Good." With that, I looked over the Magi in the room. "All right. I leave the rest in your hands. In fact, can I leave the whole Assembly and Marzanna situation to you as well? I know it's a tall order, but between six arch-mages, the Conduit, and Grimmy here, I'm sure you can manage."

"Six?" Lord Taika blurted out, but nobody else noticed my faux pas, especially when Lord Grandpa let out a heavy sigh.

"This is a rare conundrum indeed. I scarcely believe that the Assembly would accept this… new history of the Magi without a single grain of salt, but yes, I am certain that with the Grimoire of the Last Truth…" He paused and looked over the semi-transparent woman from head to toe. "Or Grimmy, as you call her, at our side, our chances of peacefully resolving the otherwise catastrophic incident you and Lord Ambrose caused at Ottawa are considerably higher than before."

"What Endymonion is trying to say," Lord Barnabas interjected, "is that the discovery of the Conduit and the recovery of the Grimoire are significant enough to overshadow whatever happened in Lord Marzanna's School, so unless she personally comes to Critias, we could most likely avoid a violent confrontation with her."

"Oh, buggers…" Ambrose muttered, but nobody paid him any attention.

"In that case, I leave you to do your Magi business. Let's talk again later."

It looked like everyone was expecting me to Phase away, so it came as a surprise when I just turned on my heel and left the biology workshop. Roland almost followed after me, but then he was intercepted by Lord Barnabas, no doubt to tell him to keep what he heard under wraps, which allowed me to slip away. My destination wasn't far away, and as soon as I entered the lounge area of the research wing, the circular room with the beanbag chairs and way too many aquariums, I was greeted by the sight of Galatea, Fred, and my girlfriends sitting around a table and playing a card game.

"Kihihi! Are you done, boss?" the resident slightly mad scientist asked as soon as I came into view, and I reflexively shrugged.

"With this meeting? Yeah. With the whole day? Nah, it's not even close to over."

"How did it go?" Elly inquired quite excitedly, not even noticing that Judy was peeking at her cards. "Did Amelia become that Conduit thing?"

"Yeah, and it came with a busty artificial intelligence hologram thing too?"

"Busty," my dear assistant repeated after me, and I could already see some kind of anti-harem countermeasure skit in my future. One which I was too tired to engage with.

"Yes. Imagine the class rep, but adult, and in a toga."

My straightforward description took her aback, and there was a brief spell of silence until Galatea let her cards down.

"Should we continue this game next time? I have already recorded everyone's hands, so we can continue where we left off."

"Wait, what?" Fred exclaimed in mild alarm. "How did you do that?"

"X-ray vision," she responded flippantly, and the guy eyed her skeptically.

"Bullcrap! I never gave you X-ray vision!"

"Correct. I made the upgrade myself using the pocket money I received from Grandmaster. I'm a self-made woman now."

"What pocket money? No, more importantly, why aren't I getting any?"

While the duo continued to bicker, my girlfriends also put their cards away and came to my side.

"What's the plan?" Judy asked first, and I pointed straight up.

"First, I take you guys home, then I get something to drink, have another strategic meeting with you-know-who, and once that's over, we get together in the evening and I tell you all the news."

"You look tired," Elly said, apropos of nothing, and put a hand on my forehead. "And you're still a little feverish. If you don't feel well, we can talk tomorrow."

"No, that won't work." I removed her hand from my forehead and held it in mine, then exhaled a short breath. "You see, princess, we're going to be reeeally busy starting tomorrow…"