The Simulacrum
~Chapter 169~ Part 1

When did the formless void become so familiar?

It was an idle thought, yet it made me stop in transit and ponder it for a long moment. When I first came here, I was completely freaked out by the alien geometries and the lack of physical body and everything, yet look at me right now. I'm treating this place like my backyard. How weird was that on a ten-point scale? Eleven? No, more like banana, plus or minus one.

Once I resolved that fleeting figment, I resumed my metaphorical journey through the lack of space. At least until another question reared its ugly head in the back of my mind. It went something like this: what exactly was I supposed to do again?

Pestering the girl, sure, but why? Because future-me told me so? That was as good an answer as any, but it made me consider some other things, and it made me feel less sure about everything. For a start, future-me was in the middle of a sneaky retcon to maintain a time loop or whatever, meaning that he was interacting with the Simulacrum's past. To him, present-me meeting up with The Girl was in the past, while from my perspective, it was in the future. However, the Emergents weren't part of the Simulacrum and its timeline, so how did any of that work?

This whole thing was confusing the heck out of me, but I couldn't even ask The Girl about it because it would've let the cat out of the bag. But then what else was I supposed to pester her about?

While I was pondering these things, I stumbled upon a familiar anomaly. It was a kind of hole in the non-space, just like the one I used the last time I visited The Girl. The kind that was two-dimensional, yet it was simultaneously facing every possible direction at once. In other words, the nonsense kind.

There was one difference worth mentioning though: there was a sort of restriction on the hole this time around. It wasn't quite like the weird maze-like lock I had to squeeze myself through the last time I tried to access the not-dark not-room of the Emergents, but more of a… I guess the best way I could visualize it was a bunch of yellow police tape saying 'No Entry' on them. More of a warning than a proper barrier.

It made me vacillate for quite a while. On one hand, if this was set up by The Girl, it was probably for a good reason. On the other hand, if future-me told me to do this, it must've been for a good reason. On the other other hand, from future-me's perspective, he'd already talked to The Girl in his past, and Emergents perceived time in 'blocks' or something, so wouldn't that mean that from her perspective, we've already talked? But if that was the case, it should've been the case for all the other times we contacted each other, so what gives?

I let out a soft groan and put all of that aside for the moment. The more I learned about the Emergents' loose relation to time, the more it confused me, which was just counter-productive. I needed to focus.

With that determination in mind, I approached the hole in the void and carefully slipped through the not-police-tape around it. Then, with a swirl and a stretch and a pop…

"Eeek!"

… I was inside The Girl's Domain.

"Hey! You can't just invade someone's personal space like that!" she screeched at me like a swarm of angry puffins, her twin tails billowing like she had an industrial-strength fan under her feet, but it only lasted for a moment before her expression took a one-eighty turn and she folded her arms. "Wait, didn't I already tell you that?"

"Maybe," I responded flippantly and crossed my arms too. I was pleased to see that I actually had those, along with the rest of a body, even if it was a bit wavy and featureless at the moment. "You didn't ask me for permission when you were bothering me not too long ago either."

"I didn't bother you; I was asking for information! Because it was important!" she argued back with an indignant huff that momentarily made her appearance shimmer and gave me the impression of a series of rainbow-coloured orbital rings shaking in the starlit sky. It went away as quickly as it came, and she flashed a delighted grin at me. "By the way, you were right!"

I had no idea what she was talking about. Or rather, I had a vague idea; I could remember her and The Boy asking about things related to the Simulacrum, but I was busy dismantling a bunch of angry golems at the time and I just bullshitted my way out of the conversation with some vague, faux-philosophical drivel. Which reminded me to make a note to myself: refuge in audacity worked on Emergents. Go figure.

Maybe it shouldn't have surprised me; most tropes were based on reality, if ever-so-distantly and twisted by theatrics and artistic fiat. In fact, while the majority of the tropes were exaggerations of reality, it worked the other way too. And yes, that was also a trope, called Reality is Unrealistic. Or maybe Aluminium Christmas Trees.

Anyhow, I shook my head, took a deep breath, and made another observation. By the looks of it, even though I wasn't even in my body anymore, I still had a hard time concentrating, once again proving that the whole mind-over-matter thing was bullcrap.

The Girl's Domain shifted and morphed in the meantime, slowly turning into a girly living room kind of space with quirky furniture and painted in pastel colours. More importantly, even while all of it was going on around us, she never stopped scrutinizing me.

"So? Is there something we need to discuss right now?"

"Maybe," I told her a tad uncertainly, and her eyes quickly narrowed into a critical squint.

"I think I also told you that you shouldn't contact me unless it was really important! The Venerated Predator Moon is still on the hunt, you know?"

"Is he hunting me?" I asked back reflexively, taking her aback.

"N-No?"

"And did the fact that he's out there stop you from pulling me in?"

"That was an emergency!" she argued back with a… honk? What kind of bird honks? Was that a goose? Anyhow, she puffed out her cheeks and told me, "And why are you still holding a grudge over that? It happened ages ago!"

"Oh, dammit. Not the stupid time-block—" I started with a groan, only to freeze when a sudden image flashed through my mind's eye.

"Ah! Not now!" The Girl squeaked in panic and tried to do something, but it was too late.

The figment of a small planet, its endless dunes of sand whipped by softly glowing sulfuric winds, materialized in the room next to us, only to immediately shrink and fold over and over again until abruptly assuming a humanoid appearance.

"H-Hey! What was that… for?" The Boy complained in a high-pitched whine, only to freeze up the moment he noticed me. "Aaah? A-A-Am I interrupting something? S-Sorry!"

He was clearly startled out of his mind, but I wasn't far behind him either. I could never take a good 'look' at him until now because he was always in the background of the not-dark not-room, with the others having a much bigger presence, but not this time. As for how to best describe him… let's go with 'paper boy'. The old-timey type, with the suspenders, britches, long socks, and he even had the classic newsboy cap. His whole ensemble was in various shades of pale yellow and grey, and he had soft, slightly chubby features you would see on a vintage postcard character.

"Wait, let me explain!" The Girl exclaimed in a panic, further startling The Boy and making him shrink back even more. "This is… erm…"

"Hello," I interjected, trying to sound as calm and collected as possible, and as soon as he recognized my voice, The Boy immediately raised his head and looked at me with bright eyes.

"Ah! It's you!" he exclaimed with a smile, but then he tugged on his sleeves and readjusted his cap. "S-Sorry for intruding… I wasn't expecting us to meet so soon. Your advice helped me a lot, mister…" His words, both reserved and excited at the same time, trailed off as his face paled and he hastily put his hands together in front of his chest. "Please, excuse me! I forgot to introduce myself! I'm **************!"

And there it was. That torrent of images and sounds and concepts and tastes that Emergents used to define certain concepts. I could've attempted to decipher it as I'd done in the past, but it usually just led to a multi-layered and utterly confusing word salad, so I decided to privately stick to The Boy for now.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm… going incognito at the moment. I hope you don't mind," I responded with a straight face, and he nodded along at once.

"R-Right. We aren't supposed to let others in on what's happening with the Simulacrum right now, so I can understand that. A-And I'm also pleased to meet you!"

"Do you mind?" The Girl interjected, pouting with all her might. "Don't just barge into my Domain and make small talk with my guest without even asking me first!"

"Y-Yes, you're right. Sorry. I just… didn't expect you would have someone over." The Boy blinked and glanced between the two of us. "Is this… a secret meeting?"

"In a sense, yes," I confirmed, much to The Girl's chagrin.

"Hey!"

"But… is it a normal secret meeting or…" His gaze fluttered back and forth again and he put a hand next to his mouth, as if sharing something confidential. "Or… that kind of meeting?"

"What do you mean by…?" The Girl started, but then her eyes opened wide and she stomped her feet, causing the room around us to change its colour scheme into a furious mix of blacks and reds. "What do you think you're suggesting?! Do you want to get kicked?! Huh?!"

"W-Wait! I'm not going to tell anyone about it! About your relationship, I mean!"

"There's no relationship, you little…!"

And with that, the two of them started running all over the place, with even the furniture and décor morphing and trying to hit the panicking Emergent. Which reminded me: these were some weird, pan-cosmic eldritch entities, yet they acted positively childish, so… was their behaviour affected by their outward appearance, or did they look like kids because of their personalities?

Either way, we weren't getting anywhere like this, so I took the first opportunity and slipped between the two of them, holding my palms in front of The Girl to stall her.

"Calm down. If you explode like this, it's just going to make The Boy misunderstand even more."

My interjection made both of them stop dead still in their tracks and they looked at me with wide open eyes.

"What did you just call him?" she asked a touch incredulously, as if that was the biggest problem at the moment.

"The Boy?" I repeated myself, and for a moment I was afraid I messed up. That is until The Girl stomped her feet again.

"What's with that!? You gave him a nickname right away! Where's my nickname?"

"You already have one," I blurted out, which made her stop throwing a tantrum and she looked at me expectantly. "It's The Girl."

She blinked at me uncertainly at first, but soon her mouth twisted into a pout and she folded her arms again.

"I want something cuter!"

"I think it's plenty cute," I argued back, just going with the flow without much thinking.

"But not cute enough! There's too much focus on the *** and not enough emphasis on the ****!"

"Then… The Girl?" I tried again, putting a bit more stress on the second word, and after mulling over it for a few seconds, she put her hands on her hips with a grin, followed by a delighted, birdsong-y response.

"That's much better! I like it!"

Meanwhile The Boy, hiding behind my back, kept eyeing us.

"Are you sure there's nothing between you two?"

The atmosphere in the room, which was just about to go back to pastel-pinks, turned red-hot again as The Girl shook her fist at the other Emergent.

"You're sooo getting kicked!"

"S-Sorry, I didn't mean it! I was just curious!" The Boy whimpered.

"He's just a…" The Girl began, only to falter. "He's like a…"

"You can think of me as a specialist contractor," I came to her rescue, sticking to the cover story she gave me the last time.

"Oh? Do you mean, you help fix things when something goes wrong with the Simulacrum?" The Boy inquired with a clear interest in his voice, and seeing that the owner of this space was no longer planning to hit him, he finally stepped out of my shadow. "Since when did you two know each other?"

"Not too long," I answered vaguely, while The Girl gave a considerably more concrete response.

"I've known about him for a while, but we only talked after that incident between the Venerable Predator Moon and the Venerable Crowned Coalescence."

"Ah, r-right! Wouldn't the Venerable Emergent be mad if he learned that you contracted an outsider?"

"That's why this is a secret meeting," I chimed in, and The Girl nodded so hard it made her twin tails cascade all over the place.

"Exactly! And we have to make very, very sure that the others won't learn about this, or we could be in a looot of trouble, so keep your mouth—"

"What's this commotion about?"

The two Emergents in the room froze up the moment a new voice joined the fray. As for me, while I was also feeling rather apprehensive, my thoughts were currently preoccupied with a single question: did the rules of dramatic timing apply outside of the Simulacrum? Was it maybe one of those Aluminium Christmas Three tropes I mentioned before? Or was I just overthinking this, and The Man's sudden appearance had nothing to do with that?

Speaking of him, the image of a barren grey moon circling a gas giant appeared inside The Girl's room, only for a bolt of bright lightning to flash and be replaced by a dapper middle-aged man with a bushy moustache. He was almost a head shorter than me and dressed in a fifties-style casual outfit consisting of a white shirt, a diamond-patterned brown sweater vest, and matching dark trousers.

His eyes and mouth both opened wide in shock when he noticed me and he exclaimed a thunderclap-like, "Who's this?!"

"The better question is this: why does everyone keep barging into my Domain like they own the place?!" The Girl yelled back, her voice reminiscent of a flock of angry parrots.

The Man was taken aback for a moment and he self-consciously raised a balled fist to his mouth before forcefully clearing his throat.

"As I said, I felt a disturbance and wanted to make sure everything was all right, and…" He blinked and pointed at me again. "And more importantly, you didn't answer my question! Who's this?"

"He's…" The Boy tried to interject, only to realize that I never told him my name, so after floundering for a bit he blurted out, "He's a Simulacrum expert! We asked him for advice!"

"And expert, eh?" The Man kept eyeing me for a while, then let out a huff. "Does the Venerated Emergent know about this?"

"No, but…" The Girl began a bit weakly, but she quickly steeled herself and stood her ground. "It was an emergency, and he already helped us out."

"Yes! He knows a lot!" The Boy backed her up, though the way he was hiding behind me gave his words little gravity.

"Help with what?" The Man asked while not looking away from me for even a moment, and after a long beat, The Girl tried to respond confidently. It didn't quite work.

"Issues related to the current scenario. You know? Plot and stuff."

"That's not your job," he spoke flatly and squinted at me. "And what makes him qualified, anyway?"

"I think I'm plenty qualified to discuss the Narrative," I told him defiantly, his attitude stoking my temper.

"Riiight…" He sounded more than skeptical, but then he abruptly pointed at me. "Vampires."

"… What of them?"

He squinted even harder and waved his finger at me.

"I'm the one asking the questions! What can you tell me about them?"

That was kind of off-the-wall, but in the end, I just shrugged and told him, "A type of Abyssal people. Can turn into mist and possess people."

"Huh. Lucky guess!" The Man scoffed at me and was about to wag his finger again, but I beat him to the punch by pointing at his face first.

"My turn!" He was visibly taken aback by that, but I didn't give him time to think. "Why are vampires like that? All other Abyssals are a mixture of Celestials and dragon bloodlines, but the vampires seem different."

"Of course you wouldn't know that!" he scoffed again, but his expression looked just a bit less severe than before. "Vampires in the current scenario are a result of genetic engineering!"

"Oh, so they were created separately? That would explain why they're so rare," I said, nodding along. "Is it like a homunculus situation?"

"Not quite, and you're also wrong about another thing!" The Man declared and… produced a chair from somewhere. Did The Girl make it for him, or did he make it himself, I wondered. Anyhow, he sat down, crossed his legs, and declared. "Not all Abyssals are the products of Celestial and draconic interbreeding!"

"Yeah, I figured. Some of them are the descendants of other Phantasmal Species, right?"

"Precisely! It allows for much greater design freedom, within reasonable bounds, of course."

"Meaning, the bad guys can look more demonic, while the good guys look a bit more heroic and normal. Like how the Cr— I mean, when the head of House Inanna transforms, his form is referencing Levi's Baphomet, because it's a well-known depiction of a demon."

"Yes! Precisely! Finally, someone got the reference!" The Man exclaimed with delight, and seeing that, I couldn't help but keep asking.

"Speaking of animal-headed men, what about the Fauns?"

"That's a rather fascinating topic. You see, back when I started working on the first iteration of the setting, I…"

"Excuse me?" The Girl interjected with a huff and slapped the top of the table, and… when did we all get seated around a table again? "I'm glad to see that you're hitting it off, but need I remind you that you all just barged into my Domain without asking?"

The Man casually loosened the collar of his outfit and shrugged.

"Well, I admit I might've been a bit too rash, but considering the current circumstances around the Simulacrum, you can't blame me, and…" His words trailed off as our eyes met. "Have we officially introduced ourselves yet?"

"No, but if you don't mind, I would like to keep a low profile and remain incognito until things calmed down a bit," I responded with a veneer of politeness. "I wasn't planning to get involved and only tried to help a little with the problems you're currently facing, but then one thing followed another, and here we are. It was all just bad timing."

"Hm. Indeed. Something like that can happen even to the best of us." The Man was desperately trying to sound sophisticated and amiable. He took a sip from his cappuccino, which also appeared out of thin air, and as soon as he put down his cup he continued in an absent-minded tone. "I believe we were discussing the Abyss, weren't we? So, you see, during a previous scenario…"

And that was how my short trip to pester The Girl somehow turned into a lore discussion, surrounded by one fuming, one nervous, and one uncharacteristically enthusiastic Emergent. It wasn't what I planned, and I wasn't sure that meeting them like this was a good idea, but as they say, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.