Post-Epilogue Chapter 23: The True Call of a Fake Destiny (Part 1)

"Is it Purin's turn yet?" I ask, but Papa just puts his hand on Purin's head.

"Not yet. Be patient."

"Okay!"

Purin is patient. No, Purin is even patienter than that. Purin is the most patientest. Ever.

…

"Is it Purin's turn yet?"

Papa is looking at me funny, but then Judy Mama taps on Purin's shoulder and says, "Why don't you prepare with Benjamin while we wait?"

Purin doesn't like that, but since it's Judy Mama asking, I say, "Fine…"

Judy Mama also pats Purin on the head. It feels nice, but it's over quickly, and now I have to talk with him. Ugh.

We're in Elly Mama's room, and it's Purin's special day! It's the day when Purin will debut as a super awesome dark magical girl, and it's gonna be awesome! Purin's gonna spook Ollie, Ichiko, and the others, and they won't even know it was Purin all along! Nyuhuhuhu!

But before that, I have to rehearse with the gnawer again. Ugh.

"Here you go!" Elly Mama whispers. She's fiddling with his mask and smiles. Purin likes it when she smiles, but not when she smiles at the gnawer. "You look dashing!" she says.

No, he doesn't. He looks dumb. Purin hates him.

"Elly Mama, Elly Mama!" I run over and push between them. "Purin looks good too, right?"

"Go away, pest," the gnawer hisses behind me, so Purin looks over her shoulder and sticks out her tongue, just like how Ichiko taught her. "… How dare you?!"

"Don't fight!" Elly Mama scolds me and pokes my forehead. Owie. "You both look really cute."

"No, I don't,"/"He doesn't," we say at once, and then he gives a 'Hmph!', so Purin gives a 'Hmph!' back too. Why is Elly Mama acting so nice with the stupid gnawer, anyway? He's a bad guy! And he bit Papa! And his hair is stupid!

Oh, but Purin's hair isn't! It's all black and shiny now, with red lines in it, and Purin's pigtails are all twirly now, like Elly Mama's! They glow, too! The red parts, not the twirls! Papa made a cool magical girl brooch for Purin, and it goes all sparkly and shiny and makes Purin even cuter than usual! Now I have a black dress that's super-frilly, with these sleeves that go swoosh-swoosh when I wave my hands, and big black ribbons in my hair, and white gloves for punching! I really wanna punch the gnawer to demonstrate, but then Elly Mama will be mad, and Purin doesn't want her to be mad at Purin. She can be mad at the gnawer any time, though. Purin doesn't mind.

"Why did you approach me, pest? Just to vex me?" the gnawer asks while crossing his arms and acting all smart and mature, even though he's a stupid nincompoop.

"Purin's here to rehearse, because we need to do our best!"

The gnawer lets out a 'Bah,' just to annoy Purin. I really wanna punch him, but Purin is very wise and mature, so Purin keeps calm under all circumstances.

"Yes, you need to do well," Elly Mama tells us, and she wags her finger. "Things have to go just well to hit the right tone. Otherwise, Ollie and the kids aren't going to have fun, and we don't want that, right?"

"I don't really care. I'm only doing this because…" The gnawer glances at Papa, then rolls his eyes. Rude!

"Well, Purin cares because they're Purin's friends!"

"And why should I care?"

Nyuuuh! He's so annoying! I really, really, REALLY wanna punch him, but Purin is too mature for that, so Purin just tells him, "Yeah, because you have no friends."

He looks at Purin funny and says, "I don't need friends."

"Yeah, because you're dum–" Oh. Elly Mama is frowning at Purin! That's no good. "… You're a duuuu… mmy?"

"Ugh. Just how childish can you be?"

"Purin's not childish! You're childish!"

"I'm most certainly not!"

Nyuuuuh! He's so infuriating! But Elly Mama is watching, so I can't punch– I mean, I'm too mature, so I can't resort to violence. "Well, you're… you're…" Think, Purin! Think! How can I get back at him without making Elly Mama mad? … Ah! I got it! "Well, you're cute!"

Ha! That got him! The gnawer's eyes go all wide, and then he glares at Purin.

"How dare you!? Take that back!"

"Nuh-uh!"

He keeps glaring, then suddenly points at Purin's nose.

"If I'm 'cute', then what does that make you, pest?"

"Uuu…" Purin tilts her head to the side, thinking. "The cutest?"

He blinks at Purin, then throws his hands into the air.

"You're impossible! I hate you!"

"But not as much as Purin hates you!" Purin argues back.

"No, I definitely hate you more," the gnawer growls at Purin, but Purin won't stand down.

"Oh, yeah? Well, Purin hates you more than sawyer-caat!"

"If my hatred could power stars, it would alight the sky in…" he starts, but then pauses and lets his arms down. "Sawyer… caat?"

"Yes," Purin nods. "It's yucky."

"No, I was asking what that is."

"Oh, it's this thingie we had in the cafeteria the other day," Purin explains patiently. "It was made of pieces of white leaves, and it’s spicy and sour and weird! Purin didn't like it."

"Then why did you eat it?"

"Because Purin didn't know! It sounded like the words Judy Mama taught us, so I thought it would be fun, but it wasn't."

"Wait, are you talking about sauerkraut?" the gnawer asks. "Shredded sour cabbage? The kind that you eat with meat?"

"Purin doesn't know. Purin doesn't like meat."

"How can you not?" The gnawer looks at Purin like Purin's a space alien! Very rude! "Don't tell me you ate sauerkraut by itself?"

"No, of course not! Purin's not silly," I tell him with a huff-puff. "Purin also ate gur-ken saalad and ro… um… rot-coohl? Yeah, that!"

"Those are also side dishes! What's wrong with you!?"

"How was Purin supposed to know!? They all sounded very mysterious and cool!"

The gnawer growls at Purin and puts his hand over his mask.

"Listen, next time you eat sauerkraut, do it right."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you should…"

"Kids?" Papa calls over, interrupting the gnawer.

"Yeees?"/"I'm not a kid!" we respond at the same time.

"You can continue that conversation later. Ammy and the kids are in position. It's time to move out."

I say, "Yaaay!" and run over to Papa's side, with the dumb gnawer following behind me, but much slower.

"Fine. Let us get this over with," he says, and then I can feel Papa hugging me. Not with his arms, but with his other arms. Nyuhuhu. It tickles!

Then Purin blinks, and we're suddenly in a magical forest with lots of shiny motes flying around. Pretty!

…

Ah, no! I can't get distracted! This is Purin's official debut, and Papa and Judy Mama and Mom and Dad and everyone's watching! Purin will do her best!

~~~

"I'm back," I said as usual when I arrived back at Elly's room, then scratched my head. "Ah. Finally, she's no longer narrating us. I think there might be a range limit, or something?"

"You still haven't explained what that means," Elly said as she sidled up to me, and I couldn't help but shrug.

"It's complicated. It's like a point-of-view thing. You know? Like how in a book there would be a narrator, or the camera in a movie. Information has to be conveyed to the audience in one way or another, and when she's doing it, it just makes my skin crawl for some reason. I know she's not doing it on purpose, but I can't help it."

"Who's the audience?" Judy asked next, her communications glasses already on her nose.

"I don't know. The Submerged Ones, maybe? Or it could be just a 'broadcast' that anyone in range can pick up."

"I'm not picking up anything," Elly noted, but then she let out a soft 'Oh, right!' and skipped over to her nightstand, only to then immediately return wearing a second, bright pink pair of party glasses. It was the same type as Judy's communicator artifact, except for the colour and the heart-shaped frame, and she tapped on it with a grin. "I almost forgot these!"

Needless to say, they had the same kind of enchantment arrays on them as Judy's, though they could only receive audio and visuals without a way to actually communicate with the people on the other side. It did have some other functions, though those were for later. As for why they were party glasses, when I could've just integrated the arrays into her Magiformer? Because that's what she wanted, and as a good boyfriend, I didn't argue with her tastes.

In the meantime, my dear assistant tugged on my sleeve and silently pointed at the bed, so the three of us walked over and sat down on the edge, side by side, waiting for the show to start.

"Is everything going as planned so far?" I asked, and Judy let out a grunt in the affirmative.

"Amelia successfully transported the children to the Sonnenwendenkönigreich version zero point two point six. No anomalies so far." She tapped on her glasses, then added, "We're setting up a classic 'scattered MacGuffin scenario' today, while also introducing our dark magical girl serving as our main characters' returning antagonist."

"Aaah! I'm so excited!" Elly squeed by our side, followed by an instant one-eighty into a worried, "But I'm worried, too! What if things don't work out?"

"It's going to be fine," Judy tried her best to placate her, but it didn't really work when she wasn't even looking her way and was too busy tapping her glasses and observing the situation unfold. As such, it's my turn.

"Don't worry, princess. Benjamin and Purin might be at each other's throats all the time, but they practised a lot for this. They've got this."

"I know, but… I'm more worried about the others. I hope they don't get too hurt. Or scared. Or discouraged."

I would've pointed out that people usually care about such things in the reverse order, but Judy poked my side, signalling that things were about to get going in earnest, so I raised a finger, and we all focused on the situation within the pocket dimension. The girls via their glasses, while I would obviously use my Far Sight.

So, I closed my eyes, and a moment later, I was looking at a group of small wanderers led through a path inside a dense forest by a mage with a glowing staff and a wide-brimmed hat. It would've been incredibly 'fantasy', in genre terms, if not for the little ones wearing winter jackets and caps with pom-poms instead of chainmail and helmets, and their guide wasn't a bearded old man with a long pipe sticking out of his mouth, but a girl in a frilly dress checking the time on her phone.

"We've been walking for almost half an hour," the class rep said at the front before unsummoning her phone.

I still wasn't sure how she was doing that, but ever since she got her Grimoire privileges, she's been making up her own spells all the time, so if I had to make an educated guess, I would've said it was some kind of mini pocket-space, similar to my storage enchantments. But back to the class rep herself.

She seemed a bit annoyed, no doubt because of the long and winding path they had to take to their destination, but Judy insisted that not opening a portal right next to the end goal was more immersive. If someone asked me, I was pretty sure she just wanted to give the kids more chances to admire her handiwork. Which they actually did.

"Look, Ichi! A deer!"

"Where? Where?"

...

"Be careful, Fiia. There could be snakes in the bushes."

"S-S-Snakes?! Where?"

"Ah, careful! I said there 'could' be! Could!"

...

"Sister? Does the air feel different to you as well?"

"Yes."

"It feels like back home, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

…

"… Hey, Dormouse?" I asked, and Judy responded only a few seconds later.

"Yes?"

"Do we have snakes in there?"

She responded with a flat, "No," followed by a short silence and an equally deadpan, "Or deer."

"Oh, dear!" Elly quipped at our side. "You know? Oh, 'deer'? Like, a pun?"

I patted her head and told her, "Very nice, princess," and then we focused back on the action. Or lack thereof, for now.

So, the plan was as follows: Have Ammy take the kids in there, lead them to our freshly constructed MacGuffin Storage Device, then interrupt them, have a short fight, and then have the MacGuffins scatter so that they would have to be recollected.

"Stay close to me, everyone," the class rep called out and pointed her glowing staff towards the end of the road. By the by, I had no idea why it was giving off light. I figured she found it neat. Anyhow, she said, "I can feel that the ancient keepsakes of the Sonnenwenderetter are nearby. Be vigilant."

"Yes, Miss Amelia," Fiia responded right away and rushed up to her side.

"I told you, you don't need to add 'Miss' to my name," Ammy told her, and I think I heard her muttering, 'It makes me sound old,' right after that.

"I-I could never…"

Their talk was interrupted by Ichiko barrelling between them with a loud, "Amelia-saaan!"

She hastily put a finger in front of the incognito foxy miko's mouth, along with a sharp, "Psst! Don't yell like that. We don't know what kind of dangers could be lurking in the shadows out here."

Fiia sucked in a breath with a high-pitched "H-Hiiii…" and tried her best to hide in Ammy's shadow. Not literally, of course. Only Ichiko and Xiao could do that.

But speaking of her, the little incognito dragon also came to a halt next to them, and she gestured towards the woods, her voice hushed.

"Elder Sister Amelia," she started, causing Ammy to wince. I had no idea why. Sure, being in the company of a bunch of elementary schoolers did make one feel a bit older than usual, but she was almost acting like one of those stereotypical 'Christmas Cake' characters in Japanese media.

…

Wait. Was that even a trope we ever encountered? The unmarried adult woman conscious of her age and her biological clock? It was a common trope in modern high school settings, bordering on cliché, yet I wasn't sure we'd seen it in the Simulacrum.

Anyhow, while I was pondering that, I missed what the two girls wanted to tell Ammy about, and only caught her telling them, "No. Stay together and be vigilant."

"But didn't you say that nobody has entered this realm for millennia?" Pais asked pointedly, so the class rep frowned at him and tapped the butt end of her staff against the ground.

"All the more reason to be careful. Now, come. We should hurry."

The kids didn't argue and formed pairs as usual, with Ollie and Fiia walking side by side in the middle.

"This is exciting, isn't it?" the little Beansprout whispered, and the girl next to him could only utter a soulless "Uuu…" in return.

The class rep wasn't wrong about her assessment. Not about the dangers of the land, because we didn't make any, but the target being close by. After a few more minutes of trekking up the gently sloping track, they finally got out of the woods, right in front of the scenic cliff.

"Whoa!" Ollie exclaimed as he looked around, and his astonishment was shared by the rest of the kids as well.

The sky still had the colourful aurora dancing up above, the hazy outline of the castle in the distance was as imposing (if insubstantial) as ever, and there were lush forests and meadows as far as the eye could see. Most importantly, though, right there at the edge of the cliff ahead stood a large stone structure.

Sitting on a circular stone foundation, six columns held up a weathered bronze dome turned green. The whole structure was covered in lush vines, some sprouting white flowers here and there, and in the middle of it all stood a pedestal with a large, circular stone sundial on it at an angle. Its surface was rife with intricate carvings, and where the numbers would've been on a clock face, there were instead twelve differently coloured artifacts, each embedded into a receptacle bearing the stylised symbol of one of the twelve zodiac signs.

There was a sudden breeze, carrying flower petals on the wind from somewhere, giving the whole scene an added sense of ephemeral beauty and, and…

"Did we do that?" I asked, making Judy turn to look at me. "The gust and the petals, I mean?"

"No. Why?"

"The timing's too impeccable," I muttered, but then shook my head and returned to the scene.

"This is the Dial of Ages," Ammy introduced the circular object to the kids. "It is said that it holds the relics and legacies of the legendary Sonnenwenderetter, the brave warriors who defeated the Ivory Prince in the past. If we are to face him again, we'll need their power." She paused to gesture at the kids, Fiia in particular, and told them, "Come closer. If you're destined to wield their powers, they should resonate with you."

They looked rather reserved, maybe even fretful, but then the whole group started inching towards the dial, half a step at a time.

"Elly, get ready," Judy muttered on my left.

"Roger!" the princess responded on the right, and after a few seconds of bated breath, she tapped on her glasses and said, "On!"

The moment she uttered that, or rather, her glasses sent the signal, the whole structure lit up on the class rep's end. Not just the dial, with each of its zodiac symbols flaring to life with multicoloured lights, but the columns and the dome overhead also lit up with a soft inner luminosity, creating twisting, swirling patterns on their surface.

"W-What's going on?" Fiia muttered, sounding so genuinely flabbergasted that if I didn't know better, I would've completely believed this was the first time she'd seen any magic.

"Stay close to us," Kóre said, and she and Pais stepped in front of Fiia and Ollie.

Meanwhile, the lights reached their brightest, and there was a deep humming sound in the air, kind of like a prelude to a bombastic orchestral piece and…

"Did we do that?" I asked again, and Judy clicked her tongue at me.

"Chief, focus."

"I know, but I don't remember enchanting any background music. It's just weird," I grumbled before returning to the scene, where Ammy stood in front, with the dial glowing brightly behind her back and giving her a larger-than-life outline.

"Come, all of you. It's the call of Destiny you're hearing."

"I'm… not hearing anything?" Ichiko mumbled on the side. "Do you, Xiao?"

"No, I don't hear anything eith–" she started, only for her eyes to open wide and take up her usual martial arts pose, with one knee pulled up. "Look out, everyone! Something's coming!"

Before the others could react, the ground shook under their feet from an enormous impact, sending the class rep flying back from the stone dial and rolling to break her fall, losing her big hat in the process. She really didn't need to do that, but I guess she was dedicated to the bit.

"Dramatic steam, go!" Elly whispered with gusto, and just as she said, the area around the dial was filled with white mist.

From it, a small body rose to her feet from a classic three-point superhero landing pose. Then, with a sudden swipe of her hand, she–

"Dramatic steam-go-awayication, go!"

... scattered the mist, revealing… Okay, let's not beat around the bush; it was obviously Purin, in her magical girl outfit.

It was the latest iteration of the Magiformer base, and while Elly insisted that we should maintain the branding and call it 'Mahouformer', it didn't have an official name yet. In terms of looks, the outfit had all the typical mahou shoujo tropes condensed into it: a multi-layered lacy skirt, thigh-high socks, detached sleeves, and, of course, oversized ribbons. As for the enchantments, it had all the newest defensive and offensive enchantments crammed into it, with the same recognition inhibition as Benjamin's mask.

Speaking of which, Purin struck a pose with a finger on the top of her black domino mask, and then she ran her fingers over its edge before snapping them and striking a different pose while pointing at Ammy.

"My, my, Vertraute der Prinzessin? Why are you so surprised?"

Purin's cadence was rather unnerving, speaking in a weird falsetto that was practically dripping with venom as she smiled at the group.

"Who are you?" the class rep snapped at her, the head of her staff flaring up like a torch. "How did you find this place?"

"How, you ask?" Purin pulled her outstretched arm back, and this time she spread both of them to the side while declaring. "Such a foolish question! Weren't you the one who led me here in your haste? Tell me, Vertraute! How does it feel to be the architect of your own doom!"

…

Wow. She was at least as much into her role as Benjamin was into his, which was both good yet a bit unnerving.

"Protect Ollie-kun!" Ichiko declared while the kids clustered around him, and since Fiia was right next to her, the two of them got sandwiched together.

"W-What's going on?" she cried out on the verge of tears, making Purin let her arms down.

"What do you mean, Prinzessin? Don't you recognize me?" She snarled, then hit another po—

"Fireworks, go!" Elly interrupted my train of thought, and just as she said, a whole gamut of colours exploded behind her, past the big sundial.

"Look upon me, and despair, Prinzessin of S-Sonnenwendenkönigreich!" Ah. She stammered a bit, but quickly recovered and hit yet another dramatic pose, with her hands in front of her chest and her thumbs hooked together, and she exclaimed, "For I am the champion of his majesty the Elfenbeinprinz! I am…"

She paused again to wait out the second round of magical explosions behind her, before spreading her arms again.

"Tapioca Schwartz!"

…

"You see, Dormouse?" I said with just a hint of thinly veiled trepidation. "I told you we shouldn't have let her choose her name."

She responded with a quiet, "Hush, Chief. We're just getting to the good part." She was right, so I gave up on arguing and turned my attention to the kids once more. The actors were assembled, the scene was set… let's see how it all plays out, shall we?