Following Lune’s and Shawn’s talk, the former of the two had opened the door of the infirmary as good as new. He had a gnarly new scar on his eye that sliced his right eyebrow in two, but apart from that Lune was still the same old idiot we knew and loved. He apologized for making us all worry, and then explained why it is that he was acting weird this whole time.

“I was trying to channel my past.” He said, “It was just a pet theory of mine that I felt was appropriate to test out, and I lucked out that it worked as well as it did.”

“I take it this has something to do with your Green Iro?” I asked.

“But of course.” He nodded, “Everyone knows that the perks of being a Green Iro is quickened healing. That being the case, I knew that I had to get back into the game as soon as possible, so I tried to convert back into a Green Iro.”

“I didn’t even know that was possible.” Cecily said, “I’ve always been a Yellow Iro, so correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Green the starting color?”

The starting color… What an interesting way to phrase it. Indeed, what Cecily’s saying is right. Everyone starts off as Green before converting to another Iro, but seeing someone actually convert back into Green is unprecedented. Lune truly went above and beyond this time, but that begs the question – how?

“Meil, remember what I told you about Iros?” He turned to me.

“Uh, Iros are the physical manifestation of a person’s state of mind?”

“Exactly! Thus, I concluded that the best way for me to convert back into Green is to recall my time in Trivis Numerica and Great Hiana. Apologies for mixing up your and Ed’s names, I’m sure that must’ve hurt.”

Me personally? I don’t really care at all. I’m just glad Lune’s safe and still has his mind in order. I was worried that he might’ve become an amnesiac or something like that, but if that was all an act that was part of his grand plan, then all the better. That being the case, just where the hell is Shawn?

“Daddy,” Nelly switched between looking at her father and the room he was just in, “Whewe’s that othew klutz?”

“Pfft! Klutz!” He couldn’t help but laugh at the unexpected word choice his daughter made, “Don’t worry about that, sweetie. I dealt with him properly, now the games can continue in peace.”

Cecily and I wanted to press him a bit more to give a more clear answer, fearing he killed him or something, but we both know Lune would never do such a thing. He’s not that type of guy, so that only leaves us with more questions than answers. In any case, the three of us were still weary from the Practical Match, so we clocked out pretty early for the day. Tomorrow’s the Third Event – The Artistic Match. From what I saw previously, Lune’s pretty good with a pencil, so I’ll just leave this one to him.

***

“Alright everyone!” An anxious Silvia took the stage to explain the situation, “Has anyone seen my father? He was last seen visiting Lune Grimheart to speak to him about… something, but since then he’s vanished into thin air! Please, I’m begging you, someone tell me he’s alright!”

Her pleas fell on deaf ears mostly, since all of the participants still left in the game were all pretty suspicious of her, given her actions in the previous event. No one really cared about her, but some people still thought highly of Shawn despite his connection to her, so they turned to Lune with a look that said “Do you know anything about this?”

“Sorry guys,” Lune spoke up, “But I have no idea who she’s talking about.”

At this, the crowd, as well as us, all collectively gasped in surprise. But wait, his memory was pretty good just yesterday…? What’s wrong now?!

“W-What do you mean you don’t know him?!” Silvia was on the verge of tears, “Shawn Quartz! He’s the head of the Mobius Awards! Did you hit your head or somethin-?”

She stopped immediately after noticing her mistake, so she quickly shut up, but Lune was undeterred.

“For your information, I did hit my head, and it’s all because you spread all those rumors about my love life, leading to me getting jumped. So yeah, if you really wanna blame someone for the mystery regarding your father’s disappearance, blame yourself. I’ll say this again, I have no idea who Shawn Quartz is.”

“Hey, Lune?” I nudged him discreetly as I whispered, “Do you really not remember the guy?”

“Pssht!” He waved his hand at me, “Of course I remember him, I’m just yanking her chain a bit. She deserves to feel accountable for at least some of her wrongdoings, so I felt now would be the perfect time for one of Lune’s signature pranks!”

This guy’s pretty terrible himself. A daughter’s father disappeared without a trace, and he’s using the situation to make fun of her? I mean, yeah, she’s a pretty bad person who probably deserves it and all that, but I’m just saying – if Joseph suddenly disappeared, I’d probably feel just as helpless as her right now, so I don’t find what he’s doing to be justified.

“…I’m sorry, Grimheart.” Silvia surprised everyone by meekly lowering her head in shame, “It was pure jealousy of not being first that I took it out on you two. It’s indeed because of me that you had to endure all that, but right now I’m seriously asking for your help. If you know anything about my father, please tell me now.”

Whoa, Silvia of all people is apologizing so earnestly?! Now this truly calls for Lune to stop fooling around and actually help her! Heck, if he had told us anything regarding Shawn yesterday, I’d jump up and tell her myself! Come on, Lune, be a hero!

“Like I said, I DON’T KNOW.” He hissed at her, “Now leave me alone so we can get on with the next Match before my heads starts hurting from the lingering pain again. I just barely recovered, but that doesn’t mean I’m healthy enough to argue with you as much as I did before.”

“…Right.” She followed his orders, “A-Ahem, as you all know, the Third Match is one of art. You will all be drawing something that the officials have picked, but the twist here is that at the end, your partner has to guess what that thing is.”

Sounds interesting enough. Even still, if Lune’s gonna be drawing, then I’m feeling pretty anxious about me guessing what it is. Not to mock his art skills, but he likes to idealize the human figure by accentuating the eyes and not focusing too much on the nose and other important details. His heavily stylized art style is very childish, but it lends itself to its eye-catching nature. Don’t know where he picked it up from, though.

“Right, Meil!” Lune turned to me, “Let’s do our best!”

Just like that, we were once again brought into the same hall where we did our written tests in the First Event. Half of us were seated on the now very empty seats placed to the side, and the other half stood in front of their canvases. This time, it appears as though our roles are completely reversed, as now Lune and Nelly were representing their respective teams, and Cecily and I were to guess what they drew.

Logically speaking, Cecily’s team is at a disadvantage, given that Nelly’s so young, but realistically what other choice did they have? If Cecily was the one drawing, she’d probably do pretty well, but what if the subject of the drawing was something Nelly herself was unfamiliar with? This way, at least Nelly could ask her dad (who was drawing right next to her) anything she had questions about. Thus, each person that was drawing was given a slip of paper with the word of what it is they were drawing. From their reactions, some were very pleased, others were not, but judging from these two’s conversation, it seems like they were just having fun with this more than anything.

“Daddy, daddy!” Nelly showed the piece of paper to her father, “What’s this say?”

“Hold old are you again?”

“I’m fouw.”

“Then shouldn’t you already have learned how to read? I was around your age when I learned it.”

Bullcrap. From your stories, you said you learned how to read from Schnell’s Handbook, which you only got around your ninth birthday. Quit spouting nonsense and hyping yourself up as being some kind of genius! Plus, who even learns how to read so early on in their life?

“Alright then, starting today I’m gonna be teaching you how to read and write!” He said with a proud tone, “That way you’ll be above your peers, and you’ll be of huge help to the people around you, just like your papa!”

“Alwight!” She pomphed with all her might. These two are truly hopeless…

Lune wasn’t putting pen to paper at all this whole time, instead choosing to teach his daughter some basic letters. Not much, just enough for her to read the word that was written on her paper, as well as her name, but still – does he not realize that he’s under a time limit?!

“Alright, think you can draw that?” He asked as he finally picked up his pen and starting drawing what was written on his paper.

“Uh huh!” She nodded earnestly, “I’ll do my best!”

“That’s the spirit!” He said as he began furiously scribbling all over the canvas.

O-Oi now, I know I told you to hurry it up, but isn’t this going overboard? If he makes the piece too unintelligible, then all his efforts will be rendered useless because I won’t be able to recognize what it is. That being the case, just how difficult can the given word be if everyone else seems to be having fun with this without a care in the world.

“Time’s up!” Silvia, as the Acting Head of the Mobius Awards, stated, “Everyone show your partners your work!”

“Mommy, look at this! Look at this!” Nelly ran up to her mom.

“Whoa! That’s such a cute fish you drew! I really dig the gills!” Cecily patted her on the head.

“Correct! Team Cecily passed!” Silvia announced.

Wait, a fish? Really? If their word was that simple, then ours can’t be that difficult either, right?

“What the hell is this?” I asked Lune as I pointed to the goddamned technical blueprint he whipped up, “You’re joking right? Her word was fish, and you present me this?!”

“I just drew what it said, man.” He put his pinkie in his ear as he noted, “Good luck, it shouldn’t be that difficult, just don’t rush into things like you usually do and you should be fine.”

Just… don’t rush? Argh, do you know who you’re talking to?! That’s literally the only gripe you and Joseph had with me, and now you tell me to just… avoid my lifetime issue? If solving life’s problems was that easy, I’d already be content with where I am in the world, dumbass!

But hmm… I remember reading a book about the Wonders of Technicality once in my childhood before. I think it was written by some guy named J. Morris or something like that. In any case, I think this little component here was called the ‘Capacitor’ or something like that? And this is… a Resistor? O-Or is that just a really squiggly line? No, I doubt Lune made a mistake anywhere in this schematic, he’s weirdly good at those in particular…

“Got your answers on lock?” Silvia pressured me to answer.

Just when I thought all hope was lost, I saw Nelly trying to grab my attention out of the corner of my eye. Looking over, I saw the piece of paper she held over her head. W-Wait, don’t tell me…?!

“Hey, Uncle Meil, look! Daddy taught me how to write my name!”

None of the other officials paid her any mind, but since I looked over at her, I saw that she didn’t write her name on that piece of paper. Instead, she wrote what I can only imagine is the thing Lune was drawing.

“Is it an Bistable Multivibrator, perhaps?!” I raised my voice as I gave my answer.

“How the fuck…?” Silvia stood in shock as the other officials around her gave me the thumbs up.

Nelly! You’re a lifesaver! Oh, I’m gonna give her so many headpats later! But wait, does that mean that Lune was actually teaching her how to write “Bistable Multivibrator” instead of her name this whole time? Could it be that he knew for a fact that I wouldn’t know what that thing was, so he used her as a way to tell me the answer? Both father and daughter are scarily smart, him for coming up with such a crafty plan, and her for remembering how to write that damned thing in such a short time.

“You cheated!” Silvia accused us of not playing by the rules.

“Hey now, Silvia.” The other officials stepped in, “They guessed fair and square. As an alumnus of Dimitri Uni, I know for a fact that what this young man drew is without a doubt a Bistable Multivibrator, the basis of all digital memory. It’s actually quite interesting in its composition, you see…”

“Grr! I don’t care about that, you old fart!” She lashed out at the poor official, “That’s it! Everyone else, go home! I don’t care anymore! These two teams won and I won’t even be checking the others!”

The other teams were visibly mad about her sudden outburst, but since she was serving as Acting Host this year due to the disappearance of her father, she could bend the rules as much as she pleased. That meant that we went from 17 people to a mere 4 for the Final Match. Err, is that even gonna be enough people to hold the Event?