“I am Genbu Reimei[1], head of the Black Tortoise clan. I have been awaiting you.”
“I thought your clan was wiped out.”
“It nearly was, but we of the Genbu clan are tough and not so easily defeated, despite outward appearances. We have been waiting for this opportunity for decades, and I understand we have you to thank for this.” I wondered if they’d been watching the battle from afar, waiting to strike down the Lord and Lady, only to find the two already defeated on their behalf.
“We only did what was right,” Fury answered stoically.
“Regardless, the region owes you their gratitude,” Reimei replied.
“What do you plan to do with your prisoners?”
“They will be executed, thereby ending the cycle of hatred with them. A new dawn will cast its light upon Kakon-shi and its environs, and the denizens of these lands will know peace once more.”
“What about the red rain?” I asked.
“It will cease. Its cause has been ended by your hands.”
“You mean the war?”
“No. The cause of the red rain was not the war itself, but its main actors, the three greedy clans with their corrupt powers that disturbed the balance of Life and Death. The red rain is the renumeration of their gifts. It is the lifeblood of the God who once gifted the three clans with their powers as a reward for saving his life. We, the Black Tortoise, were given the power to undo their gifts and restore the natural order to things, but we were usurped by the twisted Tiger and its silver tongue, which drove the Dragon and Bird to strike us down. Left to their own devices, the three clans warred for no other reason than their lust for power, and, using their gifts, drove the God to spill his blood onto the earth where it poisoned everything it touched and twisted the natural order even further. Given enough time, the people of this region would have gone extinct, as the corruption made them infertile and drove them mad with bloodlust. The execution of these Vermilion soldiers will be our offering to appease the exsanguinated God, and we hope that he will bless us with pure rain and cleanse our lands of the rot that has taken hold.”
This was quite a lot to process, and, again, I had to wonder how much players who didn’t complete the ‘true ending’ actually missed out on, in terms of World lore and achieving the best solution. Granted, human sacrifices didn’t sound like what Kakon-shi and its people needed, but it was perhaps a necessity to wipe clean the slate and begin anew.
Neither of us received a reward from the one-eyed Tortoise, but considering the weapons we’d looted from the Lady and the Lord, it wasn’t actually a concern, though a few coins for our trouble would’ve been nice, though again, we’d looted plenty from the inventory of our traitorous teammate.
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When we found our horse inside the Vermilion camp and rode off towards Kakon-shi beyond the rainbow forest, the sun was already making its downward journey towards the horizon, but the rain had stopped.
A little before reaching the city, a ping sounded in my ear, alerting me of the skill point I’d earned for my troubles. At first, I assumed it was for my bow, as it was the first time I’d used it, but then I saw that my katana also had an upgrade, which I thought was strange, considering how I’d just acquired Piercing Thrust from beating Magami.
“Hey,” I said to Fury, directly into his ear as he sat in front of me on the saddle.
“What?”
“Do you know why I’ve already gotten another skill point for my katana?”
“Didn’t you know? The last Stage of a World always rewards a skill point, regardless of when you got your last one. Normally it takes several stages to unlock a skill, and the amount varies based on what skill it is, with the latter ones sometimes requiring all the way up to six Stages to unlock.”
“Hmm. That makes sense I guess.”
For my katana’s ‘Level 7’ ability, I had three choices: ‘Mantis Dance’; ‘Stallion’s Fury’; and ‘Monkey’s Guile’. They read: “Temporarily boost reflexes”; “Temporarily boost strength”; and “Temporarily boost speed”. Neither of the three abilities were weapon skills, but were all momentary boosts to my base stats, so, augmentations basically. Though all of them were clearly extremely useful, I chose Mantis Dance, because I knew my lack of reflexes was a big weakness, since I could’ve saved myself from a lot of near-fatal wounds by simply being able to react faster. Further, giving myself a boost of reflexes would allow me some independence from my Dance of Death, which was my biggest crutch at the moment, and I knew that sooner or later I’d reach the limits of my muscle memory, and, not to mention, it hadn’t helped me at all in the two Alt-Modes I’d now experienced, and both had been close calls.
After finding the ‘Bow’ category, I selected ‘Longbow’ and then further selected the ‘Japanese’ variant, before seeing the branching path of my bow, which was currently on ‘Level 2’, giving me the choice between ‘Barrage’ and ‘Snipe’, which read, in order: “Fire three arrows into the air in quick succession with modest accuracy, which fall down from above,” and “Shoot a single highly-accurate arrow to strike a target at long range. Cannot be used at close-to-medium ranges.” Both sounded like very good abilities. Before I decided, I noticed that the ‘Tsukikusa Longbow’ also had a bar for ‘Familiarity Level’, which was only about five percent full, or maybe ten.[2]
After thinking it over for a bit, I decided to pick ‘Barrage’ as it seemed the more useful of the two abilities, though it was hard to deny that a long-ranged skill like ‘Snipe’ wasn’t a terrific choice. It was slightly nerve-wracking every time I had to pick a new ability, as I always felt like every option had its clear advantages, and I often feared that I’d end up making a choice I wasn’t happy with. As far as I knew, there weren’t any ways to change your decision, which left me no other choice than to follow my gut feeling and try to choose whatever suited my current style the most.
I put the menus away as the city slums came into view, wondering what tomorrow would bring.
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[1] Written as 黎明 in Japanese, meaning “Daybreak” or “Dawn”. It was a peculiar name, but I guess his parents must’ve had high hopes for him. His last name, “Genbu”, followed the trend of all the clans, and meant “Black Tortoise”.
[2] Unfortunately, whichever idiot had designed the interface had not added any helpful numbers to the level bar, perhaps in order to keep it ‘clean’ or ‘minimalist’… Personally I just found it to be totally unhelpful.