After several caravanserai stops, we entered Halaxy Desert Route.
On our right was the southern sea of Mu, on our left was the Halaxy Desert. Instead of pine green forests and army green grass, the colors of the scenery were burnt sienna sand and teal blue water.
The last major stop before Reignland border was a town called Sothyr. It was large Wild West style town with a harbor and a small fortress inside a landwalled area. The long landwalls kept the desert sand from invading the barley farms and seawalls kept the salty water from invading the town itself.
After entering Sothyr during the day, we took a room from an inn named Tiktos and then went out to check out the atmosphere of downtown taverns.
Specifically, there was an enemy NPC called Kerllekan d'Ys I wanted to find. As his name suggested, he was originally from the island of Spial Ys, but according to his the backstory explained in the anime, he lived in Sothyr before he moved to Ur Continent.
Mini-bosses like Ostero and Kerllekan sure liked to move around.
Kerllekan d'Ys was one of the underworld characters hired by Thiefmaster during season four, at the start of the action-packed solo adventure of Ivorythief. Kerllekan was only seen at eastern coast of Ur during that time and he was introduced as battle slave trainer from South-Sylvania, even though he later said that he was driven away from Spial Ys and lived in Sothyr for many years.
As a side hustle, Kerllekan kidnapped village girls and sold them to nobles to boost his coin-hoarding habit.
It was surprisingly easy to find Kerllekan in Sothyr, even though info about his criminal activities seemed strangely scarce. Crys had friendly chats with several local gangsters and got info about Kerllekan's recent moves and whereabouts.
The pattern seemed to be that Kerllekan wasn't doing any slave training or trading at all. In Sothyr, he was only known as a small-time procurer with one adult prostitute woman working for him, and the woman also seemed to be his lover.
I recognized Kerllekan when I saw him, so it wasn't a different guy with a same name.
He sat at a table in front of a harbor tavern and drank tea from a lidded bowl. It was like finding Al Capone sipping tea in some small tea house in rural China.
Why was this mini-boss level enemy living like a neutral NPC? Was he not a wanted outlaw yet? Was he undercover? Was he just lazy? I had so many questions.
“I'm not sure what's going on, but I need his boots.”
“Another gift for Rainwoman?” (Kimono)
“No, I'm not saying I want to burn more of our money, I'm saying we should kill him and take his boots.”
“Brother, he's asking another favor from us.” (Kimono)
We've had a long journey together, Kimono, you need to lift both your feet on board this train already. If I say we need his boots, we need his boots – simple as that!
Well, strictly speaking we don't need his boots. I want his boots.
“Crys, the guy in the bright red coat and flashy boots is definitely Kerllekan d'Ys. He's not on the list of most wanted people yet, but he's a guy that might cause trouble in the future. It's not exactly sure like in case of Shade of Chasm, but probably, because he will work for Thiefmaster later.”
“Is the woman related to that?” (Dancer)
Dancer pointed at a young woman standing in a corner of the building. Now that I noticed, Kerllekan was clearly keeping an eye on her. I thought he was just drinking while his girlfriend worked in the alleys, but he was doing his job as a pimp-boyfriend after all.
“In the future, he will have a reputation in the underworld as a trainer of battle slaves, especially for the fighting arenas in South-Sylvania. He also takes children from villages and sells them to nobles. A very unpleasant personality all around.”
“It is not uncommon.” (Crys)
“Yeah, but he might become a hindrance to us at least. Especially to the twins, if they are separated and one of them travels to Sylvania–”
Wait a moment, what am I thinking? The twins won't go to Sylvania at all, if I can help it.
This isn't the anime timeline. Ivorythief won't get caught in Thiefmaster's idiotic schemes. Kerllekan probably won't meet the twins at all.
Is there a point in killing him here, other than my own disgust for his modus operandi in the future? It won't help our main mission, but it might actually mess it up, if someone spots us and we have to run away again. Authorities might start looking deeper into our story.
I've told Crys enough about the original timeline. He knows where the Thiefmaster stuff settles in our possible future. Taking unnecessary risks when we're so close to Reingland would be foolish.
We could just steal his boots, but... I have future evidence of his future crimes. I'm ready to give him a precrime death sentence.
In the game, you had to make some hard choices during the Sylvania missions when brainwashed child soldiers attacked you. I don't want to make those choices in the real world.
Yeah, Kerllekan should just die here after all. Ain't nobody got time for pre-emptive rehabilitation.
Stolen novel; please report.
Crys and Kimono were children when their home village was destroyed, but that doesn't mean they feel anything special about helping children in similar circumstances. Crys might actually think Kerllekan is a valuable customer in the future and sell weapons for him.
“Truthfully, I just want that guy gone. This might not be the right place or time, but he will definitely become my enemy in the future, even if he doesn't become our enemy. So I'm thinking that if there's a way for me to assassinate him here without causing trouble for our party, I'll –”
“Kimono, a mission.” (Crys)
“Yes, brother.” (Kimono)
“Kerllekan. Kill him and bring his boots.” (Crys)
“Accident?” (Kimono)
“Yes.” (Crys)
“At night?” (Kimono)
“I leave it to you.” (Crys)
“Yes, brother.” (Kimono)
“...Thank you, Crys and Kimono. I'm sorry for causing trouble. This favor, I'll definitely pay you back.”
“Yes, your mind is soft like that.” (Crys)
Yeah, yeah, men are men because they are so hard they are out of touch and so brutal they can't feel anything... I'm not going to say that aloud to Crys, though.
This world of violent patriarchy is still too medieval for modern neuroplastic sensitivity. Destroyers are still seen as heroes and builders are still seen as villains; humans are still disposable, resources are still scarce. And those facts won't change here anytime soon.
Anyhow, I felt oddly relieved. Sometimes it's good how simple everything is in this world, especially for people like Crys and Kimono. Murdering a rando is like kicking a small pebble.
I'd like to think that my otherwordly influence has made Crys a better person, but it's probably just that Crys can afford to make more concessions. I guess I've at least provided Crys the luxury to think about his life in the context of long-term goals in a wide open world instead of near-term survival in one corner of one continent.
“Now then, what is so special about Kerllekan's boots?” (Crys)
“Oh right, I didn't even explain those yet...”
In the game, there was a lackadaisically named pair of boots called Bayonet Boots, but speedrunners liked to call them Speed Kicks or Boots of Speed. It was basically just a simple game-mechanical category error: Bayonet Boots were accidentally put in the regular Footwear folder instead of Footwear X Melee Weapons folder and the mistake was found after the company folded, so there wasn't an official patch (although it was easy to move the file yourself, if you cared).
It didn't matter in the larger scale of normal gaming how unique multicategory items were classified, but for speedrunners there was an interesting edge-case use: spamming forward flying kicks while wearing these boots made you move faster than normal – after all, an unarmed attack made with a cosmetics item didn't have the weight of a weapon, the stamina cost of a weapon, the windup animation of a weapon, the completion animation of a weapon, and so on.
Even skipping the few frames of no-imput start-stop transitions from left foot stance to right foot stance added up to full seconds in the long run, if you just kept doing kicks with the same foot. It looked silly to hop around with your left foot and wildly kick empty air repeatedly with your right foot, but who cares about looks when the stamina cost is the same as normal running? If you want the most aerodynamic car, you get a car that looks like a silly surfboard; the fuel efficiency is what matters.
And don't even get me started about the complex elevation difference alignment skips and in-air control when kickhopping down sloped terrain, that's a whole another layer of small timesaves.
Thus, it was truly regrettable for full campaign speedruns that you couldn't get the Bayonet Boots in time to make practical use of them.
Because Kerllekan d'Ys, the character that you had to kill to get these boots, was in a completely wrong place.
Early speedrunners tried to feverishly find a way to incorporate Bayonet Boots into their routes, but the travel time to Sylvania and back even on the most optimal route ate all the advantages the boots gave. You got a speed boost for the last fifth splits of the run, but it didn't matter if you lost that time plus more on earlier splits.
There were long speculation threads in the forums about how to “Early Get Speed Kicks”, but all theoretical strats proved to be unpractical in the end. Eventually the whole matter of getting the Speed Kicks was put to rest when faster skips in other areas were found, and the timesave gap between fourth leg and fifth leg got wider.
I didn't explain the speedrunning details to Crys, but I emphasized that the boots could be used as a hidden weapon, as normal nice boots, and maybe there was theoretical possibility for faster movement.
“In short, this dude has sweet footwear he doesn't deserve to own.”
“So, if Mary acquires the sweet footwear from this dude, what are we going to do in the meantime?” (Dancer)
“Somehow hearing the words 'sweet' and 'dude' from your mouth is a bit disconcerting, John.”
“Oh, how careless of me, ahaha! What shall we do next, my underlings? Come now, offer me your peasant advice!” (Dancer)
It still felt weird when Crys and Dancer used my vocabulary. I had no idea how the autotranslate function in this world worked and I had already given up on trying to explain it. I bet the in-universe explanation was something like “Strangers used magic tech and destroyed language barriers to make it easier to give direct orders to slaves”.
“Brother, you have held the reins without sleep. You should rest.” (Kimono)
“I agree, we should all have a nap and collect our strength. A bath, a brunch and a nap while we are still on the relatively civilized side of the continent.”
“Make it so, Gary!” (Dancer)
“Aye, captain De Fault, good food and good sleep are the secrets to long life and prosperity.”
My locution lessons for Dancer had not been in vain.
----------------------------------------
Kimono returned to Tiktos inn at sundown and threw the Bayonet Boots next to me on the bed while I was lying down and thinking what kind of home remedies for toothache existed in this world. I was afraid that all the stomach acids I vomited in the ship might have eroded the enamels of my teeth.
“So fast! Good work, Kimono! You're always working hard. Thank you.”
“Tch.” (Kimono)
“Hey, if you don't want to get praised, don't do praiseworthy things.”
Kimono stood silently in place, waiting for me to show her what was so special about a pair of boots. Crys and Dancer were downstairs negotiating with local merchants, so I wanted to wait for them, but since Kimono seemed impatient, I decided to show her the first part.
“Behold, the secret of the boots!”
I clicked the heels of the boots together. A pair of short, sharp blades sprung out the tips of the boots.
Pushing the blades back inside the boots was a bit problematic, but it was a cool trick.
“Sweet, eh? There's no place like home, and ta-dah! Dancing daggers!”
“That's it? You can use it as a surprise attack, but after that it's impractical compared to a regular blade, except if you train your footwork.” (Kimono)
“Aww, you're no fun...”
“You want to steal Dagger Pants from someone next?” (Kimono)
“Oh wow, Kimono made a joke! Well done. Now that I think about it, you actually have daggers in your pa– I mean, under your clothes. Sexual harassment not intended.”
“Why would you want to wear something awkward like those?” (Kimono)
”Well, they are roughly my size, but I was actually thinking of giving these to the twins after I've done some experiments.”
“Experiments?” (Kimono)
“If these work optimally, they make the wearer move a bit faster, albeit at the cost of dignity. And even if that glitch doesn't work, they can be used as a melee surprise, or maybe Crys can sell them for a collector for a good price. A finely crafted pair of murder boots would be a nice present for your brother too, right?”
“Brother decides if he wants them.” (Kimono)
Kimono walked out of the door. Do your best, Kimono! Tsundere harder!
We have definitely gotten a bit closer on this trip. Someday she will learn how to laugh at my jokes too.
Anyway, time for another glitch experiment to find out the boundaries of this world.