I think you’re totally right about that, Wynona, but it sure does feel weird to hear from a role-playing perspective!
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“Wait just a moment, please. Are you not supposed to be a hero, Miss Wynona? I believe it would be very odd for a hero to abandon a village in peril in the manner you’re describing.”
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Looks like Laika the pure-hearted isn’t going to let her get away with it.
“I would save the village if that were an option, certainly. That said, this village’s destruction has already been written into the story. It’s unavoidable. Just one of those things, if you will. The intent, I imagine, is to make our party feel a sense of helplessness in the face of overwhelming odds. A story in which the world is saved without any sacrifice would hardly be exciting. In any case, I would recommend you address any complaints you might have to the developer, not me.”
I get where you’re coming from, Wynona, I really do! Pecora was nodding along as well, which told me this really was the natural decision from an advancing-the-story perspective. This sort of thing’s just so hard to accept sometimes…
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A town or city you’d visited previously being destroyed by monsters was a pretty stock development, as far as RPGs went. You have to put the protagonist in trouble eventually, or the story would get stale. That said, actually killing the protagonist would bring the story to an early end, so that was off the table. Having a place you’d already visited get destroyed was a more practical option, so it tended to get used rather often.
That being said, writing off a village that seemed likely to get attacked by monsters still struck me as a sort of weird decision to make. What sort of hero abandons a whole village just because it seems likely to get destroyed?
We’d already figured out the village was at risk of destruction, and we couldn’t get rid of that knowledge. We could technically have asked Godly Godness for more information, but that would’ve felt like cheating. Ordinary players wouldn’t have the option of consulting with the devs whenever they wanted, after all.
All right! I don’t know what we’ll actually be able to accomplish, but we’ll do what we can, anyway!
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“Okay then—let’s split up into two teams! One team will go out to deal with our quests, and the other team will stay in the village and prepare to fend off a monster attack. What do you think?”
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I asked everyone for input on my plan. “We have two heroes, after all!” I added as a natural afterthought.
That’s right—we have two heroes in this party! If this is a story about a hero saving the world, then why can’t there be a sub-story about a hero saving a village packed in there somewhere?
I’d really only brought up the hero thing to try and support my proposal, but I was starting to feel like it actually made some legitimate sense.
Wynona cracked a smile. She usually kept up a pretty strict deadpan expression, so when she actually smiled, I could be confident she was in a good mood.
“That’s not a bad idea at all, Sub-Hero,” said Wynona.
“Wow—that’s actually even more irritating than hearing you call me Stepmother!”
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Can’t the two of us heroes be on even footing? The way she said it just now makes it sound like I’m playing second fiddle to her!
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“You’re right. We have two heroes, so why not split up? As far as who’ll stay behind to defend the village…I believe Laika and I will be well-suited to the task.”
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Wynona laid a hand on Laika’s shoulder as she spoke.
“Huh? You want the two of us to stay here…?” said Laika.
I got the sense Laika was a little uncertain about teaming up with Wynona. It made sense when I stopped to think about it: Out of all the people here, Wynona was the one who Laika knew the least.
“I’m capable of using healing magic, which means I’ll be able to support us to some degree in a battle of attrition. You, meanwhile, are a warrior, which means you have the highest HP out of anyone in our party. It will take more than a few enemies concentrating their attacks upon you to bring you down,” Wynona explained.
I guess that does make sense, actually. Pecora and Beelzebub seemed sold on her logic, as well.
“I think we’re all fine with that,” I said. “But Laika, are you—”
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“I have no objections. Please allow me to help!”
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Laika’s reply rang out loud and clear.
“I was the one who proposed we save the people here in the first place, and I have neither the right nor the intention to run away from that responsibility! I’ll lay down my life to defend this village!”
Yep, that’s exactly the answer I’d expect from Laika. Plus, from a certain perspective, it finally feels like this game might actually be working as a training program for her followers, like Godly Godness said it would. Having to battle your impulse to abandon a village in need feels like some sort of ascetic training, anyway.
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Beelzebub, Pecora, and I set out for the cave, headed straight inside, and beat the boss that awaited us there. It was a tough fight—the boss used every single turn to spam an ability called Song of Lament that did AoE damage to our whole party. The damage wasn’t actually the problem, though. No, the ability’s true potential lay elsewhere.
“No achievements means no work, no work means no achievements! There’s no escape from the spiral of a failure’s fate! ”
The real problem was every single turn, the boss would sing a full, unabridged song. A single attack took about five minutes to resolve…
“Enough! Make it stop! A few seconds would have been more than enough to get the idea across!” Beelzebub finally snapped. She’d ended up curling up in a fetal position on the floor to suffer through yet another of the boss’s ballads.
“But it wouldn’t make sense for listening to a few seconds of music to deal damage, would it? Plus, this seemed like a perfect chance to stage a little concert,” said the boss—who, by the way, was just Kuku wearing a jet-black dress. She cut an imposing figure, I had to admit, but I wished she’d be just a little quicker about her turns…
Anyway, we managed to beat the boss and got ahold of the item that would let us undo the sages’ barrier.
“It’s finally over… That battle took almost forty minutes on its own,” Beelzebub moaned.
“Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure the time we wasted on that boss fight won’t get acknowledged by the game’s actual story…”
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There was one more item we needed to obtain to get to the sages’ island: a small boat. We traveled back to a craftsman we’d met in a previous town to handle that necessity—the role of the craftsman in question being played by Canimeow the moon spirit.
“I can make you a boat, certainly. However, since I make it a point to only work on nights when the full moon is out, you’ll have to—”
“Hell’s bells, just make it now! We’re in a hurry!”
And just like that, we strong-armed our way into getting a boat immediately.
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Having finally finished off all the quests that were keeping us away from the Sages’ island, it wasn’t long before Pecora, Beelzebub, and I safely made landfall on its shore. Waiting there for us were Smarsly, Moryake the asphalt spirit, and Miyu the dryad.
“Well, at least everyone here actually deserves to be called a sage,” I said. It would’ve been less than convincing if the devs had tasked someone weirdly shallow to play the sage role.
“We’ve been waiting for you, brave heroes,” said one of the sages.
Specifically, Smarsly.
Huh?! It talked?!
“You can talk, Smarsly?!”
“Who is this ‘Smarsly’? That seems like a name fit for a slime, which I certainly am not! I’m simply an ordinary human.”
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“Okay, I know this is just an act, but really? Really…?”