“It’s been three months since the start of the game. What the hell is the protagonist doing?!” I exclaimed in frustration.
If things were progressing as they did in the game, then numerous world events should have happened in these three months, and those events should have had an impact on everyone in the world. But if the Hohoho Hag was to be believed, not a single one had triggered.
Goddamnit! There’s only two years until the evil god revives! If I was the protagonist, by now I would have... I bit my lip in frustration.
After testing everything I could regarding events, there was one thing I’d learned for certain. Only the true protagonist could trigger world events. That was why I hadn’t gone out to try and clear the game’s major events myself these past three months. If you set up conditions to match the start of an event, you could generally forcibly trigger any event. However, there were numerous key events where one of the most important starting conditions was that the true protagonist was there. At least, that’s what I’d discovered from my testing.
One example that should have been easy to trigger otherwise was the stargazing event that was supposed to play out when the true protagonist first entered Freelea’s central plaza. When the true protagonist walks into the plaza, a wrinkled old lady comes up to them and says, “Please! Let me gaze upon your stars!” Then, after looking into the protagonist’s face, she says, “Ooooooh! Y-Your stars...they emit such a radiant light! As if you were the chosen of the Goddess of Light...” After that cryptic statement she staggers off, muttering, “Will that light guide the world to salvation or become the star of shining disaster? Ha ha...ha ha ha!”
It was a pretty quick and relatively straightforward event. Since it happened early on in the game it had left a strong impression on me when I’d been playing, to the point where I’d memorized the old lady’s lines. However, no matter how many times I’d visited the plaza as Rex, no old lady had come up to me. That made sense, since it was the true protagonist the old lady reacted to in that manner, not just anyone. And the true protagonist was this world’s Hero of Light, chosen by the Goddess of Salvation herself. There was no reason for that old lady to react to me, since Rex was just a run-of-the-mill adventurer.
However, that didn’t mean every single event could only be triggered by the protagonist. After all, I’d managed to trigger Lily’s main story event, and it had gone all according to script even though I wasn’t the protagonist. That fit with my theory though, since that event only required someone Lily was close to to go on an adventure with her. It didn’t have to be the actual protagonist. None of the things that made the protagonist special were required to make Lily’s event function properly.
Most world events were different, though. The fact that the protagonist was the Goddess of Salvation’s chosen hero mattered to the scenarios of most world events. Which meant only the protagonist could trigger those.
This had taken me longer than I would have liked to figure out because Bring’s event had happened regardless. In BB the game, Bring showed up before the true protagonist because he was searching for the Hero of Light. Because we’d been the ones to trigger that event, I’d originally thought anyone could trigger any event, including ones that required the protagonist, but now I realized I’d been overlooking an alternative explanation. The condition that actually triggered Bring to show up was clearing a dungeon. He was searching for the protagonist, sure, but searching meant he hadn’t actually found them. In the game, only the protagonist and their party actually cleared any dungeons, which might have been why Radd and the others clearing the Rainbow Lava Caverns had mistakenly triggered Bring’s first appearance.
Well, the specifics don’t matter. What does matter is that for the past three months, the protagonist hasn’t done anything.
The reason I’d been waiting here in Freelea the past few months hadn’t just been to train Radd and the others up as much as possible and recruit who I could. I’d also been waiting to see when the true protagonist would trigger their first world event. Since only the true protagonist could trigger those, that would mean if one happened the protagonist had to be there. Instead of searching blindly for the protagonist, I’d figured it would be smarter to pick a home base and keep an ear out for any rumors that the protagonist was on the move.
But it’s starting to look like I can’t wait any longer.
In the game, if you ignored a world event for too long, it started progressing on its own. Even with the protagonist absent the event’s scenario would play out. For any potential branching paths, the worst one would always be chosen since the protagonist wasn’t there, leading to the worst possible resolution for that event. One of those world events was the ongoing event, “The Vampire of Freelea” which started out at Rose Manor. The reason I’d asked Lily to look into Rose—and the reason I’d started interacting with her myself—was all because of that event.
After what had happened with Lily, I’d been wondering if Rose would also end up different from how she was in the game, but...so far, that hadn’t been the case. Of course, my investigation wasn’t finished, but from what Lily had told me, Rose was exactly the same as she was in the game. Which meant that The Vampire of Freelea event would occur in this world as well. At the very least, I needed to be prepared for it to happen.