Part 37: Shangri-La, Wrong Endings, Part 1
Shangra-La has a whopping eight Wrong Endings. This update will cover the first four.Shangri-La - Wrong End 1






While in control of Mitsuki and Fukuroi, we choose to help the red soul with his head problem.



First things first, we head to the reference room.

It looks to be a bucket, probably used by the custodian for mopping the floors. There's nothing inside.

Take the bucket
Acquired [Bucket]
It's old and rusted, but it still seems sturdy enough.
Sound Effect: Item

After collecting the bucket, we head down to the entranceway.
Music: Unrest (B)

A decomposed human cranium occupies the top-left cubby on this shelf. Based on what's left of its facial features and the cut of its hair, this was likely a male middle school student.


Simply standing in the presence of this severed head was turning my stomach. The foul stench of decay was absolutely overpowering. Even in this low light, I could easily see maggots crawling through his eye sockets, his nose, his mouth, all over his skin... They were everywhere.




Try it






The maggots, sensing that something was amiss, suddenly began pouring out of its various sockets and climbing all over their new rusted metal home.



After collecting the head, we're automatically brought back to the spirit.
Music: Elegy










Music: None

Sound Effect: Whoosh






There was a chill in the air, both literally and figuratively. The smell that wafted about was both musty and...gloomy, somehow.



His eyes were wide open, but he gave no response. Looking a bit closer, I noticed that his neck had been severely twisted. He was staring right at me, but his body was facing the other direction. And his half-agape jaw was completely motionless. He wasn't breathing.
Music: A Pitch Black Room




Wait here
Video: Shangri-La - Wrong End 1


The footsteps drew closer and closer, and then finally, the figure making them came into view.








Sound Effect: Smash
Music: Wrong End

Video: Shangri-La - Wrong End 1 ends here.
I like how succinct this ending is. Yoshikazu just wordlessly brings down his hammer, and that's the end. No drawn-out death scene, no cackling and mocking from Sachiko, just immediate death.
Shangri-La - Wrong End 2
Music: A Pitch Black Room

Back on the route to the first Wrong End, we instead choose to run.


First time I played this chapter, I agreed to help the spirit and got stuck into these endings. I chose to run, then reloaded the save and said "Oh, Taguchi will help me out!"
And then it was Yoshikazu.











Mitsuki follows Sachiko deeper into the labyrinth.






Sachiko pushes Mitsuki into the nearby room.
Video: Shangri-La - Wrong End 2



I couldn't decide if it looked more like a pre-war medical facility or a meat processing plant. The stench was overpowering. Not only was the smell of rotting flesh everywhere, but the air was stale and thick. The room seemed to have no ventilation to speak of whatsoever. My eye was first drawn to the blood-spattered table, then to the many other instruments, all stained with dried blood and sprinkled liberally with viscera. And then I saw it, in the back of the room.


What I saw was literally a pile of human remains, every one of them flayed open or torn apart. It was almost like a stack of discarded butcher scraps.







Music: Serious





The large man seemed intent on obeying Sachiko's every command. He drew near me, slowly and robotically. There was no emotion, no sense of urgency...just a man walking across the room to do his job, like it or not. I have to run! If he catches me, I'll be...!



The man's movements remained slow and evenly paced, but there were only so many places to flee in a room this small. If I got tired before he did, I'd be finished. My only hope was to get out into the hall before that happened. The two of us glared at one another for a few moments from across the dissection table, and then as soon as he made his move, I leaped on top of it.

I'd underestimated just how slippery the table might be, with its thick layer of blood and fat. I quickly spilled off the other side onto the floor. My legs and hind-quarters were soaked through with the blood of an untold number of other people, but I didn't have time to think about that. Adrenaline gave me the strength to stick my landing and I managed to keep running without skipping a beat.

I was in the home stretch! For a couple more steps, anyway.


A sharp pain suddenly shot through my leg as it touched the ground. I immediately fell into a heap.

My right leg was now firmly impaled with thick, sharp metal spikes. I'd been caught in an old-fashioned bear trap. The kind that's got two rows of metal shark teeth lined up on either side, instantaneously snapping shut as soon as any weight is applied in the middle. The thing was designed to catch bears and tigers. So what hope did a human have of escaping it?
Where did Sachiko get a bear trap? Did a poacher come into Heavenly Host to hunt bears or something???




It was the only thing left for me to do. I was out of options.
Music: None
Sound Effect: Crack

The man's foot came down hard on my left leg. It immediately contorted unnaturally and went limp, and I could see a pointed shard of bone jutting out from a bloody hole in my sock.

Next, the man wrapped both my arms in chains.

As he pulled on the chains, my leg muscles also tightened -- around sharp metal spikes and a compound fracture. The pain was literally unbearable. In my half-unconscious, agony-addled state, I was just barely aware of being raised into the air by my arms on some sort of pulley system.




Sachiko began approaching me, with a broken-off shard of an earthenware pot in her hands. No... God, no... No, no, no, no, no...
Sound Effect: Peel

An intense pain shot through my entire face. An undiluted, primal scream escaped my mouth unwittingly, as if I were throwing up blood. But not a living soul was around to hear it. There was absolutely no way for me to resist anymore. All I could do was lie limply, strung up along the wall, and feel my skin getting peeled away. Sometime amongst the throbbing, shooting, burning, electric agony coursing through every nerve ending, overseen by the girl's sneer, I lost consciousness.
The very last thing I saw before lapsing into eternal slumber...was a familiar strip of skin being flapped about merrily in Sachiko's hands.

Music: Wrong End

Video: Shangri-La - Wrong End 2 ends here.
Remember that thing I said about the first wrong end being succinct? You know, how I praised it for not being really drawn out with Sachiko gleefully cackling through the entire thing?
Though to be honest, listening to the sound effects while Mitsuki describes her face being peeled off makes me really uncomfortable, so I guess the ending does its job.
Shangri-La - Wrong End 3

While in the girls' room as Mitsuki and Fukuroi, we choose to peek into the small hole in the bathroom stall.
Video: Shangri-La - Wrong End 3



...and saw the telltale glint of another eye staring back at me from within.




Fukuroi ducked down and peeked in through the hole, exactly as I had.



On closer inspection, I noticed a round hole in the lens, as if a small stick or a fat needle had been instantaneously driven through it deep into his eye.


There was no hint of a response. He just kept subtly convulsing, as if he'd been electrocuted. How had this happened? What was going on?!
???: Boys aren't allowed in the girls' room.


The stall door opened, revealing a little girl with an eerie blue glow about her. She looked to be around grade-school age. A fifth or sixth-grader, maybe. One of her eyes had been completely pulverized, but her face showed no indication of pain. Rather, it had a certain stoic quality to it. It was unreadable. Most disturbing of all, however, was the object she held in her right hand. It was an awl or an icepick or some such thing...with a bloody, dripping blade.



Before I even had a chance to answer, the girl leaped from the stall with blinding speed.

Sound Effect: Splort

Reacting as quickly as I could, I threw my arm in front of my face, and almost immediately felt the icepick blade pierce right into it.
Sound Effect: Splort
Not just once, but twice...three times...
Sound Effect: Splort
It dug deep into my arm...my palm...my shoulder...
Sound Effect: Splort

I had to run. But she wasn't about to let me. She just quietly kept hacking away, working her way up and down the entire length of my arm. Bit by bit my skin and flesh was chipped away, until finally the icepick completely penetrated my palm and began boring into my cheek. Eventually, my ear was hacked apart, and then I was scalped -- so thoroughly that I could hear the sound of my skin peeling away with my remaining ear.

My vision was blank. And I honestly couldn't tell if it's because I had my eyes closed...or if I simply didn't have eyes anymore. I only knew for sure that I was still being hacked apart because I could hear it. The pain gave no indication, as it was already omnipresent. I begged for mercy several times in vain before I finally just started praying that this agony would come to an end. God, please... I'll endure whatever trials lie ahead with open arms if you'll just save me now. I beg of you...please...make it stop...
Music: Wrong End

Video: Shangri-La - Wrong End 3 ends here.
I'm going to assume the ice pick went all the way through Fukuroi's eye and into his brain, because I don't think simply having an eye stabbed would send a person into convulsions like that.
Shangri-La - Wrong End 4
Music: Oddity

While in control of Morishige, we choose to go into the hole to get Mayu's ID, instead of persisting with our makeshift fishing rod.


As long as I proceeded slowly and cautiously, I thought, I'd be fine. First things first, I needed to figure out how deep this gap went.

My height is 178 centimeters, so with arms outstretched, I'd be about two meters or so. Which meant if I grabbed onto the ledge with my hands and lowered myself down, I'd only have another two meters to fall. And that seemed entirely reasonable. It was notably less of a drop than one would face when jumping from a second-story veranda, for example.

A little stacking could easily give me a meter and a half of extra height, I thought. And that should get me plenty close to the edge of the hole. I'd probably be able to reach it and grab on with just a single jump!

The screen fades out, and Morishige tosses desks and chairs into the pit.

Video: Shangri-La - Wrong End 4
This video covers the remainder of the update.


Well, at least I could finally find out what the item was that I'd seen from above.

In fact, it seemed to be a Kisaragi Academy student ID!

There were a considerable number of dead bodies down here with me. Most of them were full-on skeletons who seemed like they'd been here for ages, but a handful of them looked like they may have just died a few hours ago.

I briefly scanned the bodies of the departed in the dim, unnatural light that filtered in from above, and found one that was wearing very familiar clothes. This was definitely the uniform of Kisaragi Academy High School. I was horrified. Mayu...please, tell me it's not you!

Music: None
Both of Ayumi Shinozaki's eyes were wide open...but she wasn't looking at anything in particular. Those eyes weren't seeing anything at all anymore.

Music: Despair














Music: Wrong End

I really like this ending. But then, I like every scene where Morishige completely loses his goddamn mind. His voice actor just sells it so well

Anyway, that's the end of this update. Tune in next time for the other four Wrong Endings!