Part 46

Hey don't underestimate sunburn.

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At this point of the game, new characters will join with three bars of upgrades in everything. It makes catching them up a lot easier.



Letty also gets the +10 Power boost from Frozen Frogs. Sadly both Cirno and her can only get that boost from one, so I can't equip two frogs and start her off at 120.


Music: What's the Strategy?

Full Text

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Music: To and From a Night Road

This song originally played on a test stage in the FMW3 demo. When the full game came out, I was pretty surprised it only ever plays on this chapter.



I've been hearing some weird rumors about the groundwater heating up down below though...



Find anything on your end, Kisume?

Nope. Nothing unusual anyway. Plenty of places where the ground is hot though.

Maybe they messed up the adjustments down in the Remains of Blazing Hell. Well, how about we stop worrying about it and just head home for the day?

Oh, in that case I found a blocked off old well nearby. Is it okay if I go check it out?

Better not. If it leads to the surface then that'll be nothing but trouble.

!



Right. First we need to check out our surroundings.

L-Look, they're over there!

Yamame, there's a huge ship coming from the surface!

I can see that! And are those surface-dwellers hanging around nearby?!

I guess we got caught right away. And is that youkai the one who-

Yeah, it's the earth spider we were just talking about!

Bridge, come in, can you hear me? We've confirmed several Underworld youkai directly ahead of us!

So how are we getting through this? I still can't tell what they're up to.

Please leave this matter to me.



Yukari gaps out of the ship.

...! Someone came out!

Are you going to try talking to them, Yukari?

Well, we certainly haven't come here to start a war with the Underworld. Moreover, I am acquainted with those youkai. I believe there is room to negotiate.

Sage of the surface, I can't believe you came this far!

It's been quite some time, Earth Spider Yamame Kurodani and Tsurube-otoshi Kisume. We haven't met since spring of last year, but perchance do you remember me?

C-Course we do. It's not every day that we get a visitor like that...

Due to various circumstances, we've come to perform an investigation in the Underworld. We'd like to be let through without any fuss.

Seriously? What could you need THAT many people to investigate?

Currently, an unprecedented amount of vengeful spirits are erupting onto the surface from below ground. We believe that the cause of this lies in the Underworld.

Vengeful spirits on the surface...? First I've heard of that.

Aren't you just using that as a lame excuse to keep an eye on the Underworld?

That is not our intention. As this is a state of emergency, we believe such measures are-



A bunch of enemies crash the party.

!

We're surrounded by hell crows?! And they look angry!

It seems our presence here has provoked the youkai!

You girls just reek of the surface. This was bound to happen. You're not supposed to be here, so why don't you just skedaddle already?!

We're not gonna let you through either!

Ngh, so negotiations broke down...!

...I suppose that leaves us no choice but to fight.

Please deploy, everybody!



It's almost as if we're being rejected out of instinct, rather than through reason.

Of all the nerve... How dare you waltz into the Underworld! I'll give you an Underworld welcome. Enjoy it on your way to the next life!





If you look at the source games, Subterranean Animism is kind of unique since it features a lot on puzzle-type patterns. In order to emulate this, FMW3's version features tricky bonuses and extremely gimmicky bosses.



And get used to seeing paired bosses. There's only five chapters left, after all!

How dare you mere crows attack us crow tengu!

Hey, you. You're in the way so say something already.

...

What?! You're ignoring me?!

Please be careful, hell crows aren't the same as surface crows! They're physically stronger and their favorite food is carrion!

I-I'm opposed to cannibalism!

I wonder, do you think we could use one to dispose of leftovers back at the mansion?

Whaaat? That's a waste of a perfectly good crow~.

This isn't the time to chat, people. Here it comes!

Music: Eternally Blazing Heart



Mokou's Team Attack line for Kaguya: "Why do I have to help YOU?"
Kaguya's Team Attack line for Mokou: "You'd better not disappoint me, Mokou."

These two are pretty snippy with each other!



Komachi is hilariously underleveled, so I'll be having her grab a few kills with her infinite range before actually moving her to the frontlines.



But even she's better off than Nitori, who's forced into her regular form for this chapter.



Appropros of nothing, Letty has a really neat looking shield in this game.



On Normal the grunts are harmless. Magic Team cleans them up without breaking a sweat.

I guess I was naive to think they'd let us through if we explained ourselves.

I suppose this is what Yuuka meant when she was talking about the seeds that had been planted. All sorts of sorrows have piled up here, leaving it full of a strange misfortune.

Why are you talking about it like it's someone else's problem? Isn't that all because you surface youkai forced us down here?

But you're the ones who polluted the river first! Do you even know how much everyone on the mountain has suffered because of tha-

Oh, you're that kappa. Yeah, I don't DO that whole playing nice thing.

...Umm, it doesn't sound like she's going to hear us out. Maybe the surface and Underworld youkai will never get along.

...

But don't you have friends you get along with, Yamame?

Huh? Who're you?

I'm Wriggle, a bug youkai from the surface. On the surface, we bugs get by by helping each other out. If you're a bug youkai too, then I'm sure we-

That's just the opinion of a brat who can't survive without leeching off others.

...!

Where does some know-nothing brat like you get off calling yourself the same as me? How about you stop talking like you know the first thing about us?

I-I... That wasn't...



I was going to record Kaguya's new attack, but then I realized I still haven't shown Mystia's new song yet.

Music: The Romantic Flavor of Westernization


Watch the video!

Midnight Chorus Master buffs the Melee, Range, and Accuracy stats of a single unit by 40. The MAP version cuts the boost in half in exchange for spreading out the buff to more people (though not much, it's range 1). It's pretty great!

There's a special live version on the OST too.

Now that we've closed the distance, I wonder what sort of attack she has in store for us...

A human from the surface? If you had just gotten lost, I would've had a warmer welcome for you, But it's your bad luck that you were traveling with these surface youkai!

Good grief, I knew us coming along could only backfire.

Watch out everyone! Yamame's starting her attack!

Music: Upbeat Spider



Yamame's not much different from FMW2. Just make sure to stay out of her danmaku field, it still drops all of your stats by a decent chunk.

Aren't you one of the humans who slipped into the Underworld the other day? You never learn, do you? Here you are, back in the Underworld.

This time's just special, cause there's an incident happening up on the surface. We're in a rush, so don't get in our way!



As is customary for returning bosses, Yamame starts off with Filled Miasma this time.

This might be the first time I've seen so many surface youkai at once. But even I've gotta fight like Yamame!

Who is this youkai anyway? The avatar of a bucket?

No, she's an extremely terrifying youkai called a Tsurube-otoshi! When you're walking along on dark nights, she'll suddenly fall from above and hit your head.

Th-That IS pretty scary.

Sounds like quite a performance~! Too bad she looks and acts so shy though.

...It sounds like you're not taking me seriously, but I'm an Underworld youkai too! Let your guard down and your head will be feeling it in the morning!



Kisume now has Shield Defense and the Guard skill, so she's much tougher to take down now. If that weren't enough, her initial danmaku field even cuts the damage she receives by 20%!

That was a good~, bath~, ah ah ah~♪.

Huh? What's that song...?

Back on the surface just now, I had a really nice dip in a hot spring. So once you showed up in that bucket, I can't help but sing~. Ah ah ah~♪.

...That sounds kinda wrong.



Ah! Um, well... Hello.

Huh? I mean, hello to you too.

...

...

(What do I do? This is my first time talking to a girl from the Underworld. I'm so nervous...)

(I-It's a fairy from the surface... What should I talk about?)



I'm surprised Dai did more than 10 damage.



Since I already have Yamame on the ropes, I spent a turn weakening Kisume as much as I could.

Loathed by all, driven away from the surface... One wrong step and maybe I would have ended up like you guys.

You mean a human like you has been shunned by other humans? Those surface-dwellers... none of them are innocent, are they?

It's all in the past now, and they had their reasons. I don't blame the modern humans for it.



Oh yeah, I don't have Support Defend on Kaguya yet. Shame on me, expecting to dodge a 27%.



Good thing Mokou can resurrect.



I tried to give Komachi a Cheered/Blessed kill on Kisume, but Shield Defense.



I actually saw that coming though, so I had Eirin nearby to chip in with a Support Attack. Congratulations Komachi, you finally caught up.

Ugh, they're strong...

They even have a youkai in a bucket. The Underworld certainly is an interesting place.

What do you think of taking this bucket back with us, to decorate the mansion with?

It wouldn't match our other decor, so I think something else would be more appropriate.

It's a crazy rare find though, so I bet we could sell it for a lot.

...The Underworlders may be vicious, but the moon crew could give them a run for their money.

But Tewi's an Earth rabbit. And I may be a moon rabbit, but I have the good sense to know tha-

The moon? There are people from the moon up there too?

Indeed. Although until recently we've been hiding ourselves.

Oh, really? I had no idea...

Could it be that you're curious about the surface?

N-No way! We're getting along just fine down in the Underworld.

Who wants to go to the surface when I could hang out here with Yamame?

Looks like they have passionate friendships in the Underworld too.

And that's exactly why we're gonna protect our homes!





Nitori's already said all sorts of things, but I've got my own bone to pick with the earth spiders.

A harvest god? If we've had an effect on you, then it must be-

The river wasn't the only thing you were polluting. The soil itself was getting mucked up too!

This is for all the crops that never grew! This grudge ends here and now!

It takes guts to call out a grudge against an Underworld youkai!



Just one more level, Shizuha!

Hmph. I can see why you're willing to just brazenly march into the Underworld.

What a tough opponent to deal with! Is this the power to manipulate diseases?!

This very danger is why we sealed these youkai in the Underworld. Yamame's abominable power is also one we could never permit on the surface.

That's right, it would be awful if terrible diseases started spreading on the surface.

Now you've said it, surface-dwellers. And here we were, quietly living our lives locked up in the Underworld. Or what, were we supposed to consider you merciful for not completely exterminating us?

Er, nobody said that...

...But Yamame. Do we really have to fight?

You still haven't given up on talking to her, Wriggle?

I just can't think of her as a bad youkai. We're all youkai, so we should be helping each other out...

For the love of- That whole girl scout act of yours makes me sick.

Even if we magically became friends here, do you really think that would change anything between the surface and the Underworld? Besides, the moment you can't handle me, you're just gonna throw me out.

So you're saying that one or two people getting along isn't going to change the situation?

Of course. There's no such thing as hope down here...!

Let me show you just how deep this abyss you're peering into goes!











Well Destructor reduces the damage enemies take in its field by 60% and prevents people from moving through the column in the center. Kandata's Rope cuts Armor and Mobility in half and lowers the damage of all weapons by 500. They're annoying individually, but if the fields happen to overlap this battle gets exponentially harder. So the main trick to this fight is to separate Yamame and Kisume which... isn't very hard on Normal! Seriously, all you have to do is split the army into two fronts and the two will both take the bait.

On Hard/Lunatic, though, Yamame will stick to Kisume's side like glue in order to take advantage of the latter's Support Defend. It takes some creative bait to get them to split up, and then you have to lengthen the gap so their fields don't overlap.



Or, you know, just bomb it.



Well Destructor is just a big old laser beam.



I wanted to be absolutely sure I finished Kisume off this turn, so I had Reimu pop a Zeal.



Didn't need it!



At least she's got Shrine Maiden L7 now. And Yuyuko's caught up too.

Kisume drops an E-Shooter.

Eeek!

Kisume, are you okay?!

Yeah, this bucket is pretty sturdy... But it looks like that's it for me. Sorry Yamame.

Kisume retreats, and with only one spell on the field now my game stops lagging like crazy. Maybe leaving the program running overnight wasn't a very good idea.



Mokou still had a resurrection, so I was like what the hell and dropped a Valored Possessed by Phoenix.

Hey, earth spider! This time you're not walking away with just a few bruises! Even the higher-ups on the mountain told me to watch out for earth spiders!

I haven't broken any of your laws, but fine, whatever.

If you want a fight, then I'm game. Time for round two!



Yamame's new attack starts off with her just swinging the target around,



but then it gets pretty freaky.

Maybe I should just do another new attacks video later.

I remember that face. You're that youkai I fought before.

That's right. At the time, we were just trespassing by accident though...

If we don't do something, then something terrible will happen on the surface. I wonder if you could let us carry out our investigation.

You're asking for sympathy from an Underworlder? You've got a lot to learn, girl!

I tried to have Magic Team cripple Yamame, but they didn't do enough for Wriggle to finish. Probably should have cast Valor instead of Triumph.

Once the fallen leaves rot away, they return to the earth. In a certain sense, doesn't that mean that... they become the Underworld's ceiling?

In a hole this deep, it doesn't matter what they end up as. The world you live in and ours are just too different to compare.

But soil is soil. I'm sure we're sharing it, somewhere...


...Is this an earth spider, then? I want to see it from a bit closer up.

You wanna get closer? You're one reckless human. It'd be a piece of cake to take down a scrawny girl like you with a little diseas-

No need to worry. I can't stand suffering, but I've got Eirin.

...And what's that supposed to mean? Is everyone up there a little crazy these days?



Well whatever, the Akis and Hourai Doll can handle it.

Kaguya/Mokou's team name is a reference to one of ZUN's music CDs, if you were wondering.

Oh, that firefly youkai from before. Thanks for the sermon, brat.

S-Sorry about that. I just suddenly started saying whatever popped into my head.

But I really do feel like I want us to protect each other, as fellow bug youkai.

Hm... Protecting your buddies, huh? Let me ask you something. Do you know how earth spiders are born?

Um, no... How?

See, you really don't know a single thing about me. So it doesn't even matter if we're buddies or not, what you're spouting's nothing but tired ideals.

If you got that, then shut up and get out of my face!

Music: -Fixed Star- Twinkling Rigel



And that's a wrap. Yamame drops another Live Ticket, which is great! Who knows how she got it, though.

Ugh! Well, I guess I AM up against the youkai sage...!

Yamame!

If Kisume was defeated, she'll respawn and run to Yamame's side. If she wasn't, she'll drop her spell and do the same.

...Trying to stall for time against the surface youkai might not have been my best decision.

You did well, but our teamwork pulled through in the end.

You know, you've been ranting about the surface this and the Underworld that, but none of that stuff matters to us.

Here's the deal: it's the humans' job to exterminate you if you do anything nasty.

...Plus, I'd like this to be the last time we fight.

Are you trying this again? You're wasting your breath. The rift between the surface and the Underworld won't allow that sort of-

Maybe, but you'll never know if don't TRY. I don't know what's going to happen in the future, and you don't either.

The... future?

You can say that, but have you even considered what comes next?

...Fine, whatever, do what you like. We fought, you won, so I'm not gonna get in the way of this "investigation" of yours or whatever.

Thank you very much. In that case, we'd like to ask a few questions about the vengeful spirits.

Which place in the Underworld seems like it would have spirits popping out of it?

No clue. All I know is that nothing strange has been happening around here. Vengeful spirits don't really hang out near the entrance anyway.

Is that so? I suppose we'll need to proceed deeper in then.

Then, have you heard anything about any kind of spirit incident, or about anyone manipulating the spirits?

That's not ringing a bell either. How about you, Kisume?

I don't know anything either, but if you wanna know about spirits then you should ask someone at the Palace of Earth Spirits. They handle all of the spirit management stuff...

...So it came to the Palace of Earth Spirits after all.

We should get moving then. This is no time to relax.

While we may have had a good reason, I'd still like to apologize to you two for trespassing in the Underworld.

Didn't I tell you to do whatever you want? Sounds like you were telling the truth about that spirit problem too.

It'll get even more dangerous up ahead. Good luck.

Thanks for the warning. Shall we get going then?

The party goes back on their way.



Those youkai weren't as bad as I expected.

You too, Kisume? They were surface-dwel-

Yeah, but it didn't seem like they hated us or anything. The firefly girl was talking like she wanted us to be better friends in the future.

...Her. As cheeky as she sounded, her eyes were serious.

I never thought I'd hear someone seriously talk about the future of the surface and the Underworld.

...Maybe the surface youkai are a bit different from how they used to be.

I don't know about that, but why don't we keep an eye on what they're up to?

This is only the first floor of the Underworld. How do they plan to resolve this spirit incident of theirs?



The writing team apparently focused on getting the boss convos for the SA portion done first, because they were all in the early .dats. Clarste translated every possible convo this chapter, so I put the unused ones up here.

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Like I mentioned earlier, the AI improvements make the biggest difference on Lunatic. You need to separate Kisume or Yamame, or drop a bomb and kill one off immediately. Otherwise their danmaku effects will double team and cripple your characters. Yamame will also spam Faith a lot, but she usually wastes it on a grunt.

I guess it's worth noting that Kisume has Ignore Size on Lunatic?

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It's a shame we didn't have the luxury to try out the hot spring at the shrine~.

Circumstances are circumstances. Back then, so many vengeful spirits came gushing out that there was simply no way we could do that.

In that case, how about we try disguising ourselves next time?

Go incognito? And just the two of us, at tha-

Not a chance!

Did ya really think we'd-

-let you just do that?!

What is it THIS time?!

As soon as I heard about the hot springs, I just HAD to take some photos!

I wanted to try drinking the water!

I heard from Tewi that it feels great!

Where did they all spring out from...? More importantly, no photos allowed.

Yuyuko, don't tell me you still want to go with everyone here?

Hmmm, I suppose that would be a problem...

Supposedly, drinking hot springs water is great for hygiene!

That's quite the bath.

True enough.