Part 60: 6/25: Math Is Power

Part 59: 6/25: Math Is Power

Next on our agenda is navigating this massive repository of vaults. This should also be the last update with interference from Ari, thankfully.

...I also fixed the portraits.

Music: Price (Another Version)




PIN…? So is this gonna open one of the vaults?
Hm, there’s something written above the number pad on here. “RICH”… This is disgusting. How obsessed can one man be with his money?
Wait, there might be something more than that! Do you think this is connected to that journal…?

You know what? This is fine. This is just my life now.



See? It has all of the letters in the word “RICH”!
Huh. That might be worth a try. Can you do it, Joker?



We will leave it to you. The Treasure may be beyond here.
If you get confused, just take a look at Kaneshiro’s journal. It’s among our belongings.

This just means “go check your Key Items in case you forget the clue.”



This may be worth trying out. Joker, can you do it?




R=C=0, I=1, and H=2, huh?




Simple. Ari seems to have gotten this remarkably quickly, even if it’s not terribly complex. Good for him, though he didn’t seem to write any commentary about it. ...Weird.




The vault rotates, placing a gap in front of us.



So my deduction may be correct...



As long as I’m rich, anything will be possible...
That voice… It’s Kaneshiro! Is he watching us!?
That doesn’t seem to be the case. It sounds more like the voice of his heart… I guess all he really thinks about is money, after all.
So he blackmails people outta their savings and that’s still not enough? What a douche…
More importantly, the message in the journal was the PIN code!
Yes, it seems so… but I doubt it will be that easy from this point forward. The rest of the pages were torn out of the journal. Who knows what clues they may hold...
Well, let’s not get pessimistic. We should look around and try to find some other clues. Time to head further in and find those PINs!




The only option now is to head further into the vault.



This is Rakshasa. It’s weak to Physical and Bless and loves knocking the shit out of you with Physical strikes.



Along the way, Ryuji gains Bad Beat, a Medium Physical skill that strikes all enemies with a low chance of inflicting Despair. It’s pretty good, because Despair is fucking broken.



Inside this pig, we find a torn page. Sadly, this will not send us to Winnie the Pooh land, but it’s useful nonetheless.

Hm? There’s a note here… It says “P=I.”
...The hell’s that supposed to mean?
Wait, the edge of it is torn. Maybe it came from Kaneshiro’s journal?
Oh, so it’s the continuation of the code we found in there! This should be useful!



Further in, we find another one.

Hm? There’s a note here… It says “E=9 A=3.”
It seems to be the same as the one we found earlier. The edge here is frayed as well.
Perfect! The more hints we find, the closer we get to solving the code. Come on, let’s hurry over to the input machine!



And here’s the next panel.



Reap? Isn’t that like, to harvest? Why would he have that as a password…?
That man sees people as walking ATMs… He must think of collecting money from them as a harvest.
Kaneshiro is truly rotten to the core...
If this is the same kind of thing as before, the hints should help us find the password, right?
We’ll see about that. Why don’t we check the information we have on hand?



So we just have to make “REAP” into numbers like before, right?
Yes, if we can decode the hints.



REAP is only slightly more complicated.. We already know R is 0. Adding on top of that, we know E and A are 9 and 3, respectively. Finally, P is equal to I, which was 1. Together, that gives us 0931.



Ari solves another one, in no time at all. And he’s still silent. Great!




All right, it worked!



Don’t gimme your excuses. Just go reap every last penny!
This voice again...
I’ll make you understand if you don’t get it… People who can’t earn money are worthless to me!
He’s completely distorted...
It looks like he really believes money is more important than human life… What a pitiful man.
Yeah… Let’s finish this quick. The door’s prolly opened up, so we should head back and check it out.
What do you think, Joker? Should we go straight over to the vault?




This is the second one… I wonder how many more there are…
I’m sure we’ll find out as we go. Let’s keep moving to our next one!




The next floor of the vault is covered with impassable gates of electricity.



To bypass them, we’re forced to climb up and around.



From there, we can jump across the shelves to proceed.



We use our second (and last) Lockpick on this chest, which contains a new revolver for Makoto.



It’s a rather dramatic improvement.



This is the same kind of note as before… It says “U=A.”
It’s just like the other codes we’ve been picking up. I think that’ll be a hint!



Aw yeah, another note. If I’m readin’ it right, it says “G=P.”
OK, we have one more hint than before. Let’s keep it up!



It says “HUGE,” you moron! Can you even read?

Don’t make fun of Ryuji’s illiteracy. It’s not nice.

So we’ll need to transpose this one into numbers too. I hope we can do it with the hints we have...



This one’s the third PIN. Uhhh… what’s the word again?
Ugh, it’s “HUGE”! As in, you’re a HUGE idiot! Anyway, this can be made into a number too, right?
I hope it’s not too difficult.



This one isn’t really any tougher than the last. U=A and G=P means 3 and 1, respectively. H is still 2 and E is still 9, giving us 2319.



...I’ve got a confession to make. It’s not that Ari just mysteriously stopped writing commentary. I know the reason.



I had to piece a lot of it together and ask him and my mother for the rest, but it seems that halfway through doing god-knows-what to my beautiful portraits Ari decided he would try to freak me out as payback for yelling at him. He wanted to replace one of the images with a flashing picture of a T-Rex because he heard I didn’t like Jurassic World very much (though he seems to have misinterpreted and thought I found it scary instead of just tedious). Anyway, during his Google Search he ran across this image:



And now he’s had nightmares for the past few days. He’s just been in no mood to ruin this LP, and probably won’t be again for a good, long while. In light of this, I’ve decided to take the notebook he used to write down various notes about the rest of this update and try to transcribe his thoughts as accurately as I can.



Well then, we should keep--



”Hitler-man is weird and pathetic.”

On that, we can agree.

What now?
I’m done having other people walk all over me… It’s my turn now…
He is beyond redemption… It seems he cares not for those he tramples upon himself.
Every step we take just keeps strengthening my resolve. Let’s push onward.
Wanna go back to the vault then?




This movement… There can be no doubt.
Hm? Did you notice something?



Wh-What do you mean…? Can you explain that a little more…?
The cylinder is the mechanism that judges if a key is the proper shape. If you use the correct key and all the discs align, the lock opens.
Now that you mention it, while the walls rotate, the path forward has remained facing the same way...
So you’re saying the whole floor is just one giant lock…?
That’s right. All the smaller vaults in here aren’t important. There has to be an area further in, locked away by the room itself.
And that’s where the Treasure’s gotta be! Sweet, let’s get goin’!



Up ahead, we run into another boss Shadow.

Look, behind it!



It seems like we’ll have to take it down to move on… Are you ready for this, Joker?




Well, Mr. Kaneshiro ordered me to absolutely not let anyone past this point. Accept your death!



”He ain’t got no arms!” is what it says here. I assume it’s talking about this, anyway.

Defeated Avenger

Music: Keeper of Lust



This guy is weak to Psi, and accompanied by two Oni, who we should have little trouble dealing with at this point.

Music: Price (Another Version)



I guess that’s why the Shadow was protecting it?
It doesn’t seem to require any keys, but there are buttons on the left and right of the box...
There must be a reason that thing was guarding it. Let’s try and figure out why.




The vault rotates, revealing… a dead end. So, that’s a bust. Let’s try the left button.





The vault rotates once more, placing the gap right next to us. Let’s see what it revealed.



Another panel, of course.





This time, the gap is where the dead end was last time.



Pushing the right button again reveals the path forward. Time to head down into yet another vault.



We don’t have a Lockpick for this chest, but we’ll make note of it for later.



We run into a normal version of the Take-Minakata from earlier, though it’s a fair bit above our level, preventing us from being able to acquire it.



Morgana learns Diarama, finally catching him up to Makoto in terms of healing output. Media’s pretty much garbage in battle right now due to our much, much larger health pools, so for most tough situations we’ll want both of them.



Ryuji also learns Assault Dive, a Heavy Physical strike. Not quite as good as Yusuke’s Rising Slash (especially because Yusuke currently has stat superiority) but enough to catch him up most of the way.

“I wanna be a pirate!”



Finally, Makoto learns Energy Shower, an amazingly useful skill that cures Confuse, Fear, Rage, Despair, and Brainwash on the entire party. Considering these are some of the more debilitating status effects, it’s great to have good ways to get rid of them, especially on the entire party.



Another pig, another note.

This note is a new one. It says “L = U + G, D=G”

Oh… Oh no.

Ugh, it’s like, algebra or something! I’m getting confused…

”I don’t… algebra? What?”

This is bad. Math isn’t Ari’s strongest subject, and it’s a little early to be introducing him to substituting variables.

Panther… This is really just simple addition...

Yeah, Mona’s right. I’m… I’m sure it’ll be fine.



Hm, there’s a note here… It says “O+H=10.”
So we’re getting into calculations now… Good grief.

I’m starting to worry that this game’s rating being Mature is actually because it contains copious amounts of math. Hopefully Ari manages to figure this out.



We have to backtrack a bit and climb up on top of the shelves to access a vent leading us to the keypad this time.



I’d expect it’s the same pattern we’ve followed so far. We’ll need to decode that word into numbers.
I believe you’re correct. I only hope we can do so with the hints we currently have on us.



The code this time is “GOLD.” Wanna give it a try?



Okay, so U+G = L, so L is 4 (3+1). D is just G, so that’s 1 as well. Finally, O + H = 10, which means that if we subtract H (2) from 10, we get O, which is 8.

Simple enough. Let’s see how Ari did from his notes.



Oh jeez.





The last vault moves aside and an elevator pops out of the ground.




Again?
This… This is the fruit of all my hard labor!
He thinks robbin’ people is something to celebrate? That guy needs to get his brain checked...
With this much, I will be invincible! Omnipotent! I’ve changed… I’m no longer the person I used to be…
The person he used to be…? What could have happened to make him so distorted…?
I don’t know, but no matter what kind of past he had, his actions are unforgivable.
That’s right. Now, if my deductions are accurate, that should’ve been the final mechanism.
All right then. Let’s head back and check out the vault! We know where it is, so going back should be easy. What do you think, Joker?




You’re like some kinda prophet, Queen...
It’s mostly thanks to that notebook. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that. More importantly, did you hear all those things Shadow Kaneshiro was saying?
Oh yeah, I was wondering about that! Didn’t he seem kinda… insecure or something?
Exactly. He kept bringing up how rich and powerful he wants to be.
So if he’s insecure about that shit… he thinks he’s really just some poor weakling, huh?
Maybe by thinking he was going to be a strong, wealthy man, he convinced himself it was true.
I wonder… Well, we will discover the truth for ourselves when we change his heart. Let us hurry, Joker.




I don’t see anything.

Doesn’t look like anything to me.

From here on we’re gonna need this callin’ card thing.



Making the target believe that the Treasure is in danger will cause it to materialize. That’s quite a bold trick.
Huh? She understood?
Joker, we’ll defer to you regarding its timing.
OK guys, let’s get ready for the heist!



In the end, that Kaneshiro only showed his stupid face once...
That doesn’t matter. As long as we steal the Treasure, we’ll change his heart.
Then let’s act as the Phantom Thieves should and send the calling card. It’s on you, Joker.
If you wish to train or explore further before sending it, that decision is purely yours.

Music: Aria of the Soul



Next up, we head back to the Velvet Room, because we can fuse Flauros using a Group Guillotine. It requires Andras, Eligor, and Berith, with Eligor supplying the Tarukaja we need.




I shall become a fiery mask of thine, with my powers to see the past and future...



Flauros is one of the 72 demons of the Goetia, who can see the past and future (but will always lie about them) and control fire.



This presence… I see. As we requested, you have brought us a Flauros with the skill Tarukaja.
*chuckle* Very well… Your assignment’s done.

...Huh, guess he didn’t get back to these before seeing the cursed image. Lucky me.



True… I guess we’ve gotta at least admit that. Your Personas are starting to get pretty damn strong too.
…… Is fostering Personas… truly rehabilitation?
What’re you saying that for?
It is… merely a thought I had. Will the inmate truly be rehabilitated if we help cultivate power within him…?
Keep it together, Justine. This is the job our master ordered us to do. Or… are you gonna try and disobey your orders?
That is not what I meant...
Don’t worry yourself too much over one measly prisoner. All we gotta do is get the most out of his wild card thing, and make him work hard at his tasks.



The wild card...
What is it now?
The more I consider this list, the stranger it seems. Its writer must have known that the one carrying out these tasks would possess the power of the wild card…
You’ve gotta be kidding me. How would somebody know that?
……
I mean, even our master didn’t know the inmate had that wild card thing before we met him!




Hmph. Either way, this’ll all get resolved if you just hurry up and finish your rehabilitation already! Justine, give him his next task so he’ll quit talking back!
...Very well. It seems that it is time for us to be serious.
I feel like my bond with Caroline and Justine is growing deeper...



As previously mentioned, here is the second task you must complete before receiving your reward.



You only need speak with us once you obtain it. We will be able to tell.
Go work up a sweat, Inmate!





And just like that, Kaneshiro’s Palace is done. All that’s left is to send the calling card and steal the Treasure.

We finally secured our route to the Treasure! All we need to do now is send the calling card.
Indeed… We have finished the prearrangements, and now we shall face the true test. But this is no time to panic, Joker. Let us ensure we succeed after having come so far.

Music: Beneath the Mask



I have to agree. The earlier the better in my book.
There is no assurance he will keep his promise, after all. What are your thoughts on the matter, Makoto?



I have nothing to say here, it’s just that I keep breaking down laughing at the thought of the phrase “nasty crimes.”

Hm, calm as always. Well, we’ll leave it up to you.
We’ll be ready to go whenever you are!



No villain can withstand the power of girls’ night! Revive and fight, Phoenix Rangers! Next episode… “I want a Love So Strong, It’d Bring Me Back from the Dead!”

I was moderately into Power Rangers in my formative years so seeing this stuff always gives me a chuckle. Anyway, I’m finally free from the diabolical clutches of my ten-year-old brother. I can’t wait for this LP to be boring again. Next time!