Dark Fantasy Normalized

[Title: Suddenly Feeling Existential]
Content:
Why are most of the bosses in this game all these “unfortunate victims who were just living their lives before everything fell apart”?

Can’t we just have simple ones like “This jerk totally deserves to die,” or “This guy’s asking for it,” or “Fight me, coward”?

Or at least let us save them before it’s too late, for crying out loud.

• Reply: Seriously, showing us their tragic backstory makes it worse.

• Reply: Backstory? Hmm...

• OP: Bro, if they’re that simple, then you be the boss instead.

• Reply: No point in completing destiny quests; everything’s already gone to hell.

• Reply: So how do you even get a happy ending in this game? All destiny quests complete?

• Reply: But the quests lock you into specific paths, so full completion’s not possible.

• Reply: Hypothetically, maybe they could make a DLC set in the past where all the quests are bundled into one route and you clear it that way.

• Reply: Nah, it’s gotta be more like stopping the destiny quests before they even start.

• OP: Oh, like grabbing the Death Knight and True Ancestor by the leash before they lose it?

• Reply: Exactly.

• Reply: Not a bad idea.

• Reply: But bundling all those destiny quests into one route would be wild.

• Reply: LOL, imagine destiny quests popping up like event quests nonstop.

• Reply: So what, for a happy ending you’d need to:

1. Convince the Dark Elf.
2. Tame the True Ancestor.
3. Talk down the Mad Priestess and send her back to the World Tree.
4. Negotiate with the anti-spirit biophobe.
5. Stop the necromancer, cure the Assassin Master’s illness, and return him to the guild.
6. Prevent the Dark Elf noble’s corruption in the northern district of Bondales.
7. …Something about the World Tree.

• Reply: Why am I out of breath just reading this?
• Reply: Did your keyboard get a garlic breath buff or something?
• OP: Even if they made a happy-ending route, it’d be so hard I wouldn’t clear it anyway.

[A Basement in Bondales]

In the dimly lit basement of a mansion in Bondales, a dark-skinned girl and a pale woman faced each other in stark contrast—
a Dark Elf and a human.
A master and a slave.

“Master… I have something to report…”

The slave’s voice trembled, as did her exposed body.
Her bare back was prostrated on the cold stone floor, like an open canvas.

Etched onto that back was a red scar, the mark of her enslavement.

As long as that scar existed, the slave could not defy her master.

Splash!
Cold water was suddenly poured over her frail body.

Her torso jerked involuntarily against the stone floor, but she quickly suppressed the movement.
Breaking her posture would lead to a punishment far worse than being drenched in freezing water while naked in a cold basement.

All she could do was let her body tremble violently, her breath ragged and shaky.

• Level: 41
• Race: Dark Elf

• Level: 61
• Race: Dark Elf