The calendar in this world had 12 lunar months per year, but the anime skipped over chronological inconsistencies in the story a lot (even if you ignored the completely unnecessary time travel subplot) and the years were counted according to kings and emperors, so it was always “year seven of Suleiman The First” or “year twenty of Emperor Tze”.

The lack of clear seasons didn't help with keeping track of time. Some areas changed between summer and autumn, and going north, there were territories with constant winter. In a game, you needed different environments and randomized fogstorms for variety, but the strange weather phenomena seemed to exist here as well. This coastal area was one of the constantly cloudy and misty areas in-game, and looking at the light clothes and equipment of the gang kids, the weather probably stayed always the same.

Exact calendar months aside, where were the seven main characters at this point in campaign timeline?

If this really was about three years before the start of the Inner School sub-arc, then it should be one or two years before the first scene of the first anime episode.

If I work backwards from that assumption, re-route in reverse starting from final boss...

Mirim is still a mining slave at the Wineep dungeon. I need to free her, but I need help for that. I don't want Mirim to die, but depending on circumstances, it might be inevitable to trigger her death. She might not take orders from me, though – in the anime she only followed Rainwoman. Well, Mirim doesn't care about people enough to kill them without a good reason, so she is not dangerous to keep around in that sense. Everything else being equal, Mirim should be a flag that stays in the same place until I intervene.

Rainwoman and Sorry Man, then. They are still at the Bone Dune Station, the secret research facility in Reignland. I should probably free them first, and then free Mirim, but that's more easily said than done. I know the location of the station, but I need serious firepower to help them out of there. Rain and Sorry are required flags; I can't get inside the Starfish Mansion without Sorry Man and I really need to make sure that Rainwoman doesn't get addicted to battle drugs like in the anime. She is violent, vengeful and short-tempered even without drugs, but I should be able to manipulate her using her two obsessions: hate for Caliph Tze and love for Sorry Man.

Then, to get that firepower: Crystal Pencil and Dragon Kimono. They should be relatively close here in the south coast of Ur, probably starting their weapon dealing business. Are they already at Crumbling Shores, the next big city southward? They were there in the flashback episode, but it's hard to pin down where that episode lands in the timeline... Crys and Kimono are required flags as well, and since they are closest in time and space, I should find them first and somehow convince them to travel to the Mu continent to free Rainwoman and Sorry Man...

Yeah. I can just tell them to follow me, a complete stranger, to a completely different continent to help Rainwoman, another complete stranger. Easy!

...Should I just straight up tell Crystal Pencil everything about myself to gain his trust? Crystal Pencil is a cold-blooded murderer from the start, but he doesn't kill people suddenly without a reason, and even protects people he finds useful.

Criminals in times of peace, heroes in times of war – that adage seemed to be the central theme for the main characters.

And that was also one of the main criticisms of the series: all the main characters were volatile lunatics resolving idiot plots. Granted, there were in-universe reasons for most of that – Rainwoman was a junkie, Crys and Kimono were semi-psychopaths, the twins were raised in a dungeon by a piece of wood, and so on – but fuzzy backstory excuses hardly solved the relatability problem.

In other words, to be able to enjoy the Mu-Ur franchise, you had to either have a strange taste in entertainment, try to watch it as a fantasy farce instead of dark fantasy drama it aimed to be, create house rules for marathoning the anime, or start speedrunning the game. Since the effort bar and enjoyment bar were not on equal level, there were not that many people willing to do that.

All that aside, if I'm useful to Crystal Pencil, I can make a contract with him, sidestep the erratic murderhobo lifestyle and stay alive as a support character.

I'm a very useful guy, right? I know what happens in the future, after all. I can tell Crys about his insomnia and what medicine to use before he stays awake too long and starts hallucinating.

I know the important characters, I know what they want, I know which NPCs can be trusted... with the caveat that everything is and stays the same; small butterfly effects can grow into tornadoes or prevent tornadoes. Me materializing in this world has probably changed things already.

But based on what I've seen, this world is close enough that my Canon Knowledge is a real advantage. I know tons of secrets: the dungeon rooms that everyone needs to stay out of, the tunnel leading up to the fortress, the old cemetery where the treasure is hidden.

Collect 100% treasures and unlock the special ending? I have maps of both overworld and underworld in my head. I know where to find over-technology left by the Strangers... although the safety of those items is questionable in a non-game world. If they can be obtained, and if they can be used safely here, they count as cheat items already.

And Rainwoman, Sorry Man and Mirim are basically living cheats, if they have their powers and abilities for real.

Yes, they'll surely recognize my usefulness. I keep my sponsors alive with my knowledge and they keep me alive with their powers and skills. Perfect plan: I'll take a potato chip and eat it!

Speaking of butterflies and tornadoes, where were the side-characters Self-Destruction Dance and Test Subject at this point in the story? It wasn't explained in detail in the anime, but they should be on the southern Ur continent at least. I could find them with Crystal Pencil's help, so Crys should be the first main character to contact, no?

Yes, Crystal Pencil is the closest and safest bet to start with at this point.

I should probably stick to contacting main characters because they have the strongest plot armor.

Back to basics, Qwerty-boy. Just hit the required triggers in optimal order, no need for risky strats.

Start run → Crys and Kimono → Dancer and Test Subject → Dynamite → Rainwoman and Sorry Man → Mirim → Starfish Mansion → Ivorythief and Reavertooth → kill final boss → good ending.

Okay, rough preliminary routing done. Current objective: Survive and find Crystal Pencil.

...However, Crys needs to experience the crime lord event first because that event gives him the idea to start the Resistance Gang of False War, which later becomes the Revolution Movement. But has that event happened yet? He was around 15 years old when it happened in a flashback, and around 18 years old at the start of the anime series. If Crys is around 15-16 now, he should be already over it.

That should simplify things considerably since it puts us immediately on the same page about killing Suleiman and Caliph Tze. Only the order of names on his kill list needs to be reversed: Caliph before Suleiman, final boss before penultimate boss.

Then there are the twin brothers, the last two of the seven main characters: Bodhicoirn Ivorythief and Krajannar Reavertooth. At this point in timeline, they were either at the cave dungeon Cipangu in Fireland, or they had already traveled to Reignland. How long did it take for them to arrive to Mu Continent and travel to north during the series? They could be in Caliph Tze's hands already and that means waiting... muu, sometimes you just couldn't tell which scenes in the anime were flashbacks and which were flashforwards.

I can't remember too much of the chronology from my casual plays of the game, and in-game clocks were not reliable because of quicktravel mechanisms between areas. I have to rely on vague guesswork for now, but when I find their current location in the world, I can at least make a good estimate on where they will be and more importantly when.

The twins should be around 15 year old at this point as well. They were my favorite characters in the game, but they are the last main characters I should contact here. They were born and raised in a dungeon; everything is either hunter or prey in their mind.

Right, the order of invites is non-arbitrary. It will still take at least several months to arrange everyone together, then maybe a year to get the – wait, there's that mysterious development: Kurdt Krurick.

Kurdt was mentioned both in the anime and the game, but never seen on-screen because he went to hiding before the start of the series. Rainwoman and Crystal Pencil talked about recruiting Krurick because of his unspecified special skills and special knowledge, but then the filler episodes started and he was never mentioned again.

He hasn't gone to hiding at this point in time. Rainwoman will meet him in the near future and then Krurick goes to hiding, so... yeah, I could speed up the story to a completely different outcome, if I can find Kurdt. But then again, he is someone who's personality and motivations I don't know at all. I only know he's the son of a high noble who collected the Lauticaa monastery archives and he was named after the local unit of currency, krúrick, but that's about it.

“Hey, are you deaf? Are you stupid, big brother?” (Snow)

“Huh...?”

I didn't even realize that I had sat down on the floor. How long was I spacing out? I quickly stood back up.

“Sorry, Date, I was – what did you say?”

“My name is Rider and she is Horse.” (Word)

“Shut up, I'm introducing! My name is Snow and my brother is Word. Those are our only names! Remember them already, idiot!” (Snow)

So cheeky, even though you're just a minor side character.

“Sorry. I was a bit surprised about some things and got lost in my thoughts.”

“You're weird.” (Snow)

“Snow, I have a question. You don't happen to know about Revolution Movement? Have you ever heard about a group called Resistance Gang of False War? You haven't seen the V-sign of victorious bluebird on a wall?”

“...No. What are those?” (Snow)

“It's nothing. Just double-checking. But, you know, it's going to be important in the future, so you should remember it. I'll remember your street names, if you remember the Revolution Movement.”

“Whatever.” (Snow)

Wait, what am I saying? If I tell them too much, they might take a completely different path. The victory tag of a bluebird might change into a red turtle or something. I should avoid making big changes until I have a better understanding of what's what and why.

“You have fine shoes. Give them to me.” (Word)

“Sorry, Word. These shoes are mine, and they are too big for you anyway.”

“Give. Them. To. Me.” (Word)

“Snow, please tell your brother that my shoes are mine.”

“Word, you have your own shoes!” (Snow)

“Shut up!” (Word)

In the story, Magic Word was one of the more intelligent side characters. He survived the final battle by not following the plan and discarding the suicide mission that was given to him (good for him, bad for the Revolutionaries). Both siblings were still alive at the end of the anime, but it was implied that Caliph's soldiers were following them and their ultimate fate (as so many things in the story) was left open with a cloud of doom instead of ray of hope.

It's weird, though. Looking at these twelve-year-old kids, I still think of them as characters instead of living beings – characters with annoying, unskippable dialogue blocks consisting mostly of non-informative tsundere antics. I'm still in the game mode. I'm thinking about getting the band together, clearing the game and facing the final boss.

But the game ended in tragedy just like the anime (”There's no happy endings, we all know we will die in the end”, sayeth the writer), so it's kind of natural to think that in here I could actually prevent the forced bad ending and get the happy ending. Maybe I will transmigrate back to reality if I get to the happy ending? Is that my ultimate goal and reason to be here?

Probably not gonna happen. Not in this crapsack world.

There are other options, of course. I could just travel to one of the relatively peaceful cities on the eastern coast, find a hidden treasure, buy a house, settle down with some friendly female NPC and live happily ever after... or until Caliph's army reaches these remote cities and destroys their peace in about a decade.

Yeah, running away and living in relative peace for one single decade is not going to work. There's nowhere to run, if Caliph gets the big MacGuffin power-up.

I need to get the band together and take down the final boss before he turns into an overpowered fingersnapper, if I want to live in freedom longer than ten years. Revolution Movement needs to finally win.

Considering all that, western coast of Ur is not a bad place to start a run.

But let's return to the matter at hand. Should I just leave these street kids here for now and track down Crystal Pencil alone? I don't really care to look after kids, even if they can mostly take care of themselves. Escort missions are the worst, and their personalities will certainly get us in unnecessary trouble on the road...

Suddenly, there was screaming and shouting at the first floor. Scout boys were returning to home base.

“Cards are on the table! We spotted Onion Hat soldiers marching on the east road!”

“How many?!”

“Around fifty or more! They have mining vehicles, three of them at least!”

“I counted at least five flat! Six even!”

“Three or six, doesn't matter! Boys and girls, the hunt is on!”

Onion Hat. That was the street name given to second strongest boss Suleiman the First because he wore a ridiculously big, ornamented headdress in all official paintings.

Nobles in general were called High Hats, and the lesser houses vying to turn themselves into nobles through battles or marriages were called Hatless Houses. It was one of the user-friendly features of the game that you could tell the social status of Suleiman's officers from their hats since their military uniforms were so similar in design.

“The hunt is on! The hunt is on!”

The lobby of the Slave Towers became busy. Everybody joined the chant “the hunt is on” like monkeys sounding an alarm calls when jaguar was spotted.

Word and Snow stood up to get going as well.

”Are you coming, old man Qwerty?” (Snow)

This is an event, isn't it? Army convoy night raid. This kind of thing would be treated either as an in-engine cutscene or a checkpoint-heavy timed mission in the game.

I promised to pay my stay here with work. I probably have to take part in this event.

”Yeah, I'm coming. Work is work, after all...”

Undoubtedly I was about to see some exclusive content.