I hate the kind of repetitive levels where you have to run through the same areas multiple times, especially when the areas are already devoid of enemies. Milking the level by forcing players to run back and forth is just lazy design.

That was an annoyance in Mu-Ur Quincunx speedrunning as well: too much forced backtracking just to trigger required events before you could end the level.

But here and now, I felt relieved seeing a familiar, yet empty area ahead.

The night camp was gone.

I waited in hiding again and scanned the area for a while to be sure, but the soldiers were really gone. Maybe they were so spooked by the otherworldly music so deeply that they fled before sunrise. Looking at the vehicle tracks, the platoon had continued north towards No-Man's-Land, as expected.

So... they didn't want the card belt back, hm? Or they didn't notice it was gone?

This is earlier in the timeline, the Flat Truck with hexagon lamp was just being taken to the dungeon. Did anyone know the value of the card belt yet?

In the game, you could get the belt from Thiefmaster, or find it during the Deep Basement level. In the anime, only Thiefmaster was seen wearing it and using it. Could it be that this was the exact belt bought by Thiefmaster in the future, and only then was its functions discovered? If even Suleiman's commanders were ignorant of it's true value, they might have, at some point, sold it to Thiefmaster's alter ego Renaud Kizaha, who they knew to be a collector of Strangers paraphernalia.

Un. Let's settle on that fan theory.

“Aa-ah, I wanted to trade the belt for food packs, but they're gone! Oh, what a letdown!”

I spoke aloud because I had a hunch that Shadowcut had put tails on me. I had to at least approach this area and put up a show of trying to return the belt.

I was really lucky that the soldiers were gone. Otherwise I would've just bailed and hoped for the best.

I walked in circles in the area for a while and peeked around the ruined walls, like expecting soldiers to be hiding there.

Then I casually went to retrieve my phone from the abandoned three-story building.

But my bricked phone was gone too.

The soldiers had probably searched the area in the morning and found it. Well, they can't do anything with it, other than maybe sell it to some noble who collects curious art objects.

“Aa-ah! I wanted to pay for my stay, but big brother didn't accept the belt I brought! What more can a gangster do?”

I hadn't seen any traces of stalkers watching me, but I kept putting up a show for my unseen audience.

I didn't have a phone anymore, but at least I had a cool belt.

Keeping the belt was fine too, but selling it for a good amount of money would have helped me forward more. Safety, info, weapons, money, food – the gang had all the things I felt I needed to survive here. That was the reason why street kids stayed in the gang too, after all.

But now that I was forced out of the Slave Towers, and Magic Word and Snowstone had joyously backstabbed me, my protection under the gang was basically over.

Sigh. I was at least hoping I could later recruit the friendly NPC kids as travel companions until I reach a safer area, but they are still too young and too deep in war-gang adventuring. Three years from now, if and when they reach the Inner School, they'll surely be more inclined to protect my back instead of Shadowcut. Yeah, I'll teach them a lesson about backstabbing players when the time comes.

Un. Magic Word and Snowstone are non-essential characters in the grand scheme, so let's just leave them be. I'll see them again later. If I try to help everyone, I'll lose more than just time. I have a whole world to save. Getting stuck on level decorations on crucial moments is the worst.

But still... protection of a local gang, a safe base of operations, possible support characters: all gone. I'll just be chased around by homeless dudes and drunk monks again.

Damn Shadowcut just wanted to get rid of me without dirtying his hands and shaking the status quo.

If I find a buyer for the belt on my own, some petty noble or merchant, I could explain the card functions and still sell it. Having large amounts of money is the only real cheat and superpower, as they say. With money, I could find some trustworthy mercenary NPCs and hire them to keep my delicate skin out of danger.

But before that, I would face the risk of getting robbed on my own. And then again, even if the sale succeeds, piles of cash in easy to carry bags would make me a target. I would get robbed before I can hire any mercenaries. I need some protection before I can hire some protection… and I've come full circle back to losing my gang backing.

Speaking of mercenaries, one of the mid-bosses in the game, Shade of Chasm, was a mercenary at the Crumbling Shores. His only line in the cutscene before the fight was: “I work for the highest bidder, nothing personal”. Does that sound trustworthy? No, I didn't think so either. He's the kind of guy who backstabs you when enemy offers a bigger paycheck. I'd have to pay him more than the syndicate to keep him on my side... muu, I should move to an area where I can find a nice hidden treasure.

Yep, let's keep the low-level Batman utility belt for now. Thieves are more interested in my shoes.

I guess all I can do now is to change scenery, stumble back into the wilderness alone and vulnerable, and hope I don't get bad encounters. And find a new gang to join temporarily until I can find my permanent main character party members.

“Yosh! The soldiers clearly went south! I should follow them and quickly return this belt!”

Declaring this in loud voice, I started marching south. Hopefully my tails think I'm a complete idiot, let me go on my way, and stop following me when I leave the Slave Towers Gang territory.

If there are some consequences for the gang because of my belt stunt, I'll let Shadowcut deal with them.

By the way, I don't remember the street name Shadowcut from the game or anime at all. There was a silk-masked side character named Double Shadow in the Inside Out School, but no Shadowcut.

He's a short-lived leader.

Geography double-check:

The closest areas were Stray Dog City to the north and the large Black Forest area beyond that, Mandarin River area to the northeast (including sub-areas like Maelstrom Village and Strangling Village), Crumbling Shores city area to the south, and all the No-Lands to the east.

The No-Lands were basically the opposite of safe areas. Three comically named territories: No-Man's-Land, No-Say-Nothing-Land and No-Any-Comprehension-Land. Mostly city ruins, wasteland and dungeon mines. Save Town, Bridge of Wedges over Drakenveld Crevice and Cat Star Mansion are also there, but those were all bonus side missions. Not worth the effort at this point.

To the west, there's just the dark ocean between the continents, the so-called Sea of Peace. Northern sea area is ruled by pirate lords and southern sea ruled by Caliph's warships. The sea areas have no use to me at this point... except maybe the island of Spial Ys? No, it's too dangerous and too much of a time waste to go there now.

I need to head to the eastern coast of Ur at some point in the near future, but I'd rather take a detour through the southern territories than go through the middle territories. Going east to No-Any-Comprehension-Land and heading to the inner continent... is not what I want to do either.

If this were still a game, I wouldn't hesitate, but knowing that there's endless fields of corpses, necropolises, skull temples, torture towns and cannibal gangs is too spooky in real life.

Yep, going south to the city of Crumbling Shores and finding Crystal Pencil still seems to be the best bet.

However, if Crystal Pencil and Dragon Kimono are not at the Crumbling Shores, I need to prepare for a long journey through a war zone. And I don't want to end up anywhere near the fortress city Seitheargnaigh because that place has a dangerous mid-boss named Lucranah. Granted, it might be just a normal fortress city at this point in timeline, but I'm worried because in the game it was a forced event where you lost all your gear and had to fight Lucranah with your bare hands.

And there's the possibility that Crys and Kimono are not in the war zone beyond Seitheargnagh either. For all I know, they could they still be at the borders of Corelands of Om at this point.

In the anime timeline, Suleiman's defending armies were locked in a trench warfare against Caliph's invading soldiers at the large territories just below Crumbling Shores, the Corelands of Om. They were in trenches at the start of the anime and at the end of the anime, so the current war situation is not going to change any time soon.

Caliph Tze sends supplies to his soldiers the long way through Wineep Isthmus, the northern land bridge connecting the continents of Mu and Ur. Suleiman tries hard to stop this and sends more soldiers to north all the time, but he is unable to cut this supply line because Caliph Tze keeps throwing money at the northern crime lords.

This endless war between emperor Caliph Tze of Mu and emperor Suleiman The First Shahanshah of Ur forms the main geopolitical tension in the series.

Mu Continent on the left, Ur Continent on the right; Wineep Ishtmus connecting them in the north.

The overworld map of Mu-Ur looks like “smoker's lungs spread on autopsy table”, as one fan aptly put it.

The map was also criticized for looking suspiciously similar to Tolkien's Middle-Earth map, but the anime showrunner insisted that he didn't know about the similarities before fans pointed it out.

There's was also Fireland, the volcanic archipelago under the Ur continent, and some island chains between the continents, but those were not really important, other than Cipangu being the home of the MC twins.

In the anime, we saw only partial world map in Crystal Pencil's study later in the series, and the game map showed only the campaign story locations. It was hard to say exactly where certain scenes in the anime happened, but even when you couldn't pinpoint all towns and forests, the shapes of the continents and islands were clear.

Most of the middle parts of both continents were dark deserts, wastelands and dungeon mines because Strangers burned everything above ground and mined everything underground. These lawless lands were controlled by war-gangs, crime lords, slavers, cultists and deviant gangs. The somewhat preserved coastal territories in the east and deeper south were the areas where “normal people” lived.

Caliph Tze, the main antagonist and final boss of the game, controlled the whole Mu Continent.

Suleiman, the big middle boss, controlled the western shores and southern lands of the Ur Continent.

Eastern coasts of Ur were free cities controlled by local nobles and they had trade relations with both emperors. These free cities suffered the least during the Strangers Era.

At the end of the fourth season of the anime, Revolution Movement practically controlled the northern lands that connected the continents. They severed Caliph's supply lines and took over all land routes between continents, which was a major turning point in the global power balance: instead of two superpowers, Caliph and Suleiman, there was a third superpower called Revolution Movement.

It was lampshaded for a long time that Revolution Movement would have to take down Suleiman first and then the final battle against Caliph Tze would start, so it came as a big surprise when Caliph Tze made a move against Suleiman first and took him down with nonsensical Strangers cheat power pulled out of nowhere.

Overtech by Strangers ™ – When you need a contrived justification for a rushed anime ending.

In the fifth and last season of the anime, Caliph Tze became the emperor of both continents. That was the trigger for Revolution Movement to launch a haphazard, desperate final attack against Caliph immediately, because they knew that if they waited any longer, Caliph's armies (now reinforced with Suleiman's armies), would soon attack the north and Revolution Movement would be done.

And after that final battle against big bad Caliph was lost, the series ended on a low note and fan rage.

In conclusion: penultimate boss Suleiman can be left alone for now. He's just a regular dictator, not an existential global threat like Caliph Tze.

"Aa-ah, I wonder how far the soldiers went! I may have to spend a night in some abandoned farm house!"

I kept walking south following the vehicle tracks. There was no reactions behind me.

When the tracks started trending to the southeast, I felt sure I was outside the Slave Towers Gang territory and deviated from the path, hiking directly to south, using the coastal hills and village ruins as my guides.

Maybe I was just paranoid and Shadowcut didn't care enough to even send stalkers for me.

"Aa-ah, why do I keep groaning alone like a crazy person? I should stop before I attract some pack of wild dogs."

If Crystal Pencil is not at the Crumbling Shores, I can either continue to Corelands, or settle in the Shores and wait until he arrives. I don't want to risk my life running around and searching him, so I may have to wait for several months.

Even if I know that the main characters are suffering through their tragic backstories right now and want to jump in to save them immediately, this is the best I can do.

Please endure until then, everyone! I'm coming as fast as I can!

…But if they are just normal humans without any special abilities in this world, I might give up and cry.