After the rocky desert changed to shrubland and finally into temperate coniferous forests, our journey lead us on the western side of Sharp Mountains – a mountain range resembling the Nanling Mountains in China.

The Sharp Mountains stretched along the eastern coast of Mu all the way from northern Reignland to the southern part of Wineep Isthmus.

But majestic scenery aside, we were talking about the final boss.

“So, the first reason we are not going to Reignland is that killing Caliph Tze in Reignland is super hard. He has a badass knight army, hundreds of trench coat mooks and dodgy High Hats, cool domino lady bodyguards, and he himself carries overpowered Strangers weapon called Starcutter.”

Starcutter aka Space Sabre was a weapon that started as a heavy-duty hand-held mining tool, but turned into a weapon of death and destruction in Caliph's hands. Using this highly modified tool that looked like a mash-up of minigun and saxophone required years of practice, like learning how to play a musical instrument that might kill you if you play even a single note wrong.

You had to improvise the position, size, shape, range, rhythm, windup, contact point and cooldown of your attack on the fly, and then speed-program them in the weapon like a piece of experimental classical music with an accordion made of razor blades. The more difficult the programmed sequence, the more destructive the attack.

For example, Caliph's normal attack animation in the game was a short, fast beam of hard light in the shape of a giant horizontal sickle that cut through everything on its crescent path.

Caliph was the only one in the world who had mastered this weapon. The few others who had tried had killed themselves in the process early on. In the game, it was theoretically possible to steal the weapon from Caliph and learn how to use it, but in practice it would have been so nightmarisly difficult and time-consuming that it was categorized as impossible. This fact – combined with his mad scientist intelligence and constant hoarding of Strangers technology – was the reason Caliph Tze stood at the top of the food chain.

“The second reason we're not going to Reignland is that Caliph Tze is not in the Sun City right now and won't return there for a long while. The Moving Palace is currently on the road to Rukhkh, on the other side of Sharp Mountains. Oh, and I know what you're going to ask next: why aren't we ambushing him on the road then?”

“...Why not?” (Rain)

On the other side of the mountain range was the main coastal road that was built just for the sake of Caliph Tze's great pilgrimage to Rukhkh Mountain. He wanted a wide, straight road for his Moving Palace to travel in perfect comfort.

When Caliph Tze woke up and left his bedroom, slaves took the room down and moved it further up the road. The same thing was done to every room and every corridor in the palace, wall by wall and floor by floor, following Caliph's daily routine, so that when Caliph Tze returned to his bedroom at night, he stepped in the same room, but the view from the windows was different.

“Because what's even worse worse than his domino bodyguards is that the twin brothers Ivorythief and Reavertooth are currently traveling with him. Fighting against them and Caliph at the same time is the worst case scenario. And I don't exactly know where along the road the palace is at this point in time, and there are guard stations and death patrols everywhere, and all villages on the other side of the mountain range are full of soldiers.”

“...How then?” (Rain)

“So, what we're going to do instead is wait for him to come to us. We'll head straight to Wineep and then to Loönois, and when Caliph Tze reaches the Rukhkh Mountain fortress, the twins will bail out soon after. That's our window of opportunity: the time after the twins jump Caliph's loony express, but before the Rukhkh-bird arrives. That's the cushy period when we can waltz in like hobbits to Mordor and curb-stomp Caliph like a muppet.”

“...Hobbits? Muppet?” (Rain)

“Double tap for the big bad, karate chop for the top dog. Drop the bomb to make the muppet kick the bucket. No rest, no reset. If we don't hit the cycle, the second try is going to be much harder. Right now Caliph has ultra-high attack stats because he has studied the blade like a neckbeard, but his defense stats are still low. If he gets the Rukhkh Egg, he gets a defense stats on the level of an MC plot armor.”

“Haa...” (Rain)

“Tze worked his way up from slave mines and learned to play his hurdy-gurdy like a virtuoso. We are the punks who break his game and cut his complicated knots with dynamite. That's how we roll. That's the law of the west. That's how entertainment business works, ladies and gentleman.”

“...What?” (Rain)

“He speaks nonsense all the time, just ignore it.” (Kimono)

You don't have to jump in just to criticize my language, Kim-chan.

Well, I'm already in my too-tired-to-sleep mode. This happened a lot back when I used to marathon stream all day long. I got hyped by all the encouraging comments and started repeating complete gibberish at the end of the day.

I should probably limit my casual ramblings and nervous jokes, the women are backing away from me again. Well, I don't have any romantic chances with Rain or Kimono anyway. I probably sound like a creep to them because... well, it's like I've been stalking them their whole lives. I know every little detail about them, but they don't know anything about me.

For all they know, I might as well be a Stranger with a capital S because I've been messing with their lives from the beginning like an alien overlord. I have to try harder to see them on equal grounding as humans, not as animated characters.

Speaking of intimate relationships, I'm still thinking the fan service virgins in Caliph Tze's harem. The most beautiful women from every generation were selected for Caliph, but he never visited them (before or after Rukhkh Egg), so they just waited in the golden cage of the Concubine House until they died.

The harem followed Caliph to Rukhkh, so maybe I should free them before Caliph's sudden death turns the place into a complete pandemonium... They could live in the Starfish Mansion as maids... Hm, probably not. The concubines were trained to be loyal to Caliph from early age, so they might just kill me in my sleep and then kill themselves to follow Caliph Tze to afterlife.

Speaking of side-characters and maids, there were some troublesome people that might appear in the future. I should talk about them before I forget.

“Hey, do you guys know about a guy who uses the street name Cleaner?”

“No.” (Rain)

“I've heard his name. A person of considerable strength working for the crime lords of Mu.” (Crys)

“That's him, he's a famous old man. His real name is Goby. Rain, this silver-haired gentleman using the name Goby or Cleaner might appear and challenge Sorry Man for a duel in the near future. If this duel is handled correctly, Cleaner becomes a trustworthy ally for us.”

“No one touches Sorry Man.” (Rain)

“Of course, I understand. However, you should consider making an exception. If you accept the duel on the conditions that the loser must become the servant of the winner and the loser is the one who gets wounded first, Goby eventually becomes Sorry Man's protector as well.”

“...Why?” (Rain)

“Since Sorry Man cannot get wounded, the duel continues until Goby accidentally hurts himself, right? That's how it went in the future. Goby will honor the outcome even if we win by tricking him. Think about it: you'll get another loyal bodyguard to serve and protect Sorry Man, if you can concede just a bit.”

“... I'll think about it.” (Rain)

Oh? It wasn't this easy in the anime. Crys had to spend half of the episode convincing her.

Without her drug addiction, Rain is surprisingly flexible.

I'll tell about Baldr now as well.

“There's another side guy who becomes our ally later, but he's nothing special really. His name is Baldr. He's just a hopeless guy who has a crush on your sister Mirim, although it might be only after she turns into a machine, he's a bit of a pervert... Anyway, Mirim can use Baldr as her personal servant, and you can trust him to take care of Sorry Man as well. Baldr follows orders like a trained dog. I leave it to you and your sister to decide what to do with him, if and when he appears in the future.”

“Haa...” (Rain)

There are still so many minor side characters that will become part of the Revolution Movement: Double Shadow, Wood Eye, Magic Word, Snowstone, Scent, Arimo, Ragdoll, Silver Tongue, Oracle, Fox Laughing, Siren, Cross-Section, Lion, Darling, Sparkling Oasis, Leopold...

Some of them will come through the Inside Out School, some of them will head straight to Starfish Mansion. Street kids, gangsters, mercenaries, battle maniacs, pyromaniacs – all these colorful characters united by Crystal Pencil's future propaganda and mythological stories about the Revolution Movement that has allegedly been fighting a secret war against the Strangers for thousands of years.

That's the mythology Crys will write in the Starfish Mansion, or would have written without my interference.

There's no need to use minor side-characters as cannon fodder this time, though, because Caliph Tze will die before that. We can turn the Secret Inner School aka Inside Out School into something completely different – make it a proper orphanage school instead of secret terrorist training camp in the middle of Black Forest.

“You also mentioned the name Kurdt Krúrick before.” (Crys)

“Right, I was going to tell Rain about him next.”

If my memories about the anime timeline were accurate, Rain met Kurdt Krúrick after her escape from the Bone Dune Station, but before saving Mirim at Wineep – or at least she mentioned the name Kurdt for the first time in the Wineep episode flashback, and then the second time when she was talking with Crys in the Starfish Mansion. At that time, Crys already knew Kurdt by reputation as well, so it must be that Kurdt is on the northeast coast of Mu and does something in the near future that causes his reputation to travel to Crys' ears.

According to the lore, the Lauticaa monastery archives collected by Massy Okka (with some high nobles of Mu) contain key information about Strangers, and Kurdt being the main collectors apprentice or something... well, he should be a person who has read the archives.

So, if there's one person who knows what's going on with Strangers, it's probably Kurdt Krúrick.

“...I'm supposed to meet this man named Kurdt as well?” (Rain)

“If you would have escaped from Bone Dune Station on your own later, then you would have probably met him. But since we helped you out earlier in this timeline, it's possible that you won't meet him this time, unless we especially try to find him. That's why we should keep our eyes and ears open in these territories and proactively look for him.”

“Kurdt, Cleaner and Baldr...” (Rain)

“Yeah, you will have a whole reverse harem situation to deal with. Dancer is already in the party, so that's one courting idiot shot down.”

“Huh? Speedy, did you say something about me?” (Dancer)

“I said all your love confessions were rejected. Future fact.”

“Eeh?!” (Dancer)

Dancer won't end up dying inside the Strangers Cube in this timeline, so maybe he finds a girlfriend eventually and doesn't end up blowing up as a virgin. Wasn't it the normies who need to explode?

Hidden Valley aka Hidden Pass aka Spring Canyon was also called Don't Look Down, because it was really bad area for people with acrophobia.

I wasn't afraid of heights, but I didn't particularly like them either, so I always ran through the area while looking up.

In the anime, the real name of this area was never mentioned, but in the game the automap changed the area name to Spring Canyon when you picked up a certain book in a certain house inside the Hidden Valley.

Hidden Valley was a secret sub-area in the middle of Sharp Mountains. Normally you would enter the area from the eastern side and escape from the western side, then bunnyhop along narrow cliffside paths (which were quite similar to Mount Hua hiking routes), and leave the area in a hurry before aggroed mountain bandits catch you.

But since Caliph Tze's moving palace was on the eastern coastal road and the whole coast was full of knight patrols, we were forced to approach the area from the wrong side.

Obviously I chose the least dangerous paths and routed around traps as much as possible. It would have been just too sad to end this run by missing a footing and falling into a ravine.

We managed to avoid most mountain bandits, but one particular group was unavoidable: a large bandit group known as Monkey Bridge Bandits. As their name suggested, they held a certain bottleneck bridge over a chasm we had to cross. Gamers also called them Monkey Magic Bandits in honor of certain old fantasy television series.

“Leave the talking to me, I know their routines and smuggler whistle codes, so I should be able to strike a deal. But if they don't listen for some reason, then–“

I made a throat-slitting gesture.

“No. Too shallow. Stab deep in the throat and cut forward.” (Kimono)

“...Sure, okay.”

Sudden unsolicited stabbing advice from an expert. Thank you very much, Kimono, but my gesture was meant to be a stylized non-verbal sign, not a technical manual about assassinations...

Sigh. I handled direct flak and harassment well, but it was always these smallest random splinters and comments that got under my skin and hurt the most.

I was just an uneducated, unemployed livestreamer who played a niche game for niche audience. The only reason I could support myself with the small amount of donations I got was because I didn't have a life, all the money went to food and rent. I had the world record because running was all I did every day...

Alright, that's enough self-pity for today, back to the grind.

“Rain and Kimono, you should wrap yourself on rain cloaks and keep your head down, the bandit boys might get easily excited if they see pretty young women. Crys and Dancer, I'll introduce us as smugglers from north, it's better to use simple names like Jojo or Toto–“

“Why are you talking about making a deal? Just kill them.” (Rain)

“Oh, if only they would stay still and wait for us to kill them. They usually disperse when you kill a few, and then they keep coming after you again and again with hit-and-run attacks. You can see many of them when they come out, but there's always three times more in hiding, so it's a real hassle to hunt them down one by one, especially when the cliff paths get wet and slippery. Sometimes coins are faster than bullets.”

“It's harder to get quality ammunition than krúricks.” (Crys)

“Yep, yep. You can get coin drops from anywhere, but ammo should be saved for boss enemies. Like the great gunfighter Frédéric Chopin once said: I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.”

“...Whatever.” (Rain)

Rain wasn't the type of person who saved supplies for a rainy day or rockets for boss fights, she was always in overkill mode. I probably have to ration the dynamite to her like a parent giving weekly allowance to a daughter. One stick of dynamite per week, don't spend it all on low-level bandits and their dilapidated log cabins! You can spend as much money as you want, but papa doesn't approve wasting ammo!

Fast forward: I made a deal with the Monkey Magic Bandits, gave them a hefty sum of money and we made it through the Sharp Mountains bottleneck without problems.

Rain wasn't happy about the disguise part, but she kept quiet. I praised her self-discipline.

I kept reiterating that the plan now was to a) enter the secret Hidden Valley sub-area to stock up on supplies, b) try to contact Kurdt Krurick on the way, c) save Mirim from the Wineep Dungeon, and d) continue to the Starfish Mansion at Loönois.

Rain was feeling better both physically and mentally after the dry desert was behind us, but that also meant she felt strong enough to continue without us. Caliph Tze was moving somewhere on the other side of the mountain range and that made Rain's trigger fingers itchy.

I didn't want Rain to even entertain the thought of running forward on her own on a whim like she did in the anime, so I acted like an overprotective parent. Reminding Rain about our master plan became a routine like re-loading a revolver after every single shot.

It's better to be proactive than reactive. Prevention is cheaper than the cure.

“Rainy days never say goodbye...”

“Speedy, what are you singing?” (Dancer)

“Hm? I just happened to remember an old song from my childhood. That reminds me, there's a piano in the Starfish Mansion. I could put some notes down and maybe start a cover band with some side characters. Hmm... Born from an egg on a mountain top...”

I hope I'm not raising death flags by planning projects beyond final boss fight.