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You run through the forest, away from the slowly approaching curse you just saw. You need to hurry up. Go faster. Save Vaugarde already. Hurry. Up. You can't help but feel a bit of frustration again. The curse is definitely far enough away by now, but you already know you still need to go faster.
Panting heavily, you eventually reach a meadow. You pretty much collapse as soon as you reach ground that isn't full of sticks and mud and other forest stuff. Get up already, Mirabelle. You have a country to save. You use healing craft to get rid of the aching in your entire body and approach Dormont. You grimace at the thought of enduring people's comments about how slow you're being again, but you NEED a break. The townsfolk never seem to understand that. They always tell you to hurry up regardless. Why did you have to be chosen? Why couldn't she choose anyone but you? Is she punishing you for trying to run from the problem and forcing you to solve it instead? You don't even want to save Vaugarde anymore. Everyone here has been pressuring you to go faster for months now. The only reason you haven't left is because you'd have to deal with even angrier and crabbier citizens. They can go get frozen in time for all you care! ...You're tired.
Your mind wanders further as you walk through the town. People are waving at you and asking you questions like "When are you going to fight the King?" and "What took you so long?", but you ignore them, instead going to the shop to get some supplies. You're out of salty broths yet again, despite getting 10 of them in the last town. The shopkeeper lets you have them for free. You force yourself to wave and smile politely as you leave.
Afterwards, you head towards the clocktower, ignoring even more comments and questions from the impatient townsfolk. You have a bit of trouble jumping over the river, since your legs are still aching despite your healing. Once you enter, you sit down at the table and eat. You don't have time to cook anything, but you didn't buy anything that needs preparation anyway. After eating, you go upstairs and onto the nearest bed. You lay there for a while.
...What if you just didn't go to the House? Didn't fight the King? Let everything be frozen in time?
Would everyone else try to fight the King together instead? They'd definitely do a better job than you would, even if they're not immune to the curse. They'd do it way faster too. They wouldn't have to handle everything themselves, after all. She didn't curse them to that unchanging fate.
If they do manage to beat the King, you'd probably be an outcast afterwards. People definitely wouldn't like you anymore, at least. You're pretty sure the only reason they're being nice to you right now is because you're "blessed" by the "change god".
Aren't you already an outcast though? People already don't like how slow you're being. And you don't really like them anymore either. You just want to get all this time-freezing-curse stuff over with so you can go on that pilgrimage already.
After all, you've already been planning to go on a pilgrimage after you defeat the King for a while now, for various reasons. It started as a way to strive for change, but right now, the main reason is because you'll be able to get away from Vaugarde. You just want to get away from Vaugarde already. But you're being too slow.
...After exactly an hour of thinking, you get up. You've been resting for long enough. It's time to fight the King.
As you march towards the House, the others cheer and congratulate you for making progress. They do this every time you leave a town. You're actually somewhat grateful that they don't cheer when you enter a town too, even though you know their reasoning behind it. The yelling and shouting always makes your head hurt more anyways. Especially after achievements like collecting orbs, which makes the cheering way louder. You can tell that they think this is a BIG achievement. You keep moving, keeping a polite smile on your face the entire time.
One orb is heavy enough, but carrying 5 at once almost makes you collapse. Or maybe your arms are just too sore right now. To make it even worse, the gate doesn't even seem to recognize that you have all the orbs at first, since it takes half a minute for the orbs to even glow. Thankfully, the orbs all float up from your arms soon afterwards and go towards the holes in the door, causing it to open. This is the place where she first put this curse upon you. Throughout this whole journey, the effects of that curse haven't changed at all, even if you have. You hate that. Even before you step inside, you can tell that the entrance looks way different than what you're used to. Was that how it always looked? It's been a while since you visited this House. There's also a very noticable temperature change as you enter, and the sound of birds and cheers fade as you keep walking. The teardrops on your brooch are the only thing preventing you from being stuck in complete silence, which you're somewhat grateful for.
There's a Sadness ahead. You defeat it with a basic Scissors attack before it even notices you.
There's a door ahead. You consider destroying it with an attack like you usually do. ...No, you have to save your energy. You search around for the key, and realize that this place has definitely been changed. Why does everything have to be so difficult? You find some sour tonics in one of the rooms, but you ignore them. You already have more than enough, since you don't really use them often. In the second room, the key is just on the floor. That's a terrible hiding spot. There's also a destroyed Change God statue here. ...You ignore it and leave the room, opening the locked door afterwards. You recognize the room ahead immediately.
There's a death corridor ahead. You look around, trying to see if there's any traps here. You KNOW there's a trap here. You look around more. ...You still can't find anything. You know you're spending way too much time here, but you want to find this trap first. You check around the room repeatedly, each attempt making you more and more rushed and anxious and frustrated. You need to hurry up!!! If you spend too long people are gonna get more mad at you and you'll have to deal with even more comments about how you're taking too long and how you're gonna doom Vaugarde with how incompetent yOU ARE AND almost by instinct, you rush through the room to not waste any more time, although you start slowing yourself down once you realize what you're actually doing. ...You're standing in the middle of the room now. No trap has activated. Did they lie about it? Okay, you can think about that later, right now you need to HURRY UP. You rush through the rest of the room.
As you walk through the first floor, you notice some floating water in some of the hallways. They aren't frozen in time, unlike the rest of this place. ...You saw these when you were running from the King, too. One of the other housemaidens bumped into one and got frozen in time. These are the King's tears. You stare at it for a long time, considering something.
...You're wasting too much time here. You keep moving.
You notice a hallway blocked by a row of floating tears and a Sadness that dropped a crest when you defeated it. There's nothing else in this part of the floor though, and you already explored the other half. You backtrack a bit to look at the row of tears again. ...Not wanting to spend too much time thinking, you just rush through it. Worst case scenario, you get frozen and wake up again later, when everyone else already defeated the King and outcasted you even more. The tears are VERY cold, to the point you think you're being frozen, but her "blessing" protects you. Guess all that considering earlier was for nothing. What a waste of time. You keep moving, grabbing the key in the room ahead and going back to open the big door.
There's a big Sadness ahead. For a moment, its round head shows... a Rock symbol? You just ignore it and use a Jolly Round Rondo like you always do. It doesn't affect the Sadness. That's strange. Usually your attacks defeat Sadnesses in 1 hit regardless of its type. Is this one completely immune to Scissors-type attacks? Luckily the Sadness is too slow to attack you in time, giving you an extra turn. You use an Artsy Silent Burst instead, and this time it destroys the Sadness in 1 hit like it should. You're still not sure why your first attack didn't work, but you don't have time to think about any of that. You keep moving.
As you walk through the second floor, a rock falls behind you. Hopefully you got everything you needed from her office. There's also a locked door nearby, requiring the Paper key. You think about where that might be, and then you remember... it's in her office. Great. You break down the door with a few exhausting attacks, and keep moving, opening the second big door after a bit more wandering around.
There's two big Sadnesses ahead. You defeat them both with an Artsy Silent Burst. Now you'll never know if they're immune to your Jolly Round Rondo too, but that doesn't matter much. You keep moving.
As you walk through the third floor, you get more and more frustrated as you repeatedly run laps through the house to find any of the keys in this floor. You don't even have time to stop and fix your appearance in the otherwise useless mirror room. Eventually you just resort to breaking down random doors. The first door, requiring the angry key, leads to a Sadness with yet another useless crest. The second door, requiring the smiling key, leads to... a new hallway! You explore, finding a weird sparkly door, a now useless angry key, and... that's your room. ...You don't have time to explore there. There's also another row of tears to pass by, leading to another locked door that requires a Crying Key. Might as well break this one down too. You explore further, finding a useless bathroom, and... that's your Change God statue. You look at it. ...You look away. You feel...
...
...You feel the coldness of the King's tears attempting to freeze you again as you pass through it. You keep moving. She's up ahead.
Yet another obstacle occurs. You can't find a way to get rid of the thread blocking the big door leading to the next floor anywhere. You really don't want to waste more time running around and scanning every inch of this floor again though. Seems like attacking it is the only way. You strike, and some thread falls down. Good enough damage, but it'll take a lot of attacks to get rid of the whole thing. You keep on attacking anyway. Your rapier almost breaks from attacking some of the thicker areas, but you just use Scissor craft for those. You end up using 2 salty broths in the process. It takes a while, which you hate almost as much as the townsfolk would. As soon as you damage the thread enough to just barely squeeze through, you drink another bottle of salty broth, leave the floor, and keep moving.
There's yet another big Sadness ahead. You attack it with an Artsy Silent Burst, despite how exhausted you are from cutting all that thread earlier. All of its hands disappear, but its 'head' is still alive. Strange. You attack it with a Jolly Round Rondo just before it attacks again. It gets destroyed in 1 hit. You still don't have time to think about what gimmick these Sadnesses actually have, so you just keep moving.
Your entire body is aching yet again. You use healing craft, but that just makes your body tired and aching. You really shouldn't have broken down that many doors, but you didn't really have any better solutions at the time. Now you just have to deal with this. You're about to pass by yet another frozen housemaiden, but you feel like this one's a bit... Oh, that's your roommate. She must've tried to stop the King herself. ...How foolish of her. You keep moving.
You don't have to move for long, however, since you hear the King roar again as you enter yet another empty room. He sounds very close. This is it. ...Your final chance to take a break. But you shouldn't waste any time trying to decide what to do now.
You sit down. Your legs seem to appreciate that a lot.
...
It's almost silent, except for the King's occasional crying and roaring. You're not sure if you're just too far away to hear the townsfolk, or if they're already frozen by now. You know it's probably the latter, considering your pace throughout this entire journey. For some reason, you smile at that.
You're finally able to rest. That's a change. ...Change...
You know you've changed throughout this journey, for better or most likely for worse, but you don't think your journey has changed at all. You've had the same pressure to go faster and hurry up for months, and you were never able to pick up the pace.
You really should've gone faster. She'll probably be disappointed about how long it took to defeat the King, if you even defeat him. Everyone else was disappointed, after all.
But you don't really care. She cursed you. Why did she curse you? Why did you deserve this responsibility? At least the townsfolk have some kind of reason. They think you're blessed by the Change God. You know way better than to tell them the truth. She cursed you.
Was she angry at you? Already disappointed in you? Why couldn't she just beat the King on her own? Why the crab would she do this?? You just don't understand. She cursed you. It ruined your life. She ruined your life. She ruined your life!!!
But. it. doesn't matter. You're so close. You've almost completed this journey. Just like she wanted you to. Just like she forced you to. Maybe you can ask her about this later.
...After exactly 15 minutes of thinking, you keep moving. You have a country to save.
There's a so-called King ahead. He's talking about something. He just wants the world to "stay the way it is now". To be "frozen in eternal beauty". You don't get what beauty he sees right now, but you want no part in it. You interrupt him.
"Let's just get right to it." You prepare to fight.
The King lets you have the first move. He's a "merciful king", apparently. You appreciate the extra turn, at least. You kill him before he gets another chance to attack. He seemed like he had a lot more to say before he died, but it was obvious that none of it would be of interest.
You're breathing heavily as the House becomes unfrozen. You're pretty sure that was happening before you fought the King though. The King is on the floor, dead. You don't waste time staring at him. She must be ahead. You wonder what her reaction will be. Disappointment? Anger? Disbelief? Fear? ...You keep moving.
She's ahead. You walk towards her, and stare at her. You pretend to be proud.
"Mirabelle, oh, dear one..." You stare. "I'm so proud of-" You approach. "-did not think the King would be so-" She leans down to look at you. "You look like you've had quite the rough-" You stare. "-glad I managed to give you some power before the King's Curse took over me!"
"Why me?"
"Hohoho!" She laughs. "Well, I only had the strength to bless one person, and I was already toast, and you were almost out of the House when the-" That's it?
...That's it?!?
". . . And, Housemaiden Mirabelle... You have always been the most hardworking-" She tries to sugarcoat it, giving you fake praise. "-even if you didn't think you'd succeed-" You aren't fooled. "-logical choice, yes, but you were also the only RIGHT choice!"
You continue staring at her. She finally seems to sense that you aren't falling for her tricks. Her smile fades a bit as she stares back at you.
"...You seem like you've been through a lot. You were so busy Changing yourself that you couldn't change your clothes, hohoho!" She tries to grab your torn and dirty bow to prove her point, but you don't allow her to even touch you. "But don't worry. I, along with everyone else in Vaugarde, always knew you would succeed in the-" ...
You strike
Paper craft straight to the chest. She's knocked back. "M-Mirabelle?!" She reacted with fear. "Why are you-"
"Why did you curse me?"
"...Curse? I don't-" Scissor craft straight to the shoulder. "Y-You were the only right-" She's not answering you, so you don't listen.
"No I wasn't!! Why did you force all this responsibility on ME? You could've chosen anyone else!"
"I already t-told you-" ... "b-but also, you're here right now. That means you-" ... "-and it seems you did so just in time, too! Any later and-" . . .
You strike
and strike
and strike
attack the ribs, healing craft isn't good at fixing bones if they're severely damaged
attack the lungs, healing craft can't fix it without making it permanently harder to breathe
attack the heart, healing craft won't save someone who's already dead
she tries to strike back
145 damage
you strike
3515 damage
you gained 2000 exp
You stand back up. The wounds represent brutal Rock craft more than Scissors or Paper from how much you attacked her. You feel
You feel the other housemaidens being unfrozen. You don't go towards them. You waste time staring at her.
You're not sure how you feel.
Eventually, Claude runs into the room. "Mira! Euphrasie! Are you both- EUPHRASIE!!" She runs towards you and stares too. "W-What happened?"
"...The King killed her."
Claude doesn't respond, simply crying about Euphrasie's death.
The other housemaidens will probably be here soon. You don't feel like watching their reactions, so you just stand up and leave.
Keep moving.