Dunno if anyone on this thread has seen this Chinese drama, but the MC reminds me of Wei Wuxian from the Untamed. Especially since I chose Spiritism as my specialization. Grandmaster of demonic cultivation indeed! He is also unjustly killed/let’s himself die and is resurrected. And then the story starts…Love this story even more because of this.
Also has to be the only cyoa where I actually cried when I saw Ilya’s reaction to the MC’s actions and death. That part is really well written, even when we know exactly what’s happening, it feels very like we go through that revelation with Ilya.
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ideally the mc would return and make up to leon on why they have to kill the seraphim ( did i spelled it right ?) realistically the mc return and destroy the kingdom because leon is simply too how do i put it, i don’t know emotional. that just how i think
this was a demo? this could be a whole book of his own its Amazing by the way
but why do my skills decrease themselves?
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This is trickier for me to guess on since I imagine, but I don’t imagine (if its even a talk that will come up ingame) that it would be a talk that happens too soon. Saine is honest, but I feel like he’d respect MC’s decision even if he expresses some concerns he may have. Or he might save that talk solely for his brother offscreen and it gets referenced by Leon himself.
Guess we will see what happens when we get back to a point where MC and Leon can rekindle their romance and how others react to that.
Hey, Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Good are also alignments for a reason. 
And here I thought the story of Sleeping Beauty involved the princess sleeping in a tower on fire.
Joking naturally, but seeing as MC is being brought back from the flames, it is kind of like they’re being awakened once more. Reborn from the flames, much like how a phoenix is although the difference is a phoenix goes willingly to the flames for their rebirth. MC was forced into the fire by a whole kingdom.
Many eyes lay upon the statue and each one likely sees something different. A foreigner may glance at it and see beautiful craftsmanship or a unknown story. A child may stare in wonder at this almost, wondering what that person carved from stone was really like when they were alive. A resident of the kingdom may merely glance at it as a memory of a simple slip up that just needed to moved past from or look upon it with sorrow as a reminder of how much themselves and many others failed to see the person for the hero they actually were until it was too late. And for those who knows MC the most, I imagine there are many feelings involved for them whenever they seen the thing.
Am I denying that some selfishness is involved with the statue? No, and I would not put it past some people to feel a sort of entitlement(?), thinking since MC ended up getting coined a hero by their lands, the same person would not hesitate to help once more (which may not always be be the case, judging by all our different MCs). But many people make up a kingdom, many eyes come upon the statue and each one sees it in a different way.
I’ve seen people not be fond of characters due to being too sweet (which does feel like a odd reason to me but eh to each their own).
I don’t hate Leon, but there’s also no denying he (as well as Ante) was careless and impulsive in how he handled the disaster.
Ante may have had a strong track record as a spy in the past and was there as a witness to MC’s actions, but she has also been shown to have always been suspicious of MC regardless of any good they’ve done for the kingdom so she was far from a unbiased witness and it didn’t sound like investigating the matter to find MC’s reasoning behind the actions (something I would think a spymaster would recommend, regardless of their personal feelings on the situation) was never even brought up. Leon took too many factors at face value that day, didn’t stop once to look at the situation more deeply with a cooler head, and was so caught up trying to mimic thinking mentality of Julius that MC ended up being thrown to the fire partly because of it.
So I don’t dislike Leon, just how he handled things?
Yes! 
That feels like that the results of that would almost be like telling some angry people to calm down. Like mentally they want to respect MC’s wish in that case, but emotionally that may make what Leon did to MC even worse in their eyes and they’ll view Leon even more poorly for what he did.
At least, that’s one possible result that could happen; a more postive outcome could end up being the case too.
Leon does have quite a bit of guilt about what he did when the truth came out, so that forgiveness might hit him hard. Ante…has not as much guilt about what happened, so the forgiveness might not hit her as hard (maybe)?
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Well, isn’t that right. Like I said many times, I’m looking forward to (former I guess) White Fangs’ and Aunt Bess’ (and lol especially Ante’) reactions when they all see or find out that they back alive.
Eh, I can understand them, tbh most times I like bad guys or necessary evil type of people.
I never said that I (or my MC) hates Leon, more like holds grudge. Lol after all most times logic and truth are invalid when it comes to hate and grudges.
I thought Ante was an inexperienced spy.
WoW.
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Generally speaking, I always have nice MCs in IF, but the one here and the one in The Bastard of Camelot are my two most “saint-like” 
Like, they don’t have a single bad bone in them.
Though I guess the one for this game takes the crown considering he doesn’t get mad AT ALL at people. Like, at anyone.
Fun fact:
In tabletop RP I have more varied characters, including some crazy bastards, like a man-eating white dragon sociopath addicted to adrenaline and a perverted egocentric megalomaniac fox lord who considers commoners to be dirt under his paws. I think the reason why I prefer very nice MCs in IF is that the world and other characters can’t “defend” themselves as well against my MC as other characters in a RP campaign, considering they’re also played by people.
Yeah, probably… Though I don’t put it past my MC to actually go and seek Saine to talk with him about that (if given the opportunity by the game / if such a situation presents itself), in case he learns about his opinions on the matter.
Yeah, I agree with you on that matter. The simple fact about how many different reactions to the statue we see on this forum is proof enough of how varied it would be on a kingdom scale - not to mention, a kingdom where this would be more than a game/fiction!
I can actually be like that! Weird considering how sweet my MCs often are, eh? But it’s not all kinds of sweetness. It’s the childish bubbly cheerful saccharine characters - it becomes overwhelming to me when it reaches that point. Saine doesn’t reach that level of sweetness, so I’m okay with him. My own MCs are usually very quiet and/or shy, sometimes even brooding or depressed, which lowers the sweetness without impacting how good and nice they are.
What I do not like are ROs that are too nice - I mean, I can like them as characters, but not as ROs. For example, if Saine was a RO, I wouldn’t be able to romance him, even if I wasn’t so set on Leon. Considering my MCs are usually nice people (and that MCs in games with less input on personality, like VNs, are usually nice people, period), I like the contrast when romancing a less nice character. Usually, I tend to like agressive and wild ROs, or very unstable ones, the most. But it can be varied.
Besides, I love redemption tropes, and for redemption to be a thing, the character has to be at least somewhat bad or have done some awful things.
I think there’s no denying he could have handled things better
Yeah, probably. I can hardly imagine the outcome being really positive, but I can hardly imagine the MC being fully rational when asking that. Or well, that’s not the best phrasing. Rather, I can’t imagine the MC trying to predict all the outcomes. But if it’s an MC like mine who truly wants to protect Leon, I think it would make sense to think “they’ll be mad at him - I’ll at least TRY to lessen that anger while I’m still alive”. Even if it doesn’t work, at least he would have tried everything he could to protect Leon. And if it does, then all the better. He wouldn’t EXPECT it to work, but he’d certainly HOPE it would, basically.
That’s what I fear… it will be SO depressing, if Leon would hurt because of forgiveness and MC would hurt because of anyone blaming Leon (including Leon). A vicious circle of angst… 
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It was so interesting i love it~ The angst is going to be delicious. But boy did it escalate quickly. Getting bbqed wasn’t one of my plans i admit 
I thought going for Leon first, cause well Drama with big D, but then on no Eli is also seem so sweet and then Ilya came back for me and i’m like on no, here let me put on my clown make up and go to a pit where i think too much about who to romance first 
But i do agree with @Okami-Nora, it was a little sudden how quickly Lean bbqed us, without any investigation or listening to our side of the story. But it could be because he is young and inexperienced? I’m not sure 
I most likely forgive, cause well what’s done is done, but i imagine they will not appreciate my humor like “Do you smell bbq here?” Cause i usually mask stress and fear with my stupid humor and it usually bleeds into characters i play
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I’d chalk it down to inexperience and a wish to prove himself as a king to his people. Maybe also his emotional turmoil considering his closest friend or lover “betrayed” him.
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I love Leon but I wouldn’t say it’s inexperience, he’s just a big dumbass. Like, I don’t remember exact words but he told “villain playing” MC he’d get them out and make shit up so they live if they come clean. But if you plead innocence he suddenly lost his balls of steel and doesn’t even wait for Ilya’s investigation because he’s scared of repercussions…
Again, I love him (and my mage, too), but that is just weirdly funny to me LOL
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I just replayed for the nth time 
For me, this is the best WIP on this website by far. Can’t wait for the update and what it brings 
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Same
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Uncanny, since you’ve described the addition pretty much word-per-word. When Ilya leaves the dungeon, you can either let her leave, thank her, or ask her to forgive Leon for their sake.
Upcoming update features a pretty slight advance to plot, so it’s all story and exposition. It’s moreso about polishing what’s already there (hence Demo 2.5, instead of 3.0).
This split will happen in Book 2, actually! I do have a wide array of endings planned, but for the remainder of Book 1 the story will remain pretty linear, roughly to the same degree as the demo right now.
This is definitely planned, probably to a more extreme degree than you imagined it ahah. You’re accurate in saying it’s a lot of new prose and code that I can’t reuse for the other routes, but it’s a relatively short route, so, uh…you’ll see.
This should only happen to your Charisma / Learning / Intrigue stats, if you take an injury during the encampment chapter. Anywhere else, and it’s probably a bug! Would appreciate it if you could let me know where it triggered.
Wonderfully put!
Leon’s offer of freeing the mage is tied not to whether or not they begged for forgiveness, but whether they told him the truth. He needed to be sure that whatever drove them to commit the crime was a one-off, and that if he freed the mage the decision wouldn’t come back to haunt is kingdom. Obviously, the mage doesn’t spill the beans no matter which option you pick, and so…bbq.
These are all such high commendations ahaha I’m glad the story could affect you that much :') Will do my best to live up to your praise!
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Man, I hope we’ll get the opportunity to be a proper villain in the future
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This is gonna be fun.
Oi @Parivir how exactly do you feel 'bout the characters, Leon, Illya, Saine, Ante and Aunt Bess?
And who’s your favourite romance? Would you be angry with Leon? and what’s your take on the statue?
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Oh wow, really? I’m so happy!
About that too!
And yes, makes sense the huge splits don’t happen in book 1 - I was mainly thinking about the fact in the grand scheme of things it would be awful to not have an actual split. Though of course, I’m still hoping for it to make sense to have a “common’ish” ending for book 1 - but I have faith in you!
I think they were referring to Leon’s exact wording. I’m a bit crazy and I’ve checked out the code for the “playing the villain till the end” path in the cell, just for the sake of it. And on that path, Leon gets angry and tells MC he’ll let them go if they just tell the truth, more or less literally. While on the “pleading for innocence” path, he doesn’t exactly say that in these terms.
Now, as far as I’m concerned, I totally got that meaning from him, eh!
I’m just saying that because I guess some people may see it differently?
Well I mean, I repeat what I said before! As far as WIPs go, yours is one of my three favorites from the entire site - well, unless there’s a hidden gem I’m yet to discover!
Also, one thing I’ve been wondering since my very first playthrough, actually!
By the end of the current demo, when talking to Leon in the cell, why does the choice “Insist on your innocence” give a boost to the “charming” stat (and thus a decrease to the reserved one)? Optimistic makes sense to me since MC keeps hope that they’ll manage to convince Leon. Emotional I can also understand, since they try to do something, to defend themself, to plead, instead of being stoic about it. But the Charming/Reserved one, I’ll admit I’m at a loss?
My character tends to be brooding, though he’s affectionate, and I can’t see why my brooding character wouldn’t try and plead for his innocence, for example. I mean, I obviously select that choice anyway, but it always confuses me.
This is even more true considering the two other options affect only two stats, instead of three. “Be evasive.” affects only Reserved and Stoic (both make sense since they basically don’t try anymore and avoid saying anything), and “This is a lost cause. Play the antagonist to the end.” affects Charming and Cynical (both in tune with the fact they are acting and the fact they don’t have hope).
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That final option makes me very curious to know: how will Leon react if, post-truth reveal, Ilya (bluntly) tells him of the mage’s request?
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i think it was only that have to recheck but okay its logical that the wound stop you in your action
I’ve already talked about how much I love the story and characters the last time I was here, and that opinion hasn’t changed a bit haha. For real this is honestly one of my fav wips out there! I know I say that with everything I read but still 
.
Anyways, I was able to catch up on the more recent updates. I binged 2 playthroughs in one night and cried (more like bawled) at the end on both times…Catch me having this story live rent free in my mind from now on lmao.
So excited for the future updates!
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So apparently the statue gets our nose wrong??? Did anyone else think of Flynn Rider???
But yeah I was planning on destroying it earlier because chaos and fun! Now it’s a warpath, I’m gonna destroy the hell out of it
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Oh, my MC definitely has a grudge right now. Leon as a king so far makes me more react like the second person in this comic though (just switch the word gurl for boy).
@Parivir said that she had a good track record before MC came along now that I think of it, maybe we should be flattered about that: MC broke her good work streak. She was a Vice Captain of the royal spies when the group came across her and was appointed to the head of the spies some time after. While I do not agree with how she goes about things and find her lacking as a spymaster in some regards, Ante was more than likely appointed to both those positions due to some level of experience and work ethic.
So she’s not may not be a inexperienced spy, but its more like she is shown to be a inexperienced spymaster (if that makes any sense)? At least, that’s how I’m kinda seeing it. 
We do know that he definitely changes after what happened to his friend/lover, so it might take some time for the old Leon to come back to the surface and break through the king persona (which may not be as simple as the sentence may make it sound).
Probably goes into the king and inexperienced category both, but I would also say that another part of the problem may have been that Leon was trying too much to be a king like Julius and didn’t really consider what price he’d personally have to pay for taking up his older brother’s mentality or even if that mentality would actually work for him, whose is a different person from Julius in general?
Probably as well as he did when he first got the letter that told him about the truth of MC’s innocence.
That’s part of the reason I made this comment in a past post :
Though right nose or not, the statue may have its days numbered with Kote’s return.
I personally like making nice characters with a catch: where they have a number of characteristics that make them arguably good people, but then they have a counter aspect of them that balances the niceness.
Like how my arguably nicer Mordred was the one to burn the face of the Duke’s son where my harsher Mordred had enough self control to simply sock the kid in the face. Or even just take a glance at Kote, who is a good person at heart, but is also the type whose wrath is the last thing anyone wants to trigger.
Though can’t lie, I do get a kick out of watching the more saint like, genuine characters having interactions with sarcastic or grumpy types because those types often just doesn’t know how to handle them.
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