Of course, Apple is about to be convinced that these two have no fucking idea where they’re supposed to be going, because on the way to Duck Village, they take something of a detour inside the Ancient Highway. You see, a rare monster inside the secret passage is the Bronze Sun, an identical cousin of Mr. Sun. It’s every bit as naked, chiseled, and fabulous as its predecessor, but more importantly, it has a chance to drop Fury Runes, and this is one of the few opportunities to farm them. It’s bad enough that Hugo is about to spend something like two hours here, blowing through antitoxin like Gatorade thanks to the thousands of spiders the group encounters, just to get a couple of these runes for himself and Fubie. But to make the most of this, I need to add a support character with the treasure find skill. Various FAQs recommend Billy for this, but I was an idiot and recruited him with Geddy. This means the only support character I can use for this is…Guillaume. God fucking dammit.

🙁

To add insult to injury, he only has an E in treasure finding. He’s not even good at this. I hate myself.

There is no possible way I can make two hours of grinding interesting, even if it’s two hours of grinding on naked orange dudes. So assuming nobody here has a bodybuilder John Boehner fetish, let’s just skip ahead to when I finally get my second Fury Rune and get the fuck out of this stupid dank hallway. Thank God I’m totally never coming here again!

Hugo’s about to get a taste of the Bronze Sun’s ‘Crank Dat Druid Boy‘ attack.

Out of the Ancient Highway, new paths stretch themselves out on the world map–one to Caleria, and one through Kuput Forest all the way to Chisha Village. After a quick stop in Duck Village to resupply and attach those Fury Runes, Hugo enters Kuput Forest. Hugo’s time in this forest will be more or less uneventful, since all he’s doing is passing through to Chisha, but Chris will discover that Kuput Forest is one of those classic enchanted RPG forests where the music is tranquil (like the flowing sounds of water, OMG!), but one can get lost forever by wandering through the same screen over and over. Also, there are obviously lots of spiders, because I don’t hate forests enough already. To add to the mystical ambience, there is one recruit to be found here: a winger (SIGH) named Landis. But he’s not just waiting around for Hugo to bring him some bird seed. That would be too easy. Landis will only show up following a random battle on one specific part of the forest’s map, if the party has one open slot. I have previously spent literal hours trying to make him show up, so imagine my surprise when his leering, hateful winger face is staring at me from the character menu after my very first encounter.

He’s wearing more guyliner than Richard from Lost.

Other than a random encounter with a camo-colored cousin of the PMS Crab that gives Mua a deadly poison STI, Hugo passes uneventfully through the forest and arrives in Chisha. He and Sarge realize as soon as they walk in, though I don’t get to see what’s wrong yet, that they’re too late. Despite Apple’s insistence that there was still time, the camera pulls out to reveal a line of Harmonian soldiers blocking the only entrance to the village. And the only strategist Hugo has with him is fucking Apple, so he takes his own advice and leads his party in for a charge.

Once the first group of soldiers is out of the way, Hugo has his blood fully pumping and says, “We’re on a roll. Who’s next?” It’s a wonder what a full party of mostly non-useless characters can accomplish! Sarge directs Hugo’s attention to the town proper, which is at the bottom of a hill covered in grapevines. In the distance, we can clearly see one Chris Lightfellow, in her “I’m on a spirit quest with a married douchebag” outfit, sparring with more Harmonians. Obviously Hugo does not recognize her yet, because SHE’S SO DIFFERENT YOU GUYS, SHE LITERALLY LET HER HAIR DOWN.

If I admit that I kind of love Landis’s outfit, do I have to turn in my Winger Haters Club card?

More Harmonians meet Hugo’s group on the hill, and are no more intimidating than the first group, even with their weird shadow faces under their helmets. Hallec roars and declares himself thirsty for more combat, like those two hours in a damp corridor wouldn’t have satiated him. Apple asks them all, “Don’t get too drunk on combat just yet. We can’t afford a wrong step.” Well, we brought the wrong strategist, then.

After two more steps down the hill, Hugo announces to his companions that they have “almost” fought their way into the village, while I try to slap him with my mind. But Mua glances up and says, “We haven’t made it yet. Look over there!” And sure as shit, a group of mantor riders rises from behind the hills and a second group from behind the buildings. This looks bad, unless our heroes have a collective thing for dudes in funny hats, but Apple calmly says to take out the ones at the sides first. Like, the ones that are flying. And we have no ranged attackers. Good thinking, missy! She adds that Caesar will take care of the Harmonians threatening to poke them in the rear. Oh, I hope he will, and that someone records it.

He doesn’t seem that upset about this.

So Apple can look like she knows what she’s doing, the mantor trainers obligingly hover into melee range, instead of staying high and throwing spears at Hugo’s head until he dies, which seems like a waste of their only actual advantage as a military unit. After they get beat, they fly off again. Apple tells them that to deal with the other units, “All we really need is for Hallec to give another yell. I think they’ll get the meaning.” Is the meaning that there is a crazy man wearing a dead animal pelt on the ground, and to shoot at him with crossbows instead of getting near him? Seriously, what the fuck is even going on here? But Hallec obliges Apple and lets forth a shout so loud that it literally causes a fucking earthquake, but of course we don’t actually hear it because there’s no voice acting. Whoops! Mua, Hugo, and Sarge also supply their rallying battle cries in turn, and oh god, they are so sad. Hugo’s is actually, I shit you not, “Sergeant, let’s go!” Sarge says, “Charge! Or something like that…” and looks to Hugo, as if for reassurance that it inspired him. Jesus, these two are codependent, aren’t they? How have I missed this for 12 recaps?

Sarge forgot his David Caruso sunglasses.

Back near the village’s entrance, a Harmonian soldier reports to his superior that the totally menacing battle cries from below are continuing to make them all so very scared. I cannot even. The commander, named Dios, is an older man sporting muttonchops and a hooked beak of a nose, and he is totally over the bullshit happening down there. “Braggarts,” he mutters. “Just because their reinforcements were timely…” Does Hugo’s group even count as reinforcements? Serious question. Dios–who I see now is supposed to be 29, what in the Christ–rejects the suggestion to regroup and “attack in greater numbers,” because he wants to “go home” for today, maybe to smoke the two packs a day that have aged his face 20 years. He and his men leave, and Chisha is temporarily saved. This is just going to make Apple think she helped.

Of course, Apple is at least smart enough as she approaches middle age to realize that this first skirmish was only a test of Chisha’s capabilities anyway. Hugo fumes about wasting his martial prowess and truly inspiring battle cry on Harmonia’s dry run, while Apple tries to get Hallec to stop screaming. In the midst of everyone acting like dumbasses, Chisha’s ridiculously catchy town theme bops into the scene for the first time, signaling a return to relative normalcy. I am kind of with Hugo in feeling that this was a massive waste of time.

When I have control of Hugo again, he is clearly supposed to head for the center of the village, where Caesar, Chris, Nash, and Sana are chatting. I try to avoid this and talk to some villagers first, but even attempting to talk to a little boy swine herder nowhere near the center manages to trigger the next cutscene. Sana is in the middle of thanking Caesar for whatever it is he supposedly did, when Apple leads Hugo’s group over to them for what I’m sure will be MAXIMUM AWKWARDNESS. Sure enough, Hugo immediately notices Chris and says, “You, I’ve met you somewhere before…” But thank God he doesn’t derp that Chris was the nice lady who pledged 5000 potch for the Karaya Elementary Relay for Cancer Awareness–he immediately realizes who she is, and the Chisha Village theme gets the fuck out of there, realizing it’s not wanted right now. Hugo’s avatar swaps to the angry wide-eyed face that my dog gets right before he’s going to snarl at another dog for stealing his ball. “That hair. Those eyes,” Hugo says. Is he going to ask her out? “It was you. You killed him.” Chris, for her part, has composed her face into an arched-eyebrow angry glare, like he’s saying anything that isn’t true, or like he’s somehow morally in the wrong for recognizing her. Shut up, Chris’s face.

Nice ‘AWKWARD’ side-eye face, random Chishan lady!

But once she’s processed his words, her face softens a little bit. That’ll do, Chris’s face. She recognizes Hugo as well, and labels him “The child at the village…” Oh, wonderful, I’m sure that’ll calm him down. At this point Hugo is offered two hilariously brief choices: “Strike” or “Question.” In the spirit of believing that Hugo is maturing into a great and noble hero, like he totally said he would three scenes prior so it’s totally happening, guys, I have Hugo question.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

“You took his life,” Hugo says. “You took my home. Why? What are you doing in Grassland? You don’t belong here! This is our village. What do you care what happens to it!” Well, he did certainly run with that “question” option. Chris, to my undying irritation, just sprays ellipses at Hugo. I get that he asked her like three different things and there is also some tension as to whether he even genuinely wants to hear her answers, but I cannot fucking stand when one character arbitrarily holds back information because the plot requires these two people to not communicate properly. EVEN BETTER, Nash literally steps between Chris and Hugo and starts speaking for her, though he is not wearing a white cape or wielding Excalibur. “Adults have their reasons,” he tells Hugo. Oh my God. Please don’t. “You children [UGH] who see the world in black and white will learn soon enough about shades of gray.” I know I just had Hugo pick the non-violent option out of a sense of nobility and maturity, but I hope he shows this condescending cuntwaffle some shades of black and blue. Instead, he just demands Nash get out of the way so he can go back to not learning anything from Chris. Finally Sarge has to step in, or the town risks being caught in an endless “NO I’M MANLIER” standoff between Hugo and Nash.

Now we know why he’s all the way over in this corner.

After a Black Screen of Hugo Running off in Tears, we rejoin Hugo and Sarge under some Chishan villager’s pergola. Caesar approaches just to tell them, “That woman is leaving the village. Says she’s following the advice of some fortuneteller girl in Alma Kinan.” Much more on that bullshit later, but for now I’d like to focus on how fucking high school it is that Caesar has to act like a go-between, just to assure Hugo that his mean girl enemy will no longer be roaming the halls during fifth period, so he is free to use his locker without incident. Of course, both Hugo and Sarge look put out that she’s leaving, I guess because they want to kill her? Or at least have her handy in case they decide to? I don’t know. Hugo asks Sarge, sad face still in place, “Sergeant, I still don’t understand why you always have to stop me.” Because he’s not ready to go all the way with you yet, Hugo! Just kidding. They have absolutely gone all the way.

Naturally, Hugo’s whining is the cue for Sarge to give his manner of stirring speech, while Caesar smiles like a vacant dope in the background. “Hugo,” Sarge says, “you’re the son of the Karaya Clan Chief. One day you’ll take her place as leader. I expect no less from you. What if Zexen found out you’d attacked one of their knights? She fought for this village! Who knows why she did it, but without her, today might have gone differently. Don’t pick fights with people we need help from.” Okay, two things: 1) he’s the Karayan chief’s son, and has a warrant out for his arrest, so he and the Zexen Knights are already not on good terms; and 2) by all accounts today’s battle was only a preliminary skirmish and now Chris is cutting bait and will therefore be unavailable to provide said help when it actually matters. Not one of Sarge’s best efforts. Hugo takes this to mean, “So I should hurry up and get stronger, is that it?” Sarge shakes his head and replies, “No, Hugo, no… That’s not it at all. It’s a good thing you’ve got that ass.”