It’s 4:30 and our next event is back at the Bugeikan. The crew encounters a woman who warns them of a group of strange Shomonkai nearby, and when we encounter the group for ourselves they say that they’ll take our COMPs. These guys seem to be Shomonkai renegades for they claim to be following the philosophy of ruling over those without power instead of what they normally preach.
Mission 16
- All zealot cultists must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
So, five renegade Shomonkai zealots to defeat, and two new Auto Skills to crack. Blitzkrieg and Fortify buff attack power and defense respectively, so the teams with those can be somewhat of a pain, and the zealots won’t hesitate to heal or revive each other’s parties when possible (thankfully the computer can’t revive team leaders like we can). I find it best to divide the party into two groups to take on the enemies at each end of the map. A demon to note here is that one of the zealots has an Orcus on his team. This is the first Vile demon, and a Vile’s Racial Skill, Chaos Wave, is an upgraded version of the Dragons’ Evil Wave. This buffs the team’s attack range up to three, but as a drawback their Speed and movement range is significantly reduced. Pendragons are another demon to watch out for, because their Marksman-powered Anger Hit attacks really, really hurt, enough to one-shot demons with low Vitality like healers.
After about...oh, half the zealots are defeated two members of the Shomonkai, genuine ones this time, arrive to come to our aid. They’ll help out by healing our guys, and now that we don’t have to worry about HP the rest of the renegades fall.
Completing the mission earns us 450 EXP and 310 macca.
Amane arrives after things are cleaned up to thank us on behalf of the Shomonkai. She then says that our destiny will reach a branching point soon, but that if we simply continue on our path we’ll come out fine. When she leaves Atsuro remarks that it’s impressive that so few Shomonkai members have abused the COMPs so far and thinks that maybe they’re not so bad after all.
Time to see what’s going on at the Diet Building. The front of it is an absolute, complete wreck. The road’s all cracked and torn up while a couple of vehicles, including a bus, are strewn about like toys. The crew spots a small group of people cornered by demons, but uh, these guys aren’t exactly looking for help. One of them, calling himself a follower of a demon called Belial, declares that the demons, apparently subordinates of Beldr, will never take the devil’s fuge from them. So uh, enter us, a third party. One of the Belial-followers mistakes us for more Beldr servants and we’re drawn into the fight.
Mission 17
- All enemies must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- No demon tamer can die
So, a three-way battle. We’re free to watch the demons and tamers duke it out with each other, but as the objectives stipulate the demons cannot kill any of the humans or it’s a game over. But at the same time we’re allowed to fight them. So, how does this work? Well if we defeat the tamer’s the finishing attack will leave them with only 1 HP instead of zero and afterwards they’ll be treated like any other civilian that needs protecting from demons. This map is really small, probably the smallest in the game, on account of all the debris strewn everywhere so it won’t take them long to reach the escape panels once rendered harmless. The game even gives them a free HP refill so that they won’t die immediately to a demon’s attack. The demons are somewhat out-of-date so they’re not much of a threat, though two of the tamers have Orcuses and Fortify, so their Physical sniping can be troublesome.
Oh yeah, heh, while it wasn’t much of a thing when we fought the thugs yesterday or the zealots today, a lot of the human battle sprites in the Devil Survivor games are quite over-the-top. These generic salaryman guys? They’re depicted in a wide-armed, lunging pose that makes them look like zombies in battle. The generic office lady, when we encounter them, happen to look like they’re walking down a fashion show catwalk.
Completing the mission earns us 490 EXP and 330 macca.
After the demon worshipers retreat the crew dubiously examines their prize: a mistletoe-shaped wooden cellphone strap. Yuzu’s understandably very skeptical that this is going to help them beat Beldr but Keisuke’s all “well you never know with demons” so it’s our only option, whether it works or not. There’s time for one more scene before we head to the cemetery. One is of Honda trying to surreptitiously contact someone with what appears to be a radio. The more pertinent one however, takes place at Eikokuji Temple in Ikebukuro. There the crew encounters a group of people fleeing from a demon attack, and they encounter a wounded office worker who was left behind. Atsuro recognizes the man as his friend who disappeared, 10BIT
◊. Sadly, 10BIT’s in the middle of an Almost Dead Guy routine, and with much strain he tells Atsuro that a journalist he knew left a file with a friend who vanished and he himself dropped out of sight to figure out what happened. He says that he discovered a cover-up by the government and hands Atsuro his COMP with the data in it and then becomes a Completely Dead Guy as he tries to say what the password is.
Yuzu asks Atsuro if he’s going to be alright and he says he thinks he will be. After examining the COMP he finds that it’s set to lock up if the wrong password’s entered and it’s running low on batteries, so they should wait until later to look at it. What could be inside that he’s risk his life, Atsuro wonders?
Okay, no more stalling, it’s time to go head-to-head with Beldr in Aoyama Cemetery. After a group pep-talk the crew enters the cemetery at the time the Laplace Mail said. This time it’s right on the mark and Beldr appears at the far end, saying that now that twilight has come everyone will shed their tears for him. He summons a bunch of demons to the graveyard, and the battle’s on.
Mission 18
- Beldr must be defeated
- Akira cannot die
Simple objectives. The demon teams of Cait Siths and Vidofnirs can be a hassle, so it’s best to send the others out first to hold them off while Akira is sent straight to Beldr.
Beldr (Lv. 30)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Nulls Physical, Fire, Ice, Elec, Force, Mystic, and Almighty
- Weak Kill - Deals Physical damage to one target, heavy if they’re suffering from an ailment.
- Power Hit - Deals heavy Physical damage to one target.
- Lost Flame - Deals heavy Fire damage to the entire enemy team.
- Life Surge - HP raised by 30%.
- Mana Surge - MP raised by 30%.
- + Stone - Physical attacks may petrify enemies.
- Immortal - Immune to all attacks and can ignore obstacles when moving.
- Vampiric Mist - Hits all enemy teams with Mystic damage and recovers HP equal to total damage dealt.
Akira is the only one with the devil’s fuge, and so is the only character who can scratch Beldr. It’s not clear whether he’s wrapped the strap around his hand like a makeshift pair of brass knuckles or if it’s emitting some sort of anti-Beldr field, but whatever the case when engaging the demon our normal physical attack is changed to “Devil’s Fuge” and is the only thing that isn’t nulled.
I’m going in with a very specific team and load-out to fight Beldr with. I’ve given Akira Anti-Fire to guard against Lost Flame and Hero’s Aid to boost his critical rate, as that’s the only way to remove his extra turns. For demons I brought along Nalagiri and Bai Ze. They aren’t able to harm Beldr, but that’s not why I chose them. Nalagiri is a Kishin, which has a Racial Skill that lets you engage an enemy twice in one turn, giving me more whacks at my foe, while Bai Ze naturally knows Diarahan, the highest-level single-target healing spell (full heal) in case Akira gets low on HP, cause you’re not allowed to revive him during this mission, even with a buddy’s Recarm. Even with this set-up though I have to be careful, because if Beldr gets lucky and petrifies Akira I could be facing a one-hit-kill, and even if he doesn’t do it the Cait Siths can with Mazan spammage, so it’s important to keep the demons off of his back.
If you take too long beating Beldr he’ll revive all of the dead demon teams. So yeah, don’t take too long. Fortunately the Devil’s Fuge’s attack power seems to run off of your level rather than Strength. It’ll still take a few rounds, especially with him healing every few turns thanks to Vampiric Mist, but enough punches to the face will teach Beldr a new meaning of the phrase “under the mistletoe.” Make sure to have Akira crack Mana Surge off of him as it’s quite useful. Once he’s defeated Beldr falls to his knees and gasps that this must be Loki’s doing again. He exclaims that his power’s being drained and, with a groan that sounds like he’s suffering from some killer diarrhea, he and his silver codpiece dissolve into energy that mysteriously seems to enter Akira...
Completing the mission earns us 540 EXP and 370 macca.
The crew rejoices in their second instance of cheating death until they realize, “wait, why do our death clocks read 3 instead of 4 like everyone else?”, and wonder if they’ll have to fight something like Wendigo or Beldr again. Atsuro groans that he had hoped they could concentrate on getting the lockdown lifted but Keisuke says that they should be thankful they have three more days and that they should use them to find out more about the demon problem. If they manage to solve that, then maybe they’ll avoid their next death too. The others agree, and set off to find more information on the demons.
Naoya and the Shomonkai are unavailable, but if we return to Shinjuku we’ll meet the Gigolo again, who expresses some amazed surprise that we actually defeated Beldr. However, he says that things are far from over for us, for the battle to be King of Bel has just begun. He explains that a number of demons with the name of Bel, Belial whom we’ve already heard of, Jezebel, Belzaboul, Belberith, and of course the late Beldr, are locked in a struggle to assume the Throne of Bel and become King of all demons. By defeating Beldr some of his power has come to rest inside of Akira (represented by his Speed stat getting a very slight increase) and that now we have no choice but to participate in the battle. When we ask why us, the Gigolo just chuckles and says that that’s a question our “brother” knows the answer to. Before he leaves though, he tells us that the Bel we’ll be fighting next three days from now will be Belial and that we’d best prepare ourselves if we don’t want to die.
The final scene for the day takes place at Miyashita Park. Yuzu seems to be the one in the highest spirits of the crew, and they plan to take heed of the mysterious man’s words to prepare themselves for the battle with Belial if they’re unable to lift the lockdown, and Keisuke reminds everyone that they need to stop Midori too. Once that’s over we have a number of emails to look through. Out of our immediate friends, Atsuro’s expresses an interest in finding a way to beneficially harness demons’ power, while Keisuke says that he got his COMP from Naoya. We’ve also got emails from Midori, Honda, and Kaido. Kaido seems to have gotten over his hissy fit from earlier as he actually thanks us for giving him the opportunity to summon Pazuzu. Honda meanwhile, expresses his surprise at that and wishes that he could summon a demon like that too, something that would let him fly out of the lockdown. Finally, Amane’s said that an angel has told her that Beldr’s death tonight marks a turning point in the history of darkness and that we cannot escape our new destiny.
An angel huh? A whole new layer is about to be added...
Compendium
- Shiisaa
◊
- Shiisaa are traditional Okinawan gargoyle statues that depict a creature of a cross between a lion and a dog. They are guardian spirits, and when placed in pairs the one on the left has a closed mouth to keep in good spirits while the one on the right has an open mouth to scare off bad ones.
- Orcus◊
- A Roman death god that punished those who broke oaths. He is often depicted has having a pig's head due to it being the animal that was most often sacrificed to him. As of Strange Journey Atlus has split this demon into two entities representing its Roman and Greek incarnations: Orcus's pig-like design goes to Horkos, while Orcus becomes a demonic gate to reflect how the god's visage was often carved above the entrances to Eutruscan tombs.
- Nisroc◊
- Originating as an obscure Mesopotamian god, in demonology Nisroc is held to be a fallen angel who is said to be the personal chef for the various princes of Hell. I suppose even in Hell its rulers would want fine cuisine.
- Bai Ze◊
- A beast who encountered the Chinese Emperor Huang Di and taught him the manner and habits of all eleven-thousand-five-hundred-twenty supernatural beings in the world which he wrote down in a book called Bai Ze Tu. In Japan it's called "Hakutaku" and its image is used to ward off disease.
Soundtrack
- Heroic - Jingle
- The designated "let's pump ourselves up!" track.
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