Webcomic / Paper Trail

Welp… looks like these kids are back at it again!

"One of you will destroy your home."

Paper Trail is a Deltarune fan comic created by Lynxgriffin. It functions as a fan-made sequel to the game and follows the adventures of Kris, Susie and Ralsei as they once again venture through the Dark World.

After the events of the first game, Kris and Susie have become True Companions through their shared experience in the Dark World, Lancer rules the kingdom with Ralsei by his side and life in general is sweet...until it isn't.

After getting caught leaving the closet that hosts the Dark World one too many times, Kris and Susie discover to their horror that the room has been cleaned out by the school. Now they have to embark on a scavenger hunt across the entirety of Hometown to get their friends back and return the Dark World to how it was before. And as if that wasn't enough, it's becoming more and more clear that something is not right with Kris...

The comic is available for free on Tumblr.

Compare Dogs of Future Past, another fan comic made by Lynx.

The comic takes place after Chapter 1 of Deltarune. Thus, this page will be rather spoiler-heavy. If you haven't finished the game yet and had planned to do so blind, this page definitely isn't for you. Proceed at your own risk!

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Contains Examples Of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • The Spade King. The more things change. When confronted in the Dark World in Noelle's house, he wastes no time berating and bullying Lancer, even threatening to put him in the dungeon after he's defeated the Lightners. Thankfully, Lancer finds the courage to stand up to him.
  • Implied for Susie. She hasn't been fed properly for years, to the point that when she was in kindergarten, she ate the classroom hamster because she was just so hungry. Later it was revealed that she's living with her grandmother, who's living on fixed income and could only afford what she would eat, namely rice, oatmeal and noodles, but Susie's kind is actually carnivorous, so she couldn't get the nutrition she needed, and would often complain she's hungry, yet all her grandmother did was yell at her for being demanding and ungrateful.
• Aerith and Bob: Played Straight every time Kris and Susie go into the Dark World. Not surprising since this fan comic goes with the interpretation that all the Darkners are actually Living Toys.
• Ambiguously Evil:
  • For a good while the comic leaves it ambiguous if Kris really is the good person their friends believe them to be or if it's actually the SOUL doing all the heroics, while Kris's real personality is more sinister. During their confession on the Hot Seat, Kris themselves admit that they don't know. Since the SOUL has been possessing and making decisions for them for as long as they can remember, they never really got to find out who they really are and whether or not they're actually a good person or just do the things they do to elicit reactions.
  • The SOUL itself is kind of a head-scratcher. On multiple occasions it pilots Kris's body against their will and interferes in their decision-making without Kris having asked or wanting it to do so. But so far it doesn't seem like it means Kris or their friends any harm. On the contrary, every time it pops up, it's apparently trying to help. Kris themselves suspects the SOUL sees the world around it as a game and wants to keep "playing" with everyone, admitting that they thought about just destroying their home and relationships to see if that would get rid of it. The SOUL, or rather the Player, proves themselves as ultimately benevolent when they let Kris go, so the Light World won't be destroyed and Kris can be free to live their own life.
  • The Knight for some reason terrifies Kris and is responsible for the Spade King's rise to power before his defeat by the Fun Gang. Him suddenly appearing is what causes Kris to panic enough to pull Lancer and Ralsei into the Light World. But we never see him actually do anything that could be classified as evil. After the Fun Gang's first death with Noelle in the party, he approaches Kris in the Game Over-screen with an item to help them later on. But when they try to refuse it, he makes it clear that he was talking to the SOUL, not them and that he doesn't care one bit about what they want. He is later revealed to be one of the humans trapped in the underground bunker-system beneath Hometown, who created Kris as a way to free humankind. While he acts fairly antagonistic and it's made clear he has quite a few screws loose, you could still argue his insanity and extreme actions are somewhat justified, seeing as him and his fellow humans were victims of decades of imprisonment.
  • As of Page 58, Toriel, of all people, is a suspect of this trope. At this point, it isn't clear what went down, but Sans implies that she and the other elder monsters not only murdered a town full of humans (in self-defense, if Toriel's claims are anything to go by), but took said town as their own and somehow erased all memory of the prior inhabitants.
• Ambiguous Gender:
  • Kris, Frisk, and Chara all give absolutely no clue as to what biological gender they are, and Toriel even reveals that a younger Kris used to alternate between dressing up as a boy and dressing up as a girl. The author has stated that Kris is nonbinary.
  • The Player is never shown beyond the Soul they control and so we never learn their gender. Justified, as they're supposed to represent literally anyone who has ever played Deltarune.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The comic heavily hints that Kris is being possessed by the SOUL in parts of the story, but it's still not clear who or what the SOUL actually are, whether or not they intend to cause harm, and why they chose Kris as a host. Kris seems to think it's because they want to play with everyone and everything around them.
  • When the SOUL releases Kris in the end, is it because they realized they were making Kris miserable and weren't actually helping with saving the world? Or did they, thanks to their omnipotence as a player, manage to observe the Knight's exposition to the Ralseis and realize that their very presence was needed to complete his plan? Word of God claims that it was both. The SOUL realized it was causing more harm than good, and disconnected to defy Gaster’s plans.
• And the Adventure Continues: The Knight reveals himself as one of the humans trapped underneath Hometown after the bloody war between humans and monsters. He created Kris in order to link the Dark World and Light World, so that the humans could finally escape their prison and take revenge on the monsters. Due to all seven fountains having been closed, he succeeds, and the Light World is invaded by both Darkners and angry humans. The SOUL, who is revealed to be the Player, severs their connection with Kris for good, just as Asriel returns home, determined to make things right between the humans and monsters of Hometown. As the player was a rough stand-in for the readers, this means the "story" will never have a conclusion that we'll be able to witness and ends here. What keeps this from being No Ending is that this ending was Lynx's plan from the start.
• Anti-Hero: Susie and Kris are both more Creepy Good than anything else and their heroics are confined to the Dark World. In the Light World, Susie is abrasive and anti-social to the point of being The Bully while Kris is a rarely emoting, silent, moody teen whose friendship with Susie developed mostly out of convenience.
• Apocalyptic Log: A non-lethal example. Every Prince of the Dark, including Ralsei, turns into a page of Asriel's secret diary when brought into the Light World. The entries detail his general thoughts and feeling towards and about Kris from his childhood up until his departure for college.
• Armor Is Useless: Once again, Kris is the only one in the party who wears any kind of armor but they get hurt all the same and, if anything, are actually squishier than both Ralsei and Susie.
• Armor-Piercing Question: The fused form of Ralsei drops one on Kris on Page 60.
  Fusion-Ralsei: Kris...is destroying everything really what you want?
• Artificial Human: While not stated outright, Kris's nightmare about their past heavily implies they are one. It shows them confined in some sort of container and looking out at what appears to be another human body, constructed from multiple parts strewn around the room. The two unseen other people in the room also frequently refer to Kris as "it" and when Kris wakes up, they notice with glee that the SOUL is still in its cage, although it's thrashing wildly in an attempt to get out. Kris then tries to get away from it, but seemingly has difficulty walking without it. Their escape attempt is ultimately unsuccessful and the SOUL flies into their body yet again. This is ultimately confirmed on the last page. Kris is the creation of this world's human W. D. Gaster and was made specifically to free humankind from their underground prison.
• Beneath the Mask: The actions of the SOUL inhabiting Kris don't necessarily line up with who Kris really is. As of Chapter 60, Kris' own attempts to 'destroy everything' just to make the SOUL go away are revealed to be a ruse, too — deep down, Kris is a frightened kid who misses their big brother, Asriel, and are scared of being alone to face their hardships.
• Berserk Button: Do not imply that Toriel isn't the best mother. Sans hammers this button as hard as he can when grilling Toriel about what happened sixty-six years ago, then implying she raised Kris out of spite at the abusive humans from her past.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Kris heavily borders on Creepy Good in the comic. Their stoic nature doesn't really help and neither does this little interaction between them and Susie:
  Susie: You should try being scary.
  Kris: (grins) No. I shouldn't.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Asriel's secret diaries show that he was really protective towards Kris. He tried his best to get them to make friends, letting them tag along whenever he went outside with his clique. He also worried about their mental health when they began to have trouble sleeping and attempted to tell Toriel about it, only to be told that it was his responsibility as their big brother to comfort them through it.
  • Sans, as usual, puts his brother Papyrus' well-being front and center, even passing up on a date with Toriel to comfort him after a nightmare.
• Break the Cutie: The recovered entries from Asriel's journal reveal, one part at a time, how the Dreemurrs' biological son was gradually broken down by the stress of caring for an unstable Kris, then watching as his parents grew apart before divorcing. Then, as of Page 63, the last entry shows that Toriel revealed the dark secret of what happened 66 years ago. Whatever it was, it was such an Awful Truth that Asriel came to hate his hometown and parents.
• Bullet Hell: True to the game it's based on, every battle in the comic consists of Kris, Ralsei and Susie, plus whoever else is in their party at the time, having to dodge a variety of projectiles.
• The Bully: Susie might be True Companions with Kris, but her attitude towards the rest of the student body hasn't really improved that much. It's best seen when she "asks" Berdly about the missing toys from the closet. When he doesn't answer her right away, she immediately goes on the offensive and threatens him. A bit of a deconstructed example, since she afterwards confesses to Kris that her mean-and-tough-persona is mostly her trying to cover up that she has No Social Skills, because she doesn't want the other kids to pity her.
• Can't Spit It Out: Zigzagged. Subverted in that Noelle comes to Kris and asks Kris outright if Kris is romantically interested in Susie, then asks Kris to tell Susie about Noelle's feelings for her. Played straight in that Noelle couldn't bring herself to ask Susie out.
• The Cameo: Frisk and Chara appear as living portraits in the Highlight Gallery. Though in there, they apparently go by Noble (Frisk) and Naughty (Chara).
• Catch-22 Dilemma: As of Page 63, it seems that Asriel found himself in one when Toriel revealed the truth of what happened 66 years ago. On the one hand, the Awful Truth, whatever it was, deeply upset Asriel. On the other hand, trying to do something about it will supposedly make things worse.
  Asriel: ...And the worst part is....I can't do anything about it, or everyone will...it'll all be over.
• Climax Boss:
  • The second round with the Spade King is suitably dramatic, as it proves the turning point for not only Noelle becoming a proper member of the Fun Gang, but for Lancer to stand up for himself and become a proper king.
  • And later, Kris takes on this role, as the truth about the SOUL comes out and the others have to talk them down from their self-destructive behavior.
• Cliffhanger: Darkner monsters spill out into the Light World. The SOUL severs its connection to Kris, foiling the Knight's plan to rely on its desire to continue "playing the game" and reach the end of the "story." We fade to white just as Asriel gets home, with no way of knowing what happens next... but that's probably for the best.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The many versions of Ralsei wear clothing that reflects the SOUL-traits they are based on.
• The Comically Serious: Kris rarely emotes as much as their friends, which makes it pretty humorous when they tell a pun, ACT silly to end a battle or get put through comedic slapstick all the while never changing from their default blank expression.
• Cooldown Hug: Fusion-Ralsei gives one to Kris on page 60.
• Darker and Edgier: While Deltarune itself wasn't exactly all rainbows and sunshine, the comic takes it a step further by delving deeper into the more subtle darker themes hinted at in the game, like Susie's self-esteem issues, possibly broken home life, Kris's And I Must Scream-situation throughout their first trip to the Dark World and the mysterious "knight" responsible for the Spade King's rule.
• Dark Is Not Evil: While a lot of the Darkners may look intimidating, none of them are truly evil per sé. Most can be pacified by ACTing a certain way and even Yisho, the one Darkner who has to be defeated through violence, turns out to only have been grumpy due to suffering from an egg stuck inside of him and hops away giddily once it's finally out.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Susie isn't one for subtlety, but she sneaks out some pretty snarky one-liners here and there.
  • Ralsei, Eslira and Irales are prone to snark when upset. Which, for Irales, is pretty much all the time.
• Death Montage: The Fun Gang dies over and over again in the fight against Lairse. Eventually, Kris gets tired of it and chooses to try and avoid the confrontation altogether.
• Deer in the Headlights: Noelle was in no way prepared for the Dark World and its many dangers and was repeatedly characterized as timid and easy to scare. So naturally, when she learns she could actually die there, she's mortifed and freezes up, leading to her powers being nullified in the battle and the Fun Gang getting killed as a result.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The Light World and its characters are drawn in all black and white to contrast it with the literally way more colorful Dark World.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Susie and Kris skipped class three days in a row to visit the Dark World and used the same excuse each time. It apparently didn't occur to them that Alphys, Toriel and all of their classmates would turn suspicious and go look for them eventually.
  • Really, why did Susie and Kris think they would get away with cutting class for three days in a row, especially since Kris's mother is one of the teachers?
• Dramatic Unmask:
  • The Knight finally takes off their helmet in Page 67. We don't see who it is thanks to angles, but the Spade King's reaction speaks volumes.
  • The Knight does this again on the comic's last page when they confront the Ralseis, revealing their identity as a human. It is also heavily implied that he is this world's version of W. D. Gaster.
• Dying as Yourself: Kris attempts to do this during their Freak Out, as killing themselves would at least be their decision, not the SOUL's. They eventually stop when Susie interferes, but more because dying would just mean reviving at their last save point, not because they've snapped out of it.
• Eldritch Abomination: The entity (actually the player) who the knight summoned and hijacked to help bring about the world of darkness, described as a curious being with Blue-and-Orange Morality who's as far above the cast as Lightners are above Darkners. Complete with Existential Horror worthy of a Cosmic Horror Story.
• Exact Words: How the Knight justifies the outcome of their deal with the Spade King:
  Knight: I have done exactly as I promised. Even now, darkness is spreading, overtaking the light. A new world approaches. One ruled by darkness.
  Spade King: But...you promised...
  Knight: I never promised you, specifically, would rule it.
• Existential Horror: Kris' rant about being controlled by the SOUL and their fears of what they will eventually do to try and escape its presence.
• Fantastic Racism: Lairse has a deep-seated hatred for monsters and refuses to let the Fun Gang walk through the Heaven-route as long as Susie and Noelle are in the party.
• Fate Worse than Death: The humans who lost to the monsters in the altercation of Hometown were banished into an underground-bunker and basically left to rot. With no sunlight, dwindling rations and no hope of being freed any time soon, they consider their situation this.
• Freak Out: Kris ultimately suffers one when they're forced to confess their existential crisis on the Hot Seat. When Noelle and them end up in an underground cave due to the floor collapsing, Kris loses it and repeatedly slams themselves against walls in an effort to kill themselves.
• Fusion Dance: Ralsei and Lairse (along with, it's implied, the rest of the Asriel figments encountered thus far) fuse into one being to save the FUN gang from the depths of the "Hell"-path.
• Get Out!: At the culmination of her argument with none other than Sans in page 58, Toriel makes it very clear she's had enough.
  Toriel: Leave. Now.
• The Ghost: As in the game, Kris' older brother Asriel is mentioned a lot of times, but he's never shown. However, since his secret diaries play a major role in the story and he will presumably come to visit relatively soon, this may or may not be subverted in the future. He finally shows up right as the comic ends.
• Happily Adopted: Kris seems to genuinely love their adopted family the Dreemurs and the same is true in reverse.
• The Heavy: The Knight seems to be this. By Page 67, they claim that they're "not the one holding the cards," thus implying that they're doing the legwork for someone else. It's later revealed that he's doing this for the player, and that, despite what he implied, everything was indeed planned by him alone.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • It's heavily implied that Kris vividly remembers being possessed by the SOUL and dreads that it will happen again. It's later confirmed that Kris is totally aware of the SOUL being a foreign element that controls them, and they're absolutely terrified of it. For some reason, they're also deathly afraid of the Knight, to the point they were willing to pull Ralsei and Lancer into the Lightner-world (without knowing what would happen) rather than trying to fight him when he first appears.
  • During their first fight with Noelle in the party, she becomes terrified after realizing they could all die for real and is paralyzed for the rest of the fight, leading to Kris being unable to use any of her moves and the gang actually getting killed.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The SOUL ultimately frees Kris, and in doing so forfeits any say in or even knowledge of the game.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Susie has pretty severe self-esteem issues, not helped by her continually pushing others away and earning a reputation as a delinquent for it. This actually bites her in the ass when the gang has to answer a riddle that includes a true and a false statement. Susie automatically assumes the statement "One of you is a terrible person." to be true since, well, she's there. Turns out that was actually the false statement, something Susie registers with blatant surprise.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: The knight spend a lot of time and effort to do this to the Entity they managed to summon, and they would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for it listening in on their Evil Gloating and pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to throw a wrench in their plans.
• Horror Hunger: Susie reveals during the sin confession trial that she feels a constant nagging hunger that she just can't seem to sate, and which makes flesh very alluring. It all started when she was in kindergarten and she ate the classroom hamster because of how hungry she was. She's absolutely terrified that one day, she's going to snap and take a bite out of one of her fellow monsters, and she puts up her bully front in large part to keep them away so she won't be tempted.
• Interspecies Adoption: Kris, a human child, was adopted by the Dreemurrs, a monster family.
• Interspecies Friendship: Twofold in the story. Kris has one with Susie, who is a monster, while both Susie and Kris share one with the Darkners, Ralsei, and Lancer. Then Noelle gets added to the mix, even becoming an official Fun Gang member.
• It Amused Me: Seam's entire reason for fighting the Fun Gang instead of just coming home with them.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: The two unseen people in Kris's bad dream call Kris an "it" several times. This, along with the fact that they apparently kept younger Kris in a cage makes it pretty clear they didn't really care about Kris that much.
• Knights and Knaves: Noble and Naughty are a variant of this. Although it's fairly obvious who is the liar and who always tells the truth (they tell you, after all), the real challenge comes from them performing a sort of Fusion Dance that makes them look the same. From then on, you have to decide by their respective statement who is who.
• Large Ham:
  • Lancer, as per usual.
  • Aelsir is pretty fond of adding a certain flair to his sentences and movements. Funnily enough, he infects Ralsei with this too, for a short time.
  • Naughty. Especially when you fail at their and Noble's puzzle.
  Naughty: Wrong, Idiot! I'm the liar, hahaha hee hee!
• Light Is Not Good: On Page 67, we finally see the Knight without any shadows in the way. Their armor seems to be pale white, evoking divinity...and yet, they're trying to bring about a world of darkness.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Noelle, the very feminine Nice Girl with a blatant crush on the self-proclaimed thug Susie.
• Morality Chain: Lancer is this to Susie, kind of. She tends to be a lot nicer to him than she is to anyone else and most of her current improved behavior is the result of his friendship with her.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: During their travels through the fifth Dark World, the Fun Gang encounters a sign post pointing to "Heaven" on the one and "Hell" on the other path. They unanimously decide to take the "Heaven"-route. When it becomes clear to Kris that Lairse won't let them pass, they decide to go for the Hell-route instead, much to the dismay of the rest of the party.
• Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: The reason Kris and Susie frequent the Dark World. Both of them have become bored with their day-to-day-lives and would rather spend their time in the fun fantasy-world that reveres them as legendary heroes than the dull reality in which they're considered outsiders at best.
• Parental Abandonment: Word of God has confirmed that Susie's parents weren't around her ever since she was really young, and Susie refers to her grandmother as the one who raised her.
• Parents as People: Toriel does her best to raise Kris as a single mother, but it's obvious she doesn't really know how to help them with what they're going through. She also leaves them alone fairly often due to her job.
• Pet the Dog: The SOUL willingly lets Kris go in the end, so they can be truly free and the Light and Dark World won't be destroyed by the Knight's machinations.
• Plot Parallel:
  • It is hard to decipher, but it is implied that this is what Lairse's prophecy's about as it parallels that of Undertale, which is what happened in this universe.
  Lairse: Long/Years ago, two races ruled over Earth/lived in the town, HUMANS and MONSTERS. After a long battle/riot, the humans/monsters were victorious. They sealed the monsters/humans underground with a magic spell/an unbreakable lock.
  • The Knight's job to free the humans seem to parallel that of Dr. W. D. Gaster in Undertale, or in Dogs of Future Past at least.
• Power-Up Full Color Change: Ralsei and the other princes' Fusion Dance causes them to assume a form much like the one Asriel has in the first phase of his Undertale boss fight, their clothes becoming iridescent and shifting between their respective colors.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: A pretty interesting example. Kris' eyes are red and when you actually see them, it's a clear sign that shit's about to go down. Not because of Kris themselves, but because if anything gets The Stoic Kris to react in a way that you see their eyes, it's probably bad news.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Susie is the hot-headed red to Kris's calm blue.
  • Noble is the blue to Naughty's red. Noble is polite, soft-spoken and Cannot Tell a Lie, Naughty is loud, rude and a Compulsive Liar. Also a partially literal example. Noble's portrait is blue, while Naughty's is red.
• Running Gag: During the Fun Gang's trip through the Rainbow Jungle, Kris keeps checking things and remarking "Smells like socks". Susie gets so sick of it that the word socks alone is enough to make her fly into a rage afterwards.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Only Kris knows about the save points and the reloads. They also seem to know something about the Knight.
  • Ralsei refuses to tell Kris why he looks so much like Asriel. Kris becomes fed up with it at some point and calls him out on it. Ralsei tries to defend himself by stating that knowing would possibly hurt Kris.
• She's Not My Girlfriend: Kris is pretty quick to assure Noelle that they and Susie are not dating.
• Shout-Out: The third Dark World that the Fun Gang visits is basically an extended homage to Super Smash Bros., with them needing to defeat an obvious expy of Yoshi to reach its Dark Fountain.
• Significant Anagram: The different Princes of the Dark the Fun Gang meets, including Ralsei, all have names that are an anagram of Asriel, the name of Kris's older brother. This has yet to be explained in canon, but in Paper Trail this is because the Dark Princes are created from entries in a secret diary Asriel kept on the backs of the pages in a Junior Jumble book Toriel once gave him.
• Sixth Ranger: Noelle ends up joining the team later in the story after Kris accidentally brings her to the Dark World in her basement.
• Straw Nihilist: Seam seems to have given up on life in general when the Fun Gang finds him. He's convinced that nothing anyone does will change anything, since they're all influenced by outside forces and have no real control over their lives anyway. Seam seems to snap out of it a bit after the fight, however, remarking that even though it might soon be The End of the World as We Know It for all of them, "when people care, unexpected things happen."
• Suck E. Cheese's: The "Pezza" parlor Kris and Susie have to go to to retrieve Seam. It's closed upon their arrival and Kris even comments on how they don't believe they've ever seen it open to begin with.
• Teethclenched Teamwork: Kris absolutely hates it when the SOUL possesses them, but they pretty much have no choice in the matter.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Page 58 has an extended one, as Sans grills Toriel on what happened 66 years ago.
• Token Human:
  • Kris is the only human child living in a town full of monsters. It's even lampshaded later in the story. When Kris meets Sans again, he not so subtly points out that it's a little odd for them to be the only human for miles and asks if they have any idea why that is, but backs off as soon as he notices that this topic is making them severely uncomfortable.
  • By page 58, this becomes a plot point, as it's implied that Toriel and the other older monsters wiped out a town full of humans and took said town as their own. It's further implied, if Toriel's protests are anything to go by, that it was in self-defense.
• Trickster Mentor: On Page 18, Seam imparts some rather specific taunts on each of the Fun Gang as he fights them… which, when put into context, serve as a means to make each recipient consider their actions up to this point:
  • He asks Ralsei if they're capable of ACTing on their own, rather than leaving it all to Kris. This gets explored later in Page 60, where Ralsei has to fuse with his other selves in order to face Kris after the latter has a Freak Out.
  • He points out to Susie that for all her griping about his wasting their time, she'd rather live in the Dark World than the normal one; he wonders if there's something in the normal world she's pining for. As it later turns out, Susie thinks she's a dangerous, unstable beast who can't function in normal life because of her hunger habits. Noelle helps her come to terms with her eating habits, thus setting her on the path to slowly overcoming her issues.
  • He forces Lancer to realize that he doesn't (at the time) have any power of his own, having relied on the Lightners for so long rather than develop his own abilities. Come page 43, Lancer forces himself to manifest his own tail-spear to face his father.
  • He tells Kris that though they think they're fixing things, they're actually being manipulated into a more insidious endgame. Except that he's not talking to Kris. This comes into play in the finale, where it turns out the Knight was counting on the SOUL's desire for resolution to bridge the gap between Light and Dark Worlds.
• Triumphant Reprise: The somewhat ominous lullaby from the credits of Deltarune: Part 1 are given a more uplifting context in Page 60 — it was a song that Asriel sung to Kris in the past to calm them down when they were freaking out.
• Troll: Seam starts a fight with Susie, Lancer, Ralsei, and Kris just because he feels like it and continually presses each opponent's Berserk Button while doing so.
• The Unreveal: As of Page 67, the King finally sees the Knight's face under their helmet. We, however, don't get to see this due to camera angles; however, the reaction of both parties implies that the latter is/was a Lightner.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Ralsei's refusal to tell Kris why he looks like their older brother Asriel ultimately costs him their trust, as it's yet another aspect of their life that is seemingly controlled by outside forces.
• Villain Has a Point: The Spade King uses a living Magic 8-ball in his fight that lets him cancel out the FUN-gang's turns and attack indefinitely. When Lancer scolds him for cheating, the Spade King points out that it's a bit hypocritical of the heroes to whine about fairness when the current fight is four against one.
• Villainous Breakdown: The Spade King goes from smug to stammering protests when the Fun Gang reveal they have the means to beat him. He gets a much more pronounced one upon seeing the Knight's true face, and realizing that he's been a pawn for a Lightner the whole time. He's last seen shaking the bars of his cell and shrieking in outrage.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Knight's ulterior motive is to free all the humans locked behind the bunker 66.5 years ago by using a human soul to guide Kris into merging the Light and Dark worlds together, so that the humans could obtain freedom once more. However, he didn't care if the Light or Dark world gets destroyed, and is even gleeful to see the town in the Light world destroyed as Revenge on the monsters. He also doesn't care what the player controlling the SOUL does to Kris so long as they finish the game, since the player longs for an ending.
• Wham Line:
  • After a nice little chat in the diner, Sans suddenly gives Toriel his famous empty eye-socket Death Glare and starts interrogating her about something that happened sixty-six and a half years ago.
  • As of Page 63, we get a written one from the last of Asriel's journal entries:
  Asriel: Mom told me about the bunker.
  • Page 67 gives us another one that, combined with previous plot revelations, goes a long way towards explaining the Knight's motivations.
  Spade King: Y...you...! You're a Lightner!
• Wham Shot:
  • On Page 63, the last of Asriel's journal entries reveals that he found out what happened 66 years ago...and whatever it was, it was such an Awful Truth that Asriel came to hate his parents, the town, etc. so much that he left for the college that was furthest away from home.
  • Another one happens when The Knight unmasks himself. By all accounts, he looks like a completely normal man... Aside from the telltale scars above one eye and below the other revealing that he's the Deltarune universe's version Gaster.
• White Mage: When brought to the Dark World, Noelle becomes a mage whose primary focus is on healing and protection.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: As Kris explains in the church Dark World, they just want the SOUL to leave them alone, and they're afraid that one day, that desire may lead them to do terrible things. Kris talks about getting rid of "everything it wants to play with", including their friends and family, and finally confesses that they've been thinking about just burning their home to the ground so there's no place to "play", just to see if the SOUL will leave them alone.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • When Susie breaks down after admitting her past sins, Lancer hoists her over his shoulder and tells her that he's her friend, and he won't abandon her.
  • Later, on Page 60, the whole gang pulls this on Kris when the latter expresses doubts about who they are without the SOUL. Fusion-Ralsei is quick to point out the good things they've done without any input from the SOUL; Susie insists that they're friends with Kris, not the SOUL; Noelle promises to help Kris find their own life; and Lancer claims he'll reach out to Kris the way Kris did for him.
  • Even later, on Page 69, Noelle tells Susie that the latter isn't a bad person for her compulsion of eating everything around her, it's that she needed a diet of meat which she couldn't afford instead. Noelle even offered Susie to find a food programme specific to carnivores, or even head to the city together to a steak house or Korean barbecue place.
• You Are Not Alone: Page 60 closes out with the Fun Gang joining Kris for a group hug to calm them down, and this encouragement from Ralsei:
  Ralsei: Even in the darkest places...you were never alone.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: By Page 67, it turns out that the Spade King was nothing but a pawn in the Knight's bigger plan. While the latter doesn't plan on killing the former, they've got no intention of freeing him, either.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!:
  • By Chapter 63, all of Lancer's subjects have been recovered, and the fountains of darkness have been purified. Quest accomplished...only, it isn't. Asriel's last journal entry implies that the Fun Gang will need to confront their hometown's dark past.
  • Happens again on page 66, when the Fun Gang returns to the Card Kingdom to greet the restored inhabitants. All the subjects are back, and Noelle has made it so other Lightners can enter the unused classroom and play with the Darkners again. Everything seems good for the time being… …until Kris realizes that Jevil is missing from their inventory.

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