Visual Novel / Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~

I fain would ask her: oh, why trembles all my soul? Has bitter wrong, a sinful deed been done?
I gaze and see but you, feel but you
For only I know you, who perished by my love.
Wither to ashes, O my love.

A spinoff visual novel by Light written by Takashi Masada which follows one of the antagonists from the original Dies Irae, Wilhelm Ehrenburg.

Before the events of the original novel, Wilhelm is visited by the woman Dinah Malloy at the local bar he frequents and is asked for an interview. Wilhelm being in a good mood obliges and begins the recount the history of his youth as well as one important event in his life after he joined the Longinus Dreizehn Orden, the moment when he meet a young woman and against all sense and reason managed to fall in love.

The story then jumps to 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising during which Wilhelm ends up inadvertently save a young hospital nun named Claudia Jerusalem, and albino just like himself. Instead of killing her, he decides to take her with him as he is summoned by Reinhard and given orders to set out on a new mission, this time to Katyn Forest, in order to deal with some kind of distortion. There he would met yet another architect of his destiny, Ludwig van Rosenkranz.

Originally released in 2016, it was eventually translated into English and released worldwide on Steam in 2019.

Tropes associated with Interview with Kaziklu Bey:

• After-Action Patch-Up: Wilhelm ended up quite battered and bruised after his battle with Machina and Schreiber resulting in Claudia patching him up after he returns to their hideout despite him not really needing it due to his Healing Factor.
• All for Nothing: Ultimately, Wilhelm's plans for Claudia end up coming to an abrupt end when she sacrificed herself to save him, resulting in all the effort and pain he put into this whole thing amount to nothing.
• Arc Words: "Kiss in the Dark". A phrase the keeps having an overlying importance to the plot.
• Chekhov's Gun: The blood that Claudia licked from Wilhelm ends up coming back in a big way when it proves to be his key to victory in the climatic battle with Methuselah.
• Combat Breakdown: The battle against Methuselah at the start could best be described as an all out war with the whole of the L.D.O. involved fighting to the best of their abilities. It ends up concluding with Wilhelm and Ludwig, both at deaths doorstep, beating the living daylights out of each other with nothing but their bare fists.
• Diabolus ex Machina: Methuselah is defeated. Wilhelm expresses his love for Claudia. Claudia expresses hers. Cue her rosary turning out to be an Ahnenerbe that allowed for the activation of her Beri'ah that burns everything in range and uses her soul as fuel.
• Downer Ending: At the end of it all, Claudia dies while Wilhelm was never able to claim her soul. Wilhelm himself lost part of his soul due to using it in his Creation Figment. In the end, he can't help but bitterly laugh at the absolute joke this whole thing turned into and at the fact that Mercurius was correct from the start.
• Drone of Dread: When Wilhelm gets trapped in some sort of darkness that forced him to witness Beatrice's and Lisa's darkest secrets, only a constant drone can be heard instead of music.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Wilhelm and Eleonore both hypothesize Ludwig's true goals possibly along the lines of usurping Reinhard and luring everyone into a false sense of security until he strikes. Beatrice, on the other hand, thinks Ludwig is trying to go after Claudia in some sort of bizarre love triangle between him, Wilhelm, and Claudia. Turns out she's right on the money, and Methuselah has no intentions of going after the LDO at all.
• Humans Are Bastards: Human souls makes for extremely powerful fuel for magicians, however, no one in their right mind would use them as humans inherent greedy and vicious nature makes using them extremely dangerous and is viewed as downright suicidal.
• Leave No Witnesses: After Ludwig incapacitates a group of Soviet soldiers, Wilhelm notes that they can't leave them alive and proceeds to kill them by crushing their heads. Just as he is about to crush the last one however, Lisa makes him realize that the others never intended to let them live in the first place, they just didn't want to do it in front of Claudia.
• Love Triangle: The main conflict ultimately boils down to the fact that both Wilhelm and Ludwig are fighting for Claudia's love.
• Magic Versus Science: Mentioned as part of the backstory. In the past, magicians used to be dime a dozen as there wasn't much need for magic to be all that extravagant. But as science advanced, magic struggled to keep up and it became harder and harder for it to achieve the same things that technology could do in much simpler ways. By the time the story takes place in 1944, magicians are considered almost extinct with only three known true magicians known to exist, Crowley, Rusalka and Mercurius. According to Mercurius however, the real reason the magic's influence weakened was due to the god of the world growing older and weaker, and thus, things that used to be easy became a lot harder to achieve without technology.
• Mood Whiplash: Lisa is going through a rather somber description of their mission in Katyn forest and the nature of human souls, and then all of a sudden Claudia butts in proclaiming that she needs to use the "facilities". Everyone was left speechless by the sudden turn of the mood.
• Not What It Looks Like: Early on, Rusulka and Beatrice walk in on Wilhelm and Cladiua as the later is about to help her with her bandages. Both end up misunderstanding what is going on. He pretty much tells Dinah that is was pretty stupid and that she should just ignore that part. He does manage to explain to them though.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: Given that this story includes vampires and a lot of Gothic tropes, it is perhaps unsurprising that a lot of the new tracks features extensive use of a church organ.
• Prequel: The story is framed as an interview starting some time before the events of the main Dies Irae plot line with the bulk of the narrative being Wilhelm recounting his past, providing background information of not only him, but the rest of the Obsidian Round Table as well.
• Saved by Canon: Seeing as this is a prequel to the original Dies Irae starring the members of the LDO, it's easy to guess that nobody but Claudia and Ludvig ends up dying.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: In the end, Wilhelm fails to break out of his curse of always losing whatever he chases with Claudia dying without him being able to absorb her, on top of losing a part of his soul, namely the part of him that loved Claudia.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Turns out Wilhelm get's along surprisingly well with Eleonore. This mostly stems from their similar views on Reinhard despite being so ideologically different otherwise.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: On the mission to Katyn forest, Wilhelm has to work closely together with Beatrice. To say that those two go together like oil and water would be an understatement.
• Universe Compendium: Downplayed, the novel provides a simple glossary to help readers get up to speed on some of the terminology and how the magic system functions, but it is not all-encompassing.
• Villain Episode: A side story focusing on one of the villains of the main novel.
• Villains Out Shopping: The members of the L.D.O. still has to get food and the like in order to not waste energy which in turn results in Claudia dragging Wilhelm all across the local market.

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No matter how different our circumstances, we are all heading for the same destination.
You wish to arrive in a better place - your sanctuary. Correct?

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