| Nedrick's Weakness
Finlorda: Hrm. My son has focused on deploying soldiers around the city.
Finlorda: Meanwhile our own forces advance apace. The battle is truly about to begin...
Combat Android: Hostile signatures detected. Scanning... Finlorda's army identified. The enemy is...
???: Uraaaaaagh!
Jinlorda's Subordinate: Our android forces in the north forest have engaged the enemy, King Jinlorda!
Jinlorda: Just as predicted. What are their numbers?
Jinlorda's Subordinate: It's difficult to ascertain; the enemy is fielding illusionary soldiers and fiends, and no matter how many fall, new ones crop up in their place.
Nedrick: Then their numbers are infinite until we can break the illusion magic.
Jinlorda: Meet the phantom soldiers with the android forces alone, then have our reconnaissance forces in the east and west track down the illusionist.
Jinlorda's Subordinate: At once, Your Majesty!
Nedrick: An obnoxious ploy. By starting the war with an unknown bit of sorcery, he intends to throw us off-balance.
Jinlorda: Yes, I'm quite aware, Nedrick. That's precisely why we'll weather things here while we employ careful countermeasures.
Nedrick: I never thought I'd hear a strategy like "weather it" out of you. Normally you'd throw caution to the wind and send your entire force off to find the illusionist.
Jinlorda: Careful countermeasures, as I said. We cannot permit this front to fall.
Nedrick: Your plan will see the front destroyed long before you find the illusionist, which is why I'm taking to the battlefield.
Jinlorda: If we're thrown off-kilter here, Nedrick, it will impede our entire strategy.
Nedrick: And we have no strategy at all if we don't hold long enough to find the illusionist. You'd realize that if you thought about it for even a moment.
Jinlorda: I HAVE thought about it, for quite a few moments. In fact, I've approached the entire topic with considerable composure.
Nedrick: Then listen to what I'm saying to you. You're a fierce man by nature, which makes this strategy dangerous.
Nedrick: Trying to sort things out with composure is playing exactly into Finlorda's hands.
Jinlorda: !
Nedrick: Do what you want, if you hate your father so much, but I know you didn't take the throne just to prove you could outwit him.
Nedrick: That wasn't your reason for becoming king.
Jinlorda: I...cannot argue with any of this.
Jinlorda: (It's true that Father and I have been at odds for nearly as long as I can recall, and the friction between us has grown with every shift in our realm's history.)
Jinlorda: (But that has nothing to do with why I became king. No, the catalyst for that was the moment I met Nedrick.)
Jinlorda: You promised to take me to the lake, Father. Do you not remember?
Jinlorda: Why isn't Father with us, Mother?
Jinlorda: Father! Where have you gone?! Mother, is... She's...
Jinlorda: Finlorda never spared a thought for his family. He had no mind for anything save how he might grow the power of the Faerie Kingdom.
Jinlorda: Yet still I respected him. Not as a father, but as a man who cast aside love for his family and devoted himself to his country.
Jinlorda: ...Until the day his attitude changed.
Finlorda: Hear me, esteemed peers of the council! I intend to seal away faerie magic!
Jinlorda: All he had gained at the cost of his family was abandoned. Indeed, it was that day my respect for the king died.
Councilor: Your father has grown old and craven, young Jinlorda. See past your blood and let us rise against him together!
Jinlorda: (They want me for a puppet, a tool for their political might with no will of his own— but I've had enough of my fate being toyed with for the ends of others.)
Nedrick: Jinlorda?
Jinlorda: !
Nedrick: Where's your head at?
Jinlorda: You're Nedrick, yes? What do you want?
Jinlorda: You are no longer a part of my father's research—you ought to have been freed and quit of this place long since.
Nedrick: And I will be, once I've finished what I want to accomplish here.
Jinlorda: Oh? And what might that be?
Nedrick: I want to learn to wield a sword in the style of the Faerie Kingdom—and I want to learn it from you. You're the greatest in the realm, are you not?
Jinlorda: Heh. Do you seek to revenge yourself upon my father, then? Is that it?
Nedrick: I'd gain nothing from petty vengeance. I merely wish to be stronger.
Jinlorda: Hmph. I wonder. Nonetheless, I'm inclined to help you. It would provide a welcome distraction from drudgery, if nothing else.
Jinlorda: ...No, not like that! You're letting the sword wield YOU! Put some strength into your blade arm, like this!
Nedrick: What?! Augh!
Jinlorda: You lack endurance—an unavoidable limitation so long as Bahamut continues to steal away your mana.
Jinlorda: Why not give up and go find some human village to live in? Perhaps an orphanage?
Nedrick: No. I'm going to get stronger.
Jinlorda: Well, either way, we're done for today. The work resumes tomorrow.
Nedrick: No! I can keep going!
Jinlorda: What you can do is of little consequence. I tire of this. Farewell.
Nedrick: Hmph! Fine, then. I can train by myself.
Nedrick: Hah! Yah!
Jinlorda: ...Idiot boy. The weak will always be weak, regardless of how much they flail about. Nothing can be changed. Nothing.
Nedrick: *pant* *pant* One more round... Please...
Jinlorda: Hmm... You've rather improved compared to before. Who has been teaching you?
Nedrick: No one.
Jinlorda: What?
Nedrick: No one taught me. When you weren't with me, I practiced your teachings on my own.
Jinlorda: You've come this far on your own?! But how?!
Nedrick: I told you before: I want to be stronger.
Nedrick: I'm weak, which is how I was used by Finlorda and Bahamut both.
Nedrick: Despite that—or perhaps because of it— I knew I wanted to get stronger.
Nedrick: I will do what I must to change my fate!
Jinlorda: !
Jinlorda: (I thought this boy a weak, inept human child, but that look in his eyes...)
Jinlorda: (His swordsmanship is no match for mine, but still, just for an instant...)
Jinlorda: (His will made even ME tremble.)
Jinlorda: (...I never thought one without power could display such a look.)
Jinlorda: ...Very well. Show me more. Let us see this fate of yours.
Nedrick: You'll see. I'll get stronger and make a new fate for myself—one where no one can ever use me again!
Jinlorda: ...That was the day you taught me what it was to resist fate.
Jinlorda: It changed me. I knew if I grew stronger, I wouldn't need Father or the council— I could conduct politics on my own.
Jinlorda: You were the catalyst for change both in me and this country.
Jinlorda: You seem to ever be opening my eyes to new things, Nedrick.
Jinlorda's Subordinate: I come with dire news, King Jinlorda!
Jinlorda: How dire can it be? Now that Nedrick has entered the fray, it's but a matter of time until we suppress their forces in the northern woods.
Jinlorda's Subordinate: There's been a surprise attack on the city!
Jinlorda: I see. Get word to Nedrick at once.
Jinlorda's Subordinate: Forgive me, sire, but is he not currently attending to the defense of the woods?
Jinlorda: Worry not. Knowing him, right about now...
Nedrick: Hmph. I thought they were wielding some powerful sorcery, yet it was nothing more than tricks to deceive the senses.
Jinlorda's Subordinate: Lord Nedrick! ...Hrm? Where are the illusionary soldiers?!
Nedrick: Gone. I read the flows of mana, located the illusionist, and ended him.
Jinlorda's Subordinate: It is all as King Jinlorda said it would be! Still, I am astounded you managed to resolve all of this yourself.
Nedrick: Enough talk. What do you need?
Jinlorda's Subordinate: Apologies, sir, but a force of Finlorda's androids has appeared in the city.
Jinlorda's Subordinate: King Jinlorda requests that you make your way there at once.
Jinlorda's Subordinate: He also wishes me to convey a message: "I plan to attack in a manner both fierce and entirely like myself."
Nedrick: Heh. Finally woken up, have you, Jin?
Nedrick: (Yes... A petty dream of revenge upon the enemy right before me is hardly worthy of my time.)
Nedrick: (This strength I've managed to attain is the strength to change the world.)
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