I was referring to this post. That's why I assumed that the cast (or Ichirin, at the very least) had played through this quest before.
No, the joke was that romantic relationships are treated with the mechanics of a date sim, and thus past relationships were considered "completed routes". Ichirin got the "neutral end" with Murasa because they broke up but stayed friends.
Anyway, sorry for dragging my feet, everyone, I got distracted. Here we go!
> Keine: Wear glasses.
Sure.
> Keine: Examine clock.
Nothing to see here. It's just an ordinary clock displaying the correct time. What? No, there's no art error in the previous frame. It's just your imagination!
> Keine: Examine hat.
Oh, your hat? This little thing? Which happens to be a...LEGENDARY RARE!? It's called the SAGE'S RAGE, and you picked it up from a raid boss a while before you arrived in Gensokyo. It boosts your combat stats based on your formal academia skill levels, and improves the speed at which you learn from books. It is absolutely perfect for your build.
Of course, its appearance is...questionable. You think it's supposed to be a cross between a mortarboard and a pagoda. But you can't NOT wear such an amazing piece of equipment, so you wound up having your whole outfit designed around it. Eventually, people got used to it.
It's a shame that your hakutaku form grows horns that prevent you from equipping hats, though.
> Keine: Get apple.
This is a DECORATIVE CERAMIC APPLE. You cannot eat it! It makes your desk look distinctly teacherish. You leave it where it is.
> Keine: Examine Miko Signal.
This thing is a total lemon. It only SORT OF works on really cloudy nights, but not if it's raining or foggy or anything. During your testing, Reimu said she was never able to see it from the shrine.
It was a complete waste of money. You'll think twice before commissioning anything from the kappa again.
> Keine: Examine Sukusuku Hakutaku.
This plushie was a gift from the village toymaker, although she did wind up making a bunch more of them since they caught on quickly with the children. These dolls are singlehandedly responsible for shifting the village's opinion of your hakutaku form, since they now find it rather endearing.
You secretly sort of wish this was what your hakutaku form actually looked like.
> Keine: Examine yukata.
This is a fairly ordinary red yukata which you have patched up with fireproof seals, in order to give to your friend MOKOU NO FUJIWARA.
Without getting into TOO MUCH DETAIL, Mokou has been immortal for a very long time and has long since stopped caring about frivolous details such as meeting her basic survival needs. In the winter, she freezes to death most nights because she doesn't feel like setting a fire. In summer, she often dies of dehydration because she doesn't feel like going for a drink of water. None of it ever matters because she gets up again, good as new, a few minutes later.
You find this all rather tragic, so you try to nudge her into doing more "pointless" things. If anyone could stand to have a little more vanity, it's her, so you're going to try to get her to wear a yukata to the next shrine festival. She'll probably do it once out of guilt, which is good enough.
As a side note, equipping this would render you IMMUNE TO FIRE, which would be incredibly useful if it wasn't too small for you.
> Keine: Examine map.
It's an incomplete map of Gensokyo. PATCHOULI KNOWLEDGE and RAN YAKUMO are currently in a race to complete the first comprehensive one. It's no simple matter, since many parts of Gensokyo can move and change shape. Thorough documentation is a must.
This map is using the Yakumo Projection, which is currently considered to be more precise. The main advantage of the Knowledge Projection is that it includes several explored parts of the underground, which has become much more relevant in recent years.
> Keine: Examine photos.
This is a picture from HIEDA NO AKYUU'S first birthday party. AKYUU is the ninth of the CHILDREN OF MIARE, who inherit the memories of their previous life, but at the cost of terrible health. Many of their reincarnations are false starts, dying within a few weeks of being born. If they survive a full year, that seems to be the tipping point for a good prognosis, so it's a cause for great celebration.
Akyuu came at just the right time, too. Her mother confided in you that if she lost another baby she was going to lose her mind.
This one is from when you and a few friends helped RINNOSUKE MORICHIKA build his shop out near the Forest of Magic. Rinnosuke is a half-youkai that showed up in Gensokyo about 30 years ago; he ended up being taken in by MR. KIRISAME and working in his shop. Eventually, he decided to strike out on his own, outside the village, to do business with other youkai.
Because Rinnosuke is a half-youkai like you, you always considered him under your personal protection, but in truth he never really needed it. Regardless of whatever kind of youkai he's supposed to be, his failings were always strictly human ones.
Anyway, once he started Kourindou, you made a habit of sending him a letter every few months just to see how he was doing. Since you were used to sending mail back and forth, he asked if he could send junk deliveries to your address to test prospective couriers. As a result, you now have a growing pile of cheap wineglasses in your house. You should probably get them sent back at some point - the ones that weren't broken by clumsy fairies, anyway.
Here's a good picture of you and EIRIN YAGOKORO having a small conversation at a town festival a couple years ago. It was taken on a whim by AYA SHAMEIMARU, who was covering the event. You don't know Dr. Yagokoro very well, but she's one of the most intelligent people you've ever met, and pleasant enough to talk to (if you're not trying to start shit with her, or vice versa). You're not sure what to make of her. She seems...tired.
Lastly, here's an old photo of you and the previous HAKUREI MAIDEN. Frankly, that woman terrified you. She was so hardcore she didn't even use her first name - only HAKUREI. She was the fist of her shrine and that was all that mattered, at least as she told it.
She disappeared about 15 years ago, which was right about when Reimu began her training. YOUKI KONPAKU disappeared around the same time, which is interesting because they hated each other; the popular theory is that they both died in a duel. There's no evidence of what may have happened, though.
> Keine: Examine diplomas.These are your diplomas from the Imperial University (which is now called the University of Tokyo, if you remember correctly), class of 1891. They were pretty easy for you to get, just time-consuming, since you had to go live in the outside world for a few years to get them.
I'm not going to draw the degrees or say what subjects they're in because I didn't even finish high school and I have no idea what kind of degrees Keine would have. Sorry!
> Keine: Examine Three Sacred Treasures.There aren't the real deal, just replicas. Not cheap replicas, though; they're actually quite well-made and expensive, although only the sword actually does anything.
This is the sword you used way back when you were a human, serving as one of the emperor's personal bodyguards. Each of you carried a sword modeled after the Kusanagi. It's just a +2 longsword - nothing impressive by today's standards - but this sword is literally older than you are. It's also what you used to kill the last hakutaku. Again, LONG STORY.
Maintaining it over centuries has been pretty expensive, but it works just as well as it did back then. You never had the heart to mulch your SWORDTECH SKILL TREE, since you spent most of your human life working on it. So, you could still wield the sword if you really wanted to. Your stats aren't even remotely specced for it anymore, though, so it's smarter to just use danmaku.
The mirror and the magatama are just fancy antiques you bought a long time ago to complete the set.
> Keine: Examine conspicuous book.
Thinking about your sword reminds you that you have this old SWORDSMAN TRAINING MANUAL. You already know most of the techniques in it, but it would be useful for someone who wanted to learn traditional swordsmanship.
> Keine: Consider going out.No point sitting around the house. You wonder what you should do today.
> _
