Tsuihou Suru Gawa no Monogatari - Vol. 2 Ch. 15 - Visit to a Grave

[Dragonshiny7]

You shouldn't be an adventurer if someone else needs to wipe your ass.



This chapter revealed Daru joined the party just to see if Athena has what it takes to push through and become the best. So, it makes sense Daru would try to support Athena to a point. That's it. She's also the figurehead of the party, so obviously she's not going anywhere. Daru is just someone invited in.



Does it matter anymore. Est and Athena (plus the others) are strangers already, going their own ways. Est isn't going to simply forgive getting banished, nor is there any need for it. However, he already feels like he's now much better off, so it's not like Est should be regretting getting kicked out anymore, for real. It's like in RL a random employee of a company getting fired, in a way he's not happy with, but later he founds his own company, understands that's what he should have been doing all along, and succeeds exceedingly well. So, should he remain bitter about getting fired?




So, your point is that Est needed to go his own way to unlock his own potential. Seems like pretty much what I said as well.



There are different kinds of overreliances. Athena was physically relying too much on Est's support, whereas Est was too much relying on Athena's emotional support, rendering him uninterested in personal progress and personal ambitions. He wasn't really an adventurer anymore, just a servant for logistics.

Someone with a brain? Impossible

 

[Dragonshiny7]

If anyone of you guys can, please lend us a hand in translating this series...
at our current pace it'll take us another year to finish translating this 33 chapter series

I can wait

 

[Dragonshiny7]

No, I bet its possible to make the premise work, BUT it's not working here, because the cast is just that unlikeable and shallow it's impossible to root for any of them, especially since every plot point keeps crumbling with each chapter passing 🙄

Like their reason for banishing him in the first place and the way they handled it and everything after is just horrendous ô_ô..

Honestly Daru just looks like a Sex-Fiend at this point and Athena is the shallow woman who fell for it after completely trashing her Childhood Friend, that's basically what it boils down to

I agree with every part you said minus the last part. It is very confusing

 

[Valkyria-Edge]

You shouldn't be an adventurer if someone else needs to wipe your ass.

This is like getting mad at your healer for dying in duty in a mmo when you where to stupid enough to keep mobs off them. Guy was a supporter its the vanguards job if you can't do that then don't be in a party its even worst here because you got two dip shits who are holding back for zero fucking reason like life is some kind of game

also by your logic lol Athena should have quit then since she was basically being hard carried while the MC was around and STILL is

 

[asherdales]

Dale's character is so incredibly frustrating because it's so incredibly contradictory. Everything Dale praised Athena for Est showed the same qualities but Dale treats them differently. Other than some lip service back in chapter 1 Dale never defends Est and only berates him for being mad at his lifelong friend who abandoned him to die. I could understand if Dale was shown to be intentionally manipulating Athena but it seems more like he's the fedora tipping white knight.

The only characters I sympathize with are Est and Frey. Est's reaction to everything is completely understandable and Frey has real character growth.

 

[Rafalga]

Dale's character is so incredibly frustrating because it's so incredibly contradictory. Everything Dale praised Athena for Est showed the same qualities but Dale treats them differently. Other than some lip service back in chapter 1 Dale never defends Est and only berates him for being mad at his lifelong friend who abandoned him to die. I could understand if Dale was shown to be intentionally manipulating Athena but it seems more like he's the fedora tipping white knight.

The only characters I sympathize with are Est and Frey. Est's reaction to everything is completely understandable and Frey has real character growth.

Him not telling Athena anything and letting her believe that Est has lost his mind getting drunk on power should tell you everything you need to know about his character. He also showed off infront of him declaring support to a weakened Athena as well. He is an S grade asshole who author trying to sell as opposite. Never seen such a compelete lack of self awareness in writing before.

 

[asherdales]

Him not telling Athena anything and letting her believe that Est has lost his mind getting drunk on power should tell you everything you need to know about his character. He also showed off infront of him declaring support to a weakened Athena as well. He is an S grade asshole who author trying to sell as opposite. Never seen such a compelete lack of self awareness in writing before.

Someone said it in the series thread that the author is self inserting as Dale while trying to make the reader self insert as Est. It makes so much sense especially if the spoilers for the end are right and makes the series all that much worse.

 

[Dragonshiny7]

Dale's character is so incredibly frustrating because it's so incredibly contradictory. Everything Dale praised Athena for Est showed the same qualities but Dale treats them differently. Other than some lip service back in chapter 1 Dale never defends Est and only berates him for being mad at his lifelong friend who abandoned him to die. I could understand if Dale was shown to be intentionally manipulating Athena but it seems more like he's the fedora tipping white knight.

The only characters I sympathize with are Est and Frey. Est's reaction to everything is completely understandable and Frey has real character growth.

The biggest problem was how every character was given too much and too little.
Est was given great character growth but with little to no screentime for us the readers to see. He gets kicked, and in the next 2 instances we see h8m, he gets op and then returns to the former party and gets a misunderstanding scene that would make the Rental Girlfriend author happy. The next we see him, he's now full emo and is shown being op and then meeting his former party again. Not even a full chapter later, he gets a new team and suddenly decides to forgive the former party. He gets no buildup nor mention until he's about to show up in front of Daru and crew. Speaking of Daru-
He's literally just a character. One moment he's the laid back old guy who is being friendly and trying to calm down Est while kicking him out, suddenly he's actually a really strong adventurer that none of the other guild npcs talk about and was just farming in a beginner dungeon while drinking his life away, and now his laid back personality becomes one that is quick to anger by a simple insult. Its like the author didn't know which type of person that they wanted Daru to be and decided to make him a new one each chapter. He was given too many characters and not enough time to expand on them.
Athena, despite being named after the Greek Goddess of wisdom, was not really smart. I'll just chalk it up to her being a young and inexperienced adventurer l, which I can use to hate on Daru even more. Her friend got injured one time and she said "welp, time to kick him out." She gets injured and it's treated as "Oh, You just aren't experienced with not using the enchantments." But then apparently she was weaker than Est when he wasn't enchanting her (sword? armor? sword and armor?). So what happens? She gets rewarded by having Daru decide to become the mentor character and help her get stronger.
Mirialia exists. That's about it. I can't say more except for that her character arc is currently what's being focused on and I didn't read the LN or WN. She's safe... for now, but you know who isn't?
Frey. My only complaint was the bet. It just doesn't make sense to bet her virginity unless she was actually hoping to lose, which makes no sense since she was supposed to be a prideful being. Other than that chekhov's gun that was used for "fanservice," her character is pretty simple and, sadly, the best written.
TLR for others who were reading comments
The entire party suffers from not having enough backstory for us to really care about except sympathy points for Est and Frey being a new member not associated with the rest. This manga itself is a collection of great ideas with horrible execution, and while being bad, it's not as bad as others that I've seen, but it has no idea what identity it wants to have

 

[SpecialProjectY]

The biggest problem was how every character was given too much and too little.
Est was given great character growth but with little to no screentime for us the readers to see. He gets kicked, and in the next 2 instances we see h8m, he gets op and then returns to the former party and gets a misunderstanding scene that would make the Rental Girlfriend author happy. The next we see him, he's now full emo and is shown being op and then meeting his former party again. Not even a full chapter later, he gets a new team and suddenly decides to forgive the former party. He gets no buildup nor mention until he's about to show up in front of Daru and crew. Speaking of Daru-
He's literally just a character. One moment he's the laid back old guy who is being friendly and trying to calm down Est while kicking him out, suddenly he's actually a really strong adventurer that none of the other guild npcs talk about and was just farming in a beginner dungeon while drinking his life away, and now his laid back personality becomes one that is quick to anger by a simple insult. Its like the author didn't know which type of person that they wanted Daru to be and decided to make him a new one each chapter. He was given too many characters and not enough time to expand on them.
Athena, despite being named after the Greek Goddess of wisdom, was not really smart. I'll just chalk it up to her being a young and inexperienced adventurer l, which I can use to hate on Daru even more. Her friend got injured one time and she said "welp, time to kick him out." She gets injured and it's treated as "Oh, You just aren't experienced with not using the enchantments." But then apparently she was weaker than Est when he wasn't enchanting her (sword? armor? sword and armor?). So what happens? She gets rewarded by having Daru decide to become the mentor character and help her get stronger.
Mirialia exists. That's about it. I can't say more except for that her character arc is currently what's being focused on and I didn't read the LN or WN. She's safe... for now, but you know who isn't?
Frey. My only complaint was the bet. It just doesn't make sense to bet her virginity unless she was actually hoping to lose, which makes no sense since she was supposed to be a prideful being. Other than that chekhov's gun that was used for "fanservice," her character is pretty simple and, sadly, the best written.
TLR for others who were reading comments
The entire party suffers from not having enough backstory for us to really care about except sympathy points for Est and Frey being a new member not associated with the rest. This manga itself is a collection of great ideas with horrible execution, and while being bad, it's not as bad as others that I've seen, but it has no idea what identity it wants to have

Mirialia is in unrequited love in Athena and despite knowing she doesn't see her as a friend (yet, probably she will turn bisexual ill bet) still lust for her. Reason why she voted out Est is because she knew he was close to her.

She also knew Est was doing the usual party choirs by himself, but now it's all on her because "you're a supporting class" that have plenty of free time (wtf) it's all on her and she doesn't like it but it's all for Athena so, whatever.

Anyway, we probably gonna have "lesbian training arc" where she will fall for Daru support, which will halfway "cure" her, or whatever...

 

[Puck2]

I'm already repeating myself, but for this setting things need to look terrible. This is exactly the same setting as you would have in the myriad series where the banished party member is the main character. Obviously, then, the former party is made to look bad and the reason for kicking out the MC needs to be dodgy. There's often also something else going on, like the MC liking a certain member of the former party, but suddenly his love interest seems to switch her interest to another member, making the MC feel not only wronged in a professional manner (getting kicked out despite being a crucial member of the party), but also personally when it looks like he was betrayed in a relationship as well.

All of this needed to be present in this series as well. So, the cast being unlikeable and the handling of it all being horrendous must be there. Otherwise this wouldn't be the usual setting. That's why I'm saying there's no helping it.

I understand your point that this kind of story needs the original banished setting, but that should have been just the starting point. This story was intended to be different. The author wanted the "bad" guys to be the good guys just pretending to be the bad guys to save their precious comrade.

The author failed miserably!

The party don't perceive themselves as "bad". Thus, there's no character development according their personality. The author tried to draw them as the good guys put into a bad situation trying to make them the victims of the story.
This whole plot "banishing because of friendship" doesn't work if Athena is the only one sad but only for a few panels in the first chapter (afterwards she doesn't give another thought on him).

Est is definitely wronged on a personal level. Elf girl doesn't hide the fact that he hates him being close to Athena and even though Daru and Athena didn't have feelings in the beginning they start to develop since the misunderstanding (probably the reason why Daru shows no interest to clear up the misunderstanding).

This chapter is the peak of the hypocrisy in this story. Daru is shown as a victim of his past, not regretting his decision to banish Est because Athena and Est were both able to grow after they seperated (actually Athena ist still just carried by the rest of the party; Athena's strength is not an individual one, but the new teamwork in the party and Daru and elf girl covering for her, which could also have been achieved with Est). But the point is that Daru didn't know that Est would become stronger. He is the oldest and most experienced guy in the party so he should know that the most probable outcome would have been Est's dead (almost happened). Leaving things as they are because everyone is fine now is another selfish decision. If there really was a deep friendship between Athena and Est (which is the starting point of the story) he should at least try to save their friendship (as he is the "good" guy) even if they stay seperated afterwards. But he wants to be the one Athena (who's "cute" and looks a lot like his dead girlfriend) relies on. He's just deceiving himself and the readers when he insists that it's best to leave things as they are. There is no self-reflection neither from Daru nor from Athena according their behaviour towards Est. All there is is wallowing in self-pity (like in all the other bad parties in the banished stories)

My point is: this story is no different from the other banished stories! The hero "cucks" the banished person, builds a harem party and doesn't develop at all because they think that they are in the right. The only difference is that the party are no criminals but that's still no reason to root for these hypocrites.

 

[Kaarme]

I understand your point that this kind of story needs the original banished setting, but that should have been just the starting point. This story was intended to be different. The author wanted the "bad" guys to be the good guys just pretending to be the bad guys to save their precious comrade.

The author failed miserably!

Did the author want that? It seems to me a reader could interpret it that way, if they really wanted to and certainly quite a few readers here are really, really hard forcing themselves to see this series in such a light and then judging the series failed miserably. In my opinion you can also see this in the exact way I have been saying above: the party members aren't such good people nor are they meant to be, but they are still the main characters.

The party don't perceive themselves as "bad". Thus, there's no character development according their personality. The author tried to draw them as the good guys put into a bad situation trying to make them the victims of the story.

Uhhuh. Even Hitler and Stalin didn't perceive themselves as bad. Why on Earth would these guys need to? The characters here are merely adventurers trying to make it in a violent profession that can kill them any day. Realistically, adventurers can't even be that good people, though for the sake of entertainment, they often can be in manga. In RL adventurers would be like those private military contractor mercenaries. "Good people" wouldn't be my first thought when looking at them.

This whole plot "banishing because of friendship" doesn't work if Athena is the only one sad but only for a few panels in the first chapter (afterwards she doesn't give another thought on him).

It's water under the bridge for them. If you only keep thinking of what was, full of regrets, how can you move forward?

This chapter is the peak of the hypocrisy in this story. Daru is shown as a victim of his past, not regretting his decision to banish Est because Athena and Est were both able to grow after they seperated (actually Athena ist still just carried by the rest of the party; Athena's strength is not an individual one, but the new teamwork in the party and Daru and elf girl covering for her, which could also have been achieved with Est). But the point is that Daru didn't know that Est would become stronger. He is the oldest and most experienced guy in the party so he should know that the most probable outcome would have been Est's dead (almost happened).

This is why I wrote the misunderstood line of "You shouldn't be an adventurer if someone else needs to wipe your ass." It has got nothing to do with Daru what Est is going to do outside of the party. If he really can't look after himself, despite supporting other party members so well, then perhaps he should quit being an adventurer? Then he wouldn't die. However, immediately out of the party, Est actually grew up and was able to take care of himself even in a fierce fight. But that also has got nothing to do with Daru.

Leaving things as they are because everyone is fine now is another selfish decision. If there really was a deep friendship between Athena and Est (which is the starting point of the story) he should at least try to save their friendship (as he is the "good" guy) even if they stay seperated afterwards.

If there was a deep friendship? Well, was there a deep friendship when Athena was willing to kick Est out so relatively easily? Certainly they were childhood friends, but right now Athena wanted to concentrate on her adventurer's career and she didn't want to risk Est dying during a random fight. She didn't want to hamper her own career to accommodate Est's needs, though. In retrospect Est could have worked as a powerhouse during a fight as well, but none of them knew that at the time. Est himself didn't know it, so he couldn't defend himself when getting fired.

But he wants to be the one Athena (who's "cute" and looks a lot like his dead girlfriend) relies on. He's just deceiving himself and the readers when he insists that it's best to leave things as they are.

He was a drunkard who got saved by Athena. His only reason was to see if Athena could achieve the dream of rising to the top, unlike his dead friends. So, yeah, he doesn't really care about anyone but Athena. He pays attention to the others so that they can help Athena make progress.

My point is: this story is no different from the other banished stories! The hero "cucks" the banished person, builds a harem party and doesn't develop at all because they think that they are in the right. The only difference is that the party are no criminals but that's still no reason to root for these hypocrites.

Like I've said multiple times, this isn't supposed to be any different, so, yeah, it's barely any different. The only difference is that 90+% of panel time is spent on the party, not on the banished member. But at least the party isn't for comedic relief, like in some series.

 

[ankiwi]

If anyone of you guys can, please lend us a hand in translating this series...
at our current pace it'll take us another year to finish translating this 33 chapter series

Bro I respect you so much for working on this. I still like this series but I couldn't bother with it seeing people just hate on it just cus est got self cucked and they self inserted too hard they had to low rate it. I honestly forgot this series until someone brought it up in another series I was doing lol. Maybe I do have shit taste but I like what I like. Keep up the good work.

 

[Puck2]

If there was a deep friendship? Well, was there a deep friendship when Athena was willing to kick Est out so relatively easily? Certainly they were childhood friends, but right now Athena wanted to concentrate on her adventurer's career and she didn't want to risk Est dying during a random fight. She didn't want to hamper her own career to accommodate Est's needs, though. In retrospect Est could have worked as a powerhouse during a fight as well, but none of them knew that at the time. Est himself didn't know it, so he couldn't defend himself when getting fired.

In my opinion that's exactly what the author tried to make it look like. Athena decided to kick Est out to "save" him though she knew that she couldn't do anything without him. She even got dead drunk because she couldn't cope with the situation to have kicked out her best friend. When Frey tries to badmouth Est Athena immediately intervenes. Well, you could also argue that she really thought that she was the real deal because she was always supported by Est (which would get the story closer to all the other banished stories) but I think that's rather unlikely.

This is why I wrote the misunderstood line of "You shouldn't be an adventurer if someone else needs to wipe your ass." It has got nothing to do with Daru what Est is going to do outside of the party. If he really can't look after himself, despite supporting other party members so well, then perhaps he should quit being an adventurer? Then he wouldn't die. However, immediately out of the party, Est actually grew up and was able to take care of himself even in a fierce fight. But that also has got nothing to do with Daru.

Following this logic all supports should stop being adventurers.
I find it interesting that different ways of thinking are used for Est and Athena. Also, after kicking out Est of the party teamwork and tactics suddenly become an important topic in the party. Without ill intent these development don't make sense.

He was a drunkard who got saved by Athena. His only reason was to see if Athena could achieve the dream of rising to the top, unlike his dead friends. So, yeah, he doesn't really care about anyone but Athena. He pays attention to the others so that they can help Athena make progress.

Why couldn't he do this before? (se above)

Did the author want that? It seems to me a reader could interpret it that way, if they really wanted to and certainly quite a few readers here are really, really hard forcing themselves to see this series in such a light and then judging the series failed miserably. In my opinion you can also see this in the exact way I have been saying above: the party members aren't such good people nor are they meant to be, but they are still the main characters.

I think they used quite a few panels to make it look like that so yeah, I would say that was their intention. I would rather say that it's the other way round. You have to force yourself to see it in another way.

Like I've said multiple times, this isn't supposed to be any different, so, yeah, it's barely any different. The only difference is that 90+% of panel time is spent on the party, not on the banished member. But at least the party isn't for comedic relief, like in some series.

Even with your interpretation the author failed hard because it wouldn't be worth reading because it's the same old boring banished-story, with the exception that you have to read about the side you don't like.
I think you have to ignore many panels to not see that the author tried to make them a likable party with ideals like friendship or loyalty. If the author really tried to make them the characters you think they are ( e.g like the MC in Rebuild World) they also failed hard.

 

[Kaarme]

I find it interesting that different ways of thinking are used for Est and Athena. Also, after kicking out Est of the party teamwork and tactics suddenly become an important topic in the party. Without ill intent these development don't make sense.

Why couldn't he do this before? (se above)

Because they didn't need to, thanks to Est's magnificent support skills. They could just keep pushing forward with half-assed teamwork, relying on Est boosting their power. The problem was that a single mistake could have resulted in Est dying, since he wasn't able to defend himself. Poor teamwork and the need to keep guarding a defenseless member aren't a good combination, anyway.

Even with your interpretation the author failed hard because it wouldn't be worth reading because it's the same old boring banished-story, with the exception that you have to read about the side you don't like.
I think you have to ignore many panels to not see that the author tried to make them a likable party with ideals like friendship or loyalty. If the author really tried to make them the characters you think they are ( e.g like the MC in Rebuild World) they also failed hard.

This isn't any excellent story and I don't see why anyone would think it is. All I'm saying is that considering the highly constricting setting the author chose, the effort is not so bad. How difficult is it be to pick nasty, petty people as main characters and then try to make them interesting enough for the readers to keep the series from getting axed? Building backstories for them, to make readers like them, is quite a desperate, uphill effort. Even Est, after finding success, is a lukewarm character. If Est had actually sought revenge against his former party, he would have turned into a villain, destroying the setting. So, he pretty much could do nothing. This is a dead-end effort, all in all, for the author, which deserves some respect. There's a reason why 99% of authors would never choose this path.

 

[Puck2]

The problem was that a single mistake could have resulted in Est dying, since he wasn't able to defend himself.

Except that Daru and the elf girl were holding back.

This isn't any excellent story and I don't see why anyone would think it is. All I'm saying is that considering the highly constricting setting the author chose, the effort is not so bad.

It's okay that the author used the setting as a basis but you won't achieve something great if you restrict yourself to this setting but you have break free from it. E.g. "The Impregnable Demon King's Castle and the Expelled Black Mage of the Hero's Party" used the same initial banished setting as a basis but still managed to make the banishing party somewhat likable because they took a different turn.

Building backstories for them, to make readers like them, is quite a desperate, uphill effort. Even Est, after finding success, is a lukewarm character.

But good writers at least try develop their characters. Furthermore, after a webnovel and a light novel there's still no improvement in the story. Hoping that the manga would without changing any of story's content is madness (according to the definition).

If Est had actually sought revenge against his former party, he would have turned into a villain, destroying the setting.

What's the use of keeping a setting if it destroys your story?

So, he pretty much could do nothing. This is a dead-end effort, all in all, for the author, which deserves some respect. There's a reason why 99% of authors would never choose this path.

I think it's not wise to stupidly keep to a fixed setting just for the sake of it. Just clinging to one idea (showing selfish banishing side which are not likable) is definitely not enough but you have to make the idea work. That would be something worthy of respect.
After a bad badly received webnovel and lightnovel there sure were some suggestions (alone in this thread and the threads to the different chapters there were plenty) to improve the story but obviously they were not implemented. In my opinion, that's just plain stubbornness/arrogance.

 

[randomuser53]

Oh I didn't know this had a manga adaptation lol. Make no mistake, Daru is definitely self-aware of what he's doing. His inner monologue is completely absent in the novel except for the sypnosis on syosetu, which is reveals his true intentions. Hell, this isn't even his first rodeo. He manages to break up some chilldhood friend couple to be in the past as well. One could get a gist that this guy, despite his prowness, was just hanging around the adventurer guild being a slob until he eyes some impressionable couple and proceeds to break them apart. It's a fetish at this point.

The whole thing is just a pure gaslighting campaign. The comment section in syosetu is also the same as here, with numerous complaints of the complete BS that is the story. And then we have bad actors that refute those complaints as it was being written by the Chinese, since they get the asshole MC's name wrong due to MTL, like that somehow negates all of the psyop in the story.

 

[YamiryuuZero]

Oh I didn't know this had a manga adaptation lol. Make no mistake, Daru is definitely self-aware of what he's doing. His inner monologue is completely absent in the novel except for the sypnosis on syosetu, which is reveals his true intentions. Hell, this isn't even his first rodeo. He manages to break up some chilldhood friend couple to be in the past as well. One could get a gist that this guy, despite his prowness, was just hanging around the adventurer guild being a slob until he eyes some impressionable couple and proceeds to break them apart. It's a fetish at this point.

The whole thing is just a pure gaslighting campaign. The comment section in syosetu is also the same as here, with numerous complaints of the complete BS that is the story. And then we have bad actors that refute those complaints as it was being written by the Chinese, since they get the asshole MC's name wrong due to MTL, like that somehow negates all of the psyop in the story.

Do you have a link to that?

 

[HartSkai]

I don't even click into the chapter anymore. Just here for delicious comments and be a certified hater.

We're at 3.99 stars WOO!! Finally under 4!!!

 

[rocksilver]

Except that Daru and the elf girl were holding back.

It's okay that the author used the setting as a basis but you won't achieve something great if you restrict yourself to this setting but you have break free from it. E.g. "The Impregnable Demon King's Castle and the Expelled Black Mage of the Hero's Party" used the same initial banished setting as a basis but still managed to make the banishing party somewhat likable because they took a different turn.

But good writers at least try develop their characters. Furthermore, after a webnovel and a light novel there's still no improvement in the story. Hoping that the manga would without changing any of story's content is madness (according to the definition).

What's the use of keeping a setting if it destroys your story?

I think it's not wise to stupidly keep to a fixed setting just for the sake of it. Just clinging to one idea (showing selfish banishing side which are not likable) is definitely not enough but you have to make the idea work. That would be something worthy of respect.
After a bad badly received webnovel and lightnovel there sure were some suggestions (alone in this thread and the threads to the different chapters there were plenty) to improve the story but obviously they were not implemented. In my opinion, that's just plain stubbornness/arrogance.

Honestly would actually like this story if it came out early on that the banishing party lost a fuckton of reputation and goodwill and had to climb out of the pit they put themselves in. It would've been received more positively if every single one of them felt the burn and shame of banishing someone that did nothing but help the party, espcially with them trying to defend themselves with their reason why.

Est wouldn't have gotten a personality change, but try to defend them even. They wouldn't have to do the misunderstanding with Athena and Daru at the inn and have Est break down like that. I would still predict they would not truly reconcile and rejoin until the very end.

It would've been a story of rebirth and reconcillation over a broken party who thought they were doing right, and one who holds all of their forgiveness in his hand. Their growth would've been cheered, not scorned like how they took this story.

 

[Cobaltzero]

I called the bracelet how many chapters ago?