8. Curse Plague (25)
8. Curse Plague (25)
One swipe of Reaper's hand tore half the wagon away.
Ella ducked, covering her head.
It was the best she could do.
Shattered debris rained down on her.
But the expected attack never came.
She cautiously opened her eyes and looked up.
Something blocked the demon's claws.
"Ah."
When she realized what it was, she gasped.
A gray stone lump jutting out of the wagon trunk.
It had once been a person.
Merisa.
A troupe member who had defied Wonderstein long ago and been turned to stone.
Ella had pleaded many times for her to be restored, but Wonderstein always refused, saying it was impossible.
Not long before leaving Rouge, he had given her the same answer.
People don't change, my ass.
His kindness was always just a means to an end.
He was merciless toward anyone who might be an obstacle.
"A human turned to stone... Fascinating."
Reaper looked at the object that had blocked his claws and smiled.
In the meantime, Ella quickly scrambled off the wagon.
Reaper glanced between the fleeing woman and the petrified Merisa, then tilted his head.
"I got confused."
He left the still-petrified Merisa alone and advanced toward Ella.
Where his gaze fell, an icy net crackled into being, binding her arms and legs.
"Urk!"
Ella tumbled forward.
Ice spread from all directions, holding her fast.
"Haa, haa..."
She forced her stiff neck to turn and looked back.
Reaper was closing in on her.
"Nnn..."
Ignoring the skin tearing on her palms, she desperately crawled.
But she only managed a few centimeters.
Reaper stood before her.
At that moment, two streaks of light shot from her chest.
"No, don't!"
Ella screamed.
They were her pets.
The dove Gudol and the mouse Jjiksun.
"Coo-coo-coo!"
"Squeek-squeak!"
Sensing their owner's peril, the two charged at Reaper.
But they posed not the slightest threat to him.
With a single glance from him, both froze solid.
Trapped in blocks of ice, they tumbled along the ground.
"Y-you two..."
Tears welled in Ella's eyes.
They had been her precious companions since childhood.
Trying to protect her, they had ended up like this.
From Reaper's mouth beneath the helm, a white breath of frost billowed out.
In response, ice crystallized on Ella's face and hair.
She looked up at him with eyes full of despair.
He bared his teeth and growled low.
"An arm? A leg? Which shall I tear off first?"
On the verge of death.
The face that surfaced in her mind was, perversely, not her teacher, nor her school friends, nor the mother she'd always imagined.
A blonde man, smiling brightly.
Frank Wonderstein.
His face flickered before her eyes.
'You bastard.'
Even in a situation like this, he never showed up.
Always with the 'Our dear Miss Ella' this and that.
'I've come this far thanks to you' and all that.
All talk and no action...
When it really mattered, he was nowhere to be found...
Where the hell did you go?
We said we'd reach the Circus Grand Prix together.
There's still two whole years left.
Reaper raised his arm.
Now there was nothing between them.
He brought his claws down.
She whispered that name, mixed with love and hate.
"Wonderstein..."
Boom.
A massive impact shook the ground.
Ice vaporized into white mist.
Ella felt cold fragments brush past her cheek.
A black shadow stood before her.
A warm cloak wrapped around her body.
She looked up.
Soft moonlight shone down.
Golden hair fluttered in the wind.
Through it.
A face she hated so much, and at the same time was so glad to see, smiled at her.
"Miss Ella, I'm glad I wasn't too late."
Wonderstein.
Her stage partner and their troupe leader.
He had come.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
She wanted to demand what had taken him so long.
Just as she opened her mouth, Ella spotted something in his hand.
There was no way she wouldn't recognize it.
It was an item he hadn't let out of his sight for months.
The lid of the thermos he used as a teacup.
Steam rose from it as if it had just been poured.
He'd been drinking tea at a time like this?
The moment she saw it, her joy melted away like snow.
Ella felt something surge inside her.
"Y-you..."
She punched his chest with all her might.
Tap.
But because her body was still half-frozen, it looked more like a gentle pat.
Wonderstein smiled in puzzlement at her action.
"Miss Ella?"
"You... bad..."
Her mouth was frozen too, so words didn't come out well.
She just blurted out whatever came to mind.
The things she'd always wanted to say.
"You... son of a bitch..."
"Miss Ella..."
Wonderstein burst out laughing, as if even that reaction pleased him.
"You must have a lot to say."
"...Yeah."
She nodded.
She had so many questions.
Where was Maya?
What had happened in this village?
And what even was this Curse Plague?
Did gathering the troupe members have something to do with it?
What had he been doing in her hometown?
She wanted to fire off all those questions right then.
But when his hand touched her cheek, her voice caught.
"Wait just a little. Let's talk after I've tidied things up."
So saying, Wonderstein brushed the ice from her face and hair.
At his warm touch, the ice melted away softly.
Ella felt her face flush bright red.
She bowed her head deeply and gave a slow nod.
"...O-okay."
He set her down a short distance away.
Then turned around.
There, Reaper was nursing his arm.
"Impressive. Knocking my arm aside. Heh heh, this is a fun day. Among humans, strong ones who can entertain me..."
"Hey, Reaper."
Wonderstein called to him.
He knew who his opponent was.
Reaper, Nua-Zakanuba.
"Surely that wasn't your full strength?"
It was a provocation.
A mere human, mocking a high-ranking demon, asking why he was so weak.
Nua-Zakanuba's face stiffened and then relaxed in an instant.
"Kihihi, what boundless arrogance, for a human. Indeed! That was just a little scratch. One can't break a precious toy all at once, after all."
He planted both arms on the ground.
He bent his legs, ready to spring.
He meant to crush that insolent human so thoroughly he'd be unrecognizable.
"Try blocking this too!"
Reaper kicked off the ground and lunged at him.
He swung his claws with all his might.
Ella wanted to shout for him to dodge.
But for some reason, her voice wouldn't come.
Partly from her throat still being frozen, but another reason weighed more heavily.
The confident smile on Wonderstein's lips.
Seeing it reassured her.
Boom.
Reaper's body collided with Wonderstein.
He was pushed back, carving a trail several meters long in the earth.
Reaper shuddered.
He'd charged in full force, fully intending to send him flying a hundred meters or more.
And yet he'd only managed a few meters?
He felt a force holding his arm fast.
This sensation, as if blocked by a mountain...?
The dust cloud cleared.
Reaper couldn't believe the scene before his eyes.
Wonderstein stood there unharmed, holding the arm he had swung at him with one hand.
The strength gripping his arm was unmistakably coming from that hand.
"What... what is... this...? A human...?"
Wonderstein smiled at the stammering Reaper.
"You did a fine job tormenting my troupe members. Are you prepared for this?"
His other hand clenched into a fist.
Reaper sensed it instinctively.
That fist carried the same force that had blocked his attack.
"Wait...!"
Wonderstein's arm shot out like lightning.
His fist drove squarely into Reaper's abdomen.
"Keegeek...?"
His waist bent at an unnatural angle with a sickening crunch.
His body flew like a cannonball, tearing up the ground.
WHOOOOM.
Dirt and stone surged up like a tidal wave.
A trench dozens of meters long was carved out.
Rebounding along the way, Reaper's body slammed into the cliff on the opposite side of the village.
CRASH. Rumble.
An explosive roar, as if from a detonation, shook the hillside.
The massive cliff collapsed in a landslide.
***
Title: TT3 Complete Walkthrough - Reaper Edition
Posted by: Torch Dancer
Hello.
I'm Torch Dancer.
Today, I'd like to go over the Reaper strategy, a tradition in the series.
Reaper's appearance conditions in TT3 are the same as in previous games.
Namely, not saving for exactly six hours, six minutes, and six seconds in a single stage.
Then a corner of the map distorts, and Reaper appears.
Reaper is something of an homage to old arcade games.
Back in the early days, before the internet, if a bug appeared, developers would have to travel around the country with floppy disks, visiting arcades one by one to patch the game.
The monthly nationwide rankings were a touchy subject for gamers.
If someone inflated their score by exploiting a bug, gamers would send group protest letters to the company.
So the developers made it so that from the start, you couldn't farm scores using bugs: if the player stalls for time, an invincible enemy monster appears.
Commonly known as 'Reaper'.
It's a being created to tell the player, outright, to die.
Perhaps because of that, TTT's Reaper has boasted notoriously vicious performance in every game.
In terms of difficulty alone, it surpasses even the final boss, Wonderstein.
There are two reasons.
First is the appearance condition: you have to wait over six whole hours without saving.
Even if you retry, after six hours of idleness, your sense of control and memorized patterns grow hazy, and you often die pitifully, making the wait meaningless.
So I strongly advise you to memorize, and re-memorize, this walkthrough before attempting.
For the sake of your sanity.
And don't forget a stopwatch, an essential item.
Even a mere ten-second mistake can get your head taken off by Reaper.
The second reason Reaper is so hard: Reaper's Scythe.
Reaper is vicious in every way—HP, attack power, patterns—but I think the worst skill for players is definitely Reaper's Scythe.
If a character gets hit by Reaper's Scythe, they lose Experience.
Lore-wise, it absorbs humans' happy memories, but the game expresses that differently.
Literally, Experience—the precious memories you've accumulated through your adventures—is stolen from you.
After taking a few hits from Reaper's Scythe, you'll find your heroes left with only basic skills.
You could say they've been ruined, stripped of all happy memories. (laugh)
So the foundation of any Reaper strategy is to not get hit by the Scythe.
Wouldn't it be depressing if, after barely defeating him, you see your stats reset?
Now, let's get into the strategy.
First, if you want to pick the easiest stage to catch Reaper, it's the one where allied helpers swarm in...