Azhure: I initially thought of the whole otome Spirit Kingdom as a fun little post chapter for the Court Wizards to discuss after everything was settled with little consequence. Then I realized it should’ve had bigger implications for the plot.
Voice: Now here are the fun little post chapters about it!
“La- Cel-ti-! Lad- Cele-ne! Lady Celestine! Please, wake up!”
“Ugh… What happened?” Celes groaned, feeling her body hurt all over as she opened her eyes to see an unfamiliar ceiling and a woman in a maid outfit looking at her worriedly among many others wearing similar getups and expressions.
“Oh, thank the greater spirits you’re alright!” the maid sighed in relief as she helped Celes get up. “You tripped over the rug and fell down the stairs. You didn’t wake up after that.”
“O-Okay…” Celes nodded as she stood up, before realizing. “W-Wait!? Did you just call me Celestine!? And greater spirits!?”
“Y-Yes, my lady,” the maid muttered in confusion. “Is there anything wrong?”
It took a couple of minutes for the realization to sink in. When it did, only the look of abject horror dawned on Celestine ce Celestium’s face. “I’m a villainess in an otome game!”
With bandages wrapped around her head and ankles, Celes holed herself up in her room, refusing anyone coming in under the guise of recovering from her fall. What she was really focused on, however, was jotting down everything she could remember and possibly fit on the bundles of parchment without breaking her quill. There was much smothering from her parents after she woke up, and suffice it to say, she got them to give her stacks upon stacks of paper for her to write on.
“Okay.” Celes took a deep breath before reviewing everything she had written. “I was a Japanese high school girl in my previous life, and I have been reincarnated into the world of my favorite otome game,” she softly muttered, tapping her quill on the Japanese characters that made up the title of the game: Spirit Kingdom.
While she didn’t remember how she ended up getting reincarnated, that wasn’t important in light of the situation she was in now. “It’s popular in Japan for the rich world building for an otome game,” she continued to talk to herself as she went over to the word ‘spirits’. “Because this world is called Spiri Raia and it is a world of spirits.”
Lifting her head, she looked around the room and guessed how many light spirits were hidden in the corners of her room. Being able to conceal themselves from humans so perfectly, Celes would guess one of them was right on the desk with its eyes spinning making sense of the foreign language she was writing. She must’ve looked insane talking to herself about being reincarnated into this world.
“The spirits are split into nine elements,” Celes continued, glancing at the names of every element on one parchment. “Each of them is ruled by a greater spirit of that element.” Below the element names were the names of every greater spirit she remembered from the otome game.
“They also rule one part of this world each, and I am in the greater light spirit’s domain, Luxion,” Celes continued to mutter, ignoring whatever looks of the hidden spirits she figured were looking. “And in the only kingdom in his land, the Celestia kingdom.”
Flipping through her notes, Celes went on to the next part of her review. “Alright, you play as Maria Kirch, a commoner who got enrolled into Celestia Academy.” Reading the parchment on the academy, she continued, “Celestia Academy is the most prestigious school in the world, attended by nobles and royalty from around the world. There, noble children at age fifteen would learn many subjects a noble needs to learn, including art, history, fiefdom management, and even combat. But the most important subject in the academy is, of course, spirit arts.”
Looking around her room, she wondered how many spirits perked up when she mentioned that among her rambling. Shrugging, as she may never know, Celes continued, “By conveying one’s thoughts to the spirits, a human could channel the spirits to lend their power, effectively letting humans cast magic. Since it’s from the mind, what could be done is limited by the imagination and the spirits’ own power.”
“Celestia Academy itself is unique in that it has spirits from every element when they normally stay in their respective territories, allowing students to learn spirit arts to the fullest,” Celes continued, picking up another page. “But students don’t have to rely on just the spirits at their school, they can also bring their own, contracted spirits.”
Looking around her room again, she sighed. “While spirits mostly hid themselves, sometimes they would reveal themselves to a human to form a contract. The human gives the spirit a name, and the spirit becomes more than their companion for life,” she muttered. “Not only will the contracted spirit understand you better, thus leading to clearer spirit arts, but they can also convince other spirits to help their humans, strengthening their spirit arts while weakening their opponents as spirits would be more reluctant to go against you.”
“And the reason she got enrolled into this prestigious school is because she herself made a contract with a light spirit you get to name, something no one in the kingdom has been able to do for more than a century.” Celes went back to the previous page, having concluded the side context. “And it is a great honor for a human to contract a spirit, which was why Maria was given a scholarship to the academy.”
“Naturally, Maria gets a lot of attention in the academy, and among those were the capture targets.” Celes moved on to the next parchments, noting the various names she had written down. “The game boasts nine capture targets, one for each element, and all of them have contracted spirits too.”
“And given the setting, the main capture target is, of course, the crown prince of this kingdom, Lucis lu Celestia, the only other person to contract a light spirit,” Celes declared, tapping her quill against his name. Flipping to another page, she reviewed all the notes she had on the capture target. “Charismatic and intelligent, he was considered a prodigy as a child. After contracting a light spirit at just the age of six, he became a bigger attention, and everyone had high hopes for when he became king. Despite all of that, he remained humble and kind, making him one of the most popular capture targets.”
“He was, of course, the first capture target Maria met as he personally sought her out a little after the entrance ceremony, at which he also delivered a speech. It wasn’t for anything out of the ordinary, since being the only other person to contract a light spirit, he would naturally be curious,” Celes continued, but with increasing dread. “But that meeting would be cut short when the villainess of the game interfered, me!”
With a sharp-pitched voice at the end that she was sure to surprise the spirits, Celes pulled out the note on herself, or more specifically, her otome game self. “Celestine ce Celestium, daughter of duke Celestium, a close ally to the royal family. Cruel and arrogant, she was the definition of a spoiled child, and being engaged to the prince didn’t help either,” she lamented to her other self. “After the meeting, she began to bully Maria, even though it was the prince who approached her first.”
In the next part, Celes moved on to the prince’s route. “Lucis, for his part, apologized profusely for his fiancée’s actions every time but didn’t do anything to stop it because he was too kind,” she mulled. “In fact, while he could more than meet the expectations set upon him, he doesn’t realize that he gets pushed around more than he should have as future king by not just his fiancée, but others as well.”
“His route is centered on Maria slowly getting him to realize this flaw and get him to stand up for himself as they interact. Slowly, he started to reprimand the villainess for her constant harassment of Maria while also learning just how bad his fiancée was,” Celes continued to herself. “Eventually, he and Maria started to spend more time together as the years in the academy went by and fall in love before they realize it.”
Then, to the moment Celes dreaded, flipping to the penultimate parchment. “Finally, in the final year banquet, the condemnation event occurs where Lucis denounces Celestine and breaks off their engagement. For her crimes, the villainess would be sentenced to exile from the kingdom with nothing but the clothes on her back! Argh!” At the last bit of sentences, Celes clutched her head in agony at her impending doom. “Even in other routes, Lucis still breaks off the engagement and exiles me!”
Slamming her head against the desk, she turned her head to look out to the window as she continued to relay her misfortune to no one save the light spirits who must be very amused by her rambling. “And it’s not like Lucis’ father, the king, or any of the capture targets’ parents, will stop him from breaking off the engagement to be with Maria either because turns out, Maria isn’t a commoner.”
Lifting her head up, she grabbed another parchment to review. “The first clue was every time Maria comes home from the academy in her family’s house,” she iterated. “From the start, her family has two contracted water spirits, Layla and Neptune, and high-ranking ones at that,” she muttered, glancing at the parchment that explained the spirit hierarchy but paying it no mind. “The game doesn’t explain why they were there and act as if Maria talking with them, her parents, and aunt about her day at school was perfectly normal.”
“It’s only after the end of the second year that Maria could come home with one of the capture targets with her if she builds enough relationship with them,” Celes continued on the event. “Layla and Neptune would reveal themselves to him, leading to her family telling the truth that not even the player was told.” Taking a deep breath, she continued, “That Maria is from a royal line and a lineage blessed by the greater water spirit.”
“Maria’s father, Albert, was in truth a prince from the water domain, the land of the greater water spirit Aquarius ruled by two countries, the Kirash kingdom and the Fichs empire,” Celes muttered as she flipped to the relevant page. “And Albert was the first prince of Kirash, Albert al Kirash.”
Incidentally, she remembered the dev note stating the water territory and its nations had been one of the first concepts for the game before thinking to name the countries thematically similar to the element domain they’re in like the kingdom she was in. They still kept Fichs and Kirash despite having nothing to do with water because they didn’t want to waste it.
“Normally, he would’ve been the next king, however his half-brother, Van va Kirash, challenged his claim which sparked a succession crisis that Albert lost when his biggest ally, duke Allister al Illyer who contracted Neptune, was assassinated by one of his maids, forcing the prince and the rest of the Illyer household to flee from the kingdom before Van moved to have them killed too,” Celes continued. “They ended up in the Celestia kingdom where Albert then married the duke’s younger daughter, Elaine, and lived a quiet life before their daughter contracted a spirit and went into the academy.”
Speaking of which, there was a whole story about how Maria’s mother, Elaine, ended up with Albert instead of her older sister, Irene, who contracted Layla. Irene was originally engaged to Albert before it was peacefully transferred to Elaine with duke Illyer’s approval because they weren’t suited for each other, and Albert found much more in common with Elaine instead. It ended up being a prequel DLC starring Elaine as the protagonist.
“And the Illyers weren’t just any ordinary ducal family, they were blessed by the greater water spirit. Where the spirits make contracts with humans, the greater spirits give blessings to them,” Celes iterated the literal quote she wrote on paper. “A human blessed by a greater spirit is loved by the spirits. Not only would your spirit arts be stronger but you will practically be immune to enemy spirit arts as spirits will refuse to harm you. Maria’s overpowered passive never made more sense,” she muttered, remembering the in-game cutscenes every time an enemy gets surprised they can’t cast spirit arts on Maria.
“While the greater water spirit is still too impartial to save the Illyer family that they had to flee,” she continued, regarding the particular contradiction of the greater spirit being known to be neutral and yet still blessing humans. “It still makes Maria Kirch, or rather Marisa ma Kirash, named after her maternal grandmother who died while fleeing to Celestia, of a very high bloodline, and she knew it the entire time and kept it a secret.”
“In fact, even though they were living as commoners now, Maria’s parents still taught her noble etiquette and other subjects noble children were taught before the academy which only after the reveal that it was pointed out,” Celes chuckled, remembering the greyed out flashback scenes as well as the forum discussions on all the hints of Maria being a noble from the moment she perfectly conversed with prince Lucis to her flabbergasted past self. “To say it was a plot twist was an understatement, being a huge subversion to the commoner protagonist trope.”
“By the third year, Maria’s true status is recognized by the king and known to everyone, taking care of anyone who would complain about her getting together with the capture target despite the actual circumstances because she is also still blessed by the greater water spirit,” Celes continued before visibly frowning. “And that also contributes to the villainess’ downfall as she turned out to dish aggression on someone of Maria’s status.”
“But it gets worse,” Celes lamented as she turned the page to the last. “Around the end of the second year, Maria’s class went out to subjugate bandits when they first encountered the cursed spirits.” Immediately, she scanned around her room again, hoping there weren’t any spirits hiding in this room.
The one thing everyone in this world knew about the spirits was that they were always watching and reporting to their greater spirits. Only a glorified ‘Do not Enter’ sign could stop them from snooping, and Celes was sure her room didn’t have any. But on the other hand, most spirits were juvenile and thus were generally unreliable informants or so she hoped.
“While they were tough and attack in berserker rage, when Maria herself attacked them, they were purified,” Celes continued, still wary of unseen snooping ears. “That was the only time they encountered the cursed spirits in the second year. It was only in the third year that they found out that it was a much bigger problem.”
Going to the last of the pages, she took one good look at it and sighed. “In history class, the game revealed that spirits used to be other races in this world, collectively called the fae. They and humanity were at war with the cursed dragons, dragons who lay curses on people and had ruled the world with tyranny. After they defeated the dragons, they laid one last curse on all the fae that caused them to lose their flesh, becoming spirits that inhabit Spiri Raia today.”
“For an otome game, they sure didn’t pull any punches on the world-building. But that’s why it’s so popular,” Celes muttered to herself, hopefully. “Anyway, turns out one of those dragons is still alive. Called Typhon, like the Greek monster that fathered all Greek monsters, he was responsible for turning spirits into cursed spirits and at the third year, he unleashed his handiwork all at once in every territory of Spiri Raia.”
“However, Maria’s purifying the cursed spirits in the second year wasn’t a fluke and she wasn’t the only one who can do it. Turns out, anyone blessed by the greater spirits can purify cursed spirits,” Celes regaled. “And so, together with the greater light spirit’s blessed, the supporting character Lydia ly Licht who was her classmate and one of her first friends, Maria liberated Celestia from the cursed spirits.”
Of course, purifying the spirits wasn’t that easy in-game. Much like the earlier second year fight, the devs made up a special health bar for the cursed spirits that were supposed to represent them avoiding Maria and Lydia’s spirit arts until the other party member’s attacks reduce that bar to zero which was supposed to be them putting the spirits in a corner for either blessed to purify them with a spirit art.
“After that, Celestia then launched a counter-attack against Typhon who is nested in the capital of the Kirash kingdom with the aid of the greater light and water spirits,” Celes continued, remembering the heartfelt conversation Maria had with the greater water spirit Aquarius revealing the tale of how she came to bless her ancestor. “It was a hard-fought invasion. Being the heart of the enemy and the fact the blessed people of the territory had long since left the region made it teeming with cursed spirits, but that’s not all.”
Her hands visibly trembled as she picked up the last parchment. Struggling between flipping it over and having it stay as it was, she eventually steeled her nerves to look at its contents and read it. “During the march to the capital, the party encountered Celestine once again, having sided with the dragon, seemingly under the same curse that made her stronger and unleashed hell upon them all.”
Celestine 2.0 was an insane mid-boss. Much like her boss battle in the academy during sparring lessons, she tended to hide behind her lackeys while taking potshots at the player whenever she could, but this time, those lackeys were cursed spirits, and unlike mean school girls, Celestine could add more curses spirits infinitely.
Her boon from Typhon allowed her to re-curse purified spirits if Aquarius didn’t get them out of the battlefield in time. But on the other hand, removing those purified spirits also meant weakening the party’s spirit arts, making the battle even harder. What was worse was that Celestine could even curse the spirits in Maria’s party, barring contracted spirits, exacerbating the problem. Truly, a fitting final battle against the villainess.
“But Maria still defeated her and when she’s about to spare her after all of that, the cursed energy coursing through Celestine’s veins spiralled out of control and melted her into a pool of blood! Noo!” Celes screamed in despair once again, uncaring of anyone hearing her at this point. The scream of agony as Maria and company watched in horror as the villainess died a slow and painful death alone would’ve singlehandedly bumped the age rating and haunted the dreams of many had the devs included a CG of it as they had originally planned in the interview.
Banging her bandaged forehead against the desk again, she turned her head to the other side, looking at the mirror in her room she no doubt was worth several times the average salary of this world. Her platinum blonde hair was disheveled and her crimson eyes were bloodshot from all the stress at her horrifying, impending doom. Even at her current age, she could already see the evil face of the villainess in Spirit Kingdom.
“I absolutely cannot let that happen to me…” Celes mumbled as she slowly lifted her head and focused on the parchments. “Right. I need to plan against my impending doom!”
Azhure: The otome game would’ve mostly given exposition in the human perspective. That means it’ll depict the blessing from greater spirits to have tangible benefits instead of being purely placebo, barring purifying cursed spirits. The same goes for the contract spirit thing, there is no contract in the spirit’s point of view; they get named and follow their namer around, that’s it. Everything else is psychological.
Azhure: So, what do you all think of this part? Is it good? Are there any problems with it? Any reviews or feedback is appreciated as long as they’re not plain insults meant to blow off your stress.
Voice: Don’t do that to people! Not even on the internet!
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