Teruyo Mimicker

It was a convenient shortcut, but also beautiful.

In summer the grass grew up to my elbows and there were butterflies everywhere as I walked down the lone narrow footpath across it.

Then, it got razed to make way for construction work.

(Important construction work. I couldn't fault it, even if I mourned the loss,)

(and the loss of the forested hill further south that I used to run up so fast my sister called me a mountain goat.)

Now, many years later, I had rare cause to venture far from my usual paths.

(The package I collected had thirteen stamps on it, can you believe it.)

And I thought to see if I could take a shortcut by going under the bridges instead of walking alongside them.

Only to discover the meadow had grown back.

There weren't many flowers, but the grass came up to my elbows on both sides of the footpath

Spoilers and insufferable theory talk under the cut.

I am kinda stunned how the chapter answered... precisely zero of my questions? 😂 It was really fun but mostly filler wrt the main plot except for bits at the beginning and the very end and while it's implied this was the last calm before the storm, as someone who REALLY appreciates brisk pacing in games, I'm not sure I love how little the status quo changed.

But hey, the Touhou references were cute, the character development was welcome, and the new gameplay gimmick was neat. The secret boss fight was also great and weirdly made me less concerned for what the future holds.

(I did also see a little of the Weird Route on Youtube and that was genuinely interesting. Not to the point where I want to play it but the thing with the drawing compared to the normal route and its ending are, uh, fascinating.)