#Milestone Impression Log — From Introduction to Ending

Contents

Purpose. This document is not a combat or exploration log. It collects the impressions, introductions, and retrospective conversations exchanged by the GM and players at the Introduction / Chapter 1 End / Chapter 2 End / Chapter 3 End / Chapter 4 End / Chapter 5 End / Ending milestones.

Heavy spoilers. All of Chapters 1 through 5 and the Settlement Ending epilogue are revealed. Recommended for player distribution only after completing the campaign.

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#Table Composition

Table premise:

• All players have completed 6 or more sessions of the Konsei Reiyotan core.
• This supplement runs 1 session per week at a 3-hour 30-minute table.
• The final chosen ending is Settlement.

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#Introduction — Session 0 and the Eve of the First Expedition

[Late in Session 0. After the prologue reading and character selection.]

Kuro: Today, rather than explaining rules, let's align ourselves on the feeling of what campaign you've just entered. If the core is about "digging deep into a single battlefield scene," Drift of the Spirit Realm is the version that builds a 20-session home on top of that.

Hana: Perfect. While playing the core I kept wondering, "If these battles pile up, what's left?"

Mei: I'm a bit scared, to be honest. With the core, feelings were settled by the time one episode ended — this one doesn't seem like it will be.

Kuro: It won't be. This is a campaign I designed on purpose to be that way.

Sora: I'll take Diego. He feels like the most outside person here.

Jun: I'll take Jirota. I like the feeling of the domain running. The forge, facilities, repairs — I want to keep handling all of that.

Hana: I'll take Shinjiro. The role of holding the line beside the lord is the first thing I see.

Mei: Then I'll take Ririko. Gensho is such a critical axis, and I want to be the person closest to that.

Kuro: Good. The party's tone is very clear. Front Zone, Faith, Outsider, domain technician.

Sora: But this starts heavy from the first moment. "One domain fell," "an aged onmyoji holds the Barrier," "800 people to be responsible for." Responsibility from the very first sentence, basically.

Kuro: Right. This supplement is less about "heading out on adventure" and more about "holding on so nothing collapses."

Jun: Resource management has that feel too, doesn't it? Barrier HP, core, squads, facilities.

Kuro: Yes. The numbers are management, but the feelings all translate into responsibility. Barrier HP 5 isn't "the wall weakens" — it's "people can't sleep tonight."

Mei: That description is good.

Hana: So with characters too, "someone who's still here" matters more than "someone who's strong."

Kuro: Exactly. Here it isn't builds that make a character — it's what they're holding on to.

Sora: That makes Diego even more interesting. He's not someone who was already here, not someone who belongs here, yet he ended up tied in together.

Kuro: Diego is the character who carries the question of return most directly.

Jun: Jirota on the other hand doesn't seem like he can leave. He's the type to ask "what needs repairing right now" before "can I leave."

Mei: Ririko's options are narrow from the start because of Gensho. "Will I stay?" comes after "can I survive today?"

Hana: And Shinjiro will be bound to the lord.

Kuro: Very good. All four pillars of this campaign just appeared. The lord, the onmyoji, the return, the domain.

Sora: Reading the premise, the thing I liked most was that return wasn't written as the only right answer.

Kuro: That matters. Drift of the Spirit Realm has three endings from the start. Return, Settlement, Transformation. Not a right answer — answers with different costs.

Jun: So the GM won't push one ending from the beginning either?

Kuro: I won't push. But I will make it clear which ending's language grows stronger in which scenes.

Mei: If the players don't notice, the characters could be pulled along.

Kuro: Right. So let's make just this one agreement in Session 0. This campaign is not only a game to win — it's also a game of choosing what to lose.

Hana: I like that.

Sora: That's scary.

Jun: Both of those are right.

Kuro: One more thing. The core is vivid scene by scene, but this supplement absolutely requires time to process feelings after each session. So from today on, we'll leave a conversation log like this at the end of each chapter.

Mei: That's good. I thought emotional buildup would get heavy in the middle.

Kuro: Yes. Without retrospective in this campaign, fatigue accumulates. Think of retrospective as part of the rules.

Hana: Got it. Then we've already stepped in from the start.

Kuro: That's right. Now let's really fall.

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#After Chapter 1 — Having Survived the First Night

[Immediately after Chapter 1, Act 4. The night the Crimson Kooni was turned back and the Barrier did not fall.]

Kuro: All right, Chapter 1 done. First impressions.

Hana: I thought this chapter would be a tutorial, but it hurts more quickly than I expected.

Mei: Yeah. It was a rules introduction, but emotionally it was not a tutorial at all.

Sora: As Diego, I was genuinely suffocated. He's not one of this domain's people yet, but from the first chapter, everyone's eyes were hitting him with "You're leaving too, aren't you?"

Jun: I kept finding my eyes drawn to the facilities while playing Jirota. The gate, the well, the storehouse, the forge. I thought they were background at first, but they were all lifelines.

Kuro: That's the heart of Chapter 1. In this campaign, space isn't background — it's structures you have to keep alive.

Hana: Simply standing beside the lord was enough for Shinjiro's character to come into focus. "Fighting" came later than "not letting Akihisa collapse."

Mei: Ririko got pulled in much faster because of Gensho. Honestly, the first thing I thought when the first chapter ended was, "This person isn't going to last long."

Kuro: I deliberately showed a lot of Gensho in Chapter 1 so you'd feel that.

Sora: And Barrier HP. This was genuinely frightening.

Jun: The number was 75, but it felt like "one life was chipped away."

Kuro: If you can't grasp that feeling in Chapter 1, this campaign is halfway failed. The Barrier has to be the domain's pulse, not just a wall.

Hana: The Crimson Kooni was good too. We're still at the very beginning of the world, but "if one lord-grade comes, the whole domain shakes" was already clear.

Mei: In a standalone short episode it would have been "a strong enemy appeared," but here it connects immediately to "tonight's residents' sleep is disturbed" — that's a different kind of weight.

Sora: Diego was still looking for an excuse to run throughout Chapter 1. But after the gate scene, those excuses ran out.

Kuro: Why?

Sora: Because it's someone else's domain, but we already endured together. After bleeding together, closing the gate, and pulling through the night, "I'm an outsider" just doesn't hold up.

Jun: Jirota was similar. The repair preparation scene stayed with me more than the combat. This game elevates fixing things to the same level of tension as battle, I thought.

Kuro: Yes. Chapter 1 is the chapter that shows the core loop of Drift of the Spirit Realm in its smallest form. Decide in the domain → go outside → bring something back → endure the night.

Mei: And the fact that the residents aren't just background. That was huge.

Hana: Right. When it says 800 people it normally just seems like a big number, but here faces keep attaching to it.

Kuro: Because I designed it that way. Even if the numbers are large, feelings must be felt at the individual level.

Sora: So what I felt at the end of that first chapter was that this campaign starts at the scale of "putting these people to sleep tonight" rather than "saving the world."

Jun: And that's actually heavier.

Mei: I was actually relieved when Chapter 1 ended.

Kuro: That's unexpected. Why?

Mei: I was worried there were too many rules, but in practice they all pointed in one direction. The Barrier, the core, Gensho, the lord, resident morale. It all comes together into "how do we keep this domain alive."

Hana: Right. It wasn't scattered. More like hitting the same nail with different hammers.

Kuro: That's a good image.

Sora: The next chapter is Black Rope. What I'm most curious about is whether this campaign will just keep doing "fight and hold on."

Kuro: It won't. From Chapter 2 onward, it's less about "whom do we save" and more about "whom do we free and whom do we bind."

Jun: Oh, so now Judgment gets heavier rather than combat.

Kuro: That's it. If the first chapter is the chapter of responsibility, the second chapter is the chapter of Judgment.

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#After Chapter 2 — What Do We Free and What Do We Bind

[After the confrontation with Kokujo Daimo. The night after the relationship with the Grip Mother was resolved.]

Kuro: Good. Chapter 2 done. Tell me the mood first.

Mei: I was far more uncomfortable. In a good way.

Hana: Same.

Sora: It was the least RPG-like chapter. That's why it was good.

Jun: That description fits exactly for me. Combat wasn't absent, but combat wasn't the core.

Kuro: Right. Black Rope should feel that way.

Mei: The Grip Mother was so good. Whether she was an enemy or not never resolved simply to the end.

Hana: For Hana, it was also the most painful chapter. Shinjiro fundamentally believes that freeing is the right thing. But when you're actually talking to them, there are spirits that genuinely don't want to be freed.

Sora: That hit hard. Diego started out seeing "being bound" as unconditionally a bad state, but by the end of the chapter, he couldn't say that anymore.

Jun: I thought Jirota reacted the most realistically. "If we free them, where do they go?" came up first. Freedom is good, but whether we can take responsibility for the place after freedom.

Kuro: Chapter 2 throws exactly that question at you. Don't see freedom only as an ideal — think through the world after freedom.

Mei: So in this chapter I felt for the first time that "the Spirit Realm isn't simply enemy territory."

Hana: Right. Reviving Hell was the chapter for learning to endure, and Black Rope was the chapter that speaks to you.

Sora: And Diego changed sharply here. Through Chapter 1 he'd just wanted to go home, but in Chapter 2 the character said out loud for the first time, "Is returning always the good thing?"

Mei: That line was good.

Sora: I was surprised at myself while playing. I hadn't expected to go in this direction.

Jun: I thought the domain would come up less in Chapter 2. But it was the opposite. Every Judgment about whom to free or bind in the forest came back to the domain.

Kuro: That's how Drift of the Spirit Realm is structured. Outside Judgment always changes the inside state.

Hana: Shinjiro wavered the most in this chapter. In Chapter 1 what needed protecting was clear, but in Chapter 2 what's right wasn't.

Mei: Ririko actually enjoyed it. This chapter has living religious questions. The idea that both "freeing" and "keeping bound" can be compassion felt very Buddhist.

Kuro: That's one of the core themes of Black Rope. Not ruling on whether stillness is punishment or rest.

Sora: And the contract. Wow, the contract was so good.

Jun: Yeah. "Making a promise with an entity you can't trust" felt so much like a campaign.

Hana: That part was actually frightening for me. In a standalone short episode a mistake carries over to the next episode, but here that promise extends across chapters.

Kuro: That's why I call Chapter 2 "the chapter of Judgment." It's the chapter that makes remembered choices, not just results.

Mei: The best thing was that the party's opinions weren't completely the same after this chapter.

Sora: Yeah. That felt real.

Jun: Jirota stayed in the "you can't call all binding evil" camp to the end.

Hana: Shinjiro was on the other side, slowly tilting toward the blade.

Mei: Ririko was watching them both and her words came late.

Sora: Diego wavered the most.

Kuro: A good chapter doesn't break the party — it splits the thinking. This chapter did that properly.

Hana: After Chapter 1 it was "we must protect this domain," but after Chapter 2 it changed to "what kind of domain are we trying to protect?"

Mei: Wow, that's good.

Kuro: Write it down. That's the reckoning for Chapter 2.

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#After Chapter 3 — What If We Weren't the Ones Who Fell, But the Ones Who Were Pulled In

[After confirming the sealing records at the bottom of the Screaming Hell lake. After a long silence just before the session ended.]

Kuro: …All right. Let's rest a moment before talking. No need for reactions right away.

Mei: Right now I genuinely can't produce them.

Hana: Yeah.

Sora: Wow, this is… stronger than the midpoint reversal I expected.

Jun: "Not drifting but being pulled in" — that hits very hard.

Kuro: That's why Chapter 3 is the campaign's turning point.

Mei: The underwater fishing village itself was painful enough. But beyond that — the fact that this domain was built on top of an ancestral seal…

Hana: As Shinjiro it was genuinely suffocating. The domain we're supposed to protect wasn't simply a victim.

Sora: Diego completely changed here. I was originally the strongest "let's go back" hardliner, but now I find myself asking what that return even means.

Jun: Jirota was similar. Upgrading facilities, fixing the gate, maintaining the well — doing all of that while thinking "we're building something good," and then in the moment I learned the foundation was land that had been covering a seal, everything shifted.

Kuro: That feeling is right. Chapter 3 isn't a chapter for looking at the Spirit Realm — it's also a chapter for looking at the domain again.

Mei: Ririko's view of Gensho changed. This person's burden isn't just Barrier maintenance anymore — he became someone who had been carrying a 100-year-old secret to the end.

Hana: Akihisa was so pitiable too.

Sora: Yeah. He's an NPC, not a player, and yet he weighed most heavily today.

Kuro: Why?

Sora: He hasn't chosen anything, yet everything comes back in his name. Ancestral karma, the domain's location, the residents' lives.

Jun: So the genre felt like it had completely changed. If Chapters 1 and 2 were a campaign of Survival and Judgment, from Chapter 3 it became a campaign of inheritance and responsibility.

Mei: Right. And Screaming Hell is truly the chapter where cries return. It's true of the physical mechanic, and it's true of emotions too. Everything anyone said comes back.

Hana: The words Shinjiro said in Chapter 2 — "we protect our domain" — took on a completely different meaning today.

Kuro: If the players feel that themselves, Chapter 3 is a success.

Sora: I began seriously thinking "what ending should I choose?" for the first time after this chapter.

Jun: Same. Before, I was just going to follow the situation, but now no matter what I choose, it feels like I'll be shouldering the ancestral problem with it.

Mei: Ririko felt for the first time here that Settlement was a real option.

Hana: That's unexpected.

Mei: Not that return is bad — just that, knowing all of this, is simply closing and going back truly the end?

Sora: Diego wavered even more in the other direction. The desire to return is still there, but I was afraid it might feel like "running away."

Kuro: Excellent. The choice has moved from ideology to the manner of bearing a debt.

Jun: Jirota felt strange looking at the domain upgrade table for the first time today.

Hana: Why?

Jun: Laying stone, driving nails, digging the well deeper — all of it was beautiful, and at the same time "what are we building our house on top of?" kept surfacing.

Mei: Wow, that's a genuine Chapter 3 impression.

Kuro: That's why I call Screaming Hell the turning point. From here, Drift of the Spirit Realm moves beyond "a story of surviving" to become a story of what we inherit.

Hana: It makes sense that words don't come right away after today's session.

Sora: Yeah. This kind of silence is welcome — it's been a while.

Kuro: Chapter 3 needs to stop the players for a moment. That's what sets the next chapter's mirror standing properly.

Mei: That means the next chapter is even more frightening.

Kuro: It is.

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#After Chapter 4 — Can We Live Even If We Become Like That City

[Immediately after liberating or ending the Great Dharma King of Shonetsu and leaving the burning mirror city.]

Kuro: Chapter 4 done. This time I'll throw the question first. Which ending became the scariest for you after seeing Shonetsu?

Hana: Settlement, for me.

Mei: Transformation, for me.

Sora: All three including Return scared me.

Jun: "Settlement done wrong" was the scariest for me.

Kuro: Hana first.

Hana: Until Chapter 4, Settlement looked like the most humane answer. Save all the residents, protect the domain, stay. But seeing the Shonetsu city, I understood. Staying doesn't mean the same thing for everyone who stays.

Mei: Right.

Hana: As Shinjiro that was horrifying. We believed we'd protected it, but the possibility of becoming a lord who has been burning everyone for 200 years — that's not victory.

Kuro: That's why Shonetsu is a mirror.

Mei: Transformation became the scariest for me. Until now I'd imagined it somewhat beautifully. Abandoning humanity and becoming a greater existence, becoming a guardian of the Spirit Realm. But what I saw in Shonetsu was that Transformation might not only be nobility — it could also be a sustained distortion.

Sora: Ririko saying that most strongly was good.

Mei: Yes. So Ririko said for the first time after Chapter 4, "Settlement and Transformation resemble each other but are different."

Jun: That line was good.

Sora: In this chapter Diego started to be afraid of Return too.

Hana: Why Return as well?

Sora: Because I'd seen that going back doesn't wash everything away. Whatever choice you make, traces remain — that became clear. So now "going home" matters less than "going home with what kind of face."

Kuro: Very good.

Jun: The reason Jirota found the Shonetsu city scariest was that it isn't a ruined ruin. It's functioning.

Mei: Right.

Jun: It has order. It has a system. It has roles. But all of it persists in the wrong way. That was terrifying. So if we choose Settlement, I thought I'd need to check every session whether "we're any different from that city."

Kuro: That's precisely the check this chapter was made to enable.

Hana: After Chapter 4 it became clear that Chapter 5 isn't simply a final-boss chapter.

Kuro: Right. Chapter 5 isn't about finding the right answer — it's the chapter of choosing even after seeing the mirror.

Mei: And seeing the traces of the previous drifter in this chapter was so good. Not just lore — "you could become that too" was far too direct.

Sora: Diego stopped being a Return hardliner entirely from here. The goal became not "to go back" but to reach a different ending from that city.

Jun: Jirota thought for the first time that Settlement might be possible. Just not in that way.

Hana: Shinjiro tilted a little further toward Return.

Mei: Ririko was still wavering between Settlement and Transformation.

Kuro: Good. The best possible state going into Chapter 5. The players' conclusions aren't all the same, yet the campaign's goal hasn't scattered.

Sora: The thing that stays with me most after this chapter is the feeling that we're no longer choosing the ending — we're being indicted by the ending.

Mei: Wow.

Jun: That's real.

Kuro: Write it down. That one sentence is enough as the reckoning for Chapter 4.

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#After Chapter 5 — The Choice Was Made, and the Feelings Haven't Arrived Yet

[Immediately after the Nameless Door and sealing stone scene. The Settlement Ending choice is done, but before the epilogue reading.]

Kuro: …All right. For now let's cut here mechanically. The ending choice is done, and I'll read the epilogue in the next block. For now just say whatever came to you immediately.

Hana: Honestly I still don't really know.

Mei: Same.

Sora: The choice was made, but the feelings haven't arrived yet.

Jun: I'm a bit blank.

Kuro: That reaction is correct. Chapter 5 isn't a chapter that resolves right after it ends.

Hana: Hana was not completely in favor of Settlement to the last. But Shinjiro had no choice in the end.

Mei: Why?

Hana: The time spent protecting Akihisa up to here was too long. At this point Shinjiro couldn't choose to empty the domain and send it back. "Remaining" felt more like responsibility than "returning."

Sora: That's why Diego was in agony to the very end.

Kuro: Yes, I could see that.

Sora: Diego was the one who most wanted to go back. But at the end of Chapter 5 it was actually him who said first, "Even so, I can't leave these people." That moment was genuinely powerful.

Mei: I almost cried.

Jun: Jirota chose Settlement in a way that was so completely Jirota. Even in the final choice what came first was "I'll turn this into land where people can live."

Kuro: That was a good conclusion.

Jun: But as the player, I'm a bit frightened. Choosing Settlement means we really have to keep living here.

Kuro: Right. That's why the Settlement Ending, while being a Survival ending, is no lighter than Return.

Mei: Ririko accepted Settlement faster than expected. Gensho's last words were so decisive. A feeling of "returning is not the only salvation."

Hana: That scene was genuinely powerful.

Sora: And because the Shonetsu city existed, this Settlement was harder and more meaningful. Choosing "to stay" while also swearing "not to stay like that."

Jun: Right. Not just Settlement — Settlement that negates Shonetsu.

Kuro: Exactly.

Mei: So I was glad about the Chapter 5 climax. The boss fight mattered, but more than that, at the end what mattered was where each of the four people chose to stand.

Hana: Shinjiro behind the lord.

Mei: Ririko beside Gensho.

Sora: Diego between the door and the domain.

Jun: Jirota near the structure beside the sealing stone.

Kuro: The moment you each stood in your own place was half of the ending.

Hana: Not taking the Renown Title was good too.

Mei: Yeah. This table was more suited to a ending where four people at 9th dan endured and chose, rather than a ending pushed through by a 10th-dan miracle.

Sora: Right. If we'd taken the Renown Title it would have been more spectacular, but this table was the kind that's less spectacular and lasts longer.

Jun: So I still don't know if this was a happy ending or not.

Kuro: Not knowing is right. The Settlement Ending is closer to an agreed-upon remaining than a victory.

Mei: That expression is good.

Hana: Hearing the epilogue will probably hurt even more.

Kuro: It will.

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#After the Ending — Why We Chose Settlement and What Remains

[After the final epilogue reading. Following a break, the last campaign retrospective.]

Kuro: Good. This is really the end. Let's go to the last impressions. Why do you think this table chose Settlement?

Hana: In the end I think it was because of the people.

Mei: Right.

Sora: People over system.

Jun: But the system made us see the people that way.

Kuro: That's a good point. Explain it.

Jun: In Drift of the Spirit Realm, the domain isn't background — it's something that has to be managed continuously. The Barrier, facilities, morale, squads, residents, Gensho, Akihisa. Having looked at this across 20 sessions, by the end it became a real living space rather than "land on a map." So whether to go back or stay stopped being an abstract choice.

Hana: Yeah. At the end Shinjiro wasn't seeing Kagamiyama as a domain in Japan anymore. It was simply "the place I've been protecting."

Mei: Same for Ririko. Gensho and the shrine, the well, the Barrier, the residents' faces. With all of that in the Spirit Realm, salvation doesn't have to mean return.

Sora: That's why it hurt more for me. Diego was an Outsider to the end. Settlement wasn't the most natural thing for him. But still ending up staying — that showed how much this campaign changed Diego.

Kuro: What kind of character did Diego end up being for you?

Sora: A character who started as "someone who wants to go home" and ended as "someone choosing who to stay with."

Mei: That's good.

Jun: Jirota was so Settlement-oriented from the start that I'd worried, but in the end that was good for team balance. Someone had to keep talking about the land, the house, repairs.

Hana: Right. Without that the table would have become too abstract.

Kuro: What was the most memorable chapter?

Hana: Chapter 4 for me.

Mei: Chapter 3 for me.

Sora: Chapter 3 for me too.

Jun: I'm torn between Chapter 1 and Chapter 4.

Kuro: Hana first.

Hana: Chapter 4. Only after seeing the Shonetsu city did the Chapter 5 choice become a real choice. Without the mirror, I'd have chosen with logic. But after seeing the mirror, I had to choose with feelings too.

Mei: Chapter 3 was really the biggest for me. The moment "we fell" changed to "we were pulled in." After that chapter every line was different.

Sora: Diego changed completely there too.

Jun: I liked Chapter 1. It was so clear from the beginning what this campaign makes you protect. That never wavered to the end. However big the scale got, it always came back to the well, the gate, the shrine, the people.

Kuro: That's the backbone of this campaign.

Mei: The best part of doing Drift of the Spirit Realm was that each chapter had a clear question. Will you survive. What do you free and what do you bind. How do you see the ancestral karma. Can you remain differently from that city. What do you send back and what do you keep.

Hana: Right. That's why it didn't blur despite being a long campaign.

Sora: And the impressions were different for each chapter. Even at the same table. Chapter 1 is responsibility, Chapter 2 is Judgment, Chapter 3 is inheritance, Chapter 4 is the mirror, Chapter 5 is choice.

Jun: That summary is good.

Kuro: What was the best thing and the hardest thing systemically?

Hana: Best was the domain loop. Hardest was the long-term resource pressure.

Mei: Best for me was the NPC accumulation. Hardest was the emotional fatigue.

Sora: Best was that the endings were alive from the start. Hardest was that every choice was too heavy because of that.

Jun: Best was that facilities and domain state all fed back into the narrative. Hardest was the volume of record-keeping.

Kuro: All accurate.

Mei: But that fatigue wasn't an unwelcome fatigue. The fatigue of "the campaign held me for a long time."

Hana: Right. The tiredness after finishing a good long work.

Sora: The best part about hearing the Settlement Ending epilogue was that it wasn't a perfect happy ending.

Jun: Yes. That's exactly why it felt believable.

Kuro: In what way?

Sora: Not "everyone survived" as the end, not "everyone stayed" as stability, and Akihisa clearly crossing a little from human lord into something else still remaining — and yet the choice doesn't look like a failure.

Mei: Ririko was remembered at the end not as "someone who couldn't go back" but as "someone who chose to remain."

Hana: Shinjiro remained as someone always standing on the boundary.

Jun: Jirota remained as someone genuinely building a new domain.

Sora: Diego remained as someone who in the end chose community over return.

Kuro: Good ending.

Mei: If I run this campaign again next time, I want to see the other endings too. But the first completion being Settlement was good.

Hana: Yeah. That's true to our table.

Sora: Return would have been cleaner, but Settlement seems like it'll last longer.

Jun: Transformation would have been more intense, but Settlement hurts more slowly.

Kuro: Very fine words. The Settlement Ending of Drift of the Spirit Realm doesn't last because it's intense — it's an ending that lasts because you have to keep living.

Mei: Wow.

Hana: That's a good line to end on.

Kuro: Then let's end with that.

Kuro: Record closed. Kagamiyama did not return. But it did not collapse either.