Against all odds, Lin Pu's eagerness to learn some magic starts to pay off soon... sort of. By level 15 or so, she gains the most powerful fire, ice, and thunder spells the game has to offer. The catch is that she won't have enough natural AP to use any of them until almost level 40, nor does she bother with any more basic magic that she could handle. If nothing else, plunging straight into the deep end without learning how to swim first does seem entirely in character for her.

That English location name has to be a typo, right? It's so blatantly wrong that I was expecting the GBA version to correct it, but no, they left it unchanged. I'm not sure where "dead" came from, either, unless it's an awkward reference to dead ends?

Much like in the first Breath of Fire, a bridge leads into Windia from the east, but inconveniently connects to an area under the castle rather providing a direct path to the town itself. A white-winged guard stands posted at the gate inside.

Come to think of it, Windia was localized as "Winlan" in BoF1 for no apparent reason. It's the same place, though, and even in roughly same location on the world map. Other towns we've been to don't match up as well, but for what it's worth, Corsair looks to be in the general region of Tatarl and Totorl Villages (Tantar and Tuntar), whereas Origin and the ruins beyond the mountains seem to be somewhere around where Light Town (Auria) was?

Well, that's new since BoF1, anyway. So are the jail cells soon after.

Black wings... royal family... could she mean...? Regardless... an old woman lies in bed in another room.

I can't quite figure out how to parse the middle of the English version text here. What didn't the king do? Or is it saying he did it, but not to protect her? Could it have originally (correctly) said he "did not do this because he wanted to" but someone thought it felt incomplete and added "protect her" out of nowhere?

Every so often along the way, Mina pipes up.

Another side path leads only to a white-winged young man.

Further along, Mina speaks up again.

For being called a maze, the underground area isn't really all that complicated, and it doesn't even have any battles. Before long, we find a stairway leading upward into the castle proper. Naturally, the top is surrounded by white-winged guards. Mina rushes past them to a distinctive woman with pinkish white wings.

The queen walks stiffly toward the others.

Nina steps forward.

The queen reacts with the panicked sweatdrops emote, clearly uncomfortable.

The scene fades out with an awkward noise, and Mina still confused.

We resume in the town itself, outside the castle. Lin Pu is confronting the guard by the castle gate.

That sounds awfully inconvenient. Haven't they ever heard of bridges? But they must have, since there's the one into the castle, so... yeah, I got nothing.

She turns back to Nina.

Continuing on, we find a monkey man performing in town.

More locals gather around.

He approaches Ryu...

...drags him toward the box over his obvious discomfort...

...and shoves him into the box.

That might be just a meaningless shout, but it resembles 消える closely enough that I'm willing to assume the connection was deliberate.

The box vanishes in a puff of smoke, and there's no sign of Ryu, either.

Meanwhile, Ryu is alone somewhere dark and apparently cramped.

Back in Windia, the crowd has dispersed, and Lin Pu is getting in the monkey man's face.

Nina looks flustered, but doesn't let that stop her.

Meanwhile, Ryu is still alone somewhere dark and apparently cramped.

Back in Windia, Sten is still talking, and Lin Pu can't sit still.

Everyone stops paying attention to him as there's a disturbance in the ground where the box was.

Ryu's head pops out of the ground. Sten is the only one not to notice.

Lin Pu gives him a good thwack with her staff as Nina helps Ryu out of the ground.

She winds up for another good thwack.

The screen fades out, leaving the degree of ensuing violence up to the viewer's imagination. When we rejoin the scene...

Lin Pu seems to find this sudden praise disconcerting.

姉御 (anego) is literally a respectful term for an older sister, but it's a fairly unusual one. In this context, and especially coming from a character like this who already talks a little funny, it has a very "yes, ma'am, anything you want, ma'am" sort of feel to it.

No one's quite sure how to react to that. Lin Pu gets ready to thwack him again.

After that bizarre and needlessly awkward introduction, we finally have a full-sized party for the first time. All that's left to do here are getting some new equipment (and perhaps giving Sten that Silver Knife after buying Ryu a better sword) and asking around for useful leads.

That settles our next destination. And if we ever want to head back to the east...

Sten is a Highlander, though I'm not clear on how we're meant to know it, and that's his field ability. Having long arms. It may not sound impressive, but we need him to cross back to the east, and for similar shenanigans in what feels like far too many other places as well.

I'm not sure what it is about Sten that rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's that the arm-reaching gimmick feels forced and unnecessarily inconvenient, especially after a certain later gameplay mechanic is introducted that can conflict with field abilities. Maybe it's that his special command in combat is hot garbage. Maybe I just don't like him as a character. And maybe it has something to do with the story chapter when we visit his homeland, but we'll get to that later...

The sideshow tent has moved here now, but still isn't important yet. On to the west in search of that thief!