Author's Note: Okay, Breath of Fire IV seems to be narrarated by Nina's diary entries, and we all know that Ryu writes a diary entry every time one saves the game (which, in my case, means that that boy writes a lot. XD). Ever since the scene in camp before Ryu heads off to the Golden Plains, the one where Scias asks why they're doing what they're doing, I've loved him, so I decided to write a quick diary entry from him. :)
Disclaimer: Breath of Fire IV and all related trademarks belong to Capcom, not me.
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I deal in blood, trading violence and swordsmanship for money. In other words, I'm a mercenary. Maybe that's why war doesn't bother me as much as it does some people. Most people, actually, judging by what I've overheard in town, but their concerns aren't mine. I have to make a living somehow, so war is favourable to me. I'm not incompetent or anything, but the majority of my talent and skill is associated with the blade. I'm not good with words, and tend to stumble and stammer in conversation. Because I'm not great at expressing myself verbally, a lot of people dismiss me as 'stupid'. Physically, though, everything's in order. I have the size, strength and agility, so it's the mercenary's life for me.
We've been at peace for a while. There is talk of a possibility of going to war again, but I take it with a grain of salt. You'd swear that half the men around these parts were housewives, the way they gossip. I mean, it could happen, but the point is that it's not, so I haven't been making a lot of money lately. That's why when I was asked by the Ludian king to keep an eye on the Easterners they caught in our territory, I obliged. It was Princess Nina and two of her friends, a blue haired boy named Ryu and a short little woman in a big suit of armour who goes by Ershin. She's a strange one, but I won't get into it now. They were being detained while their friend, the Woren Chief Cray, was being questioned.
They weren't content just waiting around, so I soon found myself trailing them to the castle. The guards wouldn't permit them to enter while Cray was on trial, so they ended up going to Worent to seek help. That was quite a trek. There were faeries in the forest, and they were up to no good. We very nearly lost Princess Nina. See, the faeries thought it would be great fun to shrink her so small we could hardly see her. We ended up finding her in a tree. Luckily, she returned to her regular size on her own, so we continued on to Worent.
The elders there couldn't help us... well, them, anyway. What happens to Cray still isn't exactly a priority of mine. They suggested that we head to the Golden Plains to find Tarhn. She's Cray's mother and I guess they think she'll be able to help. The Worens lent us a whelk to take on the plains, since none of us know how to ride a horse.
We've set up camp near the plains and decided to send Ryu on the whelk. I don't understand it, really. It seems odd to me that they're willing to go through all this trouble. They're not getting anything out of it and their plan could very well be doomed to failure. I decided to ask Princess Nina, and she told me that she knew that it may not work, and that it may not be beneficial, but it wouldn't feel right to sit around and do nothing.
I guess that as a mercenary, I'm so used to doing jobs only to get something else--money, in most cases--in return, that just doing things for the sake of doing them has become alien to me. I'd kind of like to see what it was like, but it's so damn hard. Even now, I'm still baffled by how hard all of them are trying, just for the sake of helping their friend.
Maybe I've been going about things all wrong.
