While many in Alzer would like to attribute it's advance technology pure to their own wits in reality Alzer has had a few advantages compared to most.
Aside from it's sacred tree there is also a fair bit of luck among Alzer's archaeology team.
Among the humans who lived in what use to be France, there was a dedicated automotive car collector, one who had the contents of his collection stored away in his own private underground garage that doubled as a bunker.
A few decades into Alzer's formation, when large portions of Alzer was being excavated, this makeshift bunker was found. Several of the Cars were found, some broken others not.
Many of them were reverse engineered and combined with Armour Technology resulting in the modern Alzeran car.
The ones in the best condition have been enshrined in Alzer's museum as artefacts of the old Era.
Excerpt from the Alzeran Museum of History
It was late, the sun had already set by the time Louise finished tearing the Hospital apart looking for Leos. Despite that the weather was hot, the Radio crackled as the weather man blathered on about the late summer heat. Louise's family's people came along and took her away while Leon was taking the bus to the place that Louise's family had prepared for him. It was relatively close to the school, as Leon understands it part of the Umbran base built in Alzer. He was more surprised than anything that it was on the circuit of public transportation.
Being this late into the night the Bus had few people, a old man, the bus driver, the most colourful, in more ways than one, was the blonde haired girl with a side pony tail ending in pink tips wearing clothing that reminded Leon of his aunt Chiyo's casual wear. There was for instance the long sweater jacket she was wearing on top of the loose fitting black concert shirt, which did nothing to hide her chest size, which simply read 'the Baddest' while either arm was decked in cheap glow stick bracelets, a leopard print skirt tied the look together. While noting all of these features a conclusion was drawn by Leon.
"Bloody Hell I have a type!" Leon mentally noted that he was going to buy something nice for Olivia and Angelica while he was in Alzer by way of apology.
The bus abruptly and violently jerked as if being hit by a large heavy object. Leon was the first to his feet, between his super human biology and training by his parents the likelihood that he would be knocked on his ass by a mere car accident was laughable.
Leon turned around and looked out the window, at the minivan whose engine was now where the Bus's baggage storage area was located, already the people who had been inside of the mini-van were now pouring out of the van, bottles of Vodka in hand.
To describe Leon in simple terms, for all that he complains about having to put up with the stupid nobility of Holfort, he is someone who does honestly enjoy violence, his annoyance comes from having to treat people with kid gloves, and the consequences from his family when he fails to do so. In simple terms, Leon was a 'good boy who doesn't go looking for trouble' but if trouble came to him? Christmas Day.
The five drunkards from the Van ranged in age from as old as Leon himself to their early twenties, with the oldest at Twenty five, even if none of them were acting their age. The youngest walked up to the bus door and started banging on it and screaming like some kind of wild ape, and to Leon's mild surprise the bus driver opened the door despite the look of obvious fear on her features, and obvious relief when the five stooges ignored her and made their way through the bus before she herself ran away. The Five Drunkards continuing their howler monkey act as they seemed to take the bus as their private party bus, crowding around the girl with the obvious intention of making her their guest of honour for the night.
"Extricating the girl might be a little tricky, I should get the old man off the bus first." Leon also liked to think of himself as 'not an ass-hole' and as such if he can avoid getting the innocent and uninvolved in his affairs then he would. So he made a big show of helping the old man to his feet and getting him to the door. "Devil Arms? No no firearms will just cause this situation to spiral out of control. Devil Trigger? That's probably overkill. Fists? Yeah that'll work." Having gone through his list of options Leon turned custody of the old man over to the bus driver Leon closed the door and then turned his attention to the five Drunkards.
"Attention morons!" Six faces turned to face Leon in surprise, having believed that he had jumped off of the bus just now. "I hope you guys like hospital food!" Leon cracked his knuckles provocatively. "Because you all are eating through a straw tonight!"
The five started to laugh as the approached Leon, the closest one threw a punch at Leon, and to his eventual surprise soon found himself flat out on the ground from Leon's witch time punches to his rib cage. The second delivered a downwards swing with his half full vodka bottle and Leon caught it, and followed up with a nut shot with his foot causing the poor bastard to double over in pain from the blow.
The first guy didn't learn his lesson and attempted to jump Leon from behind, getting an elbow to the nose as a consequence, followed up by using the same elbow to jam the cork of the vodka bottle into the third guy's face and ending with smashing the bottle on the guy Leon got it from in the first place.
The fourth guy charged Leon at the same time the first one tried to jump him again, the Half Demon ended up putting both men into a headlock each as he slammed one of them into the wall of the bus and threw the other one against the guard rail, slamming his mouth directly into the rail hard enough to break teeth.
The last guy took offence to being ignored, as the purple haired pimply snot pulled out a switch blade and jammed it into Leon's thigh, Leon looked more offended that one of them actually managed to get a shot in than anything else if the strength of his back hand was any indication. The one who was slammed against the wall attempted to grab Leon by his collar, even despite the height difference, and Leon responded by slamming his own head into the individual hard enough to send him back into his seat. Broken teeth grabbed Leon from behind and succeeded in throwing him out of the bus through the window, and finally the five of them could catch their breath.
"Huu. Everyone okay?" The one Leon head butted had a black eye.
"Ptoh!" The one who had his face slammed into the guard rail spat out his broken teeth. "Do I look alright to you?"
"I'm bleeding!" The guy who had shards of glass from his broken bottle stated the obvious as he pulled his hand away from the back of his head and looked at it. "I'm Bleeding!"
"Eee boke mah ooze!" The first guy to start the brawl complained as he held his hand to his face.
"What?" Broken teeth asked annoyed at his friend's sudden accent.
"Ah sad Eee boke mah ooze!" I probably didn't have anything to do with what he was saying but when Funny Accent moved his hand away from his face his nose was streaming blood like a waterfall.
"Pierre!?" Black Eye realised that one member of his group hadn't sounded off, the youngest who was now sprawled out at the feet of the girl they had been harassing groaning as he slowly regained consciousness. The girl in question was thoroughly terrified, not of the five Drunkards who she was previously terrified of but rather the man who had torn through them like a wild animal. Then the front door of the bus opened again and the man who had done all this damage climbed back on.
"You get!" Leon directed this order to the young woman who had done little else but stand back terrified as she tried to press herself into a corner of the bus as tightly as possible.
"Thank you!" The girl didn't stop to speak, just ran.
"Alright my warm up is over how about you guys?"
"HHHYYYAAAHHH!" Funny Accent screamed as he swung a left hook at Leon, who in response grabbed the fist, slammed the arm into a guard rail hard enough to break it, and with a second loud crunch used the poor bastard's own fist to punch himself in the face.
Leon intercepted Broken Teeth with the knife he pulled out of his ass, expertly putting it into the man's thigh, and followed that up with a kick to the blade sticking the point out through the other side.
"AAAGGGHHH!" Neither Glass Shards nor Black Eye paid Broken Teeth any mind as they charged at Leon at the same time, sadly for them Leon had picked up a new weapon.
The girl abandoned her purse in her attempts to flee and picking it up Leon could tell it had a fair bit of heft to it, so grabbing it by the strap Leon used it as a flail against Glass Shards and Black Eye. Sending Glass Shards to the ground Leon wrapped the strap around Black Eye's neck and hooked it on the bar above the seats before hoisting him up to hang him while delivering a kick to Glass Shards again.
"Enough!" Knock Out had gotten back to his feet by now, and was holding out his hand that had a magical glowing crest on it. Suddenly tree roots tore through the floor of the bus and wrapped themselves around Leon's ankles. "You worthless peasant! Do you have the slightest idea of whom you have picked a fight with!?"
Indeed. A mana draining attack is something to be feared, even if you are not a active adventurer or in the Military, in fact it was especially something to be feared if you were in a position where your mana levels were low as such a drain would likely be quite fatal, it was a phenomena that Leon was quite familiar with personally being someone who employs mana draining attacks himself.
"One of the 'Great Nobles' then?" Leon made a calm observation even as the tree roots crawled up his body. "I see." Suddenly the roots turned black. "I'll pretend this never happened then." The Tree roots made a violent creaking noise as they tore themselves off of Leon.
Mana Draining attacks were terrifying, especially those of the Shadow element, if that black magic enters your body it will quickly devour your reserves, neutralising roughly twice the amount that enters your body, turning it into more Shadow element, and repeating that cycle until the guy who put it there tells it to stop. Pierre stared in horror as the number one cure all solution of the Alzer republic, the Sacred Tree's roots, rotted before his eyes.
"However I feel that I must first educate you on the dangers of drunk driving before you leave." Leon dropped the purse and in its place he picked up Black Eye. "Otherwise the next time this happens someone could get severely injured."
"HHHYYYAAAHHH!" Pierre screamed as he desperately ran out of the bus, however he fell over on the steps as a giant black hand mercilessly dragged him back inside. Pierre's screams echoed out for some time.
Five men admitted to Rault Central Hospital:
Edward Bell, Broken Nose, Left Arm Broken.
Joshua Harrison, three Broken Teeth, Knife in left thigh (surgically removed).
Henry Harrison, Broken jaw, Glass Shards in Head (surgically removed), multiple concussions.
Jack Lobel, Two Black Eyes, Ligature marks, multiple concussions, severe facial trauma.
[REDACTED], Anal Trauma due to Head of Jack Lobel (surgically removed)
Police Report filed in Rault Territory
It was not a good night for Noelle, it was bad enough getting a hard time last year at school between that bitch Louise and that Jerk Loic but now Pierre almost got his two cents thrown in too. That poor bastard was already dead by now wasn't he? Letting out a sigh Noelle was about to unlock the front door of her apartment when she realised her purse was missing. Fantastic, now she would be waiting outside while hoping that her slut of a sister would let her inside, bitch would probably tell her to go spend the night with Loic.
"I couldn't help but notice that you seem to be having a touch of trouble miss." Noelle was startled by someone announcing himself from behind. He was a thin man, wearing light clothing with a boulder hat and a cane in his hand, a nasty scar that stretched across his face.
"I lost my purse, it had my keys in it." Just what Noelle needed, another man in her life. "Who are you and why are you here?" Noelle put her hand in her pocket as she backed away.
"Apologies. I'm Jean Whitehill your new neighbour." The young man bowed his head as he introduced himself. "Perhaps I could help you?"
Noelle stepped back and tilted her head to the door. At once Jean walked to the door, took out a switch blade, and jammed the knife into the lock before turning it and smoothly unlocking the door. Noelle quickly ran into the apartment and put the door between them.
"Thank you." And then she quickly closed the door not only re-locking it something that she would be replacing as soon as possible, but also snapping shut three dead bolts and attaching a chain from the door. "What good is a lock that's so easy to pick?" Noelle let out a sigh as took off her coat, revealing bruising going up her arms, and went to get a shower.
It is universally agreed upon that the Protagonist of the Second Game, Noelle Zel Lespinasse, is a flat out upgrade compared to the first Game's Olivia. Noelle neither starts the game as a naive fool out of her depth nor does she grow into a vicious manipulator as the game goes on.
In simple terms: Noelle is the only daughter of Lespinasse household, whom since Alzer's inception has had the duty of serving as high priests and caretakers of Alzer's sacred tree. As a child her parents were killed in a coup by the Great Nobles led by Albergue Sera Rault who as of the game's start now runs Alzer as its Prime minister/defacto leader.
In no particular order Noelle needs to romance one of six possible romantic interests, find the Sacred Tree Sapling in Alzer's Tree Root Dungeon and ultimately navigate Alzer's myriad social laws ultimately reclaiming of position as Alzer's Sacred Tree Priestess.
Excerpt from Diary 2
Leon ultimately didn't get to the Housing the Rault's had arranged for him, not because of the state the bus was in though. As he was on his way over he was met by a pool of blood that swallowed him whole and spat him out inside of Castle Bernhard.
"Apologies. The situation was urgent." Agares was kneeling before Leon.
"Does this have something to do with the full moon?" Leon looked up to the sky, the full moon was visible hanging over the castle.
"It's the werewolves, they have gone berserk." Agares explained in simple terms.
Werewolf: A monster formed of Symbiosis.
Following his ascension as one of the three Lords of Shadow, Cornell waged war on the Architect's of Agartha, an ancient society of craftsmen who waged war using giant titans of stone and animated using magic.
To do this Cornell formed a symbiotic relationship with the wolves of the surrounding territories that had been hunted to near extinction by the Agarthans, given birth to the Great Wargs whom when they bite the flesh of the Agarthan people turned them into monsters known as Werewolves or Lycans with Cornell ruling over them as Lord of the Lycanthropes.
By day the Agarthans retain a fraction of their minds and creative genius now guided by the Toy Maker of Castle Bernard, by night they turn into feral monsters, growing more savage the closer to the full moon they get until they completely lose their minds.
Excerpt on Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons.
"Under normal circumstances, the wolves are pretty easy to deal with. They only really become a problem on the nights of the full moon. By that point in time we have them all locked up, under normal circumstances that is." Agares saw no shame in admitting the source of the problem. "The issue here is that where we are has changed in position to the moon, so the full moon came early."
"And so now I have to start keeping my promise to 'Swallow some Sins.'" Leon stated as he had a look around. "What do I need to do to calm them down? Take away the moonlight?" As Leon was thinking about that the Werewolves all suddenly charged at him. "Right stay alive first."
A huge and heavy stone fist wrapped itself around Leon's right arm, and with speed that bellied it's size took a right hook at the nearest werewolf to charge at him, and followed that up with silvery guns appearing in his free hand and on the backs of his feet. With the blasting Leon was able to keep most of the Werewolves away from him but there was something he failed to consider: That the moon light was able to enter here precisely because of the hole in the roof, a hole that the Werewolves had now gathered around and jumped down on him from above.
"Mother F-" Leon's swearing was cut short as the beasts dog piled onto him, biting his limbs and clawing at his flesh.
Jeanne had taken her two main students, Angelica and Olivia, aside as she engaged in private tutoring with them. Olivia was as voracious as ever, hungering for the sweet, sweet knowledge that was being dangled in front of her.
"How did you turn into that kitty cat?" Olivia had a starry look in her eyes as she held out a note pad and pen.
"Beast Within is not a magic taken on lightly my young friend." Jeanne warned even as she drunk her tea. "You know already that Demons and Angels are born from us, in some cases they can even take us on as their hosts, under the correct circumstances a seed of power can be born from this. You've already met our Demons of Envy the Shadows." Jeanne gestured to a maid who had brought them refreshments, a Shadow. "Among the angels there is another Shape Shifter: The Joys."
"I cannot tell you how much trouble those things gave us." Cereza walked in on the room that Jeanne had prepared to tutor the girls in and gave her wife a kiss before handing her a bag. "They can assume our form, use our own attacks against us, my own daughter couldn't even tell us apart once upon a time."
"If great Envy was enough to learn the power of shape shifting this school would have them coming out of its ears." Angelica stated tapping her finger in annoyance.
"Indeed. However if you are able to blend together strong feelings of Envy and Joy and combine that with magic you'll create a seed, located directly inside of your soul. Given time and nutrition this seed will bloom into a variety of different forms appropriate for different situations. Perhaps you want to run as fast as a horse? Fly like a bird? Swim like a fish? Or swarm like insects? All of these are possibilities that the Umbran Clan have explored extensively over the years." Jeanne gave an explanation as she talked proudly.
"Can Leon do this?" Angelica saw no shame in admitting that she would've like to have been able to pet a Cat Leon. "Sadly no. There are some techniques that are beyond Leon who is half demon himself." Cereza shrugged her shoulders with a neutral look. "For instance. The Umbran technique to fuse with Demons is known as Demon Masquerade, it's built upon this technique that we have explained, Leon skipped straight to fusing his body with demons thanks to being half demon himself."
"Do you think that Leon could learn this ability anyway?" Olivia too wanted to pet the Leon who had turned himself into a fluffy fuzzy animal. "It's possible. There were quite a few demons born a while back from fusing together elements of humans and animals." Cereza stated bluntly. "If he came into contact with one of those sure he might be able to bridge this barrier between human and animal, but that's the hard way."
"Did you two do it the hard way too?" Angelica asked looking at the pair of older witches with concern.
"We took the 'Joy and Jealousy' route." Jeanne stated bluntly. "For me I was Jealous of Cereza here. She was always talented, and more desperate and determined than anyone else to become stronger. The only thing that she was lacking at times was a mentor, but that was only at times. After her first mentor's death she took all of her teaching materials and notes for herself and from there becoming the most powerful witch in the clan was an inevitability."
"For someone who was so Jealous of me you certainly helped me along a great deal." Cereza stated bluntly. "When the time came for you to become the Clan leader you chose me as your opponent for the ascension rite, effectively declaring me to be the most powerful witch in the entire clan."
"Which you proved after beating me." Jeanne let out a scoff at that. "Course everyone accused me of throwing the fight after that, remind me which one of us throttled more of our Clansmen at that time?" Cereza shrugged her shoulders at that.
"To answer the question I'm actually capable of answering. Jeanne had parents that loved her, the adoration of the entire clan, all the knowledge and resources of the clan behind her. Both of my parents were locked away at my birth, my mentor and parental guardian tried to kill me when I was a couple of years younger than you are. Everything I owned was as a result of my begging, borrowing and stealing. I lived in darkness my entire life by the time I first saw the light I was already a grown woman, by then it was only blinding." Cereza let out a sigh at this. "But Jeanne was my only friend for a long, long time. I wouldn't have been able to survive without her." Cereza grabbed Jeanne pulled her in for a kiss. "Jealousy is not malice, it is the recognition that someone has something you do not and wishing it for yourself. When you attempt to take this by force it or it becomes a point of obsession it turns into a negative however."
"Jealousy and Joy." Angelica breathed deep as Olivia took more notes. "I do not know if we have strong enough emotions for that." Angelica stated in simple terms. "Don't worry, you've acquired the perfect material to stimulate those feelings." Cereza stated as she introduced a new figure to the Conversation, Cleare.
"Is this what you wanted to talk about concerning 'the Warlock Route?'"
To the surprise of many, the secret route character from the first game Leon Rapha Blackmore returns as a love interest in the second game mind you there are several conditions that have to be met. As a start, Blackmore must have been romanced in the first game, then the player controlling Noelle must've botched the Loic route. Blackmore retains his comparatively over powered stats and abilities from the first game though not his numerous weapons instead building a new arsenal as the game progresses. Most dangerous of all, it makes sense, because unlike the five heirs who are some how in two places at once, both hanging out with Olivia in Holfort and on the exchange program in Alzer Blackmore spends the entire second year in the exchange program while Olivia instead hangs out with Angelica. And during that year Blackmore grows stronger. That is the most terrifying aspect, he already defeated the Black Knight and the God of the Earth, and he still keeps getting stronger learning new techniques, new ways of using his powers, fighting stronger foes and taking their power for himself.
Excerpt from Diary 2
Leon woke up sleeping on a pile of trash. The last thing he could remember was getting bitten by the Werewolves and then he was here. He knew that he had a hell of a night though as all his clothes were torn up, luckily he wasn't wearing his uniform for school.
"Bernhard. I need a shower and my suitcase from the ship." A pool of blood emerged a few moments later, from which a suitcase was tossed at Leon who caught it, followed shortly thereafter by a Rusalka. After Leon was dressed and clean he had a look at the time and had time enough for a meal, the waitress at the diner Leon went to was nice, he supposed after a year of the Academies girls, the Ladies of the Forest and what have you all taking shots at him nice, normal well adjusted girls without demi-humans following them around everywhere they go was a blessing. After that Leon arrived at the school, where he was soon met by a familiar face-
"HHHIIIYYYAAAHHH!" That was screaming at the top of her lungs that the moment that she laid eyes on him again.
Noelle hadn't stopped shrieking in terror until she turned blue in the face and passed out. By then the rest of the party she was supposed to be escorting around the school for the day had made their presence known as well.
"I don't know, she just started screaming like she saw a ghost the moment she laid eyes on me." Noelle woke up to the middle of a conversation that she was starting to understand had been about her, and soon laid eyes on the subject of her abject horror. "Speak of the devil. You wanna tell us why you think I'm so scary now?"
"I'm having a Nightmare-" Was the only logical explanation that Noelle could come up with to explain the situation that she woke up in. "-I took too many sleeping pills and my guilty conscious is harassing me for leaving that guy alone with Pierre and I'm going to wake up any mo-" A loud smack echoed out, courtesy of the tiny blonde girl and Noelle's cheek.
"You're not dreaming." Marie stated though Noelle had brought up another concern to Marie's attention. "And what's this about this Pierre guy?" Noelle blinked stupidly for a couple of seconds.
"I was going home late on the bus last night when Pierre and the goon squad drove their car into the bus and took it over. I thought I was going to become his latest victim when this guy came out of nowhere and started beating all of them up! I ran away while I still could while this guy was still fighting them!"
"Back up for a moment." Leon was in such a good mood too. "What do you mean 'his latest victim?'"
But then Noelle had opened her big mouth.
"Don't tell me you don't know?" A thought occurred to Noelle. "Of course none of you know you don't live in Alzer."
In his own way Pierre Io Fievel is a mascot for the various Great Nobles of Alzer, in a bad way though, in an extremely bad way.
Many of the Great Nobles use their power to responsibly manage their territories with self restraint, Alzer would be a giant smoking Crater if the people making decisions didn't give a damn about the countries long term survival.
It's that many more 'Great Nobles' simply don't.
The Six Great Noble families have been marrying their family members off to each other since Alzer's inception, and point of interest the same six families constantly wedding to each other is a good way to rack up incest, which among other unpleasant health conditions, tends to lead to insanity.
Insert Pierre, who on top of being insane, was raised by parents that simply don't care about him and lets him do whatever he wants, which chiefly consists of using his sacred crest as a license to rape murder and pillage.
During Noelle's first year of school he's largely a background character, albeit an extremely dangerous one. Near the start of Noelle's second year his lechery finally gets the better of him and he decides to go after her directly, needless to say if Noelle has failed to start any of the romantic routes by this point in time then she, a lowly common girl, suffers a bad end.
Neutralising Pierre in advance is definitely an option, though it does come at the cost of a potential romance flag between Noelle and her suitors.
Excerpt from Diary 2
Review Section:
hnh058513: Needless to say, Serge here is quite a bit different from canon, with parents that actually managed to managed the various mental issues that Serge is going through and successfully ease him into a new family. He also doesn't need to pass the dungeon class, because that's not a requirement to pass his actual school.
RonaldM40196867: A decent combination of flexibility and hard rules, there's so much variation in vampires in pop culture that I can pick and choose between a lot of strengths and weaknesses as needed.
RedRat8: I don't consider it a spoiler to reveal details of a character I'm going to barely use: Serge is infinitely better adjusted here than in Canon.