After killing him, he drops another one of those things:
And i also find what seems to be a special upgrade item nearby:
It seems he was also hiding some grass shit behind one of the pyramids. Noddy noddy:
Next, it's the lake where i killed the snek. Some goodies scattered around, including a crap thingy:
Very satisfying hoarding, quick and easy.
Next, is the place where i fought the monke:
So now i got two of those things, whatever they are. Maybe this is the "worm" mentioned in that book i gave to the Divine Girl? Looks like a slug more than a fish.
I now decide to check out that wierd jar guy in the Hirata Estate. Let's see if he is the "master" in question. I go to the Dilapidated Temple to pick this things up, which i still have zero idea of what it does or how to use it:
I'm falling behind with my prosphetic upgrades so i figured i had to pick something. After this, i use the Buddha statue to go back to the Hirata Estate. Before talking to the jar guy, i figure i might as well check out this place too as there was a lot of water here. So i go to the Idol to port to some of the other ponds first, and i just noticed this Estate is in the "Dragonspring":
Which makes sense, since this is where Kuro lived. This place has three diving spots but there's basically nothing in all of them, just a lone carp thing i find in the last one. Disappointing to be honest, every other diving place was a treasure trove of stuff.
I go talk to the guy and he has zero to say about the baits or anything else, he just repeats his line about wanting to become a fish. Guess he was not the "master". While i'm there, i see i got enough carps to clean up his inventory and then some:
Ok, time to go eavesdrop on Kuro again lol:
I think at this point this is all just irrilevant fluff, so i go talk to Emma, whom apparently isn't there anymore:
Sure enough she moved upstairs, where i now discover there WAS in fact a follow up to that whole beheading business. This was probably something i should have seen a LONG time i go i hope i didn't mess up any quests by unlocking this part so late now. I begin by telling her what i heard Kuro say to her while i was eavesdropping on them the first time:
She now has no choice but to reveal what they were discussing:
Better late than never that i'm getting this now. At least the game was indeed gonna aknowledge that "beheading" stuff. Figured it was too big of a thing to just drop like that without comment.
Wolf interjects:
But it seems there might be another way?
I love that she calls me "Master" Wolf.
Wolf comments that the Dragon's Heritage is no ordinary power, and that there could perhaps be such a path. She now asks me if i want to join her in finding such a path. I'm given the choice to refuse or agree. Wonder if this is an important choice and depending on what i pick i might lock myself out of some possible quest or even ending. I like this kid, and it's Wolf's entire reason for being to protect him, so i pick the only logical choice:
She thanks me, and it's now time to find a place to start with this. After a little pause, something comes to her:
Before leaving, she tells me to keep this hidden from Kuro. I guess it's for the best. I try to talk to her again but she only has this little bit of extra dialog to offer:
All well and good, but now i gotta go do some other shit to "pretend" some time has passed and come back here. On a hunch, i go check on the other Divine Child. After all, giving her that book must have done something i doubt all i got for it was some short line of dialog. Sure enough, something new is happening now:
Apparently, she is sick now:
And it may have something to do with the rice she gave me, or least she attempts to say something about it but she is too weak to continue the sentence:
In the description it mentions how the rice is created by the power of the Dragon's Blood, even the "false" one she has, which means she must have used her own blood to create the rice, or something along those lines.
I ask her if there's anything i can do, apparently the solution is right within my grasp already:
So i give her the thing:
Her eating is a little bit more dignified than the Old Hag, i should say:
They actually are i eat them all the time i'm kind of addicted to them lol, but only the soft ones i don't like the ones that are like apples.
I'm kind of shocked how early i was supposed to do this whole quest line. All this just because i missed that conversation between Kuro and Emma after beating Genichiro.
Invigorated, she now wants to give me some extra rice:
Wolf has misgivings about this, but she insists, and i get some extra rice:
But apparently that is not all:
She then hands me some special rice to give to Kuro:
After checking if she had more dialog after this, i now see i can give her more persimmons, including the one Kotaro gave me, but i'm not sure for now. Not that i'll ever use those things but unless it's necessary for the quest i'd rather not part with them just yet. Nothing to do now but port back to Kuro to give him the rice. I hand it to him and explain that the Divine Child of the Senpou Temple wanted him to have it:
He now gets an wholesome little kid reaction:
I explain they are sweet when you bite them, but apparently Wolf forgot that not everyvody lives like animals the way shinobi do:
He then turns his attention to me:
Wolf explains he eats pretty much anything. I'm sure he was raised eating tree barks and shit. Kuro circumvents this obvious attempt at evading the question by inferring that Wolf must not dislike sweet things then! (he seems so excited about this), so now he wants to fix up something nice for me:
This is kind of cute. While i wait, i go check out if the jar guy has new dialog now that i cleaned up his inventory. Nothing other than his usual desire to become an immortal fish, so i return to Kuro:
He then hands me this:
Great, another one of a kind consumable i'll never use. Can't get enough of those.
He explains to Wolf what it is:
And urges him to eat it:
Which of course i don't, given it's a rare consumable, but as i'm turning around to see if there's been an update to Lady Emma's quest, he catches me with this:
I'm pretty sure this was just supposed to be an adorable moment but i'm now wondering whether i should have actually eaten the thing. Nothing new from Lady Emma btw.
I return to the Divine Girl to see if giving the rice to Kuro added new dialog. It seems i didn't even know the half of it as this opened an entire new quest. I tell her that Kuro made sweet rice balls with the rice:
And that he was very enthusiastic about it too:
Is that a spelling error i see? What ghetto translation is this?
Anyway, she seems to be impressed by the fact Kuro is still human and his Divine Heritage doesn't determine everything he does or everything he is. That he is still capable of making his own choices, even if they go against the path ordained for him by his birth.
She then asks me his name and expresses a desire to meet Kuro:
I now resign myself this is just going to be a back and forth affair, so i return to Kuro to see if he has anything new to say. He doesn't, so i make it back to the Divine Girl to see if anything changed, and it appears that it did:
Didn't take me too long to figure out where she ended up though:
I now wonder what the hell it is i got myself into when i first discovered you can eavesdrop on Kuro as there seems to be no end to this now:
Does this mean she couldn't talk to them until now or does she means she can talk to them because i saved her life by giving her a persimmon? With this translation it could be either way.
Now this is getting interesting:
You can do that? Just return the Dragon's Blood?
I assume the birthplace of the divine dragon is in the spirit realm (cardinal directions have a spiritual meaning in a lot of primordial traditions, so the "west" here is not a literal place). I ask her who may know about this:
Or what? Wolf interrupts her before she can finish to ask her about the High Priest:
Ho yeah i think i know what she is talking about. Before setting out to meet this High Priest, she points out that this is a different path from the one Kuro has embarked on:
I'm guessing this is one of those ending choices. Although ultimately i don't see how this differs too much from the one Kuro is on. If the curse of immortality is finally lifted from this world, what difference does it make how it is done? This path even seems like would allow Kuro to remain alive.
The way she adds the last line makes it seem i'm locked with this choice if i go see the High Senpou Priest, but i doubt it, so i go check out the priest, who of course is frozen stiff because he is dead. This time though i notice he was holding something in his lap (yeah i'm writing my own fan fic now about how items that appear where there weren't any before are just things Wolf failed to notice the first time lol):
I got it. So the Divine Girl is the cradle, and i need to give her the dragon tears (whatever those are) and the pair of serpentine fruits (which i already have because i'm doing this quest way later than i should have). She then will give the Dragon "shelter" and allow him to return to the west (the spirit world).
I go back to the Divine Girl, who is now back to the Inner Sanctum, and i tell her i found the priest and that he is dead:
I then hand her the sacred passage i found:
I ask her if she is sure about this, but she appears to be determined. She sees my doubts, so she points out that she is basically immortal:
I think i understand where this is going. The end result between the two quests appears to be similar, the only difference is which child gets to be sacrified in the process, Kuro or this girl.
It is now time to begin the first part of this new quest, which i already solved a long time ago lol:
I ask her where i "might" find what she is asking for:
Pretty sure it was a heart. Honestly this translation is just shit. So i give her the serpentine "fruits":
And i ask her if she is actually going to eat them:
At this point i'm just tired of this massive quest detour, so i just go rest and come back, only to find that she is in terrible pain after eating the serpentine fruits:
After this, it seems i can't progress anymore either with this quest or the one from Lady Emma.
This was a massive detour and it's incredible how much stuff i missed just for not discovering a single conversation between Kuro and Emma after killing Genichiro. Actually, considering how long ago that was i think it might have been worse in terms of how much of those quests i had to catch up on.
FINALLY, all this shit now out of the way, i can continue the game's progress normally. So i enter the "wedding cave":
Before picking that up i had to check. Cozy lol:
Apparently this is all that was left of this place. Time to pick up the thing and return to Laddy Emma to see if she discovered something new:
Before leaving i take a last good look at this place. That's one big ass rope:
Anyway, time to port back to the Ashina Castle and talk to Emma. Except apparently i can't do that anymore. The only Idol i can port to is the one near the Dungeon:
Fuck, did i just lock myself out of those quests, the one from Lady Emma and the one with the Divine Child by failing to discover a way to make them go forward before this point? My last manual back up of my save was from before i fought the Corrupted Monk there's no way i'm going to redo all this. No choice but to keep going. I now pop the Seven Prayer Necklace which i had forgotten to do:
And i guess i can go see wtf is going on now.