Give Cale The Credit He Deserves, He Named Raon And We All Love His Name (⌒ω⌒)

I don't know how no one has said this before but this fic is the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my entire life (♡μ_μ)

I'm drowning in fluff and loving every moment I spend reading this fic (♡˙︶˙♡)

I feel like if this game existed all the players would go crazy trying to figure out why Cale changed so much after the update… and there may or may not be a secret route where OgCale's time travel and his switch of bodies with KimCale are discovered. but no one would ever find out because they don't know how to activate it. ┐(￣∀￣)┌

Okay, so you know the like Otome game au for TCF? I wanted to draw something based around that.

So what I imagine here, is that Birth of a Hero is a popular Otome game that suddenly gets a sudden update after a year or two of nothing from the game. The update completely changes one character, Cale. He went from a romanceable minor villain to an un-romanceable mysterious character who actively avoids the player.

If players chose a route in which bad things would happen, Cale would step in and solve the issue and cause one of the hearts Cale has to go black which stands for dislike or hate. Even if Cale should have no way of knowing the player made something happen it would still happen.

The only way to even raise his affection stat would be to mainly leave him alone but if you chose to follow him around than the scene I drew would be prompted to start.

This one shot is the definition of everything I imagine about Rasheel, Archie and Bud's relationship. ☆ ～('▽^人) How the hell had I not found it until now!? (＞ｍ＜)

The first battle of Maple Castle

The animation of the battle of Maple Castle encouraged me to re-read it and I really enjoyed it (⌒▽⌒)☆

Spoilers for chapters 280 to 288

The Whipper king is a fucking cowardly bastard who deserved to die during the civil war and it is certain that unless he acts as an enemy or obstacle he will die in every fic I am ever going to write 凸(`△´＃)

The way Toonka encouraged his soldiers made me enjoy his unique style of charisma and the strategy meeting was simply amazing.

The beginning of the battle was fabulous, in fact the references to KRS's life and the cataclysm were fabulous and now I understand everything correctly (*¯︶¯*)

Toonka ignoring all formalities and attacking instantly was simply art.

The way the soldiers (from both sides) reacted once the barbarians and the third brigade clashed was incredible, I like the way it is indicated that even those who are not warriors as long as they are from the Whipper kingdom are crazy (at least from the eyes of the empire) (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

I really liked the clash between Toonka and Huten since it shows the character of both parties and that same meeting is what motivates Kanelle to go ahead with the plan (*≧ω≦*)

I liked the bone birds, they show the progress of the Whipper kingdom in accepting magic again, from nothing to just magical tools to magic being allowed but only as long as no one in the town gets hurt. Huten being tricked, the native wizards acting freely and unleashing their full power, the dwarves gaining determination to defeat the lions, and Cale discovering his new power; All of this happened in a single chapter (385) and it was so fast that I felt like I was really there, sheltered in the castle and seeing the war in front of me. That Huten thought Cale would never rise up against the empire was funny paraphrasing Raon "Human! Are we scamming the Duke?!" Hay and Raon! It's super cute! The way he said that all of Cale's powers had to be fortified and then got sad because he didn't have enough in his piggy bank touched my heart! (っ˘ω˘ς )

The wizards creating a bottleneck for the warriors to fight with Toonka and his people excited was great! I felt my adrenaline rising! ٩(◕‿◕)۶

The political plots in the background were just the icing on the cake and Choi Han pledging to stay hidden and being a tsundere with Toonka I loved it! Huten wanting to kill Toonka and automatically forgetting about him as soon as Choi Han arrived was very "I don't care about you anymore, I have a new rival" style, but it happens that that rival is just as (more) stronger than me and seems to have come out of hell ↑_(ΦwΦ)Ψ

Meanwhile Choi Han used it as a springboard to improve his sword art. Huten thinking that Choi Han is a noble for his "refined sword art" was funny and in the background the soldiers going crazy and shouting instructions like they should tie the enemies' feet improved the situation a lot (ᵔ◡ᵔ)b

Choi Han understanding that he didn't fall into darkness thanks to his family was very cute to me and his joint battle with Toonka was great. I like the way they treat the "grand Duke of the empire" like a rag doll <(￣ω￣)>

And the first time I saw the Whipper kingdom strategy I didn't understand it but now I was excited to reach the climax of it, the chaos caused was glorious with all the rubble falling and every armor destroyed \(✯◡✯)/

This is how the first battle of Maple Castle ends.

"There is no reason to be recorded in history. Live for peace and happiness instead." - The Henituse Family Motto

We must not forget about eremophobia.

It was clearly demonstrated during the Wind Island test, and although it is not exactly traditional eremophobia (which is more than anything the fear of being physically alone), unlike this, Cale fears more than anything being the last survivor among his dear ones.

I think the reason Cale is always at the vanguard is that he is afraid of seeing his loved ones die. So, if they end up in a situation where their enemy is stronger than them and they can’t flee, at least he will die before the others.

Trauma will always push him to avoid seeing his people die, lest he be the last survivor. The guilt of having those ideas, of imposing that fate on someone else, can make his already low self-esteem even more non-existent than before.

I just realized I'm rambling, so I'll leave it here. Anyway, even if this analysis is wrong, I think it can be quite accurate in many cases.

Kim Rok Soo!Cale – aka. Poster Child of Trauma

Let's list down all the traumatic experiences of our MC, shall we? :)

Body stolen by the White Star's reincarnation

Being affected by the Curse of the God of Death ("All those you cherish shall die") before being born

Rebirth in Korea, shortly followed by the death of his parents

Taken in by his abusive uncle, Kim Seung Jong, who falls into alcoholism and gambling

Either the uncle dies due to his addictions or it gets so bad Kim Rok Soo runs away – that part was a bit unclear

Gets into the orphanage, where all friends or caretakers he comes to care about leave him, one way or another

Choi Jung Gun shows up when Kim Rok Soo is about to get murdered by the Hunters Park So Jin & Jung Yi-Rang, posing as his counselor & classmate

CJG or the Hunters wipe his memory of the event, which one did it is slightly unclear

Just as KRS's life gets stable enough that he gets a job while studying at a university, the Monster Apocalypse strikes and he loses everything all over again

KRS starves under the wreck of a building for a week before getting rescued by Lee Soo Hyuk

LSH takes him to a shelter where Park Jin Tae is in charge, just for him to turn into an abusive leader who bosses KRS around and beats him up

Then the monster wave shows up, killing everyone KRS got to know and care about at the shelter. Hello, Survivor's Guilt!

Somehow, he survives the rest of the monster wave, but that surely wasn't a pleasant experience, considering all shelters lost power for 24 hours and KRS probably experiences the minor ones failing in-person (who knows just how many different shelters he tried to run off to??)

After a time skip KRS gets into the company and we assume life is pretty good for a while for him, under LSH's guidance and the friendship with Choi Jung Soo, as well as their other Team members... except then the Unranked Monster shows up and wipes KRS's entire Team in one go, leaving him the last and only man standing. Hello, Survivor's Guilt Part Two!

KRS attends the funeral of LSJ & CJS, only to be talked about behind his back how he's not even mourning them correctly because he's not crying (those bastards-!)

He takes upon himself to avenge LSH and the rest of the Team, because they were supposed to have back-up from a Guild which all ran away and left them to die. I suppose KRS going after them went down similarly to how he later toppled Arm and the Mogoru Empire, so let's call it his "practice run on Dismantling Corrupt Organisations"

He takes over as the Team Leader as well, overworking himself to the extreme (not even taking a single day off in the first year) to have a 0% casualty rate

He distances himself from the team in order not to suffer another heartbreak if something happens to them (also, my theory is that KRS subconsciously recognized the pattern of his Curse and made himself believe that he's a bad, selfish person who doesn't care about others... just so the Curse don't kill off his Team members this time)

Once again, he gets his body stolen without his permission – and sure, that turned out well in the end, but still: not just once, but TWICE! NOT cool, God of Death!!

He's dumped with the knowledge and responsibility of the conflicts to come in this new world, which was supposed to be originally CJS's job to fix. Come on, it's not KRS's fault he lived instead!! Not he's gotta clean up THIS mess...

Once again, Cale overworks himself white trying to achieve World Peace, because HOW is he supposed to rest if the world comes to an end around him – AGAIN!?

Cale's body wastes away from continuously sacrificing himself (while claiming that he isn't sacrificing himself) and keeps falling into a coma from Ancient Powers overuse

He breaks his plate in the battle at the Gorge of Death and suffers terribly to get it fixed

He gets a premonition that he's probably going to die around November 8th – THANKS A LOT, GOD OF DEATH!!

He also goes through a traumatic test of seeing his worst fear at the Wind Island

He attracts the attention of several nasty characters: like Adin, the White Star, or the Sealed God... which is definitely NOT a good thing

The Sealed God casually tosses him into an alternate universe to relive his greatest trauma

Cale, once again, has to solve problems in another world because he literally cannot do anything else

Also the White Star is trying to murder him in the meantime, so he suffers great physical AND mental pain at the same time - hurray!

Oh and let's not forget, now he gotta defeat the Final Boss by stabbing himself. It won't hurt, the World Tree says...? WHY DON'T I BELIEVE YOU (Also the Sealed God made sure everyone saw everything, nice going there you son of a-!)

And just when the whole thing with the White Star and the Sealed God gets resolved, the HUNTERS SHOW UP, BECAUSE WHY THE HELL NOT

And now Cale gotta go around MORE UNIVERSES to solve ALL OF THEIR PROBLEMS. ..... H o w n i c e

To shortly sum all of Cale's traumatic experiences:

Bodysnatched: x2

Cursed with loneliness and misfortune

Orphaned

Abused

Lived in poverty

Target of attempted assassination (also used as bait for assassins)

Had his head tampered with

Lived through an apocalypse

Trapped under a building (hello potential claustrophobia!)

Starved

Chased down by monsters

Bullied

Survivor's guilt: x2

Betrayed by allies

Forced into leadership

*Body dysphoria due to scars (forgot to mention that earlier)

Impostor syndrome: x2 (for both becoming the Team Leader and becoming Cale Henituse)

Judged for coping mechanisms

Regularly gets hurt and falls into coma

Near death experiences: x[INFINITE]

Forced to experience his worst nightmare

Forced into self-harm

Forced to save the world: x? (at least 3 times and the counter is still rising!?)

Basically, this man's life maybe have gotten better in the past 2 years... but his life is still hell 😅

(I blame you, God of Death – WHY would you consider reincarnation a good punishment?? And a CONTAGIOUS CURSE which affects the victims of your target!? This is all your fault.

...But mostly the Hunters' fault, obviously.)

Secondary characters need more love! o(>< )o (Part 1: Sully)

Ok, well I'm going to be honest, I love the secondary characters in this novel and I want more to appear (o^▽^o)

It's as simple as that and I'm going to rant about how they deserved to appear more or have greater importance and participation (；⌣̀_⌣́)

Let's start with Sully, you remember him? I highly doubt it Σ(▼□▼メ) He is one of the characters who most deserved greater importance (」゜ロ゜)」

He and his grandmother are the only human elementalists in the entire novel (￣□￣」) ! Why in the name of all the gods is it not of greater importance (╬ Ò﹏Ó) !?

Not only that, it only appeared twice! TWICE! ヽ( `д´*)ノ

Heck, his elemental can literally purify dead mana after it started imitating the fire of destruction ヾ( ￣O￣)ツ

What's more, his elemental is a baby! And he's already powerful enough for the world tree to throw him out for fear of being incinerated! Why don't they respect his canonical power and make him participate more (＞ｍ＜) ?!

I really like the responsible older brother-annoying younger brother dynamic that the two of them have ( ◡‿◡ ♡)

Why couldn't they in canon, don't I know? Give him a good character arc (＃＞＜) ?!

His character is so underrated that after he leaves with the elves he is never mentioned, what the hell happened to him?! Disappeared out of nowhere or what ヽ(　￣д￣)ノ?!

I feel like he could have been given more involvement for example in the Molden Kingdom (←_←)

He could have helped purify the dead mana in the labyrinth and probably helped create more chaos, we must not forget that no matter how innocent Sully is, his elemental was raised by our favorite wind elemental (Chaos! Destruction! Love! Thanks! ＼(≧▽≦))

I also feel like he might have become good friends with Toonka and Harold for some reason and I think the interactions between the three of them would be really fun ヽ(o^―^o)ﾉ

Edit: I just realized the implications of Sully's elemental (who I will now call Spark) accompanying Cale to Sha-Orlen (*^ω^)

The idea that they turn Sully and Spark into the Saint of the God of Purification (Cale does not count for them, he is the incarnation of their god) by thinking that the flame of purification is alive and it is Sully who takes care of it and thus misinterpreting everything the situation believing that her god had left her in her care (￣ω￣)

I think that at some point GoP would offer him the position of real Saint so that his followers won't be praising the wrong person and Sully (due to lack of sleep caused by escaping from the most fanatical) accepts ¯＼_(ツ)_/¯

I bet you all you want that he's going to complain about "his god" to Cage for months after that ┐(︶▽︶)┌

The biggest hypocrite in the world that we all love (¬‿¬)

Cale: I want a slacker life.

Cale: But to have a peaceful life, my family needs to have a peaceful life as well, and we need to live in a peaceful world too to not be bothered by anyone.

Cale: So let’s achieve world peace.

Cale: Then let’s do multiverse world peace because other worlds could also bother us and for an unknown reason I HAVE to be the one who does it instead of sending my subordinates and lazing around.

Cale: And while striving for world peace, something that nobody has been able to achieve so far, I’ll complain that I don’t want to work and say I’m weak.

Cale: Ah, I’m weak. *killing the strongest villain who tried to become god*

Cale: I want a slacker life. *trying to achieve world peace and working more than anyone else*

Cale: Sigh…

Reader: Sigh…

Villains who deserve redemption (✧ω✧) (Parte 2: Honte)

I know he’s not a villain per se, but that was my first impression (´-ω-`)

I thought he was someone cunning, willing to do whatever it took to survive—even surrendering to his captors. Discovering that the ‘Honte’ we were presented with was nothing more than a puppet surprised me greatly ( : ౦ ‸ ౦ : )

It’s because of that initial impression that Honte is in this category instead of the other.

But here we go—the reason I believe he deserves ‘redemption’ lies in his backstory. He shares the same background story as Sir Rex, and we were given hints that there might be a way to make dark magic good.

Furthermore, being used as a marionette by someone you trusted (assuming Bernard was his alchemy professor) must have been heart-wrenching ｡ﾟ(｡ﾉωヽ｡)ﾟ｡

If somehow he could have stayed alive during his time as a puppet, he might have resisted self-destruction in some way and survived.

If he survived, Cale’s group would likely take care of him and help him improve. He could even become a key player in Bernard’s demise. And why do I say this?

Well, to provide context, the main reason I’m writing this is because of a speech that popped into my mind out of nowhere when I couldn’t sleep. Here it goes:

Kindness? Kindness?! You’ve never been kind to me for a single day of your life! Every so-called ‘moment of unity’ we’ve had has been nothing more than you finding a quicker way to turn me into a puppet! You’ve never cared about me! You brought me and hundreds of other children here for your twisted experiments, promising a better life! You and your followers tortured us and reveled in our despair! You turned me into a marionette! For years, you used my body to harm others! I was your weapon! And when I was no longer useful to you, you discarded me! The only reason I’m alive is because the so-called ‘enemy’ took pity on me! They helped me! They gave me everything you promised but never delivered! They cared for me and treated me as one of their own! To me, they are not the enemies! You are the enemy, and I will gladly be the weapon that ends you! Be happy, dear professor. This student knows more about how this world works than you do, and I’ll happily demonstrate it in my graduation project. Your death.

It’s foolish and very emotional, but it seems perfect for the confrontation between Bernard and Honte. o(>ω<)o

We must take into account that since the Queen of Death told us that there was a way for dark magic to be good, the information on how she thought it was possible was probably in her book on dark magic.

Cale would definitely give this book to Honte, and considering that he was already seen as a prodigy even before the possession, it’s likely that he could make the Queen of Death’s theories a reality ＼(٥⁀▽⁀ )／

Perhaps even thinking of her as a mentor, similar to Mary.

And what would that method be? I believe it involves using the user’s own blood. Whether it’s using your own blood to draw magical circles or making blood sacrifices during spells, utilizing your own vitality instead of sacrificing others could be the way for dark magic (now called dark magic, distinguishing it from traditional dark magic) to be natural.

Essentially, dark mages would be crystal cannons—extremely powerful, but if they’re careless or overwork themselves, they could die. This could be mitigated with blood replenishment potions, although it wouldn’t change the essence of their powers (¯▿¯)

I wish the author had addressed this plot hole, and that’s why I believe Honte deserves redemption.

What memories…

When I first found this deck online I spent hours searching for it to download.

I have it ready to print if one day I get the paper they use to make the cards for the decks (*¯︶¯*)

Found the Cards