sure he was, he has long-term plans, you can see them unfold gradually if you're not distracted by the base reactions to the extreme events
I'm skeptical you found a game intricate enough to do that, I don't even think Dwarf Fortress is that complex.
IMO putting the parts of the dead to use is useful pragmatism compared to just letting them decompose. If you have moral qualms it should be about who you kill and why.
IE in Overlord it doesn't bother me that the protagonist lets his minions do that with human body parts: it's the fact that he lets them kill them when they so clearly outclass the humans they probably could've been turned into vassals like he did with the sexslave-turned-maid his butler rescued.
pointless statement since we're about the "why", I don't care about overviews and generalizations
It's not thin or unrealistic IMO, they go into explanations as to why.
It's definitely a lot more specific than Slime Isekai or Shield Hero tbh
or stuff like Naruto where "I can focus my chakra and do anything" is pretty much the rule
what exactly are you comparing this to in levels of realism, Golgo 13?
it has limits, we see those limits, he sees them too
What should he do at that point instead? Just keep breaking fingers and raping her ad nauseum?
I think he just got bored and outgrew it and wanted to try something more creative and civilized once he got the base barbarism out of his system.
We don't know all the details on this. For example: maybe subconsciously Flare IS aware and alert of everything that is happening to this conscious mind.
After what was done to her, seeing this faux-consciousness made of fragments of her old self enthusiastically consenting could be a new kind of humiliation for Flare.
As for the "rape", although the sex was based on some deception ("you're my beloved girlfriend, we've been fucking for years" or something along those lines) she chooses to take this at face value and not question it.
It's also questionable as to whether this is really a distinct person, an artifice, a fragment...
Yes he is. It just isn't always known, and when it is, he might do a delayed-reveal.
That's a pretty smart thing to do until you've understood the mechanics of your enemy and are guaranteed a win.
If he had revealed his power level right off the bat he would've been assassinated SO fucking quick.
He didn't have a legendary weapon, remember? He had to steal that off one of the other "destined" heroes and it was only via that he was able to trounce the captain-of-the-guard (hawk-eye or whatev he was called)
if all he wanted was to torture and engage in violence he could've done that to anyone
the speciifcity of his targets shows he has some sense of justice and morality (however twisted) guiding his actions
he didn't do shit like "I'm going to go and rape the wife and daughterof the soldier who raped me" for example
'good' is subjective, I think he perceives himself as sorta-good
he also realizes she is intensely loyal and prob wouldn't turn to his side knowing what he did to princess, and he needed a backup sword to unravel the empire
what we need to realize is this guy knows first-hand what it is to fall in love with Flare and how shocking it is to be utterly betrayed, to know her true self
he knows how he would've resisted that thought of her, and how swordswoman would've resisted it
about the only way he could win her over is use enough deception to get her in bed, teacher her body the truth as a tender lover, and then maybe he'll reveal the truth in 5 years or so when teh empire has fallen
the thing about Kureha Clyret the Sword Saint is, in all fairness, she is biased by a huge web of bias and lies that Keyaru needs to deal with
ie "you can perform my sword techs, you must have stolen them, maybe tortured my famiyl to learn the technique" or something along those lines (in truth he learned it by healing her arm)
ie naturally assuming his demi-human loli companion is a slave even thogh he asked her consent to come along
she's the one who overstepped first, by just attacking him w/o giving him a chance to explain, trying to kil lhim and shit
so a little deception like "I rescued the princess" doesn't seem that far out of line
it's like "oh, I liked to you? well you tried to kill me" so it sort of balances out
the intent here is I think to reveal the truth of the Jioral kingdom to Kureha, and the mass-worship of the princess amongst the common populace (including Kureha) is so massive that pretty much 99% of the population won't believe Jioral is immoral without Flare coming on board to insult it and get wheels turning and questioning
basically you need the Flare deception (rebellious princess rescued) just to get the idea into people's heads, which is (aside from her firepower) one of the reasons I think that Keyaru decided to bring her along (besides the daily pseudo-rapes)
He hadn't won. The kingdom was still standing at that point. He needed Kureha out of the way (not trying to kill him) without murdering/maiming her, and ideally as an ally out helping to dismantle the empire.
That's tactics/strategy
He's NOT omnipotent, if he used a purely frontal assault the mages/rogues working for the monarchy would've killed him.
There's a massive numbers-game going on, and he hasn't had the opportunity to skill-copy the best-of-the-best
That's why he needed allies, and he did make compromises manipulating them to varying degrees to acquire them.
so what would he do next after this?
run off and let Flare chase him? kill Flare?
Keyaru is mature enough I think to realize Flare is more of a symptom than a cause and there is a darker illness at heart of the kingdom that gives birth to bitches like that.
I think he realized while conquering Flare (and he DID reveal who he was, as he raped her) that it wasn't satisfaction, it didn't really change the root of the problem.
It's at this point he surpassed the short-sighted goal of revenge against Flare and instead sought revenge against the society which birthed her, so instead of fixating on "I'm gonna make Flare feel bad" he co-opts her (rewrites her) as a tool in that greater endeavour.
Basically he leveled-up after getting XP for defeating the mid-boss and recruited her to his party to challenge the final bosses.
LOL they wouldn't give a shit because it's just a disposable soldier
and they might avoid killing YOUR dog but will go and kill a bunch of other people's dogs
so you haven' really solved the problem of their misbehavior, which requires dismantling their entire society
that's what Keyaru is doing
Kureha was NOT an innocent passerby.
Lemme remind, in case you don't recall much of episod 5, of what Kureha decided to do to cause Keyaru to decided to disable her via an aphrodesiac smoke bomb (which I'll remind you she countered via a leg-stab)
View attachment 552854
he was walking peacefully down the street, his back exposed to a pair of girls clearly very happy to be with him
yet the foid ambushes him and tries to assassinate him
Keyaru has done far worse to people with a much greater justification for attacking him:
I'll remind you again, the two soldiers guarding the princesse's bedroom in ep 1, he DECAPITATED them, and they weren't ambushing an innocent man, they were defending what they thought was an innocent girl against a violent invader. There's no indication they knew any of the shit she was up to w/ her prisoners.
Keyaru shows his growth as a char by not immediately murdering Kureha for doing that: I think partly because he got to know her back when he regrew her arm, but also because he knew she was probably misled by propaganda.
She likely would not accept the truth of the empire's degneracy coming from a guy combatting it with his own lesser form of degeneracy, so he had to polish the truth into a pseudo-truth that she could process due to her simplific black-and-white views of good and evil.
It's her own burden to do her own research into the truth: she is accountable for what BS she believes.
In that respect: her own negligence in being aware of the villains she served led her to defend the empire of Flare in all it's degeneracy, and contributed to keeping Keyaru as a slave all those years, even after he had healed her an she had promised to protect him.
Keyaru is basically helping Kureha fulfill her promise, by goading her into believing what she needs to believe so that she would be willing to actually honor it.
Look how easily she was willing to murder him based on pure propaganda. Her life is forfeit and at her mercy and he is mercifl: doesn't kill her, doesn't rewrite her like flare, just doesn't come clean about rewriting Flare (her life and free will are forfeit due to her crimes, so it's his perogative)
she's basically proven to be too dense to perceive on her own the empire's degeneracy so Keyaru is trying to guide her to the truth through sexual healing

once she trusts him via some orgasms and turns against the empire, THAT is the important thing, not whether she'll feel betrayed and hate him later once the empire has fallen
Keyaru is basically wrecking his chances at true love (Kureha was a pretty good canddiate for that) to make overthrowing the empire more of a sure thing, since true love and things working out with Kureha was never a guarantee.
You're generalizing again, which is pointless.
We need to be talking specific names and specific events here or it's just foid-deflection.
He DOES reveal himself eventually.
Does he at first wait a couple minutes before revealing "I'm Healer not your Captain of Guard" when confronting Princess Flare in ep 2? Yes. So what?
As for why he disguised the captain as himself, that was to throw them off his trail while he built connections for his long-term plans.
Basically denying himself immediate gratification because it'd get him killed and he needed to outmaneuver them: it's smart.
You also have to perceive this isn't revenge isolated in a petty way at a single person, but at the soil in which she grew.
He's not just ripping out the flower (Flare) he's salting the fucking earth (Jioral Kingdom monarchy) so wretches like her won't flourish there.
this is a much grander vision and ultimately much better for the world
Sure there is.
What you're not grasping here is that he got satisfaction in ep 1.
He's not a mental-child like Flare where he gets ongoing satisfaction from torturing the same person for years on end.
He tortured/raped her for at most maybe a couple hours and it didn't fill the void in him.
Basically he's superior to Flare because unlike her, he actually realized this shit wasn't enough to truly satisfy him and fill the void in him, so he cast his eyes higher.
He doesn't look at Flare as a person/rival anymore. She was defeated far too easily for that. She just becomes a vehicle to use against the enemy he perceives beyond her once he conquers hero: Jioral.
It'd be kind of like the difference between trying to get revenge on a specific terrorist bomber vs the religion that motivated/financed him.
You can't send a message without dismantling the media structure.
you need to realize how powerful the monarchy is in shaping the narrative here
Yeah you can scare the monarchy but unless you can defeat them, they'll fuck you up
Until you can actually defeat the monarchy, it's not the smartest idea to "send a message" about what a badass you are.
That's why Keyaru masqueraded as Keyaruga and disguised Renard to look like Keyaru so they thought they caught "Flare's murderer"
This way their guard is down and he has room to maneuver and do shit like build his harem/guardians, earn money, gain information about the Demon Lord, etc.
You seem to be under the assumption he's so omnipotent that strategy and tactics don't matter, but they DO.
You also see Ains Ool Gown in Overlord equally cautious and pragmatic, and the same thing in Slime Isekai.
They're super-tier power levels who can trounce 99% of the population too, but they know hypothetically there are threats out there they can't handle, and so they're cautious and conservative at first, testing the waters of their environment and how much of it they can master.
I swear it's like you expect Keyaru to drag Flare into the King's chamber and rape Flare in front of him. You really think it'd be THAT easy?
Not sure why you're engaging in generalization foid-speak. I don't care about pointless nonspecific insults like "the entire ting is crap" or whatev.
I do however enjoy our more useful preceding conversation about specific events and characters, so hopefully we can stick to that.
ah okay... well I dunno I think Keyaru's "mature voice" is more manly than Scamboli's
there is no way for anyone to be completely objective , we all subjective interpretations
there is no 'fact' here
but I am willing to hear your condemnations and give counter-arguments, as I have above
come at me with PARTICULARS or GTFO pleb