Kuro no Kiseki notes

Made a paste of stuff in Kuro i want to write but it's a pain to type it on twitter because of word limit so i made a paste instead,i'll probably do a character reference stuff in another paste.

Oct-Genesis
-8 observational instruments made by Claude Epstein to measure the principles of Zemuria,they were the prototypes of modern-day Orbments made and data from their use were used to develop modern-day Orbments and Arts.
-None of the units share an abillity as each unit represents a different principle,though footsies that can reproduce a phenomenon through their abillities are possible.
-All 8 units must be gathered before 120X or else "everything will end",obviously,the threat is the Nothingness of All but it's unknown if the units can solve or prevent the Nothingness of All of if they can only forestall it from happening.
-The units are more comparable to Artifacts and has the same protection as them,so analyzing the units are impossible.
-Armata somehow got hold of 5 and a 1/3rd (Creil,Tharbad,Bazel,Oracion,Genesis Tower,and the core unit of the 8th) out of the 8 units(Langport's was sealed in Black Dragon Prison where Taikun was imprisoned,Prologue's was hidden by Giacomo after he stole it and the goons failed to recover it,the 8th's other pieces got scattered who knows where),but they didn't really know much about the units nor care about keeping them,treating them as disposable once the experiments are done,according to Gerard,all 8 units will eventually return to the hands of their rightful owner,Visual Collection interview that said owner is Agnes and while it's not explained why yet,she has this status because of her status as the granddaughter of Claude's adopted daughter.
-The Azure Black Demon King recognizes Genesis as "the mechanism made by that man,by that logic it was able to use XXX's shackles",basically saying that he met C.Epstein in person before reincarnating into a human.

Unit 1(Blue):Recovered in Prologue,was stolen by delinquents from an Edith antique shop who attempted to sell it to Armata which goes wrong when they tried to extort a higher price from the Mafia,Giacomo stole it and hid it inside Edith's underground ruins,the primary ability of the unit is that it appears to be able to grant sentience to objects or devices that otherwise shouldn't be able to(i.e the gargoyles and the Mare AI) by binding another's consciousness to the object,it's also capable of allowing others to hijack of another living person's body but this requires the vessel(example:Yume) to have a certain amount of compatibility with the possessor,it also has the power to use XXX's power to limit the 5 Demon Kings of the 77 Devils's powers by interfering with the Demon King's connection with their core but this does not mean that the Demon King is weakened to a level where they can be defeated,just that their strength is surpressed.
(The name is censored but it's obvious in the final boss phase transition that XXX=the person who is using AI Mare as a terminal)
Unit 2(Red):Recovered in Creil,the ability of this unit is "Life Activity",being the prototype of recovery arts such as Tear,Melchior used this unit to revive Aida and her squadron as ghouls by somehow reversing the ability of the 2nd Genesis,the unit is also able to merge multiple lifeforms into 1 creature(basically human centipede fusion) as seen with Melchior fusing the zombified Aida and her squadron using the unit.
Unit 3(Purple):Recovered in Langport,originally belonged to Taikun before it was sealed along with him in the prison island,while it's ability wasn't explained,it appears that one of the unit's capabilities is collecting the memories in a certain area,Viola used this unit to gather Taikun's memories of the prison island and tossed it to Aaron,the current iteration of Taikun to regress him back to his previous life while also somehow turning him into a demon,however this unit is incapable of completely regressing a person back into their past life as they can return to normal by defeating the manifestation of the implanted memories in their mind.
Unit 4(Yellow):Recovered in Tharbad,the main ability of the unit is mental interference by the use of catalysts as it was able to to drive the people of Tharbad into a frenzy though only people who has ingested the ingredients of illegal drugs that was mixed into Orbal shisaas were affected and the spare mask that was stolen by Melchior during the Crossbell Incident was able to amplify the effects of the unit,it was also able to create a giant barrier around hotel Aljumeirah.
Unit 5(Green):Recovered in Bazel,the main ability of the unit is the duplication of a person's spirit,personality,memories and mind into a spiritual lifeform,and drawing power from the Septium Veins,Melchior and Olympia used it on David Callaghan to copy his spirit and mind into the unit while also removing his memories of wanting to repent and attempting to stop the Reactor Weapon project when he wouldn't cooperate anymore,Callaghan was then converted into an AI using Bazel's Aurora supercomputer that was destroyed by Melchior shortly after,by using a combination of Callaghan's genius,the unit's power to draw power from the Septium Veins,and Aurora's twin terminal that was abandoned,simulation of Elysium's computing ability is possible to an extent that was enough to nearly complete the Reactive Weapon formula in a short time,however the person's copied spirit becomes tied to the unit's "observation" as when it was deactivated,Callahan's duplicated spirit was doomed to fall apart and there was nothing anyone can do to save him.
Unit 6(White):Recovered in Oracion,the ability of this unit is to act as an impartial rulekeeper and to administer punishment in the case said rule is broken,for example,say one of the rules enforced by the unit is "Open only 3 treasure chests every 2 hours" and the punishment for breaking the rule is having Olympia sent to punish you,if said rule was broken then the unit will force Olympia to go to the rulebreaker to punish them,it's simple in power but with the right weapons and people,it can be something that can hold the lives of 280.000 people hostage in a death game.
Unit 7(Red-Purple):Recovered in Edith,the ability of this unit is the summoning of the <7th Principle Observatory Event Conversion Technique> Genesis Tower that can interfere with space-time,originally this unit isn't actually that amazing but when its power is combined with the core of the Azure Black Demon King that has power over time,it can freeze the time of the entire continent of Zemuria(even though it'll take a while until the entire continent is frozen) and can enact Pandaemonium,the manifestation of devils in Zemuria which it was not originally supposed to be capable of.This unit is capable of transporting people from one place to another(assuming either Viola,Alexandre,and Olympia were spared or saved in chapter 5,otherwise they would just get resurrected by the unit),rewinding time and resurrecting the dead even if their bodies has faded away like Arioch but this resurrection is inferior compared to the miracle that happened at the true ending of Sen IV or even the life support system of the Divine Knights because the resurrected people would die from being defeated even once and their bodies would fade away as a result.
The Tower being used in conjunction with the Demon King's core has the side effect of freezing the time of anyone who doesn't possess certain qualifications that allows them to be free from the frozen space-time in Edith which is:coming into contact with the Azure Black Demon King himself.
Unit 8(Red):The only unit that didn't show up in Kuro 1 but the core was in Armata's hands before Auguste stole it,the primary abillity of the unit is the observation of sins with the target of the observation set to humans which means it wouldn't work on say,Mcburn,Van,Zeit,Roselia,Ragnard,etc because they're non-humans,the unit can corrode the target's mind by simulating plausible premises that can make the target fall from grace and then overwrite the target's cognition with the simulated premise,basically budget Moon Cradle from Rokuaka.A byproduct of the corrosion abillity is that it allows time resets of unwanted observations up to a certain number of times before the final observation is set.Before the unit's abillities can be used however,a pseudo-soul of a person must be created from their consciousness data to be used as the agent of the 8th unit,Grendel=Zolga,originally the agent has to hijack another person's body because the 8th can't conjure a body from scratch but the use of Lapis and the Elysion Code solves this by creating a Shard body for the agent which can be molded into Grendel Zolga.

Calvard's new military MTSC collaboration tech from Roy's "Calvard is No.1!" hypefest in the final chapter and the space base under construction,basically mostly tell and not show:
Ix-Alba:120 arge military battleship that can perform multiple operations with minimal human personnel thanks to its advanced control system,it can take on an entire Erebonia airship fleet on its own or at least in data simulations anyway,whether or not it holds up to that performance in reality remains to be seen.
Assault Frames(AF):basically Calvard's version of Erebonia's Panzer Soldats with a design perspective different from Erebonia's 5 Soldat units,using the Xipha's control system it demonstrates higher performance in operabillity,output and reaction time than even Erebonia's state of the art Soldats.
Or so Gramheart hypes it up to be anyway,despite the claim that AFs are superior to Soldats,it's actual performance shown in the game isn't actually better than their counterparts and despite the supposedly superior reaction time,not even AF Cypress can keep up with Van/Grendel's speed at its base state and it had a Genesis Unit enhancing its performance,the state of the art Soldats it's supposedly superior to is likely updated versions of the 5 units whose concepts Franz conceived,the idea of it being superior to Tyrfing which is meant to adjust to the pilot's abilities and replicate the performance of Divine Knights is laughable.
Shedal:The successor to the Wesson tank series and probably the only new military tech that back up the hype,it has double the speed of Erebonia's armored tanks with comparable armor and the tank's main gun can reach a range of nearly triple of a gun of the same caliber.
Zeque Space Military Base:as it name states,it's a military base that's meant to be deployed in space and the purpose of the base is to bring a change to the world(i.e expose the outside),it's still under construction during Kuro's events and the only ones who knows about it as far as Kuro 2 revealed are Roy,Rene,Kronkite,Hermes,and L.Hamilton.

Armata:The main antagonist group of Kuro no Kiseki led by Gerard Dantes,originally a middle level mafia led by Enrique who was Hale Coleman's father based in the port city of Messeldam in north Calvard,it was taken over by Gerard Dantes after gaining information from Dingo Brad who was an information broker at the time and he took over Armata by taking advantage of Enrique's failed deal but he didn't stop at that and killed Enrique and his relatives,this would haunt Dingo to the present as back then he only cared for the result and by helping Gerard,he contributed to the birth of the worst mafia.

Gerard would then expand his forces by absorbing escaped criminals,Jaeger dropouts and other criminal organizations to increase Armata's strength,one of the criminal organizations was led by Viola who was defeated by Dantes and became enamored by his ideal of ruling everything using fear and pledged absolute loyalty to him in the twisted belief that if Gerard would obtain the "ultimate fear" he was seeking then all of humanity would be equal in front of that fear,later on Gerard recruited former North Ambrian principality officer Alexandre who ran away from his home after his father forced Alexandre to kill him by attempting to attack civillians so his son could get away from Duke Balmund by forcing him to commit crimes of treason by killing his superior officer to protect civillians,while Alexandre was impressed that Gerard is filling his despair with fear,he merely sees Armata and Gerard as a means to seek a place to die as the worst mafia in Zemuria would attract forces attempting to stop them so it was the optimal hate magnet for a death-seeker,one of the elders of Heiyue would ally with Armata with some of their agents infiltrating the Oracion death game without being part of it.Gerard would later on form a contract with Garden in 1208 to enlist their assassination services and Garden of Thorn's Warden Melchior would then resign from Garden and become Armata's youngest executive after falling in love with Gerard and becoming his mistress(?).

Armata would later engage in money laundering by funneling dark money to Vegasfilm to expand its influence into the political and business world,thereby giving Gerard an indirect channel to both and produce a facillity that creates hallucigenic drugs for their 3rd experiment,they also funneled dark money to the Verne Company to fund David Callahan's research into Reactor Weaponry so they can use it as an embodiment of fear by destroying Creil and holding the lives of the 280.000 residents of Oracion hostage.The mafia's strength grew strong enough that the former sponsors of the anti-immigration terrorists that got arrested in Ao would fund the mafia in exchange for commissioning ethnic terrorism,one of the sponsors are the president of the Redstar orbal car manufacturing company and Edmond Auclair who was the descendant of former Calvard nobillity descended from Marquis Auclair and president of the confection company Quincy,the mafia led by Dantes grew so powerful that Heiyue,Bracer Guild,Calvard Police Force,CID,and other organizations attempted to destroy them but they made zero progress and became helpless at halting their growth but as if it was by decreed by fate itself,the downfall of the Armata mafia and every other people and organizations that colluded with it began the moment a certain person began to be involved in cases involving Armata:the Azure Black Demon King who was reborn into a human.

Gerard's true goal of taking over Armata is to use it as a means of obtaining what he considers the ultimate fear:the power of the Azure Black Demon King's Diabolic Core that he unknowingly stole from the Demon King himself.To Gerard,Armata,D.G Cult,the loyalists of the former Calvard monarchy,Garden,the sponsors of the anti-immigrant terrorism,etc was nothing more than tools to obtain the ultimate prize and he would dispose of them the moment they outlived their usefulness as seen with Melchior happily ratting out the sponsors of the anti-immigration under Gerard's orders as by that stage of Gerard's plan,Mira was completely worthless and left the sponsors to their doom of being caught after the destruction of Creil which was something they never intended and will cause them to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives thanks to their ties to Armata(by "sheer" coincidence one of the sponsors was Edmond who unknowingly sent the reborn Demon King to D.G Cult that led to his core being stolen and resulted in Armata being taken over which led to his arrest,his downfall being brought by someone who holds said core can be said to be his karma coming back to him,or rather,divine retribution),the lower ranked Mafia members and the unindentified Heiyue elder were also abandoned by Melchior to fall at the hands of the guild,Heiyue,Ouroboros,Jaeger groups,and other organizations in the last chapter and by the ending,the only remaining people on his side are Melchior,Viola,Alexandre,and the last Wardens of Garden,Olympia and Arioch.

But in the end,all of Gerard's efforts was for nothing as the moment he tried to turn himself into the Azure Black Demon King,he ultimately lost control of the core he stole thanks to power overload and the core ended up being taken back by its rightful owner with Gerard dying in the process.From the dialogue about how Gerard said that his existence was fundamentally changed and the Azure Black Demon King himself saying that the reason why Gerard is so distorted is because of the Diabolic Core he implanted into himself,it's possible that Gerard's desire to turn into the form of the Demon King was nothing more than the purpose of action the other personality of the Demon King implanted into Gerard's will using the Diabolic Core's connection to the Demon King all the while knowing that Gerard would never be able to accomplish that feat as he was just mere human who could never obtain the power of a God,which means that he was more or less enslaved into a puppet doomed to inevitable failure while dragging down everyone who colluded with him to their inevitable destruction,as if this was all nothing more than divine punishment for Gerard's and the D.G cult's crime of stealing from a God and Edmond's foolishness and hubris of being a descendant of the former Calvard nobillity.

Garden:Remnants of the Order of the Moonlight Horse and D.G Cult combined into one organization by Ellroy that he was too lazy to supervise and who he told to do whatever they wanted,basically a contract assassination group that trains children with special circumstances by obtaining them from methods such as human trafficking,the children are trained in factories and are given codenames upon graduation based on the Minor Arcana(for example Swin's codename is Three of Swords),given the names of the branches the naming convention should be "Numbered pip card number(1/Ace to 9)/court card name excluding Joker" of "insert Garden wing here",the Minor Arcana only having 56 cards and the training facillities being called factories heavily implies that the life expectancy of the lower ranking members are short and Garden has to continue taking in children to turn them into assassins to fill in empty spots.The Warden of Sword Garden,Emperor has a heavy influence in the organization as when he got killed in 1206 by Swin and Nadia,the organization stopped its activities until Gerard made a contract with them,the organization has 4 wings:Sword,Thorn,Aurum and Rust who are managed by Emperor,Melchior,Olympia,and Arioch respectively,according to Melchior and Lucrezia the timeline for Garden's formation and the recruiting of the Wardens is Ouroboros destroys the Order->Ellroy,Lucrezia and Sharon leaves the remnants including Melchior behind and joins Ouroboros->Moonlight remnants including the 7-year old Melchior encountered Emperor->Ellroy combines the Order and D.G Cult remnants into Garden->Emperor and Melchior meets and recruits Arioch->Emperor encounters and recruits Olympia.By the end of Kuro no Kiseki,all of the Wardens were dead except for Olympia but the leader of Garden and their base is still hidden but Ouroboros are still hunting them down to the last man(basically confirming that they're just stepping stone midbosses at best).

Grendel:Magical Demon Clad in Dark,the "demon" form Van takes when he chooses to accept Mare's offer of "Wearing the Nightmare"(pretty much every single time she offers it),according to Risette in chapter 3,this form is made out of of high-density Shards but reproducing this form is impossible by the use of modern Orbal technology and while it's not clearly explained yet,anyone that acts as a "catalyst" will unseal a new power for Grendel,Grendel Alter is more or less the same as normal Grendel except it's Van manually activating the transformation instead of Mare.After turning into Grendel,Van "gains" overwhelming power to make him strong enough that he transcends the limits of being a human just by turning into this form,a zombie centipede fusion created from fusing revived Eisenschild members(Ghoul Aida),a demonized human with enough power and stamina to slaughter Calvard's third highest populated city including the Heiyue+Guild forces defending it(Taikun),a higher dimensional mythical beast from Middle East Zemuria's legends(Verethragna),An Assault Frame controlled by a high-spec AI and boosted by the power of the Septium Veins through a Genesis Unit's power(AF Cypress),couldn't even barely keep up with him and got easily defeated by Van,not even Gerard who had the power of a Diabolic Core plugged into him could react to the full momentum of his speed,several if not all of these opponents were more powerful than A-Rank Bracers of the guild and Fie who is the ace of the Erebonian Guild branch by the time of Kuro no Kiseki despite being B-Rank,meaning that Van could have single-handedly massacred Calvard's guild branch or potentially even the Bracer guild itself in this form if he ever feels like doing it as to him in this state,eliminating most Bracers is like a giant stomping on an ant crawling on the ground without even noticing it since most of them are weaklings,Shizuna who is more or less Aurelia le Guin's counterpart of the 8 Leaves,1 Blade and Black God One Blade sword styles desires a battle against Van in this form,believing that it's a worthy match for her in Spirit Unification state.Fie compares it to Rean's Spirit Unification,Kurogane and Cao calls it a transformation into an oni,and Lucrezia likens him to Mcburn in this form,guess which of the 4 characters was wrong and which one made the right comparison.
The true nature of Grendel isn't a power-up transformation nor something technological in nature despite what Risette believes,in reality it's not Van's true 魔人 form but actually the restraints of XXX meant to limit Van's true power while allowing him to use a part of it if he chooses to "wear" it so it's not a proper demon form.An unintentional side effect of the shackles is that it prevents Van from reabsorbing his power in the situation where it somehow got separated from him and the only way to get around this is to completely remove the shackles to reabsorb the separated power,while the side effects of the overuse of this form isn't fully explained yet,Mare implies that something irreversible will happen to Van.
In other words,it's "inefficient that looks powerful at first glance" only because of how powerful Van actually is and is basically completely useless for humans to use because it's a surpressor with the form that Shizuna(who only noticed a small glimpse of his full power and probably never realized how powerful Van truly was) wants to fight is actually using only a small amount of Van's true power and his full strength is something beyond her ability to handle,this also makes Van more horrifying in retrospect as there's a colossal gap in power between him and most of the characters in the series because he was above humanity from the start of the game and that the only reason the Guild,Ikaruga,Marduk,Dominions,Heiyue,Ouroboros,Papal Guard,etc weren't redundant in chapter 5 is basically because if Van felt inclined to use his powers without being limited and decided to not care about blending in and keeping a low profile for once,then the Armata elimination operation would have been worthless as he would have easily killed Armata's leaders and Garden's last Wardens by using his true powers,albeit at the cost of a significant amount of Oracion's population or the city itself potentially being sacrificed given the severe damage that would have occured had his powers were unleashed without being limited.
The manual activation chant is "By lead of fragile chain,I'm existing here,I am Nightmare,I am Grendel biting myself"
As a digression,Van actually does have his own 魔人 mode like Mcburn does,he almost activated it to destroy the last pillar preventing the party from entering Genesis Tower before Ellroy and Gramheart intervened,the details are unknown but it's implied that it can destroy the final pillar and prevent the tower from reversing time again to undo the damage but given that he tells the party to step back and decided that the state of Pandaemonium in Edith means it's fine to use it indicates that it's dangerous for people to be around him when he uses it and given that Grendel is actually using a small portion of his power despite how strong it is,his true 魔人 mode that uses his powers without being limited would eclipse his use of Grendel in power.

Grendel Sin:Magical Demon that Awakens from the Dark,Grendel's strongest state by channeling every last bit of Van's remaining power instead of a small amount by completely releasing Van's limiter,without a doubt,Van is even more powerful than Rean ever was in this form even in his Sen IV period when he could draw more power from Erebonia's curse as the Sacrifice and it has enough power to defeat a Demon God that has no access to the Divergent Laws,the condition for the activation of this form is mutual consent between Van and Mare to unleash his full power and the chant for this form is the addition of the "Yes,I wake up" verse at the beginning of the chant and following it up with the manual release chant's verses,to showcase the difference in power channeled between the normal and Sin forms,while the normal transformation merely covers Van in blue/red/black flames,the transformation into the Sin form caused a giant tornado of blue flames to materiallize in addition to covering him with blue flames as a result of "Mare" releasing Van's limiters.

Pandaemonium:The phenomenon of devils manifesting in Zemuria in large numbers,Gerard's goal is to expand this phenomenon into the entire continent to drown it in fear,the smaller spheres are sub-terminals for the main core that summons devils in an area while the larger spheres suck in certain people to use them as catalysts by making them relive their traumas to summon more devils into Zemuria though it appears only people with a greater amount of trauma than the others are used as catalysts,the reason why only certain people are sucked into the larger spheres is because they have to be "people related to the holder of the core"(at least in case of Edith's Pandaemonium),Renne and Quatre were absorbed because Gerard was a high priest of the D.G Cult who experimented on them,Agnes got sucked in because she's trying to get the Genesis units he has throughout the game that he doesn't really care keeping,and Paulette and Yume got sucked in because Gerard spared them and Maxim from being killed by Melchior,the energy created from the phenomenon can be used as a power boost but one can take it a step further by integrating the Pandaemonium process by dying and becoming an Immortal,this gives one a 魔人 mode complete with the tattoos and demonic eyes but the 魔人 mode achieved through Pandaemonium is nothing more than a cheap knockoff of Mcburn's 魔人 mode this demonization gives no power over the Divergent Laws.
Before the 1208 Pandaemonium happened,another Pandaemonium happened in the Great Collapse whose events was recorded by the Book of Ezel but the details about that Pandaemonium are unknown.

Iscario:More or less the special ops unit of the Papal Guard led by Vice-Captain Ashrad tasked with duties such as heretic hunting like the Gralsritter and other special missions,unlike the 12 Dominions none of the members including Ashrad have any special abillities but they have a countermeasure to the Dominions's Stigmas implemented into their Xiphas after studying them in case they clash.

Book of Ezel:One of the apocryphas of the Septian Church,Rion states that the only ones allowed to read the apocrypha are members of the Gralsritter and Papal Guard(which implies that everyone else in the church including the archbishops,cardinals and even the Pope aren't allowed to read it) and he described the book as "a book whose contents makes you shiver as if you were possessed by evil spirits",the only known contents of the book is the previous Pandaemonium that happened in the Great Collapse,details about the Wandering Demon King and the other 4 Demon Kings that was integrated into the ranks of the 77 Devils and how the world was once rewritten,Rion suspects that Van had somehow gotten hold of it and read the contents of the book without the Septian Church knowing about it but the actual truth is different from what he suspects,how much the book recorded of the events of the past is unknown.

M.T.S.C/Marduk Total Security Company/MK Company:PMC based in Ored and probably the only organization closest to Ouroboros's level of technology but so far the most amazing things they did technology-wise so far is the Celestial Globe hacking and Risette's cyborgization.If you choose to team up with Ouroboros,Walter confirms that they're the ones who interfered with Novartis's observation of Elysium in Hajimari and the data from Elysium's technology such as the reproduced Emperor was used to develop Shard and mechanical parts that boosts a person's physical performance and can reproduce even the five senses which were used as prototypes for Bazel's research on mechanical prosthesis that's currently in progress but the reproduction isn't perfect since Risette's reproduced sense of taste(which has diminished ever since she lost her body) is imperfect as she considers a coffee that's too hot to be consumed to be slightly hot and she has to continually update her mechanical parts to check the reproduction's performance,because Risette only had her cyborg body for a less than a year,the technology is still in its infancy and can be strained from overexerting as seen in Chapter 4 so Victor is going to have to wait a little longer for his replacement limb because he'll just break it anyway considering how strong he is,despite their achievements,technological Singularities such as Reactor Weapon,AI with free will,future calculation,and Elysium in general is beyond their ability,not to mention spiritual hacking to hijack another person's body that exists only in theory and Grendel which is impossible to reproduce using technology,most of their shares are held by the Valis investment bank in Middle East Zemuria and while how they knew is unknown,they somehow anticipated Genesis Tower's summoning in advance and mobilized to protect Edith from the summoned devils.

Reactor Weapon:In short,the Orbal equivalent of nuclear weaponry but is even harder to create than real life nuclear weapons with the in-game characters saying that it's within the realm of technological Singularities,reasons why it's unattainable is because the computing power required to create the theory is too much for current gen Orbal computers to handle and because it needs more hypothetical experiments to complete the formula even if the theory is established,if it's just creating the theory,assuming the computing power is capable of doing it,then the only 2 people in history capable of creating it are C.Epstein and G.Schmidt.The formula created at the end of chapter 4 is incomplete at 99.93% completion but it was enough to start the development of the Septium equivalent of nuclear fusion.However,Armata created 2 bombs using the incomplete formula:1 was used to destroy Creil using Shard as the explosive lens and the special Artifact <Demonic Holy Sword> Apeiron to skip the process to the explosion which for unknown reasons never created any nuclear radiation even though that was an expected side effect of using the weapon,the second was used to blackmail the forces opposing Armata to participate in a death game or else the bomb will be used to destroy Oracion(in reality,Gerard had no intention of using the 2nd bomb to destroy Oracion at all,it was just bait to lure the original owner of the core into Oracion so the core that originally belonged to him can resonate with him as one of the conditions for a human to tap into its power),the 2nd bomb was retrieved and dismantled with the 3 disciples of C.Epstein personally overseeing the dismantling.
(As a digression,early in the chapter,in-game characters thought that not even Elysium could create the Reactor Weapon formula because it didn't make any in Hajimari no Kiseki but then it turns out later on that yes,it is perfectly capable of creating it)

Gramheart's administration and approval ratings:Currently at 68% approval(or at least in the prologue anyway) compared to 74% at the beginning of his term but this is his approval rating only on Calvard,other nations doesn't like him that much if Julian's less than pleasant response to his classmates praising Gramheart is any indication and relations with Liberl seems to have worsened given that of the 3 previous places Kiseki games took place in,they're the only ones who didn't congratulate Calvard on the anniversary of their revolution unlike Erebonia and Crossbell or their message just wasn't shown in the last newspaper,there are also people in the CID and Hercules who are still loyal to Rocksmith like Kilika,Kaera and Cody,the latter who is vocal about his disdain of Gramheart and considers him unfit to lead Calvard because of his short-sighted economic policies that created problems in the long run and the suspected foul play in the presidential election,the republican party which includes Ryan Connely who is Elie's father is opposing him on the matter of his reckless spending of the world war's compensations which will expire at the end of 1208.His popularity stems from his political skills,economic policies,casual attitude and being an ikeoji but by no means he actually measures up to Gilliath Osborne/Dreichels(a masterpiece that appears only once in a millennia) and Mildine/Musse's(the zenith of the Arnor bloodline's lineage) level that is able bend the course of a nation and even the continent itself through charisma,willpower and superhuman level of foresight as he is unable to control Calvard's internal problems using his and the current administration's abillities but only pacify them using the war reparations to boost Calvard's economy and in some cases,he indirectly contributed to happenings of several incidents that were beyond his expectations and only possible because of the reckless spending of the reparations.The current administration led by Gramheart and his Patriot Party can be said to be the opposite of the imperial government that was led by Osborne thanks to its approach of solving its problems through the assistance of outside forces instead of using its internal power,so while it can be said that from one point of view that Gramheart's administration is better than Osborne's on the cooperation side because they're easier to work with,the reality is that the cooperation is because administration's abillities is too weak,they have no outstanding agents with special abillities in the CID or the military unlike Osborne's Ironbloods,the new CID doesn't work well with the police unlike the old one and Roy can't make Ouroboros cooperate with his plan unlike Osborne but merely keep them from interfering by making a non-aggression deal,also the cooperation of Ikaruga and Marduk is based on contractual obligation by using mira as payment and not because they are allies with the same goal,so while the administration is easier to work with outside forces,by no means it is "better" at working with them.

Diabolic Core:Mostly still a question mark at this point of the story,supposedly the power source of the 5 pillars of the 77 Devils of Zemuria with only people belonging to the Septian Church(specifically the Gralsritter and Papal Guard) and D.G Cult being aware of their existence,from what the story shows a Diabolic Core does not contain all of a member of the 5 pillars's power,merely a significant amount is stored in the core and the power that's not contained in the core will stay with the Demon King,furthermore,having the Azure Black Demon King's core didn't give Gerard the authority to use the Azure Black Demon King's Divergent Law of Time and the authority over time still belonged to the Demon King so the core is just "a factor of one of the 5 pillars and source of demonic energy" but not "something that gives the authority to use a Demon God's Divergent Law".

The purpose of the Armata's experiments:It's impossible for humans to naturally further unlock the power nor understand the true nature of a Diabolic Core(at most Gerard knows that the core is associated with a demon that's not actually from Zemuria,that's pretty much it) even if they somehow gain possession of it and implanting the core into themselves it would only result in gaining a small amount of the core's power and their lifeforce being tied to the core which is what happened to Gerard who made zero progress in understanding it before obtaining the units,for the purpose of obtaining the form of the Demon King,4 experiments using the Genesis units were done,Creil and Bazel's was to see if being alive is acting as a shackle of sorts while Langport and Tharbad was to see if the Resonance phenomenon can trigger a transformation using a catalyst(Aaron's memories of his previous life and the illegal drugs used to control Naje to force her transformation into Verethragna respectively),from these experiments 2 things were confirmed:
1.Being alive acts as a shackle that acts as a limiter for humans who were born in Zemuria.
2.A catalyst is needed to trigger the transformation by method of Resonation.
Using these discoveries,Gerard then decided his course of action:He would die by the hands of the original owner of the core which would also initiate the resonance between the core and the original owner.
Sure enough,Gerard succeeded in doing so by baiting said owner into Oracion and ended up being killed by him,unlocking more of the core's power and even obtaining a 魔人 mode,and finally at the Genesis Tower,perfect resonance between the core and the original owner was achieved and the core's power can be fully tapped by Gerard and he uses the power to turn into a Demon God as a demonstration,he believes after ascending to this state that he could defeat even the rumored strongest of Ouroboros(Mcburn) once he turned into the Demon King form,completely unaware that Mcburn is an Outside Demon God that has dominion over the Divergent Law of his own world while Gerard didn't gain any power over the Divergent Laws even after turning into a Demon God and even got his time frozen by "Mare" so he's pretty much a frog at the bottom of the well,he attempted to turn into the Demon King form after getting beaten but like Joachim who lost control of his demonic powers,the power of the core overloaded Gerard and he lost control of it which the original owner used the opening to rip out and take his core back which killed Gerard as his life force was tied to the core.
So in the end,Gerard was doomed the moment he took the core into himself and wanted to tap into its power because it's too much for a human to handle even after breaking free of their shackles,from the beginning the only conclusion of this story is him dying at the hands of the original owner and the core returning to the Demon King.

Holy Iska Empire:the former superpower of East Zemuria that encompassed the entire eastern side of Zemuria before being destroyed in a disaster 130 years ago,while the empire is gone,city-states in the East formed an alliance and named it Iska as a sign that they inherit the will of the now destroyed empire but the city state alliance has long since crumbled.The ruler of this Empire is given the title of Emperor/Sumeragi who is served by 9 guardian tribes known as the Navagraha,Arioch was a member of the Rahu clan which are part of the western Navagraha sects and his Artifact armor and axe,<Rago's Fang> is heirloom of the sect,Heiyue are descendants of the largest clan of the Navagraha but they were not part of the Far Eastern sects,it's possible that Ikaruga are descendants of one of the Navagraha sects and that Shizuna being referred as Princess means she's the rightful heir to the sect or possibly even the heir to the title of Sumeragi itself,The Rahu clan is supposedly mostly dead except for Arioch thanks to them being caught up in the disaster and him being away during a goodwill envoy to the now collapsed Calvard monarchy but Arioch mentioning his hometown being rebuilt after being defeated a second time indicates that survivors of the clan other than him do exist.

Van's high school years in Aramis:At the recommendation of a certain person,Van enrolled in Aramis and reunited with Elaine and Rene at the entrance ceremony by sheer coincidence,after Rene ran for and won the May student council elections,he and Elaine helped him with student council work despite not being part of it and Rene was happy with their school life because they're back to the happy times when they were kids,Van didn't join any clubs but instead worked as a helper with the clubs activities to get pocket money,this would be the foundation of his underworld job later on,Van was a regular of the patissiere shop Andalusia(occasionally skipping school to eat there to Elaine's annoyance) and ate the entire menu of the shop when he was a student with the owner of the shop being happy every time Van came to his shop because of how happy he was eating his pastries.In the Autumn of his first year,after club hours were done one day,Van asked Elaine to come to the back of the club building and made a love confession to Elaine(which was hinted at in Elaine's Haji episode) with Rene,the teachers and even the students watching the confession secretly but they didn't disturb them because of Rene asking them to leave them be,both of them began dating from that point on as they had mutual feelings for each other but it was a pretty innocent relationship with them shyly arguing and going to date spots(whether or not they had their first kiss with each other at this point was never confirmed) but even then they attracted attention from other schools,TLDR they were the No.1 school couple at that point.

In his 2nd year at Aramis he planned and operated that year's spring festival with Rene as the festival's director,with the guerilla and stage events being so successful(even though it was slightly overkill because the vice-principal of that time was annoyed with Van) to the point where it went down as a legend,the festival itself was recorded in video and passed down to future students who wanted to make another festival as great as that year's like Albert,also in this year's festival a certain event happened with Elaine which Van considers to be Elaine at her cutest.At the launch party of the school festival,Van introduced Rene to a luxurious shop with drinks that can't be drunk by minors without telling Elaine who was furious when she learned about it later and she still can't forgive her childhood friends about this seven years later.

Without a doubt,this was Van's happiest period and one would think that such happiness would last until he graduates with Elaine and Rene—
——But in the end,all dreams,no matter how happy or gentle it is,must come to an end when you wake up to reality.

In the May of his 2nd year,Elaine ran for student council and was successfully elected student president,everybody thought that Van would be her vice-president but for unknown reasons,Van gave a letter to Rene and tells him "Sorry,take care of Elaine" before dropping out,the contents of the letter Rene gave to Elaine was a sloppy apology letter that doesn't tell the reason why he left.
And that is the end of Van's life as a high school student.

This event left a huge scar on the couple's hearts,Elaine goes on trying to find him after graduating and joining the guild and her heart refuses to move on from him and Van gave up on finding someone he can be happy with from that point on and not even Yume and Victor considering him part of their family changed his mind on this but he refuses to let history repeat itself when Aaron regressed to his past life and was about to destroy the people and city he and his mother loved,none of the people from back then thought any less of Van for dropping out with his homeroom teacher Pauwell(now Agnes's homeroom teacher) being worried for him and asked him if there's anything he can help when they meet again in the last chapter.

According to Van,there are multiple reasons why he left but he claims that the main reason is because he's not good at flocking or belonging to any place but Judith,Risette and Quatre who were with him at that time didn't believe it and tells him that his childhood friends,the office members,and the people he saved and shown kindness to will never believe his excuse,Rene thinks in the final chapter that if he and Elaine managed to talk to Van before he dropped out then they could have convinced him to stay.
But none of them,except for Van,knew the dark truth that lies behind his disappearance.

Azure Black/Bluish Black/whatever colour name the localization will use in the western release Demon King:The Wandering Demon King Vagrantz=Zion,one of the 5 pillars of the now 77 devils and the greatest catalyst that caused the events of the game,basically if this guy never made a certain choice in the past then Kuro no Kiseki would have never happened and the deaths that happened in the story would have been prevented because the other 2 catalysts(Roy's reckless economic spending and Ellroy being too lazy to manage Garden) only contributes to and can't actually cause the events of Kuro no Kiseki,he has authority over the Divergent Law of Time,some of the Authority's capabillities of which the game shows are time acceleration interpreted as taking 2-3x actions in a single turn in gameplay or basically doubling or tripling his speed that's beyond human limits,protecting humans from being frozen in time which requires the Demon King to have interacted with the humans in the present or past,and by the Demon King's own words,transcending the time axis itself,meaning that any actions attempted on the Demon King by the use of time travel or interference with time(i.e time paradox attacks) will not affect the Demon King at all and that he exists in every past,present,and future Possible Worlds as a transcendental,eternal Demon God.He has enough power to destroy Zemuria and is called by "Mare" as "The Demon King that will devour the world" and the scale of his existence is comparable to the world itself,originally he was not part of the 77 devils nor was he born in Zemuria,he was originally a Demon God from the Outside that came to Zemuria before Mcburn for an unknown reason and arrived 1208 years ago when the Great Collapse happened,when the world was rewritten he along with 4 other Demon Kings (whether or not the other 4 came from the Outside or were created in the Great Collapse like the Great One is unknown) were added to the ranks of the 77 devils which numbered 72 at that point(so the original premise was that 72 Devils=Solomon's 72 devils from Ars Goetia?) and were bestowed Diabolic Cores which acts as containers for a significant amount of their powers and as a mark that they are part of the 77,the Azure Black Demon King was given the name of The Wandering Demon King which is synonymus with Vagrantz=Zion,notably if you look at the message log after the Demon King returns to his real form he's listed as ??? instead of Vagrantz=Zion despite Barkhorn revealing his name when he turned into his true form and the blurred name "Mare" says in the ending seemingly refers to the Demon King himself,so it appears that Vagrantz=Zion is not his true name but merely his name as of the 77 and his true name(and possibly his original form) as a Demon God from the Outside is sealed.At some point he somehow came in contact and met Claude Epstein himself and learned of at least the blue Genesis's existence.
(Details are unknown but depending on how they develop this hook in the sequel,it's not impossible that it turns out that the Azure Black Demon King actually taught Epstein about the Outside and the principles of Zemuria and the Genesis units were possibly the result of the Demon King's tutelage of Claude Epstein that he presented to his teacher,meaning that the Orbal Revolution was not purely because of human hands but was also assisted by the Demon King's knowledge)
While the reason is unknown,at some point,the Azure Black Demon King made a decision,one that would cause the loss of a massive amount of lives as a consequence of his decision,one that the Demon King himself would regret and despair about later on:
He would become a human,not by merging with one,but by being born as one through rebirth.
However while the reborn Demon King was successfully reborn as a human(though whether or not he was born through human parents or materialized in Zemuria as a human child is unknown),that doesn't mean his body is the same like every other human and calling him a 魔人 that was born through rebirth instead of a true human is more accurate,for example:
-The Demon King has a healing factor that allows his wounds to heal at a faster rate than other humans.
-The amount of mana he can use as a human is limited because of his restraints that is surpressing his power.
-He also has a special sense of smell that can detect the presence of others,4spg requests and even danger that emanates from areas and items like the 1st Genesis Unit whose presence he detected in the prologue,this sense of smell is something he shares with Mcburn who detected Rean escaping his captivity through his smell and is similar to the ELOB's Unclouded Eye according to Shizuna who believes that with her level of Unclouded Eye and the Demon King's sense of smell combined,both of them would be effectively unrivaled when it comes to solving problems if they joined forces.
-Despite him being able to be wounded and age like other humans,it appears that he's actually a genuine immortal unlike the inferior undead immortals created using the Divine Knights's life support system and the 7th Genesis Units because he's unable to die from being tortured for years as a child and having his core stolen from him(the Demon King lacking any lasting trauma to his body in the present day implies that the torture was ultimately insignificant in harming him in the long term),not only that but even killing himself using his own powers before and even after regaining his core is impossible.
-The Diabolic Core that acts as the Demon King's power source is carried over after the rebirth,but while removing it is possible and will prevent the Demon King from turning into his true form as a result of the removal,it won't weaken him to the level of a normal human because even with the remaining power that's left in him,he's still above humanity in terms of strength and humans can never hope to defeat him if his restraints were released.
There might be more differences revealed in later games but as far as Kuro goes about his body that's pretty much it.

The abnormality of the rebirth is that somehow there are 2 personalities existing when originally there is only 1 before the rebirth,instead of a personality being born after the rebirth,it appears that for some reason the Demon King split himself into 2 personality with different purposes,one would act as a proxy,being called 依り代/yorishiro by the other personality to live in Zemuria as one of the humans living in it and the other personality's mission is to destroy the world when the appointed time comes and would be dormant for the most part until some trigger wakes him up,it's not explained as to what is the purpose of splitting himself into 2 but what's clear is that the existence of the Demon King's 2 alter egos is by design,not accident.

Both personalities are fully aware of the other's existence and they acknowledge that both of them are the same person even to the smallest extent,the other personality being one of the proxy's darkest secrets along with his true identity that he refuses to divulge to anyone,while the 2nd personality is mostly dormant,he resurfaces from time to time,once in Tharbad to unleash more of their surpressed power(which caused severe pain to the proxy as he was wearing his restraints at that time) by overclocking the Mare AI's Hollow Core and by the other personality's own words,he took over their body several years ago which presumably happened in 1201 judging by the proxy's behaviour regarding what happened back then but what happened to wake him up back then is unknown.

(An easier way to put it is that the second personality is like Artoria Alter,being a side of the Demon King after the reincarnation that does not show up in the surface but neverthenless still exists and that even though it looks like there's 2 people inside the Demon King's body because of the difference in personalities,the only person in the body is the Demon King because despite the other personality seemingly being a different person,he is just another aspect of the Azure Black Demon King and thus he and the proxy are the same person at their core)

While reincarnation would usually reset a person's memories in their next life unless a catalyst triggers their memories into coming back(Ishmelga for Osborne,3rd Genesis Unit and the Black Dragon Prison throne room for Aaron),both the proxy and the 2nd alter ego retained several memories of when they were one but how much memories they remember after the rebirth is unknown but both remembers their true identity,coming to Zemuria from outside the continent and the events written in the Book of Ezel given the lack of denial when suspicions were placed on the proxy,how much does the proxy remember about the Outside and Claude Epstein (who the other personality remembers) and how much he was pretending to be ignorant is unknown but at the very least he lost memories regarding Grendel,Genesis,knowledge regarding "shackles" and the person who has control of his restraints and hijacked AI Mare as a consequence of the rebirth.The full relationship of the two personalities is unknown but the proxy dreads the day the other personality destroys Zemuria after getting attached to humans and the other personality hates it when the proxy does something selfish like sealing them in the boundary between Zemuria and the outside without telling him first so he's not angry about being sealed but about the proxy doing things without mutual agreement.

Whether or not he was reborn in Oracion is uncertain but at some point he appeared in the city with none of the city's residents having an idea as to where he came from nor whether he was born in the city or not,he was nevertheless taken in by the city's orphanage as a child.

From then on,the proxy would then begin his story as the human that would now be known as Van Arkride.

In his life at the orphanage(all the while being aware that he is a Demon God from the Outside reborn as a human),Van began to attract many children and became their center as if he did it naturally,2 of them being Elaine Auclair(who the proxy developed an attraction to in their childhood) who gave him some of her company's sweets which would later lead to him developing a sweet tooth and Rene Kincaid.

However,Elaine's father,Edmond Auclair disapproved of him being friends with his daughter because of his unknown origins and thinking that he was a foreigner(ironically,he was actually right about his suspicions),secretly arranged for him to get adopted by a foster family to banish him from Oracion and as a result,Elaine was separated from Van and they would not meet again until 1200.

But whether or not Edmond knew it,said "foster parents" were actually D.G Cult members who then found out about the existence of a Diabolic Core inside Van(though Gerard treating Van as an empty shell after finding out that he was the child whose core he deprived from indicates that he and the cult never found out that was in actuality a Demon King reborn as a human and he didn't have the core by random chance) and reported it to the then high priest Gerard Eldarion and they began the process of extracting the core though the process took years to finish,during the end stages of the core's extraction process,Gerard became enchanted by the Diabolic Core,he was chained by his family's obsession with restoring the kingdom by parasitizing the cult and the cult's goal of denying Aidios by worshipping devils,he believed neither was something he could strive for and got bored with life but through the Diabolic Core he found a something that he could live for,that is,"fear",the high priest would then became obsessed with the concept of fear from then on and began to desire the ultimate fear:the full power of the Demon King's Diabolic Core but as a result of absorbing the core,the other Van took advantage of the act by implanting the purpose of "turning into the form of the Demon King to expose the true form of Calvard and the continent" into Gerard's will using the core's connection to the Demon King as punishment for stealing the core which distorted him into committing atrocities for the sake of purpose he thought was his but was actually implanted by the other Van so he would walk into his doom without realizing it,Van would later apologize to Gerard later in their final confrontation,had he never chose to be reborn as a human then the former high priest of the cult would have never become so distorted despite the party(who was unaware of the other personality's existence) insisting that it wasn't his fault(which it was by technicallity since his other self is also Van and not separate person).

When the D.G Cult extermination happened,Gerard survived because he had already stolen and taken in Van's core into himself by this point and had he never took the core in he would have definitely died,Gunther Barkhorn who worked behind the scenes of the operation,found the lodge where the core extraction took place in a mountainous region and found Van there,to his amazement even though he suffered mental damage from the experiments,he somehow survived the experiments which Barkhorn considers to be miraculous,considering his true nature such damage dealt from the torture would be nothing to the Demon King and sure enough,he quickly recovered from the trauma with Barkhorn's help when other survivors never recovered in such a short time,even though the proxy would have nightmares of his time in the cult,it appears that this is a product of the other personality sending him visions in the form of dreams to tell him to find and kill Gerard to take back what rightfully belongs to them rather than a product of post traumatic stress disorder.

Van would then find another foster family and under the recommendation of someone,enrolled in Aramis where he reunited with Elaine and Rene but he dropped out in the May of his 2nd year,his "I don't want to leave you because i love you,but i can't tell you because i love you" when he sympathizes with Aaron's plight in chapter 2's earlier stages and his sermon to the Taikun-turned Aaron heavily implies that he never wanted to disappear and wanted to be with Elaine but there's something that he can't tell her no matter what because she is the one Van loves the most,considering what his darkest secret is,there's an implication that the other personality woke up at some point in his 2nd year at Aramis and forced Van into a choice that ended up resulting in him leaving Elaine behind to protect her but what triggered his awakening is unknown.

While what happened to him 1202 is unknown,in 1203 he found Barkhorn and became his disciple,they trained in Longlai and used Ryuga Rouran's former dojo during the duration of his training,in this period Barkhorn realized that the child he rescued in 1200 isn't a real human but the Wandering Demon King reborn in the form of a human,instead of reporting his existence to the church,Barkhorn instead choose to keep this truth and Van's status as his disciple(effectively making him his hidden disciple just like how Shizuna is Yun's hidden disciple) a secret from everyone else but distanced himself from him and began to monitor Van as the Wandering Demon King during his training.At one point,he tells to his disciple that he knows that Van is an existence above humanity because he's fundementally different from humans and that his disciple "gave up on finding a place to belong,as if he decided that there was nowhere to belong to from the beginning",he tells his disciple that he considers that Van is too naive on the giving up part and tells him that "those on heaven must connect to the ones on the earth",basically telling him to form bonds with other humans even if they can't understand him.

But what Barkhorn didn't realize at this time that the other way around is also true and that he too must connect with his disciple by understanding Van's feelings,pain and despair to form a bond with him,from the moment Barkhorn saw him as "only a demon in the form of a human" instead of a person,he has failed his student as a teacher and he only realized his mistake 5 years later when it was almost too late.

After finishing his training,he then started his career as a Spriggan with the principle of borrowing and lending/give and take.Joerg Rosenberg was one of his first clients and he was hired to remove the tracking device F.Novartis planted in Pater=Mater so the Sixth Anguis couldn't track Renne anymore,he met Renne who was in the middle of her run and chase with Estelle and Joshua in Calvard and although he was inexperienced,the kindness and compassion Van gave to Renne convinced her that there was still hope for her which eventually led to her accepting the Brights taking her in as family so Van indirectly helped Joshua and Estelle in opening Renne's heart,his first office before moving back to Edith in 1205 was in Langport where he got acquainted with Jack and Hale,he then goes on to build a reputation for himself,accepting jobs from civillians,law enforcement,Jaegers and criminal organizations alike.Both law enforcement and criminal organizations are aware of him and generally dislikes him,Bracers and police doesn't like how he accepts jobs from everyone and looks down on him for being like a Jaeger and criminal organizations considers him a thorn in their side because he doesn't choose who to side with,despite all the spite and enmity towards him,Van simply accepts it all and goes on with his life,from a human's point of view,it might look like that he's resigned about being disliked by both light and dark due to his line of work but considering that his other self thinks little of humans and sees them as "little ones",all that spite and enmity is just meaningless babbling to Van.To the Demon King it's just humans pointing fingers at another for being different and claiming that theirs is the better one,to the one that transcends and exists independent of humanity,their sense of values has nothing to do with him who is outside of it.

But for every people that doesn't like him,there are people who like and appreciate him thanks to him helping and solving their problems,with some even believing that Van is a genuine ally of justice unlike Bracers and law enforcements who gets labelled as one by the public,however according to Renne,he neither belongs nor is tainted by light or dark but rather exists outside of both and bridges them together like a living singularity,so his sense of justice isn't something that comforms to neither good or evil and the possibillity of him turning on those who basks in the light isn't zero.

Despite his way of life that supposedly emphasizes giving and borrowing,it's only on the surface level and the actual reality is one-sided:Van will unconditionally help people important to him and cares about but when people wants to repay and/or help him out of gratitude for his kindness and not contractual obligation,he refuses to let other people get close to him by shutting them out and never asks their help which Elaine got the receiving end of in the last chapter's early parts,it also turns out that a significant amount of the total amount of the mira he obtains from the requests are actually donated annually to the orphanage who took him in so people were unknowingly donating to charity by paying him and the actual total amount of mira that goes to him is deducted by the annual donations and this is without including the rent expenses(which is more of a formality rather than an actual obligation since to the Monmarts,he's part of their family even though he's not adopted and not related by blood to them) and the paychecks he gives to the party members in Kuro.So the "giving and borrowing" is just a front for preventing people from getting close to him and what he gives to others through his deeds and actions is so much more valuable than what other people give to him(money,car parts,sweets,etc) that it's really just one-sided giving because what he gets is too little in value compared to what he gives to others to the point it might as well be nonexistent.As Aaron puts it,Van "only gives and doesn't let others give back" which is more similar to a god's way of existence instead of a human because while humans can't live without other humans and thus giving and receiving from others is necessary,a transcendental being like a god (of which Van is actually one of,being the Demon God that has power over time) doesn't need to receive something from others and only gives.

In 1205,Van assisted in the Northern Campaign by helping Sara Valestein and Toval Radonneur enter North Ambria by providing them an entry route from Calvard to North Ambria,in the same year after moving back to Edith and moving into the old town area,he signed a tester contract with Marduk to test the Stun Calibur(that unfortunately never made it to the weapons market due to its handling difficulty but he was allowed to keep his) and Risette Twinnings was assigned to him as his service concierge while Kasim Al-Fayed was assigned to instruct him in the Zero style Tactics to handle the Stun Calibur,Van met Rene again who was surprised that he made a career in the gray zone but nevertheless took advantage of it while also helping him in return all the while being oblivious that he fell to Van's "only give and doesn't give back" relationship trap and ignorant of Van's darkness that will one day destroy the world,Elaine was informed of Van's return to Edith but couldn't muster up the initiative to meet him again after 4 years and Van,completely aware of Elaine joining the guild,kept his distance from her to keep her safe from himself until 1208 where they reunited,Van also participated in the Jormungandr Campaign on the side of Mille Mirage where he met Rixia Mao and former right-hand woman of Zephyr,Aida.

Other known jobs he took before Kuro no Kiseki are a request from Walter who scrapped his first car by throwing it at a Spiegel Soldat which caused him to hold a grudge against the Enforcer who apologized by buying him an identical replacement using his own money and another request from Joerg who asked him to help Swin and Nadia escape from Garden and to bring them to him so he can give a request for them to retrieve the Rozenberg Doll that Lapis was uploaded into from the Moon Temple in Crossbell and deliver it to the real Rufus Albarea,effectively making him a necessary contributor to kickstart Hajimari no Kiseki's events.

(On a related note,in the post game of Hajimari no Kiseki,Nadia intended to meet up with Van again so he can lead the picnic squad to Joerg again and she intends to use the information of Heimdallr's gourmet tour and Crossbell's secret spots as payment for the request,along with the mandatory 1000 mira/hour request fee)

In early 1208,Dingo hired him to dig up dirt regarding Ronal Griffith's dubious activities before Aramis's student council election to be used against him,Van was fully aware that Renne enrolled in Aramis in 1208 as an exchange student by this point and she later found out that the person who Dingo hired was an alumni of Aramis and the same person who helped her out in the past,she later on introduced his agency to her underclassman Agnes by the use of her Kitty Engine OS,effectively starting the events of Kuro no Kiseki.

In August 1208,Van accepted a request from Agnes Claudel to retrieve a certain heirloom of her great-grandfather that was stolen,during the request,Van reunited with Elaine and the girl who used AI Mare as a terminal who granted him the use of Grendel which allowed him to easily dispatch the Armata Mafia that used Gnosis to boost their abilities and successfully recovered the 1st Genesis Unit,Agnes told Van that she was Claude Epstein's great granddaughter thanks to her grandmother,Lilia Caludel being his adopted daughter and that she is trying to gather the 8 units to prevent the prophecy of the world ending in 120X that was foretold in one of Claude's journals,unaware that she was talking to an acquaintance of her great-grandfather and possibly the one that will bring about the apocalypse that was foretold in the journal,Van decided to help Agnes gather the 8 units instead of letting her off on her own on the pretense of Agnes violating his agency's rule of strictly paying 1000 mira/hour request fee by paying him 50000 Mira in full to finish her request which had passed only 10 hours and not 50 hours so she can't pay him with her remaining 40000 mira reward money until all 8 units are gathered,touched by his kindness,Agnes decides to help Van as a part-timer at his office without his consent to Van's dismay.At a later point before chapter 4,Van figured out that Claudel is actually Agnes's surname under the government's protection program taken from her mother's side of the family and that her real name is actually Agnes Gramheart,daughter of the 23rd president of the republic,Roy Gramheart but he kept quiet about this knowing that Agnes would be in danger considering her status as the president's daughter if this was leaked out.

During the quest to recover the other 7 units,more part-timers other than Agnes joined Van's office against his will,Ferida Al-Fayed(to grow as a person and a warrior and because her father told him to take her in as a recompense for mercy killing Aida that Feri was supposed to do and under the threat of the entire Kurga Warrior Corps going after him if he does anything to her),Aaron Wei(to get revenge on Armata for killing his friends and out of interest for the Genesis quest and the Spriggan lifestyle),Risette Twinings(Marduk deemed the situation with Armata to be considerable enough for them to intervene and sent Risette to assist Van as an employee and to inspect the abnormalities in the Mare AI that was not part of the AI's intended design),and Quatre Salicion(L.Hamilton entrusted him to Van after the Bazel incident and he joined of his own free will to see for himself the movements of technology in the underbelly of society),while the 5 part-timers joined for their own reasons,one common point they all had was gratitude towards Van(though Aaron was being tsundere about it) for helping them and because they sensed the danger that is converging on him so they all decided to help him even though never asked them to do so.Aside from the 5 part-timers,3rd generation Grimcats and famous movie actress Judith Lanster and former 8th Dominion Gunther Barkhorn who now goes by the name of Bergard Zeman assists Van as helpers and moved into the Monmart bistro,although Van wants to go back to working alone again,Yume points out that he's more lively ever since the other members joined his office in her 2nd connect event.

In the incidents involving the 2nd to 6th Genesis units,he made acquaintances with people of significant importance and/or connected to the incidents:
-Kurgha Warrior Corps deputy head Hassan Al-Fayed and Eisenschild regiment commander Gerant Rager.
-Members of Heiyue's Lu family,Fan,Ashien and Gien Lu.
-Middle East Zemuria performers Sala and Shahina.
-Thors Military Academy Class VII graduate and member of the Erebonian guild branch Fie Clausell
-Vegasfilm director Salvatore Gotch and actress Nina Fenly
-Elsaim Crown Prince Sherid Asvehl and his personal guard Naje Berca.
-4th Anguis Ellroy Harwood and Enforcer No.III Lucrezia Islee.
-4th and 11th Dominions Cerys Ortensia and Rion Balthazar.
-Papal Guard Vice-Captain and leader of the secret Iscario unit,Ashrad.
-Professor L.Hamilton and her disciples,Esmeray Archent and Yang Kronkaite,and chief technology officer Giscard.
After hearing of Van and the office's exploits from Fan,Sherrid and Hamilton,former Calvard president Samuel Rocksmith took an interest in them and invited them to Ronrai by giving them reservations in Ronrai's Hekizanrou Inn so he can meet them,because of an incident involving "Mare" and Yume,Van met the vice commander of Ikaruga,Shizuna Rem Misurugi and her subordinate Kurogane,the former of which took a liking to Van for some reason and began to call him by his first name,being the only person that Shizuna calls by their name aside from Kurogane.

During the events in Tharbad,Van encounters former D.G high priest Gerard Eldarion(now Gerard Dantes) ever since the D.G Cult extermination operation and realized that the Don of Armata is the same person who stole his core years ago although Gerard didn't remember him because he only thought of Van as an empty shell after his core was extracted from him though he began to suspect that Van is the original owner of the Diabolic Core he harbors within him after seeing him transform and decided to confirm his suspicions by luring him into Oracion and allowing himself to be killed by Van to initiate the Resonance phenomenon which he succeeded at in both confirming his suspicions and achieving his goal.As horrible Gerard's crimes are to other humans,Van pities the former high priest because from his perspective as the Demon King,there was nothing shocking about Gerard's actions,Dingo's death and the annihilation of Creil,Oracion's death game and the Pandaemonium that happened in Edith,all of this was the result of his personality being distorted by the Diabolic Core and that it was inevitable that he would do the things he did in order to achieve his desire.In the night before the last day of the death game,Van mocks himself for thinking that telling the truth to Elaine would even change anything,saying to himself that there was only one conclusion for the Armata debacle from the start and that nothing could change it,as if he realized from the moment he met Gerard again that his time(dream) as a human is coming to a close and that it will end with him taking back his core and reverting into his true form.

Van failed to retrieve his core in Oracion due to his shackles preventing him from reabsorbing the core to prevent him from regaining his full power,suspecting that Gerard will return again in some way,he tried to send the party members away before his final confrontation with him but Judith suspected that Van was trying to keep them away from something that he can never reveal under the guise of the Armata case ending and Barkhorn noticed that there was something that Van cannot ignore even though he's pretending that everything is fine.Van got another chance of telling the truth about himself to his childhood friends and party members after rounding up the lower ranked Armata members but he chooses to keep his silence despite Elaine's pleas of letting them help him.

To reference Rokuaka V10,let's say that there is a box containing all kinds of despair in the world and a sinful person(sinful woman in Rokuaka's case) decided to open it which caused the contents to fly out of the box and made the world miserable but there is still a glimmer of hope in the box.
However the one thing remaining in the box is not hope,but the final despair called "Knowing the Truth".
Because it didn't come out of the box,it turned into human "hope" from a certain perspective because human beings will have hope as long as they keep being unaware and ignorant of the depths of the box.
In this case Van is the sinful person and he could have chose to open the box of despair by telling the truth to everyone,but he chose not to and decided to let them be happy and hopeful in ignorance for there is no kindness in bestowing them what amounts to the worst despair for the sake of sharing his burden,if he told them that the only way to end Gerard for good is to end Van's time as a human,they'll just suffer and despair from recognizing the horrible reality that will inevitably happen so they're better off being ignorant instead of learning the truth.

In the anniversary of Calvard's revolution,Van tries his best to finish up any requests and loose ends that he could,something that Aaron noticed in his 3rd connect event when he states that Van is too much in a hurry to finish as much as he could,in their drive date before Melchior used the 7th Genesis unit to summon Genesis Tower,Shizuna tells Van to focus what's in front of him instead of worrying about Marduk and Ikaruga which alerted Van that he's been possibly exposed to which Shizuna reassures him that she doesn't know "what" his dark secret is but that she understands "why" he is obsessed with "borrowing and lending",more or less telling him that she already realized that he's on a time limit before an inevitable event he must face.

During the period of time when Pandaemonium happened in Edith,Van's facade of seemingly being a normal human like everyone else gradually falls apart,Renne confirmed that the only reason why there are people who aren't frozen in time is because every single one of them are people who Van talked to in the past,Jack figured out that there was a suspicious link between Van and Gerard after learning that Armata being taken over by Gerard and Van enrolling in Aramis suspiciously happened at the same time to which Van simply alluded to his status as a victim of the D.G cult and revealed after Renne and Agnes were rescued that he and Gerard were tied by fate and that the latter merely sees him as guinea pig and an empty shell without going to the darker details,and Rion accuses him of withholding information and knowing more about the Pandaemonium that's happening in Edith than he lets on and suspects that he somehow read the Book of Ezel,an apocrypha that only members of the Gralsritter and Papal Guard are allowed to read.Van mostly kept silent as people began to get suspicious about the extent of his knowledge and true nature,a person who works in the gray zone somehow knew about top secret church knowledge and possibly even more than the church does,a connection with Gerard Dantes that no one else was aware of up until now,and the revelation of them being spared from being frozen in time for the mere act of talking with him even once in the past can only be called abnormal,Barkhorn,the only one who knows about Van's true identity and nature chose to keep his silence instead of telling everyone because it will only make things worse.

And so everything proceeded to final confrontation against Armata at Genesis Tower,with Van's childhood friends,Bracer Guild,Heiyue,Ikaruga,Ouroboros,Renne,Kilika,Hamilton,Kasim,Cerys,Rion,Naje and Gramheart opening the path to the tower,being completely unaware that they're ending Van's time as a human and contributing to the Azure Black Demon King's return.When Gerard ascended into a Demon God,Van awakened "Mare" from her slumber who after looking at Gerard that was frozen in time,sadly stated that "it finally came to that point",as if she knew that this was something that will inevitably happen,Van tells her that while he has not remembered her true identity yet,he finally realized the role she has played so far and that it's time for her to do her job,Mare simply accepts what she has to do:completely release Van's shackles so he can reabsorb his core and return to his true form,she asks Van if he's fine with this,if he goes through with this then he will have stepped into the point of no return and wake up from the dream of being a human to which Van affirms.

Mare:Well then Van,will you(the Demon King) wake up from the dream,or will you(the Demon King) stay asleep?
Van:Yes,I(Demon King) wake up.

"By lead of fragile chain(shackles),I'm(Grendel) existing here,I/ware(Demon King) am Nightmare(Grendel),I(Demon King) am Grendel/Nightmare biting Myself(Demon King)...!"

Gerard was defeated and the Demon King reclaimed what rightfully belongs to his and returned to his true form which was exposed to the party members,instead of going on to destroy the world,the Demon King chose to seal himself in the boundary between Zemuria and the Outside with the proxy still being in control of the body,it's impossible for Van to prevent his other self from taking over and destroying Zemuria but he can stall the inevitable for several hundred years,the party members were completely helpless to stop him and everyone else who didn't go inside the Genesis Tower realized that Van has disappeared after Pandaemonium ended but Shizuna seemed certain that he will return before leaving the premises.

And so the continent-scale manifestation of devils and the destruction of the world by the Demon King ended with one person sacrificing himself for the salvation of others.

...Or rather,that should have been the ending but Barkhorn,out of remorse for failing his pupil and not stopping him from leaving,revealed Van's true nature to the party members and Elaine,that Van is not a human that was born in Zemuria but a Demon King from outside the continent that arrived 1208 years ago during the Great Collapse,joined the ranks of the 77 Devils which originally consisted of only 72 as one of its 5 pillars after the world was rewritten,and was reborn as a human.He tells them of how he failed to help the Demon King,of how he failed to realize Van's feelings and despair over the deaths that happened because he stayed in Zemuria for too long and pleads to Mare to guide everyone to Van's location so they can complain to his foolish disciple about his decision to which she quickly caves in to his pleading and points them to find Van's favorite place because that's where the portal to his location exists in.

The party members then entered the boundary between Zemuria and the Outside where Van sealed himself in and begs him to reconsider his choice of sealing himself,Van tells them that it's pointless because the Demon King is comparable to the world itself and that the only way is to seal himself before he destroys the world,the party refuses to abandon him and eventually won against his will to seal himself but the moment Van's will faltered,the other him took advantage of the opening that the party members unintentionally created and took over their body,the other Van was annoyed that his other self sealed them in the boundary without asking him first and states that this act would be hard to forgive as he shatters the chains Van used to bind their body,Agnes demands the Demon King to return Van to them,unaware that the one she is talking to is Van but not the one she knows for most of Kuro no Kiseki and the 1st Genesis unit responds to her by weakening the Diabolic Core's connection to the body,the other Van was slightly surprised at this and recognizes the light as "the mechanism made by that person(Claude Epstein)" and that "the logic it operates allows it to use XXX's shackles".

The party members then proceeds to fight the other Van who accepts their challenge,during the fight,the connection between Van and his core was weakened enough for Van to separate himself from the core,with the body being separated and only the power of the core manifesting the other Van's form,he then attempts to punish his other self for rebelling and regain control of their body only to be defeated by him and the party,Van tells his other self that this time is his loss and that he can't give control of their body and soul to his other self yet.Recognizing his other self's words,the other Van agrees to pull back for the time being and accepts his defeat,but he reminds his other self that they are the same person even to the smallest aspect and warns him that he will never find respite and tells him to "not forget the dream" as the form of the Demon King dissipates,Van then throws his core to the farthest reaches of the boundary which causes it to crack to prevent anyone from using its power.

Despite what it looks like,the threat of the Demon King destroying the world was not averted but only delayed,while the Diabolic Core is now outside the ability of humanity to retrieve,the other Van's personality and will does not reside in the core which is only a power source,he stayed with Van because as he and Van said in the final battle,they are the same person and thus inseparable.Van also stated that the other him will awaken again and he will inevitably return to his true form again in the future which implies that there is a way for the core to be retrieved from the boundary by Van but at the very least,he'll think about what other options he can do when the inevitable happens again.

There's no doubt that Kuro no Kiseki's casualties wouldn't have occurred if he never chose to be reborn as a human and that everyone who died because of Gerard taking over Armata(Enrique,Giacomo,Aida and her squad,Aaron's friends,Gaspar,Callahan,Dingo,the residents of Creil,Oracion guild and Hercules casualties,etc) would still be alive if "Van Arkride" never existed as Gerard would have died at the hands of the forces that participated in the cult's extermination operation,but just like how there are people who died as a consequence of his rebirth,there are also people whose lives turned out for the better as a result of him being reborn as a human like Renne,Swin,Nadia,etc and Hajimari wouldn't have happened without him helping Swin and Nadia so it can't be said that the world and the people who live in it would be a far better place if Van Arkride never existed because it would negate the positive impact he had on people's lives in exchange for the deaths being negated.

The only ones confirmed to know about Van's real identity are "Mare",Agnes,Elaine,Feri,Aaron,Risette,Quatre,Judith and Barkhorn though it's possible that Renne,Rene,the Monmarts,Jack,Halle,Agnes's classmates and Maxim were filled in on the details offscreen,on a related note,one of Ashrad's missions were to search for the Diabolic Core that Gerard obtained and has in his possession but it's unknown if the he and the captain of the Papal Guard were aware that Van is the Demon King and the original owner of the core,and that Gerard stole it from him.