空の軌跡 // Trails in the Sky ⚔ Story Club・Week 41

Week 41 14th April 2025
Last Week Week 40
Next Week Week 42
Home Thread 空の軌跡

This week’s stopping point is after having a conversation with the 大佐.

Side Quests

Nothing this week.

Screenshot

Vocabulary

Vocab Sheet , thank you to everyone who has been helping with this.

We also have an arts sheet if you’re struggling with the in-game version.

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

If necessary, include an explanation of any discrepancies in the Ebook page numbers from physical page numbers. If there is an easy shortcut for some ebook versions to relate back to physical page numbers, it would be worth it to include it as a third bullet here, or if you want to use chapter page numbers instead of volume page numbers, as is the case with some manga. For example:
Example

For the Kindle version of this manga, the page numbers and the location number are always 3 apart. If you subtract 3 from the location, this will give you the accurate page number!

OR

Please use the chapter page numbers, instead of the volume page numbers. These are located in between the panels!

Discussion Questions

  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!

  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?

  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?

  4. Have you had a look around the castle?

  5. How was the feast?

  6. What do you make of the conversation with the 大佐?

Participation

Will you be playing along with us this week?

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Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

2 Likes
Sorry Jin, women only like guys who have AoE abilities

We’re out of the sewers and back to real plot progress. I see where the marrying the princess off thing tripped me up – it’s a scheme to get rid of her (possibly with other benefits given the cross-national political nature of it) and keep the easily controlled idiot. At least the 公爵’s butler got to appear in one scene without having to do any babysitting; that guy usually exists to suffer.

It feels obvious that the queen is locked away as part of the scheme, but they did say she will announce it herself. Are we about to get back into whatever… hypnosis, mind control kind of thing has happened with our villains in the past? That hasn’t been a super satisfying plot device to say the least, but it seems like a way to tie things together, and an easy explanation for how this is going to happen. Maybe if the mechanics of that one day become clearer it’ll start feeling less… cheap? I could be wrong but it feels like where we’re headed.

Nice to see all the old political figures again, look back on the journey a little.

Can’t say I can make much of what the 大佐 is up to with that conversation, but I want him to be at least partially genuine contrary to Joshua’s suspicious nature, because I think whatever attachment he has to Cassius adds some depth to his character. Honestly what interested and caught my attention most was how deeply opposed the the 大尉 was to them having a conversation. Yeah they’re suspicious of Joshua and Estelle for good reason, but she’s seemed totally on board with his plans thus far and it’s like she didn’t trust him to meet alone with them. We haven’t seen anything like that from her so far, that I can recall.

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Belated warning: high res fonts crash the steam version in a scene in the 空中庭園.

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I remember hesitating to put this word in my Anki deck when I was playing Legend of Legaia but then decided that it was too low-frequency to be worth it. I’ve seen it in like 3 other videogames since then. Japanese devs love their 空中庭園.

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The word seems simple enough to remember without Anki, providing you know both halves.

Finally, castle sightseeing of country bumpkins.

I think guest rooms have 2 beds by default, and they prepared the 3rd bed when we arrived. Or perhaps the 4th bed were removed?

The pub won’t serve the drinks or specialties.

Good luck meeting Hilda, and she was able to chat then.

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Sometimes I just add words just because I think they’re cool. I also like to add “easy” words from time to time because if I only add difficult things the reviews can get really frustrating…

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Nothing quite conveys opulent luxury like sharing a room dormitory-style.

Also 慇懃無礼 is a fun 四字熟語.

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week 41

These long dialogue sequences are testing my stamina, especially since I didn’t have time to play this week so I had to rush it today to keep up. I was yearning for a dungeon/combat sequence to relax a bit but I guess we’re going to have a lot of text from now until the end of the game. Maybe with a bit of luck the infiltration sequence to reach the queen will involve some dungeoning? I could use a sewer sequence, I take back what I said last week.

Also the hanging garden was a bit underwhelming I thought. Just a few trees and green splotches on the ground. Legend of Legaia wins this one:

I hope that it will involve some more cunning blackmail/quid pro quo but I guess mind control can do the trick as well.

By the way I had a very bad feeling when 雌ギツネ hastily proposed to make the cocktails. sus.

I thought it was super weird to have this very sensitive political discussion with all the heads of state and… two kids and an MMA fighter from a foreign country. At least it was addressed though, they’re meant to notify the bracer’s guild. Fair enough I suppose, although still weird to involve a foreigner.

Indeed. I wonder if the twist will be that Richard’s intentions are pure somehow? An “ends justifying the means” type of character. So far the game has characterized the 雌ギツネ as being very cunning and mean-spirited, but the authors have not really character-assasinated Richard yet. And of course we don’t really know where Cassius himself stands in all of this.

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Reply

Because the dinner was arranged before デュナン公爵 decided on a whim to invite whoever won the tournament. It’s lucky for the 大佐 that we’re bracers so he could claim that’s why.

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That’s true but I still feel like he could have just asked the other guests to join him before or after the dinner in order to discuss this. Not very important however. It’s a convenient way for the authors to have us witness this important discussion.

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ended up being another long one

1 Like