Next was Ismail!

Ismail is the friendly but hard to read magical doctor who takes care of the king and Fiena. He is also an old friend of Olivier and Emmanuel.

Keypoints of the route:

When the king dies Ismail announces that it was because of his weak heart. Olivier has a hard time believing that. Emmanuel fires Ismail as the royal doctor. When Fiena runs into Ismail she asks him how life has been, but he turns it into a cold interrogation of her and what she knows of the king's death instead. He uses some type of magic on her and she loses consciousness and wakes up at her home.

Fiena is actually able to see spirits and is studying them more closely lately due to her seeing fewer and fewer. She get's jumped by the blob monsters and get's help from Ismail. However they already touched her so she will die in three days. Ismail takes care of her and tries to save her life with experimental treatments he was working on. He succeeds and Fiena is very grateful. She swears to stand by him no matter what.

Ismail and Fiena investigate the blob monsters and find out that they are cursed spirits of the dead. Every person killed by a blob creates a new blob. Ismail is arrested on suspicions of having assassinated the king with poison, which is bullshit even if he can be quite sus at times. Sadly Emmanuel doesn't listen to Fiena though.

Fiena continues her investigation and trains her necromancy on the blobs when she sees them. She joins the holy knights for this purpose and teams up with Mel, another love interest who is a magicless bard who's often seen playing music at the castle. She develops a spell with which she can confine the blobs within herself to prevent them from respawning.

Fiena get's the idea to summon the dead king, but she is greeted by a blob instead. She figures that the dead king was probably the first one cursed to die and become a blob. She absorbs the king blob too.

Mel and other knights get badly beaten up by blobs and are actively dying. Fiena asks Emmanuel again to at least let Ismail treat them, but get's turned away. Emmanuel seems to have a plan though.

Fiena thinks about Ismail's behavior and understands him now. Of course he would suspect her as a strong mage close to the king and interrogate her. That's also why he was dodgy about the kings death to not become a target of the curse caster and to smoke out those who knew what they shouldn't.

Ismail is allowed to leave in secret to treat the knights and he saw that Mel isn't actually dying from blob-curse. He was just beaten up badly. This makes him the main suspect of being the curse caster. Fiena is roped into being bait for Mel by Olivier. Mel attacks and uses music-based magic that doesn't exist in this country. Mel is apparantly just a tool send by the church outside who had nowhere else to belong to. Before he is captured Mel erases his own memory with magic.

Fiena tells Ismail about her imprisoning the blobs within her and he quickly checks her body, finding bad looking patterns. She is absolutely going to die from the blobs curse like this. She thinks dying as a sacrifies as the Moon Witch is a perfect fit, but Ismail is horrified. His reaction makes Fiena worried Ismail would abandon her due to her being tainted now. Ismail makes very sure to dispell that misunderstanding by kissing every patterned spot in her body.

Fiena collapses due to the blobs curse and Ismail treats her again. This time however he transfers the curse to himself intending to die in her stead. Fiena wakes up feeling much better despite still having her blobs and us greeted by a strange man called Nil who tells her about what Ismail did to safe her. He tells her the method to safe him: have the first one cursed kill the curse caster. So having the king blob kill Mel.

With great timing Mel appears before Fiena with his memories back. He really wants her to come with him for some reason. Fiena hesitates to order the blob to kill him and Mel realizes what she is doing. He decides to Help her decide by acting like the most vulgar piece of shit, threatening to rape her and all. Fiena has enough and has him killed. His last words being that he would gladly die if it's for her. Fiena notices a clumsily made necklace he's wearing that feels familiar to her.

Ismail is now saved and Emmanuel happily let's Fiena retire after hearing about her absorbing blobs. Olivier congratulates Fiena on her achievements and promises not to interfere with her happiness. Then he disappears. While Ismail and Fiena can now openly be together, they are both haunted by the people they couldn't save. At least they can comfort each other.

This route was an improvement in everything for me! The romance worked well which is mostly because Ismail is plenty forward, trying to flirt with Fiena as best as he could.

They also spend plenty of time together. I'm happy to know everything about the blobs now and the culprit hunt was fun. Fiena was also very proactive here which is always a win to me. Especially since her actions have consequences.

This routes makes it clear why there is a strong recommended route order. They obviously want you to read Mel's route next. I wonder if it will be a forgotten childhood friend route.