Mukai the MountainReport
English：Mukai the Mountain · Characters
The Shek successor who only appears once Esata has fallen. What he takes over is not a kingdom but a shell that has already killed off ninety per cent of its own population.
Mukai the Mountain is a hugely influential Shek warrior. In a standard playthrough you will never meet him — he only appears as the new leader of the Shek Kingdom once Esata the Stone Golem has been killed or imprisoned.
The Golem is destroyed only for another barbarian to take her place. The horned devils are fickle and easily won over with new leaders. I should have fores- I mean - I foresaw this in the Holy Flame, it is most unfortunate... The Mountain must be killed. — Holy Lord Phoenix
What he inherits
After Esata's fall, the overwhelming majority of Shek warriors convert into "Kamikaze" suicide squads and hurl themselves at the Holy Nation, leaving Admag completely emptied out. Cross-referencing the populations of the various zones, the wiki estimates that this wave of suicides consumed over 95% of the Shek.
Mukai takes over on top of those ruins. He becomes the next Invincible in Esata's place, the faction headquarters relocates from Admag to the far smaller town of Squin, and all he actually holds influence over is a token Kamikaze squad inside the Stenn Desert — estimated at only 1% to 1.5% of the total Kamikaze forces.
It is a cruel piece of design: he is "the leader of the kingdom", but the kingdom has already killed itself off.
Fighting strength: a genuine superboss
Do not underestimate him just because he gets so little screen time. Mukai's numbers are in the very top tier of the game:
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Strength | 85.8–90.2 |
| Toughness | 93.6–98.4 |
| Dexterity | 62.4–65.6 |
| Melee attack | 93.6–98.4 |
| Six weapon skills / melee defence | 78–82 |
| Assassination | 40 |
Toughness approaching a hundred means he is extremely hard to knock down. He carries a Meitou-grade Fragment Axe — Meitou is the top grade of the weapon, forged by the legendary smith Cross: 72 kg, and it demands 144 Strength before it stops slowing your combat speed, a figure no character can reach without robotic limbs. Below that he wears [Masterwork]-quality Samurai Legplates and Plated Longboots.
World states: who gets Squin once he dies
Killing or imprisoning Mukai likewise sets off a chain:
- Squin is taken over by Kral's Chosen — provided Flying Bull is still alive and free.
- If Flying Bull is also dead or imprisoned, Squin falls to the Berserkers instead.
- Kamikaze patrols in the Stenn Desert stop spawning (since Mukai only appears when Esata has fallen, that precondition is automatically satisfied).
Which is to say: once Esata falls, Squin only ever changes hands between three parties — Mukai, Kral's Chosen, the Berserkers. The latter two are a splinter sect that venerates the legendary warrior Kral and a breakaway faction that attacks anything it sees. Not one of them is a candidate for continuing the ceasefire.
What the name means
In Japanese, 「向い」(mukai) can be read as "facing" or "opposing", or even "confront" and "defy". One reading holds that this corresponds to his political position: an argument for driving the Kamikaze back into the Holy Nation, returning to the total war of Shager's day. 「向井」is also a common Japanese surname, and the two need not be mutually exclusive.
A note on production quality
The Mukai version of Squin is rewritten rather roughly in its details, and the most obvious instance is this: when the player hands in Holy Lord Phoenix or the Bugmaster, the game still refers you to Bayan — even though in this timeline Bayan should long since be dead or missing.
Cracks like that do not affect play, but they are worth noting: Mukai's appearance reads more like a fallback substitution switch than a fully written branch.