Longer play time!
So first, I brought back my saves on my main computer so I could benefit from a better frame-rate during battle. After having told Renpy twice that I trusted the creator of those saves (well, at least a little), I came back the bandits' camp.
The first thing I did was playing around with the menu that allows me to wander in the camp. I first went to my invite room to comb myself (having good looking hair is very important in the fairy society). Then I accessed the situation with blue mage. It seems the goal will be to get 5000 gold or collect 5 clues about the bandit leader so he will drop the price. I quickly get three of those clues by just gossiping. I decided next to do a bit of fights withunregulated gambling, so I could test my fresh new skill. It is actually pretty useful, it allows me to increase the money awarded at the end of the battle. An easy way to scam those low level folks and easily get the money needed to pay the toll. And so... hey, wait, we just lost? Despite having the broken skill of the red knight on my side, a couple of bad dice rolls obliterated my team. I tried to keep the apparence and pretended I was just increasing our odds for the next fights. Luckily, everyone believes me without question. I called the next fight, and this time luck was on the enemy side. Time for fight 3 and... wait a minute, who invited the bandit leader here? And more importantly, who invited his ridiculous +13 bonus there?! I prepare the best i could. His team wasn't well balanced, but my back line has no unit available that can deal effectively with him. He could also see with horror that he has a pretty good personal skill. His battle music theme is stellar, too.
In three round, my team was defeated. They asked me if it was also intentional, but I couldn't do anything but admit that he was just too strong. I hesitated a moment to complain at the Donjon master, but was happy I didn't when I got clue number 4. In order to beat that bandit leader, I needed a better unit than blue mage or green priest for the back line. I remembered there were a three adventurer that were looking for employment at the tavern, so I went back there, hoping to find something like an air mage. And there was... a 500 gold air mage, a 400 gold unit useless to me and an exclusive, on sale air mage at 300 gold. What a convenient choice. Only problem, and that's why I ignored them before, I only had 130 or so gold coins at the start of the day, and just lost a third of them in bad bets.
I invited some of my men for a quick talk, since I was told that it is a good idea to make my spells better. I then played a bit with the different menus and remarked two things that didn't catch my attention before: first some if not all music of this game have a noticeable loop end, that now that I remarked them I can no longer forget about them. Also, when you leave a submenu from any place, like "No, I don't want to craft, I don't have any material, baka!", there is a fade out and ... the music come back at the start? Why? That is such a weird choice.
I considered my options to buy that air mage who was the obvious solution to my bandit leader problem: come back in time and get more money from random guards encounters, ask a python program to run the fight until it is a win, hack the game to give myself an access to the renpy console... In the end, all those solutions seemed very tiring to me, so I went to my bed. Thanks to some bandits indiscretions, I get clue number 5 which unlocks me the access to the next dungeon, the forest. The bandit leader proposed to come in the dungeon with me, proposition i immediately accepted, too happy to have an easy way to get rid of him at the first "unfortunate lost battle".
The dungeon is very similar to the previous one, except that we are now the guards instead of the fugitives and that I now have my infinite money glitch to activate in battle that are an easy win. The objective is to collect 10 tolls from the random encounters, which is reasonably quickly done. I also find two new recruits who cover some of my weaknesses, but nothing that fix my back line problem. Unfortunately, I didn't got any loss, so mister bandit leader is still there sympathising with me at each crossroads. He even asked me if I was a human; I immediately denied it and said it was pretty rude from him. Other than this incident, he was actually a nice thief to talk to, and a pretty good party member. I reached level 4 around that time, and unlocked a skill that guarantee another skill for which making the maths would be pretty fun for anyone writing a guide, but currently I am happy with my cheaper alternative.
I continue exploring the dungeon to get my map completed and find some crafting material. Blue mage and the thief leader begin to ask me to go back home, but I refuse to comply; there are probably mad that they are out of dialogue. Technically, I can grind the dungeon as much as I want for money and relations, so I saw little reason to listen to them, especially given that I was on the opposite side to the entrance, so I needed a bunch of walk anyway. Before reaching the end, I encountered an enemy group that pulled off a triple 6, just to be completely annihilated by red knight in the counter-strike.
Back at the camp, it was urgent invasive monster problem. So we went bak into the forest to beat them up. A hard fight, but nothing my party couldn't handle. Beasts seems to behave like human enemies except an extra gimmick if you don't bring back their class counter. As a reward, the bandit's leader lowered the toll to 1000 gold. I really wish I had enough gold to just accept to pay on the spot. After the battle, no one wanted to grind the dungeon more, so we all went to the bed.
After waking up, I counted my gold coins. There were 500+ of them, so I had enough to buy that discounted air mage; only problem, he was no longer at the tavern; Luckily, I remembered there was a weird glitch that made that the people available to hire for each day are rolled when you enter the tavern. So I quickly loaded a save file and got this time an air mage available to hire. Not seen, not caught... I also invited more member of my party to talk with me, including red knight who was way more nice-looking without his armour. I also talked for the second time with blue mage, asking him if he didn't have any thing he was hiding from me. He denied without much conviction. I told him there is someone called Lor with an Anime effect portrait (yes, I made my research) that looks very much like him on the game's page, but he refused to say more.
Time for a revenge against the bandit leader. Now that I had an air mage in my party, the odds are way more in my favour. For some reason the bandit leader's bonus has been reduced to 6, which meant an easy victory for me. I got 70 gold back from my 300 investment. Not a good balance sheet, but totally worth it in ego terms.
Since I have beaten the boss of the level (yes, he is a boss; he even has a boss music; don't discuss that!), I decided to close the game here, as I must still play more of that murder visual novel.
Some extra notes:
-Since it seems impossible to use the page up and down commands to go back and forth in the text (which given the rpg side of the game, makes complete sense), I would suggest removing those from the help section.
-Crafting is pretty confusing to me with all those crafting materials with similar name. I think adding the corresponding icons for those items in the inventory would help a lot. Not that it mattered for me until now, given how much is needed to craft anything. I only got three raw material in total by the way.