不幸な男

Since this is only my 3rd Dragon Quest game, I don't know if it's typical for the main character to have such unfortunate life, but Saluki is really one of the most misfortuned hero I've seen so far.

First off, his mother was kidnapped right after his birth. His father set out to look for her, leaving behind the throne and the kingdom. When the hero was 6, his father took on the job of guarding the young prince of another kingdom, who got kidnapped because the step-mother queen wanted her own son to be the next king. The rescue effort resulted in the total annihilation of the party, and the father was killed right in front of the hero by a monster. The hero and the prince were captured to be slaves.

The hero toiled away for ten years as a slave in a hostile environment. Things got better once he and the prince escaped and started to explore the world (and having slimes joining the party XD). The prince was happily restored to his royal post and assisted his brother in ruling the kingdom, and was married to the girl of his dream. The hero, while searching for the Zenithia set used by the legendary hero, somehow got forced into picking a girl to marry.

The couple's journey took them to the Kingdom of Gotha, where the hero was born and was the rightful heir to the throne. On the day of his coronation, his wife gave birth to a pair of twin boy and girl. That same night, his wife was kidnapped by monsters. The search for the wife resulted in both the hero and the wife turning into stone statues.

The hero's statue got sold to someone as a good luck charm, while the wife's statue was carried off to who-knows-where. When the son of the man who bought the hero statue got kidnapped (so many kidnappings!) by monsters, he let out his anger at the statue. The hero's statue just lay there in the front garden of the man's mansion, through all seasons and weather. He was stuck as a stone statue for eight years before being found and returned to his human self.

Now, he's about to set out with the kids, one of which is the legendary hero, to find his wife and probably his mother as well, just as his father had done years ago. This is where I'm at right now. Hopefully his mother will at least acknowledge him; the mother of the Hero in DQ IV never came out to admit who she was...

On a side note, I previously mused that I might name the son Yuusha because Yoshihiko wouldn't fit in the name block. I ended up naming the son, whose sprite looks like an SD version of Cloud, Yosihiko instead. Yuusha in English characters just doesn't look Hero enough. XD I named the daughter Märchen.

Now that I have the hero (main character) and the legendary hero (the son), 勇者は伝説へ…