The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-

The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-

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Kilroy's (Mostly) Spoiler-Free Guide to All Routes, Endings, Story Locks and Game Mechanics
By jbkilroy
How to get the most of of the game
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Before we begin...
While the contents of this guide are as spoiler-free as I can reasonably make them, it is only intended for use by players who have already cleared the 1st 100 days.

If you are a new player and don't know what I'm talking about, hold off on this guide until you do. You'll be happier that way, trust me.

If you're having trouble with the 1st 100 days turn on safety mode, nobody will judge you. There isn't any missable content or difficulty related achievements.

If you have completed the 1st 100 days, read on.
So I've completed the 1st 100 days, what now?
The 1st 100 days were a tutorial. It took me 29 hours, but the real game starts now.

There are 100 different endings to the game, and you haven't unlocked a single one yet.

Every decision you make will split the timeline, no matter how serious or mundane. There are no 'event flags'. Choice A takes you down path A and choice B down path B, and they will never meet up again.

Some choices lead to immediate bad ends, but not as many as you might think. About 2/3rds of the endings are in the endgame (Days 90+).

When you move around on the Chapter Select screen, all your progress carries over. Your BP/Materials/Bond Levels/Class Weapon/Potion/Item upgrades/Commander Executions will always stay with you.

The Chapter Select screen will tell you what route you are on, but only once you've unlocked at least one ending on that route.

Some routes have very infrequent Free Time days. Remember that you can only purchase upgrades during Free Time. If necessary go back to a previous day, even if you have to go back to the original scenario.

I recommend starting with routes 18-21:
- 18,20,21 have plot events that in my opinion are more interesting if you go into them totally blind
- The battles on these routes are all generic (I think there is one exception) so if you've completed one route, you can skip the battles on each of the others
- You never get your commander kills stolen on these routes, so you can build up commander executions to make later routes easier
The Man in the Moon Rules the Infinite Time
Don't worry, that's not a spoiler... not for this game anyway.

Now that you can go wherever you want on whatever routes you've unlocked, having a single Free Time day means you have Infinite Free Time days. As soon as the night time bell rings, you can skip back to the beginning of the same day, keeping whatever progress you've made that day. And you can keep doing this as many times as you want. This means you can max out your grades/Bonds/materials whenever you want, as long as you have the patience for it.

Which brings us to...
Grades
So, the game doesn't really explain this too well, so I'll do my best.

There are 5 different classes that go from Grade 0-5 that are composed of two subjects each. Each subject goes from 0 to 100 points and the combined total for both determines your Grade for that class.

Grade 0 - 0 Points
Grade 1 - 1-50 Points
Grade 2 - 51-100 Points
Grade 3 - 101-149 Points
Grade 4 - 150-199 Points
Grade 5 - 200 Points

(These threshold are approximate and may differ slightly from the numbers given here. All you really need to know is that you need a full 100 points in each subject to react the highest grade level.)

Higher grades are required for higher level class weapon/item upgrades. You can get some points from reading different books in the library. 5 points for starting a book and 10 points for finishing it, but re-reading a book only gives you 2 points each time. Since you have infinite time, you could max out your grades that way, but it would take forever.

It is much faster to improve your grades by giving gifts. Each character is associated with 1 or 2 subjects and will give a huge boost the first time they receive one of their favorite gifts, and half of that each time afterwards.

If a character has only 1 subject, they will give 20 points for a favorite gift, and 10 points each time after. If a character has 2 subjects, they will give 10 points to each for a favorite gift and 5 points each time after.

Characters and their associated subjects

Takemaru - Endurance and Mobility
Hiruko - Analysis
Darumi - Creativity
Eito - Calculation and Analysis
Tsubasa - Technology
Gaku - Observation and Exploration
Ima - Investigation and Technology
Kako - Observation
Shouma - Literacy and Creativity
Nozomi - Calculation
Kurara - Exploration
Kyoshika - Mobility
Yugamu - Investigation
Moko - Endurance
Secret Character - Literacy
Gifts
How do I know which characters wants which gift?

There are two ways.

1) Look at one of the specialized Gift guides. Go ahead, I don't mind. I'll be waiting here when you come back...

2) Talk to that character on a Free Time day when they have a green icon next to their picture. You will get a small boost to their subject(s), and either get a hint about one of their favorite gifts or learn a hashtag. Characters move around semi-randomly during Free Time, so conversations may be available or not even on the same day depending on RNG. I think Eito only gets a green icon during the first 100 days. You can skip back to the original scenario if you need to.

A hashtag lets you narrow down the specific gift they are looking for. If their report card says they want ??? Tool, the ??? represents a hashtag you don't know yet. If you did know the hashtag of that item you can add that to your search terms and narrow down your options from 20 to 5, or even 1.

The hashtags are: Clean, Animal, Vehicle, Exercise, Party, Horror, Cool, Sexy, Soothing, Knowledge, Memories, Cheap, Celebrity, Cute, Professional, Art, Handy, Sweet

For gifts you can't make that require one special item, you can find it while Exploring, but you shouldn't bother. Every character has at least one favorite gift that is available from the start, and there is no reward for unlocking every gift or completing a character's Report Card. It is more efficient just to give them the same gift over and over, because unlike grades the Affinity gain will be the same every time. (I'll discuss Affinity in the next section)

If for some reason you did want to unlock every gift, be aware that any gift that requires more than one special item to unlock is part of a specific story path and cannot be unlocked until the game forces you to. A few of these items are also favorite gifts on some character's Report Cards.
Affinity and Bonds
When you give someone a gift, you will also gain 1-5 Affinity Points. These points are only tracked after the 1st 100 days. Giving gifts before then will only increase your grades. Unlike the grade boost, you will get the same Affinity gain each time, even when giving the same gift over and over.

You can't give someone a gift if they are unavailable for story reasons (or if they're dead, obviously).

Every 15 Affinity points you will increase that character's Bond Level and unlock a scene with them. There is an achivement for getting one character to Bond Level 5 and another for getting all characters to Bond Level 5. Other than that there is no gameplay affect.

There are certain times when gifts will still grant Affinity gain but won't trigger a Bond upgrade. Your Affinity is not lost, you will just trigger Bond conversations more quickly once you are able to have them again. You can only have one Bond conversation at a time, no matter how much Affinity you have.
This includes on Route 19 when characters are mute or transformed, as well as any time when Eito is out of his cage.

Level 6 Bond Event
If you look in the Gallery, most characters have a space for a last Bond event. This can be triggered while on Route 1 after... plot revelations. (You'll know when it happens). Once you give someone a gift of any kind during that period, you'll unlock their 6th event. This doesn't increase their Bond Level even though the screen will pop up, and is unrelated to the achievements. As far as I know you don't have to already be Bond Level 5 to trigger this, but I am unable to test it.
(Confirmed by duckgame4life: you will automatically trigger the 6th bond event on Route 1 regardless of your Bond Level)

Route 1 is also the only time you can have Bond events with the Undying Flame Boy. Just see if he is on the map and talk to him. He never has the green icon, his events don't require gifts and don't take up any time.
Materials
I'll be honest - I hate the exploration minigame. It's slow, boring, and too RNG based.

Fortunately, you can mostly ignore it. Just do Quick Exploration instead. Sure you'll only get 1/3-1/2 of the materials you normally would, but in 1/10 the time! Then just reset the day and do it over and over again until you have enough materials to do whatever you need.

If you insist on manually exploring (why?) always drop the worthless BP items, and pick any third option that requires having a certain person or subject level because those will always succeed.
Battles and Commander Executions
When a battle starts, you can skip the animation for deploying your characters on the screen by tapping the skip button. If only you could skip the enemy deployments this way...

On different Routes, most battles are not unique. Any battle that you have already won in a different timeline (even with more/fewer/different characters) gives you the option to skip the battle. If this is ever an option - take it! Battles are boring and repetitive so there's no point in repeating one you've already done. You'll still get all of the BP you normally would and are able to choose someone to execute the commander, if that's an option.

If you've been playing around on different routes you may have noticed that V'ehxness has a tendency to steal your kills. My suggestion is to start off on routes where she doesn't, like 17-21. There is a battle on Day 47 of those routes (and some others) where you can execute two commanders back-to-back for double the bonus. Just restart the day then skip the fight and it will take maybe two minutes each time.

The number of commanders executed is shown on a character's Report Card, but nowhere else. Each execution gives +1 damage to your special attack and +10% voltage gained. Going over 10 executions doesn't give you any further bonus. The game will warn you about this, but won't stop you.

I recommend getting Takumi and Tsubasa to 10 executions first, then whoever you prefer.
Story Locks
There are 3 Story Locks in the game. They are numbered, but not on the Chapter Select screen for some reason.

Story Lock #1:
On Route 16, Day 10
Requires:
Endings 34 and 36 (Route 11)
Endings 72 and 76 (Route 18)
Reaching Story Lock #3 (Route 21)

Story Lock #2:
Also on Route 16, Day 23
Requires:
Ending 100 (Route 21, on the path unlocked by reaching this lock)

Story Lock #3
On Route 21, Day 82
Requires:
Reaching Story Lock #2 (see above)

Once you meet all the conditions for opening a lock, the chapter select screen will have a message pop up saying so, then automatically move your cursor to that spot. A special animation plays when opening a Story Lock, even if you have already done so before.
This game sucks, my characters deal the same crappy damage as always!
Not true.

The last upgrade for any offensive ability will increase it's base attack by 1.
The last upgrade for any support ability that increases attack like Nozomi's Bolstering Bullet and Tsubasa's Decelerate increases the attack bonus by an additional +1.
The last upgrade for the attack potion increases the bonus it gives to +2.

identical bonuses do not stack - a +2 bonus plus another +2 bonus will not increase it to +4, However, you can stack a +2 bonus with a +1.

Take Tsubasa's Deadlights: At max level the damage increases to 2. A maxed Attack Potion or Nozomi's Bolstering Bullet makes it 4. Then a Hemoanima boost raises it to 5. That's enough to one or two-shot almost all basic enemies and is the root of "Infinite Turns Tsubasa". As long as she averages 1 special enemy killed per turn she can gain enough AP to keep going forever. And if you fed her 10 commander kills like I suggested earlier your voltage will go up like crazy at the same time.

For bosses, you'll want to use Takumi. After the 1st 100 days he gets an ability that increases his attack +1 for each character that dies for the rest of the wave that DOES stack with everything else.

Here's how your boss wave turns should look:

Takumi - Use Azure Blitz
Nozomi - Use Rescue Bullet on Takumi, it removes Stun even though the description doesn't specifically say so
Takumi - Use Azure Blitz again

If you run out of Voltage, use a desperation potion on someone and have them use their Last Resort attack, try and target as many minions as possible to get AP back. You get 100% Voltage once they die, and now Takumi does even more damage.

Repeat until boss falls.

(This tactic will not work on the newly released Extreme Despair difficulty. I personally don't enjoy difficulty modes like that, so play at your own risk)
What Are the Routes? (possible spoilers)
There are 21 Routes according to the game.
All routes are not created equal. Some are 1 day long, some are over 100 days.

Some people consider even the names of the routes to be spoilers. I will only be naming the routes here. Elsewhere in the guide I will only refer to them by their numbers, matching the number on the Steam Achievement you get for getting all endings on a route.


Spoiler Space for people who weren't paying attention










1 Last Defense Academy 2nd Scenario
2 Reset
3 Goodbye Eito
4 Rebellion
5 Eva
6 Multiple Eitos
7 Serial Battles
8 Conspiracy
9 Casual
10 Box of Blessings
11 Box of Calamity
12 Cult of Takumi
13 V'ehxness
14 Coming of Age
15 Retsnom
16 SF
17 Romance
18 Slasher
19 Comedy
20 Killing Game
21 Mystery
About My Route Guide
I will only be referring to each Route by number. If you were looking for the name of the Route, check the previous section. I will give the choices necessary to start the Route, but not how to obtain specific endings, that's up to you to find out on your own. If I say that a Route has multiple 'paths' that means that there are choices that split the route but don't end it, with both options continuing down a large number of unique days.

Format:

Route #

Choices to start the route:
Day # - Choice X
Day ## - Choice Y
Day ### - Choice Z

Length:
Very Short 1-10 days, Short 10-20 days, Medium 21-50 days, Long 50-100 days, Very Long 100+ days
Character Focus:
If a specific character is important to this route with more characterization than other routes
-Any other information I think might be useful
The endings available on this route
Routes 1-4
These routes branch off from each other later than most others. After Day 63 there are major story revelations that change how most of the rest of the game will impact you. I wouldn't go down this path first.

Here are the choices to get you to this branch, then I will list the choices to each individual route from there.

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Kyoshika
Day 21 - Take Her Prisoner
Day 31 - Let It Happen
Day 33 - Gaku
Day 52 - Of Course!
Day 57 - No
Day 63 - Kill Her

Route 1

Day 77 - Keep Fighting
Day 82 - Accept Him
Day 100 - Yes

Length: Long
Ending: 001

-If there were a 'true route' to the game, this would probably be it. It is the clearest continuation of everything that has happened in the 1st 100 days
-Has the best final boss fight in the game
-Your chance to unlock character's 6th Bond Event, as well as all the Bond Events for the Undying Flame Boy

Route 2

Day 77 - Keep Fighting
Day 82 - Accept Him
Day 100 - No

Length: Incredibly Short
-Not much to say about this one
Ending: 002


Route 3

Day 77 - Keep Fighting
Day 82 - Reject Him

Length: Short
Character Focus: Eito
Ending: 003

Route 4

Day 77 - Abandon

Length: Medium
Endings: 004-006
-Has the potential to be one of the most uplifting or devastating Routes depending on how it ends
Routes 5-9
Route 5

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Kyoshika
Day 21 - Take Her Prisoner
Day 31 - Let It Happen
Day 33 - Gaku
Day 52 - Of Course!
Day 57 - No
Day 63 - Protect Her

Length: Medium
Character Focus: Secret Character
-Sweet
Endings: 007-008

Route 6

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Kyoshika
Day 21 - Take Her Prisoner
Day 31 - Let It Happen
Day 33 - Gaku
Day 52 - Of Course!
Day 57 - Yes

Length: Very Short
Character Focus: Eito
-Surreal
Endings 009-012

Route 7

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Kyoshika
Day 21 - Take Her Prisoner
Day 31 - Let It Happen
Day 33 - Gaku
Day 52 - Maybe Not

Length: Medium
-Fighting boring fights over and over and over, and you can't skip any of them because each is technically unique (as of 1.10, these fights are skippable, making this route less tedious, but still pretty uninteresting IMO)
-To be honest, if you're going to skip any route in the game, make it this one
Endings 013-014

Route 8

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Kyoshika
Day 21 - Take Her Prisoner
Day 31 - Let It Happen
Day 33 - Kurara

Length: Very Short
-I'm still not totally clear as to what happens in this one
Endings 015-022

Route 9

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Kyoshika
Day 21 - Take Her Prisoner
Day 31 - Stop Her

Length: Medium
-Weirder than it originally appears
Endings 23-24
Routes 10-13
Route 10

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Kyoshika
Day 21 - Kill Her
Day 22 - Kako


Length: Long
-Many mandatory Exploration days (skippable as of 1.10)
-Splits into different paths
Endings 025-032

Route 11

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Kyoshika
Day 21 - Kill Her
Day 22 - Shadowy Figure

Length: Long
-Has revelations that help explain other routes
-Required to open Story Lock #1
-High body count
-Splits into different paths
Endings 033-040

Route 12

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Takemaru

Length: Medium
-Parody
-Fanservice to a creepy level, and plenty of it
Endings 041-042

Route 13

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - Yes
Day 15 - Tsubasa

Length: Short
Character Focus: V'ehxness
-Unique perspective of events
Endings 043-044

Routes 14-17
Route 14

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Second to Last Defense Academy
Day 11 - No

Length: Medium
-If the game were a shounen manga it would be this
Endings 045-048

Route 15

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - Yes
Day 8 - Last Defense Academy

Length: Medium
Character Focus: Darumi
-If the game were written by Lovecraft it would be this
Endings 049-052

Route 16

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - No
Day 9 - No

Length: Long
Character Focus: Hiruko
-Contains Story Lock #1 (Requires routes 11, 18 and 21)
-Contains Story Lock #3 (Requires Ending 100, located in Route 21 but not reachable without hitting this lock first
-This is the Ushikoshi pulling on all the threads ending. I think he did an ok job of it, but some questions are still unanswered
Endings 053-060

Route 17

Day 2 - Let Him Live
Day 3 - No
Day 9 - Yes

Length: Long
-Parody
-If the game were a typical shojo manga it would be this
Routes 18-21
I recommend starting with these routes as the first path you go down:

-Basic fights so you can skip them on subsequent Routes after clearing one of them
-Long, fleshed out scenarios
-Going in blind helps deepen the curiosity factor
-Nobody steals your commander executions

Route 18

Day 2 - Kill Him
Day 4 - Yes
Day 16 - Kick the Attacker

Length: Long
-Few Free Time days
-Has multiple paths
-High body count
-Required to open Story Lock #1
Endings 69-76

Route 19

Day 2 - Kill Him
Day 4 - Yes
Day 16 - Dodge the Attack

Length: Very Long (yes, this route lasts 100+ days adding the different paths together)
-Parody
-Several different paths
-Ridiculous number of Free Time days
-Bond upgrade events are sometimes unavailable (see the Bond page)
Endings 77-84

Route 20

Day 2 - Kill Him
Day 4 - No
Day 25 - Yes

Length: Long
Character Focus: Yugamu
-No Free Time days until very late
-High body count
Endings 85-92

Route 21

Day 2 - Kill Him
Day 4 - No
Day 25 - No

Length: Long
-Few Free Time days
-Contains Story Lock #3, unlocked by reaching Story Lock #2 on Route 16
-Completing the Story Lock #3 path leads to Ending 100, which unlocks Story Lock #2
Endings 93-100
What Routes Should I Play?
I can't answer that for you. Officially there is no 'true' ending and all 100 endings are canon, as ridiculous as that sounds.

The most definitive endings are probably 1, 55 and 100.

My personal favorite is ending 59.
Technical Stuff
Don't copy and paste my guide anywhere else, with or without attribution. That would just be rude.

Have a suggestion to improve the guide? Did I make a mistake somewhere? Let me know, I'm new at this.

If this guide helped you at all and you wanted to help me out, give it a rating to help it move towards the top of the list. Thanks.


Version History

1.0 Initial release 5/27/25
1.1 Corrected typo in the Story Locks section 6/6/25
1.2 Added a note that the thresholds for advancing Grades are estimates. (Thanks DiabloCthulu) 6/7/25
1.3 Added a note that my tactics won't work on the Extreme Despair difficulty. Added confirmation that the special 6th bond events during Route 1 don't have Bond Level requirements. (Thanks duckgame4life) 7/7/25
1.4 Fixed a typo in the description for Route 18. (Thanks Kallista Dragonsoul) 7/11/25
1.4.1 Clarified in the Story Lock section that Endings 34 and 36 from Route 11, Endings 72 and 76 from Route 18 are all required for unlocking Story Lock #1. 7/12/25
1.5 Added a comment to Routes 7 and 10 that game update 1.10 made them less annoying with a QOL update. Thanks solus★! 9/4/25
17 Comments
jbkilroy  [author] 4 Sep @ 8:09am 
Great news - I'll add a note
solus★ 3 Sep @ 9:40pm 
fyi for anyone reading this later, after the 1.1.0 QoL update you can in fact skip the explorations in route 10 and the battles except the final boss in route 7, makes them go a lot quicker
Crono The Adventurer 18 Aug @ 1:03pm 
You know, I thought you were kidding with the creepy factor for route 12.
I am so sorry I doubted you. (Tho I think I'm more creeped out about the events happening around those moments more)
Kallista Dragonsoul 12 Jul @ 4:39pm 
Thank you!!! Really good guide, BTW. It's been very helpful!
jbkilroy  [author] 12 Jul @ 3:28pm 
Clarification added.
Kallista Dragonsoul 12 Jul @ 1:55am 
Thank you for fixing that problem! Always happy to help.

Something else I noticed, it's a little unclear if you need just one of the two endings on each route for Story Lock #1, or if both are needed. Could you please clarify that if possible?
jbkilroy  [author] 11 Jul @ 8:03pm 
You're right. Route 18 is required for story lock 1, not 2. I've updated the guide, thanks.
Kallista Dragonsoul 11 Jul @ 7:34pm 
Just FYI, the routes that the story locks are on aren't consistent in the guide. The story locks section puts the first two on route 16, but then it says that route 18 is required to open the story lock 2.
jbkilroy  [author] 7 Jul @ 2:34pm 
I wasn't interested in the challenge at all, and in fact played the entire game on the easy difficulty. There really isn't any advice I could give someone playing on Extreme.

I'll add your confirmation about the lvl 6 bonds though. Thanks.
duckgame4life 7 Jul @ 1:00pm 
Can confirm lvl 6 bonds don't require lvl 5
Avoided shoma until the revelation then thought he be affected the most

Beyond that I suggest looking over the kit improvements for v1.1.0 and consider new upgrade priority for extreme and despair difficulty