Ruthless Route

The battle screen after exhausting the kill counter in Ruined Home and in Starlight Isles.

### Mechanic type

Ending

The **Ruthless Route**, also known as the Genocide or No Mercy route, leads to one of the endings of the *TS!Underswap Demo 2.0* while the full game has yet to be completed.

## Method

The Ruthless Route occurs when the protagonist kills every enemy (including mini, mid and main bosses) in Ruined Home. After killing all monsters in an area, encounters still occur, but monsters do not appear. Instead, the battle text in a smaller font reads "Nothing but silence." This also changes the SAVE Point text to only state "Determination." instead of the usual lines.

Once this happens, the music in the area changes to a dark ambient track *A Special Feeling*.

Once the kill counter is exhausted, the protagonist's expression changes to have a shadow covering their eyes, giving them a more intimidating look.

If the protagonist stops meeting the requirements for a Ruthless Route, they are taken to the Evacuation Neutral Route.

## Requirements

* Kill all randomly encountered monsters. Note that sparing monsters is fine, as long as you kill them later. You must kill 20 monsters in Ruined Home to exhaust the kill counter. Bosses and minibosses are exceptions as sparing any of them will cause the game to a Neutral Route. The only killable minibosses currently are the Ruined Knights. Mettacrit can't die due to being a ghost (he has no option to be spared on the Ruthless Route), and The Greasers cannot die on any route due to fleeing when attacked and are absent in the Ruthless Route.
	+ Fighting the Greasers also prevents the Ruthless Route from being initiated as the encounters in Ruined Home will stop after they are defeated.

## Differences

### Ruined Home

**Before Meeting Requirements**
* The Ruined Knights comment on Chara's rampage if a few monsters were killed but did not exhaust the kill counter.

**After Exhausting the Kill Counter**
* Every monster that was fought and killed via a random encounter shows up as "Eradicated" in the Journal.
* The NPCs in Ruined Home and the Sewers do not appear.
* Asgore does not call Chara after completing the Puzzle Gauntlet or when exploring the City of Old.
	+ Once Chara reaches the City of Old, he stops picking up the phone.
* The Mad Dummy has different dialogue on the bridge before they send Chara to the Sewers.
* Most of the NPCs in the City of Old appear to have evacuated or locked themselves in their homes.
	+ The entire area appears darker.
	+ Some NPCs appear in their doors and slam them shut if Chara approaches them.
	+ The Wooden Guy is still present and does not fear Chara.
	+ The Greasers cannot be fought. Because of this, the entire city is accessible from the start.
		- The SAVE Point in the alleyway where they are fought also does not appear.
	+ Grillby's Backyard Barbecue is barricaded meaning Chara cannot buy from there.
* Most flavor text is narrated differently, particularly in a much crueler manner.
	+ Upon interacting with the spilled milkshake outside of Grillby's, the text reads "What a waste." instead of "...I hope nobody cried over this."
	+ The Echo Flower in the Flower King says "(It's strangely silent.)"
	+ None of the collectibles can be collected and no quests can be completed. That means Running Boots are unavailable there aswell.
	+ Interacting with the sprout in the Flower King reads the text "This little sprout has no future."
	+ Most of the trash cans say "It's a generic trash can. Nothing of interest here." instead of the several random possible messages that can appear on the Neutral and Compassion Routes.
* The Mini-Mart is unlocked and Chara may take whatever they want from it for free, however there is only one of each item. All of the items also heal more HP than usual.
* Mettacrit is still present and fights Chara to avenge his audience and cannot be spared. After being "killed", he appears to vanish afterwards despite not dying due to being a ghost but is recorded as "Eradicated" in the Journal anyway. He also does not give any EXP.
* The door to Asgore's home is locked, and the gate to his garden is open. He appears in the garden and fights Chara to prevent them from leaving the Ruined Home and killing more monsters. This fight is notably harder than his Neutral Route fight. Once he is killed, he warns Chara about how he has already warned the rest of the underground, and that it will go empty, leaving Chara alone in their special hell.

**After Killing Asgore**
* After Asgore's battle, he drops the key to his house, allowing the protagonist to enter. The Bitter Tea can be found in the kitchen.
* Before the exit of Ruined Home, Temmie ponders on the protagonist's actions. The shadowed Temmies are ecstatic about the protagonist's rampage and offer an alliance but are scared off by Chara's unwillingness to cooperate. Right before the original can be attacked, Flowey intervenes. He throws away the last Temmie right before they attack him and comments on the protagonist's journey up ahead.

### Starlight Isles

**Before Meeting Requirements in Starlight Isles**
* Crossbones, aware of what Chara has done, has different dialogue. He says that Chara is in for a bad time.
* Crossbones had ate the half of the Hot Dog and becomes Average Dog in the box.
* The kill counter for Starlight Isles is lowered from normally being 20 down to 16 due to monsters evacuating.
* Sub-Doggo is now vulnerable, out of their ship but with the enemies to accompany him now.
* Dogamy and Dogaressa skip their singing speech to cut into battle.
* Muffet captures Chara in the forest, rather than in their shop, replacing Crossbones and Papyrus with Lesser Dog and Greater Dog, and therefore blocking the ability to FIGHT (This is also the battle that happens during Evacuation Neutral route after sparing enemies before this battle).
* The scene before with Mad Dummy's second chase has different dialogue.
* The entire Koffin Keep section is skipped, as Koffin-K is unable to convert Chara to one of his "spooky servants," instead telling them to leave (this is skipped during the Evacuation Neutral route after sparing enemies before this battle).

**After Meeting Requirements in Starlight Isles**
* The battle with Boogiemen is quite different, taking place where Chara would have a memory flashback. There are different ACTs that make place there, like Push. The fight ends with you pushing Larry off the cliff and Harry becoming so despondent he stops fighting and lets you kill him.
* Every monster has fled Starstruck Village, even Asriel. The bee vendor is now replaced by cardboard and every item from them is now free.
* If Chara interacts with the high striker, they will destroy it.
* If Chara sleeps in the B&B Attic and has a nightmare about being pressured by people on the Surface, and is watched by the Temmies, only for Flowey to protect them. This will recover an exclusive memory.
* The battle with Crossbones appears not to be a fakeout (unlike in the Sans fight in *Undertale*), and will offer you mercy at the end of the battle. This is revealed to be a bait-and-switch due to being unable to progress further, unlike in the Papyrus fight in *Undertale*. They cannot be killed by normal means, so the strategy is to tire Crossbones out by continuously fighting, then fleeing.

**After "Killing" Crossbones**
* At the bridge, they are stopped by Papyrus and later Sgt Splosion. Papyrus will try and reach out to the human, but the anomaly overwrites all of their dialogue before angrily telling him to shut up.
* Chara is chased by Navy forces, and must survive a gauntlet of arrows and lighting attacks before the way to the elevator shaft opens. The elevator's rope is cut by an arrow, causing the Human to fall into the Underground. The music of the Crystal Springs area will also change onwards. (Also in Evacuation Neutral)
* Alphys drops their German accent to act no-nonsense to Chara. (Crystal Springs only, Demo 3 update after Meeting Requirements in the area)
	+ It was already earlier foreshadowed when fighting Crossbones before Phase 2 starts.

## Aborting

Aborting the Ruthless Route causes Chara's eyes to become visible again, but the shadow still remains. This puts them on a unique route for the rest of the game called **Evacuation Neutral.** Compared to normal Neutral, all the monsters in the rest of the underground will be weary of you as they will take note of your actions and begin evacuation as soon as possible.

* If the Ruthless Route is aborted by sparing the Ruined Knights, Asgore still calls Chara after completing the Puzzle Gauntlet. Mad Dummy's dialogue is the same for the Neutral Route, and Chara continues through the Sewers and the City of Old normally.
* Asgore can be spared on the Ruthless Route by hugging him after his final attack. If this is done then the encounter with Temmie and Flowey proceeds as normal (except Flowey makes the comment about it) and Chara enters Starlight Isles on the Evacuation Neutral Route.
* In Starlight Isles you can simply abort the route by not exhausting the area's kill counter, and once you reach Koffin-K the game will put you on the Evacuation Neutral Route.
* Also, in Starlight Isles you can abort it by either sparing Muffet or Larry and Harry during their fight.

## Trivia

* In *Undertale*, a kill counter is added to the Stats menu after killing 20 monsters. On the contrary, in *TS!Underswap*, the kill counter appears after killing a single monster.

## References

1. ↑ After a lot of brainstorming, we've decided on the following two names: "Compassion" -- previously Pacifist; "Ruthless" -- previously Genocide - Progress Report - May 2023