I feel the same way. there's absolutely no way I would have done all of the research in order to figure out say the story behind maiden astraea and garl vinland, or the true identities of the bosses in the Boletarian Palace. heck, I've beaten the game three times and I still haven't even found all of the NPCs in the game.
still though, reading about it is super interesting.
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http://img.imgcake.com/mariapngsa.png