[Eryops]

Here's a translation of episode 4. Just give this file the same name as the raw and place them in the same directory. I'd also suggest opening it and setting the font size from 20 to 30.

Originally Posted by zetsumei

Spoiler for Question ^^;:

Who exactly is Bernkastel? Never played the game so I have no clue ):

I was definitely confused when Rika thought to herself, "I have to stop being the witch and have to return to being Rika". Certainly had no clue where the "witch" thing come from or how it was related to Rika...

Thanks in advance.

Spoiler:

Bernkastel is the accumulation of memories from all the Rikas that have died over the past century that have become self-aware, as she says at the start of Minagoroshi-hen. Presumably Bernkastel was created when the amount of Rika's memories that Hanyuu deposited in the dimension with the fragments reached a critical mass. The scenario for a death of Rika's mind described by Bernkastel is probably what would happen if that accumulation of memories became too great to be housed in a human being.

What presumably happens when "Rika" arrives in a new world is that a copy of Bernkastel's memories replaces the existing Rika's memories (Rika can't recall anything from before she was playing her friends in Minagoroshi-hen or from before she was hit with a ball in Saikoroshi-hen). We can't be sure that she retains all of Bernkastel's memories, since in Saikoroshi-hen Hanyuu explains to Rika that the worlds appear as fragments in the realm of the gods and how they traveled between worlds by joining these fragments, which Bernkastel must have already known since she can manipulate them (but Hanyuu could be reiterating something Rika knew). Also, Bernkastel is aware of what happened in Minagoroshi-hen at the start of Matsuribayashi-hen, but the Rika in the world of Matsuribayashi-hen lacks that information (but that may be simply be an anomaly due to Hanyuu's powers failing).

However, the fact that Rika is aware that a version of herself exists in a higher dimension, that she says she isn't Rika when she's speaking to Rena in Tsumihoboroshi-hen (Bernkastel feels that way to an extent) and that she gives herself the name Bernkastel when inhabiting Rika's body in Saikoroshi-hen to distinguish herself from the original Rika indicates that the Rikas of the various worlds possess at least some of Bernkastel's memories. Conversely, in Minagoroshi-hen Bernkastel says that she only has the memories that Rika obtained from the various worlds, that she was born in the human world and refers to herself as Rika at one point. Based on that, as well as all the things she says in the tea parties in Umineko which make it clear she was born from the events in Higurashi, we can assume that Bernkastel views herself as an being that's a continuation of Rika rather than a completely separate entity, which supports a close connection between them.

When Rika dies, Hanyuu sends the memories from that world to join the accumulation of memories in that higher dimension and thus become part of Bernkastel. This would explain why Bernkastel retains the name that "Rika" came up with in Saikoroshi-hen and why the Rika in the world at the end of Saikoroshi-hen says that the version of her in the higher dimension no longer matters, since her memories won't be joining it when she dies.

So in conclusion, a copy of Bernkastel's memories and personality replace Rika's mind and then the experiences of that copy merge with Bernkastel when the Rika of that world dies. Bernkastel neither created Rika nor is she really a separate entity (since 'Rika' is simply Bernkastel's mind in a human body) until they diverge at the end of Saikoroshi-hen.