(Spoiler alert!)
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I'm at that exact point in the game. Last night I was fooling around and found Saemon. After talking to him and refusing his help I walked out to the monastery gates where I was promptly beset by some monks. After wiping the floor with them I found a key to the gate on one of the dead monks which allowed me to enter the monastery grounds.
There was only one entrance to the monastery proper and that led directly to Balthazar. So I suppose it doesn't matter which route you take, you don't miss out on anything. Both ways lead directly to Balthazar. Kind of disappointing actually. Getting to Sendai and Abizigal you had to go thru' a lot of rooms. But here it's just fight off the mercenaires and monks and presto! you're up against Balthazar next.
On an interesting side note, I collected and sold all the weapons and armour after I was done killing all the mercenaries and monks, and made more than 100,000 gold! Nothing much to spend it on, unfortunately.
