Well, he was bound to rear his ugly head sooner or later.

— To prevent Naofumi and his lolis from escaping to another country, Malty has her people set fire to an entire forest. I’m always amused when random henchmen all have the same height and build. Anime series have a limited budget, but this sort of thing never fails to take me out of the story. Ah well, it’s not as though this show is immersive or anything.

— Malty also has all the checkpoints closed down, so no one can leave or enter the country. I’m a bit confused by this, though. Do you have to go through a checkpoint? Can an outlaw like Naofumi simply not sneak through the borders?

— Well, our hero and his party has no choice but to then heed the Shadow’s advice and thus pay the queen a visit. Along the way, they bump into this noble with a bowl cut. Color me surprised when he’s actually a nice guy. I was so prepared to see him sell Naofumi and Melty out. It turns out, however, that this guy is actually attempting to improve human-demihuman relations.

— Unfortunately, we’re also near Raphtalia’s hometown, so she’s in a bit of a funk. She remembers clearly how soldiers attacked her village shortly after the first wave. Now, because she looks older, I forget that she isn’t actually older. She’s still mentally a loli like the other girls in the party. As a result, she hasn’t really had much time to cope with her trauma.

— Over and over again, all signs point to Melty’s father being a colossal, racist dirtbag. At some point, she has to stop defending her father, right? I mean, there’s also the fact that people can buy and own slaves in his country. Hell, she’s literally traveling with a slave owner right now!

— Anyways, the nice noble gives Naofumi and his lolis a place to say and food to eat. He also comments on how Melty has changed ever since she started hanging out with her new friends. Although he says she’s grown since he last saw him, the way he puts it, it sounds like traveling with Naofumi allows her to act like the loli that she is.

— I mean, when she shares her concerns with Filo, the loli chicken tells her to get Naofumi to dote on her. That doesn’t sound like maturity to me.

— Later that night, Melty wonders if she should just give up and go home. After all, she has her princess duties to fulfill. Am I crazy or did we not already decided that her life was in danger? Did she somehow forget that or something?

— As a funny aside, a coworker asked me if I had heard of this show, because people were going crazy about it in Japantown. Oh, don’t you worry, folks! I definitely filled her in on all the important details about Naofumi and his exploits.

— Back to our regularly scheduled programming, we have raccoon girl crying in her sleep again. It turns out she had to watch her childhood friend get tortured and maybe even killed.

— The next morning, we see nice guy noble get led away in chains. Yeah, I’d arrest him too for that pitiful bowl cut.

— Actually, a neighboring noble has accused Mr. Bowl Cut of sheltering Naofumi. I mean, that’s technically true…

— I’m surprised that this maid is even helping Naofumi! I dunno, I guess I just assume that everyone in this world is a bunch of unscrupulous dirtbags.

— Speaking of the devil, the bad guy finally shows up. And of course, he’s fat. Don’t you know that all fat people are evil? In fact, I like to refer to these fictional characters as simply fat evil.

— Well, Melty steps forward to turn herself in. In addition to feeling guilty for abandoning her duties while the country goes mad looking for her, she wants to give Naofumi a chance to escape. After last night’s conversation with Melty, he should’ve seen this coming.

— Then again, Melty also should’ve seen this coming: there’s no way in hell our Shield Hero is going to let fat evil steal his loli!

— So later that night, the good guys — and when I refer to Naofumi, I use the word “good” very loosely — intend to break into fat evil’s mansion in order to save Melty. Luckily, the townsfolk are rioting and thus distracting the guards.

— Oh hey, fat evil is also religious evil. I guess his religion teaches him to own and torture slaves. Par for the course, really.

— Within the mansion, fat evil is slowly backing Melty into a corner. I’m a bit confused as to why she’s suddenly a damsel in distress. In last week’s episode, we literally saw her hurl a spell at Malty in order to defend Naofumi. All of a sudden, she’s now this meek, helpless girl who can’t do anything against the all encompassing encroachment of fat evil.

— Well, Naofumi quickly shows up and saves the girl. We didn’t really waste too much time in this arc, huh? He also lets Raphtalia confront the bastard.

— Fat evil starts begging for mercy, and the episode ends before we can find out what raccoon girl intends to do with him. I actually hope she doesn’t back down. Now, in a just world with just laws, everyone deserves a fair trial. But we’re not in a just world with just laws. Letting fat evil live out of some silly idea that we shan’t stoop to their level is just giving him another opportunity to find more victims. But we’ll see. If the show can justify slave-owning, then surely, it should have the balls to kill fat evil, right?