Athanasia falls into a coma as a result of her overflowing magic, and the only person who can save her is obviously Lucas, the mysterious wizard who has been showing up lately. But does he really need to do it in his chibi-form? He eventually convinces Claude that he needs to stick around in order to continue monitoring the princess. After all, we have no idea if her magic might go haywire again. And maybe it’s less creepy for a boy wizard to hang around a little girl all day long, eating sweets and pastries with her. But at the end of the day, there’s still a grown man inside that boyish form — a grown man who is centuries old. Look, I just hope he doesn’t become a love interest. We know from the ED that Lucas in his current form will “grow up” with the princess. Just be her tutor and nothing more.
Honestly, not a whole lot happens in this episode. The narrative simply takes a very circuitous route to its desired destination, so we end up taking up the standard episode length to tell our story. Oh no, the princess is ill! Bring in all the doctors. So we gotta sit there and watch them all fail until Lucas finally saves the day. Then the same thing happens when Athanasia tries to harness her raw magical potential. Bring in all the tutors! But they all suck at teaching, so we come crawling back to Lucas yet again. We do get a few scenes of the princess in training. She’s so raw that she has to start from the very, very basics. She needs to train her body, she needs to read, she needs to grasp all the fundamentals before she can even hope to tap into her latent abilities. And what does it all amount to in the end? A picture of Lucas with devil horns. Well, that’s kinda cute, I guess.
What’s definitely cute is the black cloud thing that then eventually turns into a long-haired cat. The princess dubs it Raven for its black coat. According to Lucas, Raven is a Athanasia’s overflowing magic taken form. But why did it take the form of a cat? Is it simply responding to Athanasia’s desires, which means she’s always wanted a cat? Initially, Lucas tried to bargain for Raven. Give the magical pet to him and he’ll tutor the princess in return. It seems as though he needs to replenish his mana from time to time from an external source, so he was hoping to devour Raven. Naturally, we won’t let that happen. So Athanasia strikes up another deal instead: Lucas can lay claim to the rest of her overflowing mana as long as he tutors her. It makes sense, but it’s also a shame at the same time. Why? Because she won’t be spawning anymore cute pets if that excess magic goes to Lucas. It also gives him a reason to stick around, and I’m still sketched out by the fact that he’s an old man posing as a boy.
I do like the fact that Claude and Felix have been secretly looking into Lucas’s background. No one else can save her, and no one else can tutor her. But that doesn’t mean you just trust some random “boy” wizard. Unfortunately, there’s little to learn. Claude simply states that Lucas is from Aug, so it means he’s safe. As an aside, however, Claude has been much happier lately. He even cracks a smile from time to time. Obviously, his daughter’s love is having a transformative effect on him. But it’s just weird when he goes and asks himself, “Is this what love feels like?” Huh? Surely, he loved Athanasia’s mother. Maybe he’s just forgotten. Still, we see him afflicted by some sort of dark electric currents at the very start of the episode. He also grabs his chest in pain from time to time. I hope this is just an affliction induced by the stress of potentially losing his daughter. I don’t particularly like Claude as a character, but it would be cruel to make the poor girl lose her father after trying to hard to and eventually succeeding at winning him over.
Anyway, there’s not much else to say. This week’s episode was pretty lowkey. They keep mentioning Jeanette, but the princess has yet to meet this other girl. The preview suggests that we’re going to keep it that way, because she’ll befriend some other boy instead.
