We last left off with Xylo’s foreboding promise: “I’ll find you. I’ll find the one who set up me and my Knights. The one responsible for Senerva’s fate. I’ll find you… and I will kill you.” He said this as he was sentenced to be a hero. Buuuuuuuttttttt that’ll all have to wait, because he and his fellow heroes have a new mission: clearing out the nearby Zewan Gan Tunnels. After all, if he or any of the heroes disobey, they’ll lose their heads. It makes you wonder, then, if Xylo even has a plan. As long as the “Temple folk” have the power to detonate the seals around their necks, what can he do? How can he possibly even make any move against them? In fact, how long has it been since he was condemned to this fate. Does he even feel strongly about getting revenge anymore? Assuming he does, at some point, we need an arc where Xylo operate independently. Maybe that’ll be the final arc of the season.

Dotta is out of commission, but we still have a mixture of old and new faces. Naturallly, Teoritta is still here. She refuses to leave her Knight’s side, and again, you can’t help but wonder why she’s so obsessed with receiving praise. And also, why does it need to come from Xylo. She could always form a pact with someone else. She could always get praise from someone else. Why Xylo? What makes her tick? I can’t imagine what the Goddesses’ origin story must be, but I’m bracing for it to be tragic and/or horrific. Also, why suspend her transport? Surely, they can just assign one or two soldiers to drag her back to some place safe while the rest of soldiers deal with the tunnels. Did someone predict that she would form a pact with Xylo? No wonder he’s suspicious of their intent. There must be a reason why the Temple is still allowing Teoritta to stick around and be this close to danger.

The hardass Kivia will oversee the current mission. Her arc should be a familiar one: a devout knight who eventually opens her eyes to the Temple’s corruption and thus defects. You can already see their hairline cracks appearing in her resolve. We can’t possibly sacrifice the lives of their precious Holy Knights for a bunch of peasants, she claims! But her eyes say otherwise.

As for the new faces, they sure are quirky. We’re joined by Norgalle, a self-proclaimed ruler. Well, he’s a hero, so he’s certainly no king. But hey, he can invent gadgets even if they’re not exactly practical. Xylo attributes his madness to the cycle of death and reincarnation, but who can really say? We all gotta cope with this insane situation somehow. Maybe he’s just putting up an act to keep himself going. Plus, when an obviously evil priest (when you wanna make someone look pathetic, just give them that signature stubble) and the Holy Knights plan on abandoning the surviving miners in the tunnels, Norgalle gets all worked up. In other words, he still has a conscience. At least the cycle of death and reincarnation hasn’t robbed him of that.

Finally, we have Tatsuya. What’s up with the Japanese name? No one else has one. Is he actually someone who has been isekai’d from our world? If so, he certainly got screwed. Instead of ending up in a fantasy world full of hot babes like other isekai protagonists, he became a slave instead. Well, Tatsuya doesn’t say a single word. All he does is attack like a rabid animal when the fighting begins. Nevertheless, he’s lucid enough to 1) tell friends from foe, and 2) accept missions. Can you do that on instinct? I dunno, I doubt it. So while it might not seem like he’s all there, perhaps there’s still a soul in there somewhere. Maybe he’ll open up and talk to his allies someday.

I haven’t said much about the current plot, because it really is quite simple: Xylo and the heroes intend to save the trapped miners even though it sounds like a suicide mission. I hope they succeed not just because they’re the good guys, but I’m not really in the mood for a downer anime. It can’t all just be about surviving long enough to get revenge. I need more than that. The ultimate goal is to envision a life beyond all this madness. If that poor village child could at least get her father back, then there’s still some hope for this world.