Our heroes just saved a bunch of miners from a Demon Lord, so it’s time to slow down, drop some exposition, delve into a backstory or two, treat ourselves to ice cream, and prepare ourselves for the next suicidal mission. Yes, ice cream exists in this setting. Teoritta and the heroes travel to a fortressed city that is holding the Great Exchange, a festival where soldiers (and heroes) can trade their scrips for goods or just general fun and merriment. There’s candy to snack on. We have what looks like yakisoba, ’cause even in a fantasy universe, we can’t escape Japanese cuisine. Ah well, at least it’s not takoyaki or a bowl of curry. But sadly, this episode won’t be all fun and games. Despite the festivities, Teoritta not dropping her ice cream is probably the only real bit of good news we get.
We learn a bit about the goddesses, but not enough to be truly satisfied. The gist is that they awaken to aid mankind against the demon blight, but Xylo’s sacrilegious act — even though he did it out of mercy — changed everything: the military now wants to dissect goddesses and see if they can create one. Teoritta wasn’t being transported because they wanted her help. She was being transported to be a science experiment. They think her unlimited blade works ability sucks, so if they’re going to chop up any of the goddesses up, it would be her. The only reason they’ve relented is because the Xylo-Teoritta partnership has two quick wins under their belt, so for now, they’re too useful to break up. Basically, Xylo has extra motivation to keep winning: he can potentially spare Teoritta from her cruel fate. But this feels too easy. I have to imagine that there’s a faction within the military that is still hellbent on dissecting her, so maybe they’ll try to kidnap her anyway. Like c’mon, I know these types. They usually subscribe to utilitarianism to justify their heinous crimes, i.e. they’re doing this for the greater good. There’s no way they would let the golden opportunity to experiment on Teoritta slip out of their hands just because she has helped defeat a couple of Demon Lords. These folks will just argue that creating goddesses will allow them to win the war altogether.
Anyway, the heroes’ next mission is to defend the fortressed city to the death. All this time, the military has been trying to kill a particular Demon Lord, but it has insane healing. None of the military’s attacks have ever finished the job. So the new, brilliant plan is to lure said Demon Lord into the fortress and just continuously fumigate it to death. Hopefully, the city will be evacuated of all its inhabitants, right? Considering how cruel this world is, you never know. They might just let people die, ’cause they simply don’t give a shit. In any case, the heroes will obviously do all of the dirty work. Even worse, however, is the fact that the heroes won’t be allowed to escape as soon as the job is done. As punishment for saving the miners in last week’s episode — thanks to this ratface fucker — the heroes will be forced to stay and die along with the Demon Lord. I guess they can just be revived, so in both the military’s and temple’s eyes, it’s no big deal, right?
At some point in this story, Xylo and Teoritta need to break away from their handlers. We can’t just keep doing insane missions one after the other, where the intended outcome is often a cruel and unusual death. Not only does this get repetitive, it just wears on you as a viewer. It feels like the bad guys are always winning, and I don’t mean the Demon Lords. More importantly, I don’t want to watch an entire season of this. At some point, we need to turn the tables and start sticking it to the man, whether it’s the military, the temple, or both. Unfortunately, the seals around the heroes’ necks pretty much guarantees their compliance, and I can’t see how this upcoming suicidal mission will change that. Xylo keeps saying how he’s going to make “them” pay, but bro, you’re kinda trapped. Do you have a plan to escape or what? I dunno, I’m just saying I don’t want to keep jumping from one stupid mission to the next. We’ve established the setting, the characters’ motivations, and their current predicament. It’s now time for some real change.
Stray thoughts & observations:
- What’s with Teoritta’s reaction to Xylo reading poetry or saying he would’ve become a poet had he not joined the military?
- Wish Xylo would be nicer to Teoritta. I know he has baggage, but she’s just a kid. Look at her running around the festival like a bright-eyed child. Why would you want to rain on her parade?
- Kivia softening her stance towards Xylo and the rest of the heroes is pretty expected. I just wonder what the end result will be. Will she defect from the Holy Knights? Will she get punished? You never know. The assholes on top seem to relish being cruel. If she’s going to join the good guys, however, she’ll have to do something about her penchant for suicide.
- Well, at least it’s confirmed that Tatsuya is from another world. Again, what shitty luck. Other dudes get isekai’d into a world where everyone worships them. This guy is doomed to fight as a slave, die, revive, repeat. No wonder he’s nonverbal. Who would remain sane?
- We get Venetim’s backstory, which is that he’s a conman (no surprise here). He also published an apparently true story on how spies under the influence of the demon blight have infiltrated the upper echelon of society. Hm, this suggests that the other side can be sneaky and manipulative. So are we going to see the Demon Lords’ society at some point or what? In fact, what are they even after? Y’know, other than wiping out humanity. Do they have a specific goal in mind?
- Last but not least, we meet another new hero. Have you noticed how they’re always men? Are there any female heroes? Or is this a sentence reserved for men and men only?
