We pick things up immediately where we last left off. Heronia is shocked and/or scared. Unless she’s putting on a very good acting job, she certainly didn’t expect her light familiar to launch an attack on Cecil. Or was it trying to attack Bertia? I’m going to assume Cecil since his protective earring broke.

So assuming Bertia hadn’t come along — our Bertia, who is an isekai’d Cecil megafan — then Cecil would need someone like Heronia. But again, like with Bertia, he would need the right Heronia, i.e. the Heronia from the otome game. Most otome heroines are giant Mary Sues. On the other hand, the Heronia we know is a far cry from that. Basically, she’s right and wrong about her status as Cecil’s Maiden of Destiny. Without a good influence like the otome Heronia or the current Bertia, Cecil definitely would’ve continued being nothing more than an emotionless doll. What Heronia frustratingly doesn’t understand is that she’s nothing like the otome Heronia, so she can’t do anything for him. Her role has pretty much been subsumed by Bertia, who is sadly too single-minded (and a little dumb) to notice the incredible effect she’s had on Cecil. But at least Cecil knows it, and he also knows he doesn’t want to go back to his old self.

In this… I dunno what you would even call it… the light familiar’s dream dimension? Well, in this dream dimension, Cecil gets to see what the timeline would’ve been like if Bertia had been normal. First things first, a ton of people would’ve died. The old Bertia never would’ve told Cecil about the epidemic, and as a result, he wouldn’t have done a thing about it. But we already know this. We already know that this would’ve led to a domino effect where Bertia’s mother dies, which sends her father down the path to evil. He then turns around and becomes a negative influence on his daughter. So far, the light familiar hasn’t exactly shown Cecil anything that he couldn’t logically surmise on his own.

Well, I guess you could say Cecil is being reminded of how cold he used to be. A man is desperately trying to save his wife, but the alternate Cecil barely even reacts to it. Instead, he coldly tells his father that the old man was right for not showing any favoritism. And I guess that’s true in a vacuum, but life is rarely ever that simple. You could easily argue that Bertia’s father is a man with great influence. He can do a lot in his position and with his wealth. By spurning him, you lose an invaluable ally. Of course, it’s kinda messed up that one person can have so much more value than, say, a random commoner. But that’s a different debate. We have to work within the confines of the system we live in, which is the fact that this is a monarchy with clearcut class differences. And sad to say, in such a world, saving the life of a marquis’s wife should have more social utility than saving the life of a commoner. I’m all for redistributing the wealth, but I doubt that’ll ever happen.

At this point, do we really need to keep watching this dream dimension play itself out? Like what more do we need? Cecil has already declared that he hates this reality. He has already affirmed that he needs his Bertia, not the “normal” one from the otome game. But the light familiar disagrees, so what we see next is how Cecil’s first encounter with Heronia should have unfolded. But again, this isn’t what Heronia is like in real life. This is the fictional one from the game. This feels so pointless. “Oh, you’d be so much happier with X!” But you’re not giving me X. You’re giving me dogshit. I guess that’s my one problem with this show: everyone but Cecil is just a little too stupid. Bertia is too obsessed with saving Cecil to realize that she’s already done it. Heronia is too stupid to realize she doesn’t resemble the actual heroine whatsoever. And Pii-chan, the light familiar, is too stupid to realize the same thing. Not only that, what exactly is the familiar trying to argue? “You’ll eventually be happy with Heronia!” But he’s happy now…? Like what are we even doing? This is your last ditch gambit? To show a happy guy how he could be happy differently? This conflict would be a whole lot more interesting if any of these pivotal characters had any awareness of the actual situation. But they’re all just stuck on “IT SHOULD PLAY OUT LIKE THIS.” But it ain’t like this. It hasn’t been this ever since the epidemic was resolved with minimal casualties. Again, what the fuck are we doing?

The rest of the scenes are just more of the same: how future encounters with Heronia should have played out, and how Bertia would go on to become an actual villainess. Basically, a good Heronia would’ve helped Cecil shed his emotionless, robotic self just like how the current Bertia already has. So my arguments are likewise the same: we don’t have a good Heronia, we already have a good Bertia, and Cecil is already happy in his current life. This whole exercise is pointless. “Durrr, you could reach the same destination just with extra steps and whole lot more deaths!” Really? That’s your winning argument? So it should come to no surprise that Cecil easily shatters this illusion. Like you’re not even trying to show him a better alternative. It’s not even close.

Afterwards, Cecil calmly explains the painfully obvious: this Heronia doesn’t deserve happiness because she sucks. This Heronia is not the otome Heronia. In the end, Pii-chan seems to accept defeat and starts… fading away? Did it sacrifice itself just to put Cecil in this dream dimension? Welp, it wasn’t even a good plan, and now Heronia will have no friend left.

Just one last thing, I guess. In the alternate timeline, Cecil would confront Bertia instead of Heronia, humiliating her and her family in front of everybody instead of the other girl, so on and so forth. It’s too bad Bertia and Heronia had to swap roles. In reality, they both could’ve been two good beans. Just because the isekai’d Bertia is a good girl, there’s no reason why the isekai’d Heronia also had to be a bad egg. Imagine a show where they just both supported each other. Sure, Bertia ends up with Cecil, but Heronia could learn that there’s more to life than being the default heroine. But alas, someone has to be evil…

Cecil eventually wakes up back in reality, then the show leaves us with a cliffhanger. Boo.