Queen Mirela reports that Motoyasu has been seen in a town neighboring Melromarc. With the Phoenix approaching soon, she wants Naofumi to track him down and get him back on their side after his personally devastating failure to defeat the Tortoise.
The morning Naofumi is to head out with Raph and Filo, there’s a strange girl among the villagers: S’yne, AKA Murder Clown from the arena. She offers to pay an exorbitant amount for breakfast, but Naofumi doesn’t trust her or want her in his village while he’s gone. He leaves Eclair in charge and heads out on a Filo-drawn carriage.
Upon arriving in town, they find a wreck of a Motoyasu prostrating himself before his former groupie Elena, who has quit adventuring and now running her family’s bakery and cafe. Good for her, I say. When Motoyasu spots Naofumi he scurries away.
Elena is happy to tell Naofumi what happened, but there’s not much to say. No matter what skills he used, Motoyasu couldn’t put a dent in the tortoise, so Elena and his other groupies became disillusioned and abandoned him to his own, limited devices. Elena admits she simply picked the wrong hero to follow.
But while she’s moving on with her life, that kind of personal growth clearly isn’t possible for Malty, AKA Myne, AKA Bitch. Naofumi finds Ren sulking in a tavern, offers his condolences for Ren’s party ending up killed, and asks him to join him in the coming fight with the Phoenix.
Ren, with nothing better to do, is about to agree to Naofumi’s offer, but then Malty arrives and mucks everything up. She’s done something with her slave crest, as her mother couldn’t detect her and she is also able to lie without it glowing.
She wastes no time turning Ren against Naofumi and using her feminine wiles to get him to believe her, because she believes in him and always has. When Motoyasu shows up, Malty tells him to get his loser ass out of her face. She and the Spear and Sword heroes proceed to bicker.
It’s honestly quite exhausting, and Naofumi’s clear frustration is obvious and relatable. These are selfish and thoroughly unpleasant people he has to deal with, but he still has to try, doesn’t he? Fitoria threatened to kill the Cardinal Heroes if they don’t form a unified front like they should have from the start.
But if there’s anything Malty excels at (besides being fucking annoying as all get-out) it’s sowing discord. Ren is vulnerable after the losses he experienced and wants someone to tell him it’s not his fault and it’s okay to blame somebody, anybody else. Malty lets him blame the Shield Demon and Spear Loser. She also manages to make Ren act quite recklessly in no time at all.
When Naofumi gives him a piece of his mind, he responds by unleashing a sword skill, which Naofumi manages to deflect but blasts a hole clean through the tavern. And while I know Naofumi needs to try get Ren to fight along side him, when Ren teleported away with a smug Malty I celebrated, because it meant I didn’t have to see or hear them the rest of the episode.
Motoyasu doesn’t take Malty officially dumping him for Ren very well at all, but when he comes to, Filo is singing and dancing to the audience of tavern-goers previously traumatized by Ren’s attack. When Filo hands him some food and tells him in her sweetest voice and with her biggest smile to cheer up, Motoyasu cries out maniacally and suddenly grabs Filo.
The net morning, as Naofumi prepares to leave town without him, Motoyasu addresses him as “father”, declares his undying love for Filo (more like infatuation), and asks her her hand. Filo isn’t having it, and is in fact scared by Motoyasu’s unhinged advances.
When Raph tells him to knock it off, he calls her a Raccoon Pig, so she belts him. I tell ya, I don’t know how they managed to make this guy even more insufferable, but they did. And I’m sure we haven’t seen or heard the last of Malty and Ren…unfortunately.
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