Not long after a casual discussion with Julis over their Winter vacation plans, Ayato, Saya, Claudia and Kirin are whisked away to her home country of Lieseltania, first aboard a private jet, then a Rolls-Royce limo through a jubilant victory parade, and finally given rooms at a humongous palace.
There they meet Julis’ brother, King Jolbert, and his wife Maria, who plan to hold a banquet in their honor to thank them for helping his sister. The cold open actually handles the breathlessness of such a sequence of events quite well. It also shows how relatively down-to-earth Julis is, despite her regal home situation
Of course, this is only another venue in which to rub in Saya and Claudia’s faces the fact that Ayato belongs to Julis first and foremost. Saya swallows her pride and commits herself to staying by Ayato’s side if ever he needs aid, without getting into any kind of romantic talk that might end up with her rejected.
Similarly, Claudia seeks to unite both Ayato and the others on her team in the upcoming Gryps Festa, which will be no picnic, judging from all the names they throw around.
Asterisk War has never been all that interesting in terms of cloudy politics, but we get a lot more of that at the banquet, when after explaining that her country is a puppet state and her brother a cooperative puppet, she points out all the ladies around him who are his lovers…and also spies.
Jolbert is almost a grown-up version of Ayato, perfectly comfortable juggling women without a care in the world. Ayato does care, and he’s a little overwhelmed by the evening dress of his girls, who also all want to hang on his arm but aren’t quite sure how, so they simply glom onto him.
Finally, things take a little turn for the ridiculous, as a battle springs up in the middle of what had been a very peaceful episode. Some butler dude with a bionic eye summons a giant chimera of all things. Fortunately, Saya has a weapon stashed under her dress, Julis can use her strega powers without a lux, and Ayato is perfectly capable of bringing the beast down with his martial arts.
It seems this was a warning more than anything else, though butler guy seemed to have hoped the chimera would have polished Ayato off. He doesn’t want him joining Claudia’s team, but something tells me Ayato is going to anyway, and he’ll deal with the challenges that result with the rest of his team.
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