The Rising of the Clout Hero. The moment of karma payoff is at hand. This is quite honestly what the show’s emotional tension has been building up to for a long time.
The battle against the church of the three heroes rages on. While I greatly enjoyed all the expository dialogue and necessary character drama, I think it is pretty hilarious that almost every time the pope was charging up his super weapon, the four heroes did almost absolutely nothing other than let him charge it – either a flashback happened, they argued amongst themselves, or a powerful character moment occurred. While this would be funny enough once, this ended up happening something like four times. When I took a step back and thought about that, I got a lot more (unintentional) enjoyment from the scene. What gracious adversaries they are!
Seeing the four heroes on a united front (even if Motoyasu is still king of tool village) feels very triumphant and emotionally relieving – like seeing old friends who got into a big spat finally on the same page again. The filolial queen got her wish after all – and that was a pretty tall order too. While they manage to keep the heat on the pope, they seem to have trouble finishing him off as he has a near limitless supply of mana (Read: actual fucking people he is mana draining).
Realizing that Naofumi keeps up with them despite not having a class change, the other heroes ask him if he could kindly be super broken and destroy the pope for them. He acquiesces, but not without a tradeoff – Naofumi has the closest struggle with the curse shield he has had yet, one where he ultimately succumbs to his inner hatred and turmoil. This time, the shield series physically personifies itself and tempts him to give in to his inner anger and pain. Naofumi would have assuredly given into these temptations had it not been for his loyal family – Raphtalia, Filo, and Melty.
It isn’t long before the Queen shows up to surround the church – but it isn’t the queen that does the pope in. Naofumi uses a skill called “blood sacrifice” which, without fail, fells his opponent, at the supposed cost of his own life. While he does end up surviving, it is not without great magical healing ability and sufficient time.
But that’s not what we’re here for is it? What we want is some classic vindication. That’s right – it’s time for the bastard king and malty to answer for their evil atrocities.
The queen puts them both on trial and argues for a slave crest for both of them, especially malty who is an insane pathological liar, who is as twisted and demented as they come. She ends up admitting everything through the use of the slave crest, including the false charges pressed against Naofumi, which causes even Motoyasu, once again, the greatest tool who has ever lived, to turn his back on her. While it could be said the king is not quite as twisted as Malty is, I’d argue he’s close – he previously expressed he was eager to torture and kill Naofumi’s comrades in order to get to him. I don’t give a shit if you had a falling out with a previous shield hero – if you’re going to resort to torturing the innocent, you can shove your moral high ground straight up your ass. I was very eager to see them both eat a serving of humble pie and come crashing down into the center of the earth in the dirt where they belong. After a gratifying scene of watching Malty get cut down to size psychologically in front of the entire kingdom, it’s time for them to be put to death (when you consider all the innocent people they have directly and indirectly killed, I think they deserve worse).
So now heads roll – or rather, they were supposed to. Naofumi does the right thing and calls to have them spared, instead having them carry humiliating names for the rest of their life and being stripped of their royalty. The reason he did this was not for the bastard king and his wretched daughter – it was for the queen, who couldn’t bear to do this emotionally. She understood that they needed to, no, they deserved to die for what evil they have wrought – but they’re still her husband and daughter at the end of the day. She put her duty above her feelings, something which is expected of a leader but makes the deed no easier to carry out in practice. No matter who you are, it’s not an easy position to be in. Naofumi, being the hero we all know he is, stepped in to instead make them live with their debauchery in order to spare the queen’s feelings. Ultimately, I think this is worse for both of them anyway, so I’m ok with it.
Malty was at her absolute lowest point here – like a twisted, wretched existence of a human being, she was able to beg for her life from the very person she had tried to discredit and kill so many times before without even being cognizant that she was doing so. Like a detached AI that lacks all self-awareness and introspection, like a dried husk that can’t even fully grasp the situation it’s in, showing that she is so very, very far gone from being what is expected of a human being, save a decent one. This revelation made this moment by far and by large the most disturbing scene I have seen in anime in quite some time – like I was truly able to peer into the abyss and what I discovered had changed me. The darkness stretches deep.
The best part of all of it – Naofumi walks out a damned hero. Finally, with the admiration he deserves from everyone – not just the select few people who have observed his deeds, everyone. He is saluted on his way out, given the respect of the fellow heroes, the utmost admiration of the queen, the admiration of Melty for sparing her family, and the admiration of the kingdom for being the judicious and superhuman hero we know him to be. It made me smile to see the guards from the second wave proudly salute him. Rest up Naofumi. To quote the man himself: You once exited here with nothing, and even though you’ve gotten some of it back, what you have now is even better.
