Episode 5 – My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s

I’m so grateful for this episode. I’m not looking forward to the third week in a row and lamenting the series’ pacing issues. Luckily, I have no complaints on that front this week. Interestingly, though, it’s not so much that the pacing has slowed down, but that the story presented in this episode is built to better accommodate the pace.

In other words, what happens in this episode is the same as what happened in the previous episode. We went to no less than three new locations, were introduced to several new important characters, had three fight scenes, and learned a ton of backstory for both characters. The success of this story, however, is that all of these things are not treated equally. The focus is on the emotional beats of the episode rather than the combat, and focuses on three areas:

1. Amelia’s feelings for Akira grow and she feels inferior compared to him.
2. Night’s tragic backstory and why she wanted to die before being united with Akira.
3. Crowe’s tragic backstory and how it ties into Night’s story while also paralleling Amelia’s story.

Because of the way they are interconnected, they all have room to breathe, which has been lacking in this series so far. Along the way, we also get some interesting tidbits about the world and how this particular area works, which is always appreciated.

But when it comes to the series’ world-building and overarching plot, the most interesting additions come in the form of Aurum Tres. In Killika’s flashbacks, we are briefly introduced to him as the man who tricked her into summoning a monster she couldn’t defeat. Now we know who he is – he’s a demon under the Demon King.

What’s so interesting about him is that, so far, we don’t have a bad impression of the Demon King. We know that his counterpart, the human king, is corrupt, which in turn makes us wonder if the demons aren’t actually the bad guys they’re portrayed to be. The fact that the Demon King has been watching Akira’s journey through Night’s eyes and made it clear that he wants to meet Akira in person only adds to this assumption. However, Aurum, seemingly under the direct orders of the Demon King, not only attacked the city where Akira is currently located, but also kidnapped Amelia.

There are two ways to obtain this information. One is that the Demon King knows that Akira does not have the weapon he likes, so he chooses this time as the opportunity to get rid of Akira – removing the enemy city’s wildcard from the game. Another, perhaps more likely, explanation is that Akira and friends were in the wrong place at the wrong time – by the time Akira arrived, the Demon King was already attacking the city and was unwilling to put his plans on hold. He then believes that Akira and Night can successfully survive the chaos, so he orders Orum to capture and protect the weak Amelia – fearing what will happen between him and Akira if she becomes collateral damage in the city’s destruction.

Of course, there was nothing to say. Aurum understood the reason for the Demon King’s order. He probably thinks she should be a hostage against Akira or her people. Additionally, the Demon Lord may not realize (or remember) that Orum is responsible for much of the pain in Amelia’s life. But either way, once Akira wakes up, he’ll likely be on a path to war – and that’s not even taking into account what Amelia might be willing to do to get revenge.

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