I was expecting the team comp to be Priestess, Wizard Boy, and a punch of other low ranked adventurers, what with Priestess needing to mentor someone and all, but it turns out that the team is just the same one we always have but with Wizard Boy added in. That seems a bit counterintuitive to me. The whole reason Priestess is encourage to team up with rookies is because the guild apparently thinks she’s being carried. I imagine the guild will assume the same thing if the team remains largely the same. That said, this party is what Priestess is used to and I understand everyone wanting to be there out of concern for their friend. On the flipside, we get to see Priestess get embarrassed as her friends happily follow her lead, with High Elf Archer (Nao Toyama) and Lizard Priest (Tomokazu Sugita) being particularly gleeful. That’s cute.
For a while, Priestess is doing a good job. She gathers information for the team and utilizes a variety of strategies that she’s presumably learned from Goblin Slayer to good effect. It’s only when things get too overwhelming that the leadership passes back over to Goblin Slayer. I really wanted Priestess to do well and get a rank promotion, because she honestly deserves it, but it’s not too surprising that she doesn’t achieve that in this episode. The show is obviously going to drag this out for longer than two episodes and it would be a bit of a stretch if Priestess could perfectly handle a worst case scenario on her first adventure as the party leader.
Obviously, the quest goes south entirely because of Wizard Boy, the least experienced and most impulsive member of the party. Earlier in the episode, the gang learns that another party had previously taken the quest so one of the objectives is finding any survivors. That sort of justifies Wizard Boy’s impatience and foolishness though I’d argue that with or without that, he’d act that way regardless. To the kid’s credit, he does manage to find the sole survivor of the other party (and this is GOBLIN SLAYER so of course, it’s a girl) though he neglects to check his surroundings and gets surrounded by a goblin horde led by a troll. If it wasn’t for Priestess and the others, he’d be dead. I’m kind of shocked that he gets out of the pinch unscathed, if only because that’d be in line with this show’s M.O., but regardless, he learns his lesson the hard way.
Random aside but the ensuing fight scene with the goblins and the troll does address Goblin Slayer’s interest in ice cream. That was a throwaway, albeit cute, moment in Season 1 and it kind of went nowhere afterwards. Evidently, Goblin Slayer has been researching it and he’s managed to find a way to incorporate the principles of its recipe into slaying goblins. I still want him to make some darn ice cream but points to him for being so creative.
So yeah, this show confirms that Wizard Boy is the younger brother of Wizard. Apparently, Wizard’s peers have made fun of her dying to goblins on her first and only quest and her younger brother wants to kill goblins to prove that goblins are easy and that his sister died due to bad luck and not in a legitimate defeat. As predictable as this reveal is, it is nice to see Wizard’s death revisited and her character expanded on. I’m curious if the details on her death will be part of Wizard Boy’s rude awakening. Like, not only does the boy need to understand that goblins are a legitimate threat, he also needs to come to terms with the fact that his sister died because the goblins did indeed outsmart her and she made the same mistake he’s making in the present.
Priestess’s reaction goes about as you’d expect; I don’t think she ever expected her past to creep up on her like this. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens when Wizard Boy realizes who she is, assuming that he does. I’m curious if Goblin Slayer has also connected the dots. He was there when Wizard died. In fact, he’s the one who put her out of her own misery, per her request. Knowing him, he probably figured it out. Regardless if he has or not, Wizard Boy talking about his older sister elicits a very strong reaction from Goblin Slayer, so much so that the latter has to leave the tavern and vomit in an alley. Considering Goblin Slayer’s past, it’s understandable that Wizard Boy’s would affect him so deeply. Props to Spearman (Yoshitsugu Masuoka) by the way for asking Goblin Slayer what’s wrong. Dude could tell from the latter’s body language and he immediately drops his one-sided rivalry towards him to check if he’s okay.
It’s hard to tell what fate lies ahead for Wizard Boy. On one hand, killing him off would be a depressing end to this apparent loose end in the plot and it would be a devasting blow for Priestess if she fails to save someone related to one of her original teammates. Keeping Wizard Boy alive would also be a good way for Priestess to rank up. That said, Wizard Boy is an idiot, so much so that it’s easy to think that he might get the axe.
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