Following their failed attempt to defeat the Netherlord, the gang rushes back to their stratum, where any survivors are taking refuge in the Hunters Association building. While the situation does look dire visually, I don’t know if the tension is truly there. You hear about casualties but really, anyone remotely important like Munami (Yuko Okui) or May (Akane Yabushima) is still alive. In a lighthearted anime such as this, I suppose killing someone is a step too far. Still, not having any named character dead removes the plot of some suspense.
After providing the survivors with some much needed food, Boxxo meets up with the hunters who are protecting the Hunter Association building. Among the people at the frontline are Shirley (Nanako Mori) and Gocguy (Akinori Egoshi), two returning supporting characters who run other businesses in the village. How cheeky that Shirley, who runs a brothel, fights with a whip. While it is kind of cool to learn that these two fight, it is starting to get a little silly how almost every named adult in this show is apparently a Hunter or at least someone with some battle experience.
Lammis briefly joins the battle, actually managing to hit a lot of monsters in the process with her superstrength (she really has come a long way). Maybe this was already brought up before but this episode establishes that in the past, Lammis and Hulemy lost their families and home village to monsters. Understandably then, Lammis is adamant about protecting her present home. While Boxxo gets where Lammis is coming from, he worries that his friend is too exhausted to fight. Realizing his pre-installed phrases won’t cut it, Boxxo decides to try something new to get Lammis’s attention: talking to her with actual words…kind of.
So basically, Boxxo has figured out that he can form words by rearranging letters or sounds from any pre-installed phrase in his possession. There are of course some caveats to this as he’s limited to what’s available in his phrases and his enunciation is therefore far from perfect. It could be argued that Boxxo is cheating here but I’m glad to see him expand on his ability to speak. As fun as it is seeing people try to understand Boxxo based on a handful of phrases, that element has been going on for a little over a whole season now. It’s about time to have Boxxo communicate more efficiently. The garbled speech could get annoying but at least it allows for more organic conversations between Boxxo and someone else. Points to whoever is translating this season for Crunchyroll, by the way. They’re doing a good job conveying Boxxo’s limited Japanese in the English subtitles. It is a human localizing this season, right?
At night, the Bearcats arrive with some intel, leading Hulemy to deduce that the Hunters will likely have to deal with stronger fiends soon. Boxxo comes up with a plan on how to tackle the next wave of fiends. The problem is getting Lammis’ permission. When Lammis refuses to let him fight, Boxxo tries to convince Hulemy to convince her. There’s a really funny bit here where Hulemy declines to help Boxxo unless he can say her name, knowing full well that Boxxo lacks access to the letters he needs to do so, resulting in Boxxo to tease her back at the cost of making Lammis jealous. Once again, I wonder how this romantic tension will pan out.
Anyway, Boxxo’s brilliant(?) plan is using ice to stall or freeze the cold-blooded monsters to death. It sounds on paper and it is effective in practice but only for a little bit as the strategy costs Boxxo a ton of points. I can’t deny that Boxxo is getting ridiculously overpowered now. There doesn’t seem to be a limit on what he can’t do at this point. At least, the writing is smart enough to keep it in check in some way. I do like the joke at the end where Lammis scolds Boxxo for being reckless, as if she’s Boxxo’s wife or something. Considering how jealous she got earlier, maybe marriage isn’t actually that far off in the future.
The next morning, everyone discusses on what to do next. The most important thing on the to-do list is repairing a giant gap in the village’s fencing. A temporary solution is using nearby rubble to fill the gap but the gang only has a couple of Hunters capable of moving that stuff with magic. Boxxo could buy everyone time by transforming into his ice machine form, the largest form he has at his disposal but as Hulemy points out, Boxxo would need a ton of money/points to maintain that form. With the Hunters Association lacking enough funds, Suori (Shizuku Hoshinoya) steps in to help. Considering that Suori had try to buy Boxxo before, I suspect she has a catch with her offer. Like, she’ll supply the village with money for the plan to work but in return, she’d like to have Boxxo for an indefinite amount of time.
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