A bit of backstory at the start which sort of rounds the plot out. Feel like most of it was pretty obvious, but they really spelled it out for people just in case they weren’t able to pick up on hair styles in shadowy back alleys. I am shocked by what happened at the end of the episode… If it wasn’t for the opening which has had the scene this whole time.

I can’t quite remember if the whole Hibiki thing was a thing in the WN or if that was added in the LN. I don’t quite remember it from the WN, but as 1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi noted, it’s been mentioned in the manga at least.

It does feel like the demons really had a ton of pieces to play for here. A potential hero party member, messing with Rotsgard, which I can’t remember if it was a trade center or education center or both for the humans, but I’m pretty sure it’s important. The Limia, king? was it? Empire princess, adventurer guild master (of course mentioned he helped the demons before so maybe not this one, or maybe they’d just consider it a necessary sacrifice), and those Lorel Union folks. And all they had to do was potentially make Makoto less favorable to them. Seems like it should be worth it. Especially since Rona just made an informal verbal agreement not to harm Makoto, it’s his fault for not getting things in writing, so he can’t be too mad, right?

Excited that it’s finally kicking off, one more week, and then another, and then maybe a few more… until the end.