Rokka no Yuusha Episode 7: The Reasons of the Two

“When I was a kid, a single Fiend came to our village.”

Impression

Both Fremy and Adlet revealed sad pasts this episode, but I thought Adlet’s was a lot more interesting. It wasn’t surprising at all to hear that his best friend and sister were now dead, nor that it was a Fiend who did it – the circumstances, however, had a lot more to them than what I expected. In fact, it’s ambiguous as to exactly how that village met its demise – we only know that it’s now in ruins, from what Adlet saw when he returned a few years later. As far as I could tell, that single Fiend really was gone by morning, and I think it was implied that the villagers got into a massive argument over whether or not to submit to the Demon God. Adlet says he escaped, but from what? Did his best friend and sister actually get their hearts ripped out by villagers who’d decided to defect? What was that Fiend even trying to accomplish by getting into contact with humans? I have a feeling it might just be a closer food source for them, but if it’s the same Fiend who came up with the bright idea of creating Fremy, then the ulterior motive must be more complex than that. It didn’t lift a finger, and got the village to fight themselves to the death. I was surprised by how well it could even talk – hell, that it even talked at all. It’s clearly the same Fiend as the one with the bunny ears in the OP, which gave me a crazy thought for a split-second that it’s Nashetania in Fiend form, but… that’s crazy outrageous… right? If or when Adlet clears the suspicion surrounding him and he enters the Land of Howling Demons with the other Braves, he’ll have a lot of emotional baggage awaiting him if he runs into the remnants of his former village.

I guess it’d be even worse for Fremy. I found her story more predictable but also more depressing – it wasn’t that her Fiend mother had a set plan to betray her somewhere down the line, it was that she pretended to love her until she had no more use, then cast her aside. Even when Adlet expresses sympathy after she reveals her past, she responds by asking why he even believed her – it’s clearly because of this that she now has so many trust issues. Her story made it sound like the Fiends have a surprisingly human-like civilization – they played together and kept pets and all that. I mean, apart from… you know, attacking and killing humans. I like how they’re setting up future conflicts, though – I imagined the actual quest to be a standard hack-and-slash through the Land of Howling Demons, but at this rate there’ll be an interesting story to tell, too. Fremy will run into her mother, Adlet will run into his former village and both of them will meet that Fiend leader again. And if the fake Brave ends up escaping, they’ll definitely try to stop the real six numerous times.

Adlet is now in battle with Hans at Woodfall Temple, and will probably escape before running into Chamot if the preview title hints at anything. As for the mystery, it’s been fairly stagnant this week – but I suspect Fremy’s 1% belief that Adlet’s not the fake has become 2% now, as she’s not only given him a way to contact her in secret but also lied to the others and said she’d tried to fight him. I guess she doesn’t think he’s lying. You know, it’d actually be a good thing if Adlet was the seventh as he currently is – because he’d be a good seventh, who faked it because he just wanted to kill the Demon God that badly. But it isn’t him, and the reality is that whoever it is, they’re out to do some harm. Nashetania didn’t do herself any favours this week by asking people to agree with her ideas without questioning them at all – and as Hans says when the screen just happens to cut to her, a woman’s words don’t match her thoughts.