Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV

Episode 6

Pity poor Lili. All she wants is to spend time with Bell, but all of these other people keep getting in her way with their (inferior) claims on him. And it's hard to fault Lili for feeling that many of them don't have quite the same right to Bell's time as she does; after all, after Hestia Lili was the first person to join Bell in his explorations. She even had his back when she wasn't supposed to, and while it's hard to deny that she has a crush on him, the more important piece of the puzzle is that she's his right hand in the party and his good friend. For a while it was just Bell and Lili, and while she's fond of most of the rest of the group, she'd be within her rights to miss the days when it was just the two of them against the Dungeon.

That makes their eventual escape from everyone else (and a very real escape from Aisha's predations) cathartic. It's Lili having Bell's back again, and that the two of them then sit out all night just talking is a soothing moment after the dangers they faced in the lower levels. They genuinely like each other and enjoy each other's company, and there's a sense that Bell is more relaxed around Lili, and oftentimes Welf, than almost anyone else. The difference in his body language when he's sitting casually with Lili as opposed to with people heaping praise on him, using him for shopping discounts, or wanting to regale him is huge, and even his teatime with Mikoto and Haruhime doesn't look as comfortable as when he's just hanging out with Lili.

This could be a more important bit of information than it seems, because plenty of people have designs on Bell, whether he knows it or not. In some ways Cassandra and Daphne using him to get a bargain is indicative of this in a lighter way, but the Denatus at the start of the episode really serves as our warning. When it comes time for the gods to decide on a new nickname for Bell, the first person to offer a suggestion is Freya, and her choice is something that translates to “Freya's Husband.” Setting aside the fact that this is rudely laying claim to another goddess' familia member (something Hestia does not miss), it's also suggestive of an unholy interest in Bell on Freya's part. Gods, we know, aren't supposed to have romantic entanglements with humans, and even if that hasn't been explicitly stated in the show, just look at virtually any Greek myth involving Zeus and a mortal woman, or Apollo's relationships with the mythological (as opposed to in-world) Daphne and Cassandra for why it's a spectacularly bad idea. Hestia may love Bell romantically, but she's not going to do anything to put him in harm's way. Can we say the same of Freya, a goddess who very publicly makes a play for him. Was Loki's counter-suggestion meant to defuse the Freya/Hestia situation? It seems possible, but as a trickster god, she could just as easily be throwing fat on the fire to make it burn hotter. In any event, this Denatus may be Freya's first public declaration, but it's hardly her very first attempt to nab Bell's attention. She's definitely bears keeping an eye on.

But it would be easy to forget that in light of what's going on down in the Dungeon town. We still don't know much of Ryu's past, but that she's left The Benevolent Mistress only to murder a merchant down there is both puzzling and alarming. Has Ryu gone mad? Or has she learned something that has enraged her to the point where she can't just sit back and serve drinks anymore? More importantly, will Bell turn against her along with everyone else? There's almost certainly a lot more to the story than we're getting, and finding out the truth of the elf known as Gale Wind is both a tantalizing story hook and a dangerous proposition just waiting to let us in on some terrible secrets.

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Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV is currently streaming on HIDIVE.