Pumpkin Scissors – 08

Summary:
The Pumpkin Scissors group is driving through a snowy mountain range when they start getting shot at by men on snowboards. One bullet blows out their front left tire and sends the truck sliding towards the edge of a cliff. At first they don’t fall over the edge and get instead surrounded by the enemy, but then Oland leans a little and the truck tumbles over. Some 29 hours ago, Hunks had sent them on a mission to the town of Essan to deliver a suitcase in 48 hours time. However, Hunks had warned them of bandits along the path and that’s exactly who attacked them now. Everyone in the group makes it out of the wreckage unharmed except for Machs, who has to be carried by Oland. While they continues to make their way towards Essan, the bandits are meanwhile looting the truck and realizing that Alice’s group must be carrying something important if they left behind all that food.
With 15 hours to go, Alice and company have found a cabin to protect them from the snowstorm outside. They want to light a fire, but they can’t because it would alert their enemy to their location. Oreld calculates that they need four more hours to walk the remaining distance to Essan, and Alice thinks that they can do it the next morning after the storm is over. The concern is still the bandits and Machs blames himself for everything that’s happened because he was the one who was driving. Emptying their pockets for food, the four of them realize that don’t have much. Alice gets angry because the stuff Oreld was carrying was stolen military surplus stuff, but Oland makes her realize that they have to do what they can to make sure that they don’t die here for the sake of the people who are waiting for them.
As night approaches, the temperature goes down and Machs’ condition worsens because of a fever. Oreld and Oland convince Alice that they have to light a fire, but it’s not as warm as they would like. Oreld suggests to Oland that they can use alcohol to warm themselves up, but that’s not an option because they fear Alice’s reaction. The other method Oreld has in mind is for them to cuddle up and sleep together, but this suggestion gets Oland slapped by Alice because of how he asks her to do it. They end up sleeping back to back and are able to get some rest until they have about four hours remaining on the clock. Alice sees that they have been surrounded on the outside, but she’s not about to let Oland make a stand while the rest of them escape. With Machs feeling better and Oreld plotting a way for them to get out, the group enacts a plan where they let the fire burn out and wait upstairs.
One of the bandits approaches the house and kicks down the front door, but it’s been booby trapped with a grenade. The subsequent explosion kills him and allows the Pumpkin Scissors group to escape through the top floor window riding on a rolled-up blanket as a sled. The bandits soon catch up on their snowboards and start shooting. Oreld tries to dodge them, but the four end up getting launched into the air and off their makeshift sled. There is a bridge over a ravine nearby and Alice personally wants to make a stand so that the rest of them can get the suitcase over to the other side. Oland, however, decides that he should do it instead and so the other two drag off Alice. Activating his blue lamp, Oland faces the oncoming bandits with his gun and fires three shots, but he doesn’t hit any of the enemy. Instead, he started an avalanche further up the mountain.
With the avalanche coming, Oland reveals to the bandits that the sick people of Essan are waiting for the serum that they’re carrying. Although the other bandits go running off, Oland and the bandit leader stand in place as the avalanche envelopes them. With white snow flying everywhere, the bandit leader tells them to deliver that serum properly because his people are all from that village. Alice, Oreld, and Machs had crossed over to the other side of the bridge and weren’t affected by the avalanche, but they are now concerned that Oland is dead. Somehow, however, he is hanging onto the broken bridge on their side of the ravine. They pull him back up and eventually make their way to the town of Essan together.

Preview

Well this was another episode that showed Oland can live through pretty much anything – in this case an avalanche. I guess the twist in this episode’s story is that the bandits were actually from Essan. My main problem with this show continues to be that it’s not really going anywhere and that all this war relief is just turning out to be a bunch of one-shot episodes. And so, for the third week in a row, I’m wishing that they give us some to-be-continued style episodes that are part of a larger story arc. I’ve read a bit of the manga and taken some peeks ahead, so I know that such an arc exists. I’m just still waiting for it to happen.