Summary:

Having only been able to collect a small amount of money, Lawrence returns to the inn and finds Horo already asleep. Apologizing to her, he leaves the three Lumione he got on her bed and then walks out in defeat, but as he moves past the window outside, he gets hit in the back of the head by the same bag of money. It was thrown by Horo, and she calls him a fool and angrily yells for him to come back. After he does return, Horo gets frustrated by his attempt to apologize again and by how he was fine with her taking the money and using it for traveling expenses. She feels that he should be angry with her because this is all her fault, and it doesn’t help that he starts acting even more understanding. Horo gets to the point where she tries to throw a chair, but when she loses her balance, Lawrence catches her. This leads to her accusing him of being softhearted, and since she asks him why he’s that way, he eventually answers that it’s because she’s a special person. Happy to hear this, Horo hugs him and Lawrence hugs her back, however she then starts laughing at what they’re doing. She also suggests that being angry and yelling at each other sometimes solves problems more quickly, and Lawrence agrees.

As for Lawrence’s debt, Horo has come up with a risky plan to get rid of it, and the two go to talk with the head of the Remerio company about it. That plan involves using a resourceful person to smuggle gold, and the person Lawrence has in mind is Nora because of her need for money and her dissatisfaction with her current employer the church. He thinks that they can tempt her with the prospects of making money and of defying the church, and he is sure that there’s little chance that she’d betray them. The reason Lawrence is coming to the Remerio company instead of just pulling all this off himself is because of his debt, and so in exchange for them getting in on the deal, he wants them to temporarily suspend the debt collection and to invest some capital for smuggling. What finally convinces the head of the Remerio company to agree to do it is Horo pointing out how poorly his business has been faring recently. With that done, Horo and Lawrence’s next task is to convince Nora to take part in this. After finding her in front of the church, Lawrence proposes a dangerous job to her with the potential payment of twenty Lumione. Instead of immediately getting into the details of the job though, Lawrence outlines what she could do with that much money and points out how the church is treating her poorly.

Once he’s gotten Nora sufficiently motivated, Lawrence then presents the idea of smuggling gold in the bellies of her sheep between this city and the town of Ramtora. Nora takes a moment to think about all this and eventually agrees to do it, though she admits afterwards that it was specifically because of Lawrence. That night, Lawrence feels bad about what he considers to be conning Nora, and this just reinforces Horo’s argument that he’s hopelessly softhearted. She doesn’t see Nora as being as weak as Lawrence makes her out to be and compares Nora to an animal that’s only pretending to be a sheep. Lawrence, however, mostly just cares about a result where everyone can be happy.

 
 
 

As expected, Horo makes up with Lawrence and finds a way for him to get out of debt. What was a little surprising was the plan she came up with and how it involves Nora. It now makes sense why they spent all that time talking about gold back in episode eight, though I’m still not convinced that that was the most interesting way to introduce the subjects. Instead of just sitting around talking about it, a better way would be to show the concept in action (though that is admittedly hard with economic concepts). I think that statement applies to most of this episode too because even though the gold smuggling idea is very interesting at first glance, too much time is spent here setting it up. I’m curious to see if the pacing picks up any speed now that all this has been worked out – surely the smuggling won’t go off without a hitch. Maybe we’ll finally get to see Nora interact with some wolves…

28 Comments

  1. does hiding gold within the sheep remind anyone of the movie “BLood Diamond” =ita came out *a year ago?* and this guy tries to smuggle diamonds past the borders by sewing them into the sheep’s skin…..
    cant wait 4 subs

    kentaiyoshimi
  2. @John
    Lawrence knows it, so he persuades the very guy he actually owes the money to postpone the time limit and even get involveled in the smuggling(money to buy some golds in the other city), you see the picture where they shake hands up there.

    calde
  3. aye.. the people he’s in on the “Han Solo smuggles stuff in bowels of ship” scam with are the ones he owes money to. Anything is negotiable when profit is to be made 🙂

    I understand how some may find the pacing of the series slow… but personally I’m like the flow (it matches the medieval pace of the light novel). The real sadness here is making due with covering at most two novel volumes in the short season. There are seven novels out (rather like Suzumiya Haruhi only covered the initial part of that light novel series — though they gave them 24 episodes to do it in).

    Hopefully the light novel series and the adaptation to manga in progress will give us a lot of meat to chew on if one season of S&W is all we end up getting 🙁

    vexx
  4. the next episode is the last one,right?they are going to end this too soon…the story is progressing really slow,they would need at least 26 episodes to make it wrapped up good…
    well,I still like the series even though half of every episode is just gold gold GOLD! 😀

    StormFangs
  5. No… there’s nothing sure unless you’ve seen an announcement (which there hasn’t been).

    I’ve lost count of the series that “deserved” or “needed” second seasons to get too anticipatory about more S&W after the first season. IF they decide to do another season, I can only hope they give it 24 episodes so they can cover 3 or 4 more light novel volumes (or not snip out so much of a volume’s story in adaptation).

    vexx
  6. Guess the 13 episode count is a test to see how the series does. All goes well they can come back with a higher episode count and plenty of novel volumes to go with. Hopefully it goes well since this has been a nice series so far. No guarantees either way, but wouldn’t have a problem with a second season :).

    With only a couple episodes to go enough time to solve this issue. Hopefully get through the danger without serious difficultly. Then they can ride off into the sunset, with some of those peaches of course.

    FlareKnight
  7. hmmm looks like they made up and the relationship is improved vastly…gah the only reason im still watching is to see if:

    A) Lawrence gets Horo in bed 🙂
    B) Horo get Lawrence in bed 😀
    C) A nice make out scene from either(Horo or Lawrence) end 🙁

    Ryunatta
  8. lol @ Ryunatta.

    Yea, I have to say, it looks as if Horo is very interested in Lawrence. She throws him all kinds of signals, yet he fails to pick up on them. Or maybe he just wont act on them?

    burnttoast
  9. I swear, if they don’t kiss before this series ends, I will be very pissed! Horo is clearly in love with him and I think Lawrence clearly at least has strong feelings for her as well.

    If we can only get 13 episodes totally of this amazing show, at least let them hook up at the end!

    Taran
  10. Even if its anime-only… it *would* be nice to see them kiss before the series ends. It was almost a crime to give this story material only 13 episodes (especially with so many light novels already in print). This episode was beautiful from many angles .. but watching the verbal duel/flirt/dancing between Horo and Lawrence is just classic stuff.

    vexx
  11. Seeing as there are only 13 episodes, regardless of whether there will be a second season or not, the last episode will probably have some kind of ending or plot twist. Unfortunately the only things I can see comming are Lawrence betraying Horo or the company Horo and Lawerence are doing the gold smuggling for betraying them. Else some main character’s death. But the only case where the charcter development Isn’t scrapped is the company betraying them, so probably that one. Though honestly I hope they just leave us with a cliff hanger and a second season.

    Michale
  12. They HAVE to make further seasons (not only 2nd, but also 3rd 4th or maybe 5th) for this series.. the light novels are still waaaaay long to go.. X_X
    I’m pretty convinced that S&W gets a high rating there back home in Japan.. or maybe I’m wrong?

    raszcagal_jk
  13. Really all I can see for the end of the show is similar to what happened at the end of the last arc. Will find a way out of this situation and ride off to whatever trouble is out there. Would probably like to stay close to the novel so no problems if they do a second season.

    FlareKnight

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