Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darouka III – 09

「零落スティグマ」 (Sutiguma (Reiraku))
“Stigma (Downfall)”

One of my complaints from last week was that they weren’t hammering home just how hated Bell was. Well, I eat my words. Looks like they wanted to completely focus on Asterius and Wiene last episode, and shifted the aftermath of his actions to this episode.

The Most Hated Man in Orario

Unsurprisingly, with the primary perpetrators dead and Ikelos exiled, Bell becomes a lightning rod for all that hate and resentment – since from the public eye, his reckless actions endangered lives and destroyed parts of the town. As viewers, we know better. We’ve seen Bell’s reasons and motivations for doing all of this. But as far as the public is concerned, he foolishly insisted on his course of actions to seek out glory.

To them, his attempt to chase clout brought about reprehensible harm and ruin. To us, he sacrificed his reputation to do what he believed was right – saving the lives of Xenos. It sucks that no one else can see it. Not that they can be blamed. They can’t appreciate what he did for two reasons – they don’t know the whole truth and the standard of their times don’t allow them to view Xenos as deserving of rights or protections.

At present, he’s misunderstood. That said, many historical figures were reviled in their time. Yet eventually, history began to treat them more kindly. One day in the future, in a world where Xenos harmonically co-exist with humans, the truth will come out through their oral traditions. Seeing how reluctant they were to involve Bell again (especially as a decoy), and very hopeful that they could repay him one day, it’s clear just how deeply they appreciate and love him. I’m sure that Bell’s actions will be acknowledged as heroic within Orarian society, even if it doesn’t happen within this lifetime. Also, reminder that Hestia is bestia because she tried to deflect the hatred away from Bell to herself.

A Game of Chess

Although the Xenos were able to escape mostly unharmed, they’re not out of the woods and remain stuck between a rock and a hard place. They need to return to the dungeon, their natural habitat and their only safe haven. However, powerful Familias safeguard areas near their hiding place and have secured perimeters around established dungeon entrances.

Now that the Loki Familia are systematically combing through the ruins of Daedalus Street, Bell and the Xenos are on a timer. To make matters worse, for all the strategizing and plotting that Ouranos and Fels attempt to come up with using centuries of wisdom, unbeknown to them, Finn demonstrates why he’s commander of the Loki familia by seeing through it all – his fearsome intuition alerting him to the fact that Bell is going to serve as a decoy to draw away attention. Confrontation had already been inevitable. But now, it’s clear that there will be no plain sailing to a clean resolution.

Fortunately, there are actually quite a lot of X factor variable that come in the form of third parties. In addition to the Hermes Familia offering their assistance, Ryuu has agreed to join the fray on the condition that Hermes trades her information about Evilus. And Hephaistos hosts a meeting with Takemizuchi and Miach – where they discuss potential plans to help out the Xenos. Who knows. Maybe the biggest surprise of them all will be that Loki has been in on this plan too, and will sneakily encumber her own Familia for reasons pertaining to amusement. That’s my personal prediction for the curveball development.

Concluding Thoughts

We seamlessly transition from emotional rollercoaster to a tense game of chess with no room for mistakes, as Bell fights against time to prevent genocide. The stakes in Danmachi are arguably the highest they’ve been. Can the Hestia Familia and Xenos overcome this insane tribulation? Only time can tell. It won’t be easy. That’s certain. But this setup has all the makings of a true epic and I’m excited to see what kind of conclusion we’re headed towards.

Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading this post and see you all next week!