Malty didn’t die this early in the Light Novel so I was wondering how she could return in Season 5. If the anime tries to realign itself the with LN, Malty would have to link up with Takt so it seems logical that he’s the one most likely revive her. But the anime could also do its own thing such as have her body just regenerate itself, introduce the Third Army sooner, or not have Malty appear at all.
Not really a Malty specific post but I don’t want to post on Shieldbro at this time.
Chapter 75
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“You were a virgin? Did you think I wasn’t aware? You already lost your virginity.”
“There are no problems then…… Just get Melty pregnant with Iwatani-sama’s child.”
“All the chances of having an incompetent daughter and husband are removed. It is good that Iwatani-sama is still single. You will win over an ally. If you domesticate her, then the next queen will be in the palm of your hands.”
“Let’s see. The fact that you are not a virgin is also undisputed.”
Chapter 76
“……Wasn’t our parent and child relationship cut a little while ago? I literally disowned you. Go somewhere else……No, pay for your crimes in the country.”
“That is the price demanded from you from the guild. Trying to steal it from the treasury without permission……You think I wouldn’t notice? you will serve this country as a slave from now on……”
“Iwatani-sama, what kind of punishment do you want to give these two? You have the right to choose.”
“Really…… you will be satisfied with just killing?”
“Assuming you kill them. They would be released from whatever torment or fun you would have with them, for just a moment’s of satisfaction.”
“Killing them is too half-hearted. If a dog is useful, you stroke it affectionately, keeping them tamed till death.”
“Please think of this as my last feelings for them.”
“Yes, of course…… Then what punishment would you like to start with?”
Chapter 77
“Then that will be her adventurer name from now on. Other than those two names, you may not use anything else.”
“Prostrate yourselves.”
“Shut them up!”
“Maybe if you step on their heads?”
“Oh my, this amount of torture should be about enough don’t you think?”
“Pick them up and throw them out of the throne room.”
“Moving on, in order to request the co-operation of Iwatani-sama I gave them this punishment.”
Chapter 80
“Kitamura-sama, do not get Bitch’s name wrong.”
“As a princess her name is Bitch, and as an adventurer she is known as Whore.”
“Yes, that’s correct. But that was her previous name, now she is Bitch.”
“What is a mere adventurer saying? You have no authority here.”
“Kitamura-sama…… If you do not address her correctly, for every time that you call her incorrectly I will have to add another burden for her to shoulder.”
“There were many reasons to change her name. First of all, she falsely accused Iwatani-sama of rape, and then pettily took advantage of her younger sister life during the crisis, there are various other reasons but those are the main reasons. This is already a rather weak punishment.”
“I believe you would want to thank Iwatani-sama for this lenient punishment.”
“Now then, Kitamura-sama…… Please use her correct name. Keep in mind that every time the wrong name is used, her debt to the country will increase.”
“Bitch. I’ll be adding to your punishment seeing as the change of your name was not completed thoroughly, and that you have once again brought trouble to Iwatani-sama.”
“Aren’t you just a plain adventurer? No wait worse, you’re a criminal. This is punishment for the failed assassination attempt of giving poison to Iwatani-sama.”
“This is a high-class slave crest. It is not usually visible until certain conditions are met, and when it appears, punishment is dealt.”
“The condition is attacking Iwatani-sama. Whether by direct attack with magic or indirect attack with poison, nothing is allowed!”
Chapter 251
“Which, did you seriously believe such an excuse would pass?”
“I’ll have you become the bride of the king of a certain country.”
“The place you’re going… is Faubley.”
“You’ve been bad. I told you before you set out for Cal Mira, didn’t I? If you continue to perpetuate intolerable acts, I would marry you off for the sake of peace. I told you that if you didn’t want that, you would have to work with the Heroes for world peace. If you did that, I wouldn’t have gone this far.”
“They said they would forgive us for monopolizing the Four Hero summon, so there’s no helping it.”
“The current King of Faubley is a man who drowns himself in carnal pleasures. When he looks at women, he sees… and I’m quoting here… ‘simple toys of pleasure.’”
“He cares not for appearance and takes on beauties and uglies. Everyone. When I was younger, I dreaded the day my parents would try to marry me off there.”
“Rejoice, Witch. It seems the other party has been waiting months for your arrival. If you go, it seems that they’ll turn a blind eye to our crimes.”
“Ah, Witch. It seems you’re going to be proudly welcomed as the 10000th toy.”
“When you Heroes were off on Cal Mira island, this is the item we presented to the king to stall for time. A life sized Witch Doll.”
“Next is the item that we retrieved from a compost heap in Faubley, two days later.”
“Those holes were made for the exact reason Iwatani-sama is imagining, you know.”
“The King of Faubley’s motto is ‘Toys that have gone through enough pain that they wished they were dead feel much better’. This is a good representation of that.”
“For girls of good birth that have caused problems, Faubley is the answer. Upon having such a sentence, most commit suicide on the spot. It’s that famous of an execution method in this world.”
“It seems that his favorites are kept alive for as long as three months through magic, Yggdrasil medicine, and other things. Apparently, he wouldn’t permit them to die…”
“It seems the other party is very pleased with you, Witch. He plans to use you as his toy every night. My heart aches as I wonder what will happen to you.”
“Now, how many days will you last?”
Chapter 252
“They’ll back us up with medical facilities and military power if Witch agrees to attend to their king.”
“In reality, it’s a crueler sentence than death. The woman who lived her life by bewitching men will die by a man’s hand.”
“Even Witch should be able to tell whether or not her words will get through. Right? When she studied abroad, she was chosen by him after a single glance, and she almost fainted. Perhaps this matter has been decided since that point in time.”
“Let’s see… It is a matter that strains my heart as well. But even if you claim to be brainwashed, society won’t forgive you so easily… Alright. Then how about I entrust your fate to the heroes?”
“If there’s a single hero here who wishes to take Witch under their wing, then I’ll defer my decision to Faubley.”
“And that’s the result. What should we do for Witch’s trial?”
“Then we’ll reset Witch’s level to 1 and ship her to Faubley… I’m a little worried with just the castle’s soldiers, so could Iwatani-sama personally escort her?”
The WN reveal at least explains why Malty never changes or does anything genuinely good. If she was literally created from an evil goddess, then her behaviour makes sense. But it also weakens her moral responsibility. If she was born with an overwhelming predisposition towards evil, even Naofumi speculates it is an “order engraved on her heart” then Medea deserves much of the moral blame. The WN doesn’t explore this in much detail, probably because it would undermine all the escalating punishments the story presents as completely deserved.
The LN then removes Medea and the soul fragment explanation, but otherwise leaves Malty unchanged. That makes every evil act fully her own choice, which makes the narrative’s treatment of her easier to justify but also makes her character feel flatter and poorly written, because there is now even less explanation for why she acts evil even when there’s no logical reason. An example is she runs off with Ren who would have protected her and indefinitely halted the engagement to the Pig King. Only she then betrays him seemingly for her own amusement but is a strategic mistake.
Assuming I can’t make any improvements to Malty’s character, I think the WN version is more interesting, but morally inconsistent. The LN version is cleaner because she has free will, but less psychologically convincing.
The Pig King could have been a more interesting antagonist if he had better writing with a personality and a backstory. Aneko really should have left out the whole industrial scale rape and murder the Pig King commits. I doubt he will show up in the anime other than a passing mention because he was barely a character.
Even in an old RTS game like Stronghold, a similar character was much better written.
“The Pig is a malformed brute, featuring an unnaturally swollen, pink face that closely resembles that of a hog. Having spent most of his life ransacking villages after one another, the Pig wears crude, hardened leather. His shoulderpads are outfitted with spikes, granting a gruesome appearance to his enemies.
Lacking any concept of etiquette, the Pig is usually seen picking his nose or scratching his crotch in plain view of the public. The brute is seldom seen without a cooked animal carcass of some description in one grubby hand, and during negotiations he takes delight in ripping off bits of its flesh with his free hand to cram into his mouth.
The Pig rarely speaks unless he is barking an order, so he may appear to onlookers as less than bright. However, underestimating him on the battlefield is likely to prove fatal.”
The LN has been on hiatus a very long time and the last few volumes (17 onwards) appeared to took the story on another long sidequest and it just fizzled out after they were transported back in time on another arc that didn’t even add much to the story. I don’t know if they felt writer’s burnout if they feel like they painted themself into a corner and couldn’t get back into it when there’s another dozen volumes to go. The closest analogy I have is there’s been many games I’ve played like Assassin’s Creed, Skyrim, and Elden Ring where I got into the late mid game and got bored of doing the same thing and never came back to complete it.
Maybe it’s a good thing for Malty if it never gets finished or they continue writing the adventures of the spear hero and call it a day.
In any case, it’s going to be hard to pick up the pen again after being away from it for 7 years.
The original web novel was poorly written but it at least had a more focused plot and would have been better if they just made refinements to that instead of the unnecessary padding we got in the LN.
The main antagonistic force of the Self Proclaimed Gods surprisingly has little information about them other than they are responsible for the waves and consume worlds for their energy and their own entertainment. The ability to open up multidimensional portals between worlds and the knowledge of being able to reincarnate individuals from other universes would make them one of the most advanced civilisations in all fiction.
I think Aneko should have paced the story better to focus more on the waves and the main antagonists rather than the episodic plot arcs that caused the story to stall indefinitely.
A Melromarc soldier as the pawn
Melty as the knight (she’s on a filolial)
Pope as the bishop
Malty as the rook
Mirellia as the queen
Aultrcray as the king
This is a school prize book from late Victorian times that, as the lovely handwritten message shows, were commonly awarded to diligent students.
The school would order the books in from a publisher’s catalogue and were designed to look both appealing and feel valuable in the hands of the typically working-class boys and girls who received them.
The intro made it look like she’d be a cool villain again but all we got was her dying pathetically to Motoyasu which didn’t even happen in the LN. It was huge disappointment.
I truly don’t even know if she’ll come back in season 5 or in what role. Maybe they’ll say her only purpose was to cause problems in the world as if she’s more like an entity than a human being. It’s like those Demons from Frieren that are called evil because of the harm they do but they lack the moral capacity to be good.