Whelp, that didn’t take long for Rishe pretending to be a boy for knights training by Arnold. He made a surprise visit that morning to take a look at the trainees, and when he saw Rishe… Oh man that look on his face. It was a perfect combination of a puppy-eyed of disappointment, mild frustration and resignation of her sneaking off to her own things again without telling him about it. Honestly it was adorable.
It got even better when he made sure to catch her in a corner— though I am disappointed they cut out the part where they had been seen by Fritz, who misunderstood what was going on between them. That part was so funny. There were of course more dialogue that had been left out, but I expected as much because we’re on a serious time crunch here.
I thought it was hilariously rich of Rishe to try and keep up the act at the point, because really, what was the point? Why try to weasel out of it when she was already caught red-handed. Arnold didn’t shy away from the opportunity to tease her back how if she claimed she wasn’t his fiancee, then that means he wouldn’t have to abide to their conditions. He wasn’t going to let her mischief slide, making sure she apologized to him for it. Still, he can’t wrap his head around why she’s so interested in his knight’s training, so much that she wants to undergo it herself. Anyhow, he’s permitting her to continue, so as long as she rests (as he definitely noticed she has more tired since she had begun, which as noted during the town visit episode, was left out unfortunately), and makes sure no one finds out about her gender. With that, she’ll be allowed to continue.
But humorous start to the episode quickly turned sober when Michel finally announced that Arnold is the person he has been looking for to share his creation of “Gunpowder” (I don’t know it was translated as” Black Powder”, maybe it was too literal of translation, I don’t know– but in the book it’s referred to as “Gunpowder” which is a lot more specific and accurate to what it is, so we’re going to stick with that). Rishe knowing exactly this meant had a, “Ah shit..Here we go.” moment, and didn’t do a good job at hiding her anxiety about it. Unfortunately for her, Michel quickly realized she didn’t want them to meet, because he called her out on the fact she never asked him what the compound was, nor did he ever tell her what it can do. This of course raises a lot of questions as to why or how she knew about it wasn’t questioned further, but int he book he did mention how he’d like to study her, perhaps to find out if she’s a genius like him.
Fortunately we did get Michel’s backstory this week, and it explained why he is so enamoured by destructive findings, and why he believes that it’s his life purpose to create things that would bring misfortune and kill people. Before he and Rishe went separate ways in her third life, he told her: If the compound ends up in the right hands, it will destroy the world and enable them to create a new one. It’s a particularly harrowing thought, as Michel doesn’t particularly care about how many causalities will come from it. As he cares about is following what he believes to be the meaning of his existence: The Harbinger of Death, as his father called him when he lashed out at him for his mother dying after she had given birth to him.
Needless to say, the clock is ticking for Rishe to find a way to persuade Arnold form a coalition with Coyolles. Right now she has formed an alliance with Kyle, and once again joined hands with Theodore to tap into his spy network to keep tabs on both Arnold and Michel. She’s on a mission to make sure Arnold doesn’t get the chance to learn about this explosive compound Michel has developed. She fears if it falls into his hands, it will be much harder to prevent the war he will lead when he becomes Emperor. And since she got found out by Michel that she has no intentions of letting him meet Arnold, it only complicates things further.
Lastly, it was interesting to hear from Kyle’s perspective of Arnold’s notorious reputation on the battlefield. Arnold already has long bloodied his hands with beheading royals. Kyle however believes he did it for the right reasons, as he has prevented further discourse by purging the ones that would brew more trouble. So it doesn’t matter to him, he’ll do whatever it takes.
One thing I thought when watching this episode is that Arnold said in a previous episode that Rishe has the ability to make anyone feel valued. This may or may not be the solution to this dilemma with Michel and gunpowder.