Helck – Episode 3

It’s just a flesh wound.

The third episode of Helck has aired. The group has set out to retake the castle and venture through the unforgiving lands. Will the journey prove difficult for them? Of course not, Helck is there. But there’s a twist at the end that takes things up a notch.

So let’s get into a recap and review.

Recap

The third episode opens with a look at the Human Realm, where Asta notes how wonderful their lands are compared to the wastelands of the Empire that are overflowing with toxins and force them to live in barriers. She can’t help but be a little envious but continues her mission of heading to the Royal Capital while thinking about how Vermilio has gone with Helck and the others to Castle Urum. She peps herself up and then moves on.

Meanwhile, the finalists are busy dealing with monsters along their journey with Helck learning that the monsters come from the toxins in the land. The newcomer of the group offers to take care of all the monsters at once, with “Anne” stating he must have a Second Class Ability that activates when a condition is met. He can generate a barrier when eats beans, but she then points out he’s eating chocolate. Of course, after all the hyping, they learn his ability would take thirty minutes to trigger and Anne blows her top and just cooks every monster with her flames (basically giving away her true identity to Hyura).

They arrive at a Rest Area, having traveled a full day and exhausted barring Helck. Vermilio notes that he seems to have infinite stamina and likely some kind of resistance to the toxins of the land. Anyway, Hyura spills the beans to Kenros about Anne being Vermilio, who denies it and tells them not to call her by that name in front of Helck (or any nicknames since she hates them due to Azudra).

Then we get Helck in an apron offering them his cooking and she doesn’t know how to deal with it. On the one hand, she hates eggplants and is wary about anything he cooks. On the other hand, he makes the food so good she likes it anyway while silently cursing his name.

Back with Azudra, sometime later he gets word that they have departed from the second Rest Area and are taking an underground route to get to the castle due to a storm above ground. However, the toxins make that place a hive of monsters that always come back quickly. Ista is worried about them, but Azudra mentions that they shouldn’t devote forces to backing her since she specializes in wide-area attacks and is stronger than all of them combined so she would be fine. That being said, he is quietly worried for her sake.

In the underground, Vermilio is growing increasingly frustrated by all of them when Hyura points out a super-strong monster called a New-World Lifeform. They appear in areas with high toxins and attack everything, including other monsters, to the point where Vermilio decides to drop her guise and simply cook it. But Helck steps up to deal with it since he’s familiar with them apparently, though he didn’t know they were spawned by the toxins.

The others believe that’s going to be tough even for him barehanded, speculating he’s going to use his sword. But no, he just kicks it to death with a single hit and only draws what has to be the shortest sword anyone has ever seen after the deed is done. Anne opts to burn the corpse to be safe while thinking that they had been doing their best to prevent those types of creatures from spreading out into the wider world, so how did he run across one?

They finally arrive at Urum Castle where a Spy greets them and shows them a hidden passage into the castle. Anne states that their goal is to kill the enemy leader to become the next Demon Lord, but if they get in over their head they should retreat. Hyura overthinks that Dorsche and Kenros are playing lazy to get her to drop her guard, while Kenros wants Helck to be the new Demon Lord and Dorsche just wants to make sure Lord Urum is avenged. That being said, she knows the only way she’s going to get the title is if she gets the boss before Helck.

We then get a flashback as Vermilio learns from Azudra that he was the one who told Helck about the tournament. She had an inkling he was responsible since he pitched the idea for the finals, where it is explained that they met when he had finished creating the contracts and went to visit Castle Thor. Helck was there and walked through all the traps he laid into place, which are actually what ended up hurting him because he ran into them carelessly. Anyway, despite that, Helck saved him after he fell into a pit of monsters and a sandstorm, so he’s willing to trust him.

Vermilio acknowledges privately that Helck is different from other humans that they’ve encountered but that’s not enough to trust him. She can’t help but feel that he’s lying about something and that frustrates her. That frustration boils over when their personalities and her temper give them away to the remaining winged soldiers.

Hyura tries to go after the boss while the others handle the minions, but she gets her arm cut off as a result.

Roll credits.

Review

So this episode gave us some insight into the differences between the Human Realm and Demon Realm, as well as a bit more on Helck from Vermilio’s perspective. As noted by the catgirl making her way further into their territory, the lands of the humans are clean and don’t require a lot of maintenance while their land is overflowing with toxins that necessitate barriers to keep them safe and constantly spawn monsters. They never run out of monsters because the land itself produces them.

These monsters are hostile to demons and humans alike, but New World Lifeforms are a different breed entirely. They attack everything and are strong enough that Vermilio would have opted to simply cook it herself rather than letting them try to deal with it before Helck stepped in. And then he one-shots it because, again, he’s Level 99 in a setting where most people under the Four Knights rarely break Level 50.

But that isn’t the problem. The problem is that he shouldn’t have run into one in the first place because the Demons have been working to keep the spread of the toxins in check. That means the Human Realm should be free of them, so that’s another mystery to add to the pile.

Of course, the mystery is easy to overlook given the comedy. You have only the girls taking this seriously, while the guys can’t seem to muster the energy. Kenros gives Helck a rundown on the monsters while being chased by them, Doru has a sweet tooth fetish and his ability takes forever to activate, and Helck is Helck.

Even Azudra doesn’t entirely skirt this, as we learn the reason he got injured was because he tripped his traps. He spotted Helck inside of the castle that got raided by his brother while he was at his weakest and then tried to trip him up, only to screw himself over. Then Helck basically fished him out of the monster pit he fell into.

That being said, all comedy makes for great whiplash when you see Hyura suddenly missing an arm faster than she can blink. The other winged soldiers can’t do jack to Kenros because they’re too slow and the walking tank seems fine, but the leader has disarmed the more serious fighter in the group. That elevates them to a higher threat level by far.

Anyway, where they go from this ending is a topic for a week from now. Look forward to it.

Changes

Yet another faithful adaptation, it covered Chapters 7-9 of the Manga.

• Second-Class Abilities are those that require a specific condition to be met before they can activate. First Class Abilities are those that don’t have a requirement, like our favorite hothead being able to torch everything.
• There’s an omake chapter where Vermilio hates that she had to approve of his cooking since it was so delicious she ate all of it. Then they play a game of cards to see who does the dishes and Helck wins, so she gets stuck doing the dishes. She doesn’t mind though.