I think you’re safe if the crowd carnage panel on page 20 and 25 didn’t bother you as much as the leech transformation. The bloody fight against the leech plays a part throughout the entire arc, so there’s more of the former ahead.
This was one of my favorite chapters in the entire series. Nice touch of body horror, gorgeous fight scenes, good pacing.
Rereading this reminded me of a question: How much of what happened here was Engendil’s intention? In the beginning, he tells the perv that he’s turning him into slime so that he can escape through the window. Then, when the perv stretches the circle of his hand outside the magic barrier, the circle activates and its effect somehow reacts with this leech thing that was part of the castle defenses and creates mega leech. Engendil acts surprised and claims he didn’t know this would happen. Do we believe him? I don’t see how the initial plan would have benefitted him much, because it allowed only the perv to escape.
Went to a manga shop in France and saw some interesting books.
A グリモワール edition, same as the normal manga but inside a pretty book (and it was thick so I assume it’s more than one volume, maybe 3 or 4):
I mean if he wanted him to escape could’t he just have like melted the wall instead or something? Or was there some sort of magic defense that I didn’t understand?
I thought that was a neat way to show him “turning to the dark side”, if we assume that this is just some rain repellent function like the one Qifrey uses.
If I understand correctly, there are safety measures in place that prevent magic from working within the castle’s bounds. That’s why he has him stretch his hand outside the window.
Maybe something like: “You slip out, then do some magic from the outside (and you better do help me if you want to be turned back)”. Assuming the original intended effect was more like turning him into a rubber man who can slip through narrow cracks and such.
I like this chapter but it’s weird that it doesn’t really build on anything that’s been setup for the least couple of volumes.
Amusingly one of the only directly relevant chapters is the one with a warning that it could be skipped (the one that dealt with abuse) since that’s where the perv was introduced!
The way I understood it is that he knew that mixing blood and magic (by having the 蛭 interact with the perv’s magic-ladden body) would trigger a big reaction that would let him escape. He may not have expected that it would go that far however, so he laments the 騒ぎ but in the end he’s ok with it if it means that he gets to escape.
I definitely don’t think he ever believed in the plan of just making the perv into Jello. That was just to convince him to play along.
By the way, isn’t there a glaring plot hole here? The King tries to convince Beldarut to let him learn magic in exchange for his knowledge of medicine, but Beldarut refuses because it’s against the rules. But also Engendil, an extremely powerful and extremely corrupt mage is rotting in the king’s prison. Wouldn’t it have been trivial for the king to strike a deal with him at any moment?
I don’t think he has. If he did, why risk anything on such a wildcard plan?
But yes, one would expect they would try to keep corrupt mages as far away from the king’s influence as possible. Which would also include the perv who has proven that he is willing to “sell out” magic.
Yeah that’s the big flaw in the world-building IMO. It’s not realistic that the secret could be kept so tightly when there are so many interactions between the mages and the “normal people”, including some very destitute mages and some incredibly powerful non-mages.
If the king wanted to know, realistically he would know.
And wouldn’t the tsubaari want to spread the magic far and wide too? Although they may be elitists too, so maybe they prefer to keep the magic for themselves.
That’s kind of been a plot hole waiting to be filled in from the start. Why would they just give Koko (one random kid a single member of the organization met at a street faire), the magic picture book, but seemingly with no plan to actually teach her? And why no-one else?
