Episode 10

*This article is about anime epiosde. For manga chapter, see Seriousness.*

## Chronology

**Seriousness** (本気, *Honki*, Funimation: **Serious**) is the 10th episode of *Plunderer* anime.

## Plot

Seeing Licht Bach wears his mask, Sonohara Mizuka says that she is happy as it means that he will finally kill her for her sake. Licht then tell Mizuka to start the game of "Startheft Bout" and wager their stars, which she accepted his challenge.

Both Barons agreed to wager their own stars. Once the game begins, Hina worries at Licht and wonders if he can win, as he has lower counts in comparison to Mizuka's count. Pele Poporo found something's odd about Licht and the Barons in general, for example like how Licht managed to almost defeat Jail Murdoch back in Hoemmh despite having inferior counts. Pele then ask Nana Bassler if she knew the truth behind the Barons, which she remains silent.

On the other side, Licht tried his best to reach Mizuka but he couldn't keep up with her speed due to her bullets keep following him. The bullets managed to hurt him and knocked him out to the building. While falls down, Licht saw the blood on his left hand. Once he stand up, Licht begins screaming which releases some kind of aura surrounding him. Hina noticed that Licht's count increasing while he screams, which the others is shocked as the count won't automatically increase without fulfill a person's desire. Nana then denied Lyne Mei's words and said it's possible for the Barons to increase their count whenever they like, which is the exact reason why they were referred as the "Legendary Red Baron".

Once Licht's count increased to 57000, Mizuka states that she is glad that Licht is finally willing to kill her, as shows with his killing intent. As she tries to attack, Mizuka realizes that Licht had disppeared which terrified her. She then tries to shoot him with her guns and uses her ability to make the bullets follows him. Mizuka says no matter how fast he moves, his "flashing strike" is useless against her as her bullets would keep following him to no end. However, Licht easily cut down all the bullets which caught her off-guard. Once Mizuka was shocked, Licht found his chance to attack and keep slashing her in his speed of flash from all distances to the point she couldn't counterattack. Soon, Nana calls everyone to leave behind Licht as soon as possible, while he standing at the top of the building and screams again. Nana explains that every Barons has the ability to increase their count by "exchanging" their personality to a person named "Schmelman", where they would no longer the same person as before and becomes more violent than before, in the worst scenario they may not even able to return to their normal selves again once they became "Schmelman".

Soon, Licht successfully defeated Mizuka while in his violent personality. After the defeat, Mizuka's count reduced from 32000 to 16000. Nana revealed that she has been in the "Schmelman" form these whole time, while blames "them" for turning both Licht and Mizuka into mindless monsters, which leads Hina and the others into confusion as they don't know who's Nana referring. When Mizuka awaken, she realizes that her whole hands covers in blood and began crying, as she's not the type of girl who enjoys violence like her "Schmelman" self does. Licht then grabbed Mizuka's neck and told her to continue their fight rather than screaming like a crybaby, which he soon threw her away for her "cowardly". As Licht is about to kill Mizuka, Hina went to stop him and begging him to return to his normal self. At first, Licht was going to kill Hina for stopping him but then Mizuka shoot him with her gun and told him that she was his opponent. Licht then said it's fine and he will grand her wish of wanting to die as he "promised" earlier.

While Licht walks around, Mizuka thought that she and the other Barons deserved to die and that they would sent into hell for the amount of warcrimes they committed in the past 300 years, most specificity their involvement during the Abandonment War. She then remembering her past and her time spends with Licht 300 years ago, this makes her realize that there's one last thing she haven't done yet. Before Mizuka could say her wish, Licht already standing in front of her and begin to kill her. Before he could do so, it was stopped by Jail who revealed to be still alive. Jail tells Licht that if he want to kill Mizuka, then he need to kill him first beforehand. Licht went on his way to kill Jail, while Mizuka begins to scream as she doesn't want to see anyone dies in front of her. Jail is somehow able to block Licht's attacks despite having lower counts, however, due to his injury received from Mizuka's gunshot earlier, Jail couldn't hold off any longer and ended up sightly knocked out by Licht. Knowing that Jail is injured, Licht decided to give his finishing blow.

When Licht tries to give Jail a finishing blow, Mizuka went to save him by blocking Licht's attack with her own body. Jail asked Mizuka why did she saved him, she explains that she doesn't want to see any more people dying and apologies him for injured him while she being crying, which Jail stated that's why she don't need to join part into the fight. When Licht tries to hit Jail, he blocks Licht's attack with a small piece of metal, he says that he had enough of this fight. Jail claims that current Licht doesn't have a conviction and it lacks the conviction he used to had during their fight on Hoemmh. He also claims a sword without conviction won't able to hurt him. Soon, Jail changed the form of the small metal to a iron pillar and throws at him, asking Licht if he really being serious or not, as he doesn't believe Licht is someone who would mindlessly kill someone who depressingly want to meet him. Licht, while still in his "Schmelman" form, he explains he had to kill anyone because he is fighting in a war. He believes that in a war, he must kill everyone in order to protect his friends and family, even if he personally doesn't want to do all those stuffs. Jail then claims that Licht is just being delusional and finding excuse to justify his own actions, although he say that if Licht is indeed serious then he will also fight him seriously with his full strength.

Soon, Jail revealed he have a second glove which contains 45000 count, and he created the iron golem with his second gloves. Jail stated this is his full strength and he should shows no mercy towards him. Licht managed to block the first few attacks of Jail's golem. However, Licht is completely no match against Jail and soon defeated by him with his conviction. After Licht has been defeated, Jail kicks off Licht's mask and wonder if his original personality returned or not, and Licht revealed that he regained his sanity and crying. Soon, Mizuka thanks Jail for protecting her but he shortly fainted afterward, while everyone celebrating at Licht regained his sanity.

Meanwhile, in a certain church, there's a man who is reading the story of *Tortoise and the Hare* to the children, where a hare tries to challenge tortoise in a race to see who can moves faster. During the middle part of the race, the tortoise meet a wizard who proclaimed that if he drink his blood, he would be able to win the hare easily with no problem. As the tortoise depressingly wanted to win against the hare, he decided to drink the wizard's blood which he ended up moving faster than the hare and killed him. The children were showed to be happy after hearing the story. Soon, a soldier from Althea Royal Guard arrived in the church to meet the man that reads the storybook. That soldier reports that not only the mission on capturing the Flash Baron was failed, Mizuka who were controlled by her other personality also regained her sanity as well, which he apologies that man for his mistake. That man claims that it's all fine and there's a lot of chances to capture Licht so he shouldn't worry at it, especially when that man himself is a "wizard". That man then orders the soldier to he wants him to bring the "tortoise" back for him as soon as possible. The man's name is revealed to be Schmelman, the Field Marshal.

## Differences in Adaptation

* When Licht activated Schmelman's bloodlust genes, Mizuka tries to fight back and shoots her bullets. In the manga, Mizkua didn't do anything throughout the fight as she was too scared at Licht's killing intent.
* In the manga, when Nana explains how the Red Baron's count works, she starts crying. In the anime, she didn't cry.
* Mizuka's flashback is different in anime and manga. In the manga, the flashback shown Mizuka reading books at a library while Licht brushes her hair. In the anime, the flashback shown Mizuka standing outside the school and waited for Licht.
* Mizuka's dialogue about she wants Licht to gently brush her hair for one last time was skipped.
* The anime didn't adapt Licht's brief flashback about the school when he explaining his reason for killing people.

## Characters

By order of appearance:

* Licht Bach
* Sonohara Mizuka
* Hina Farrow
* Lyne Mei
* Gespenst Zerlegen
* Nana Bassler
* Jail Murdoch
* Nikola

### New Characters

* Schmelman Bach (mentioned)
* Schmelman Bach (Clone)

## Trivia

* There's an animation error in this episode. When Hina tries to stop Licht from his berserk, his count was written "5700" instead of "57000".