The Pope of the Three Heroes church appears and, with a replica of the cardinal weapons, proclaims that he will kill the Four Heroes, overthrow the royal family and remake the kingdom into a theocracy in which he rules. Will Naofumi swallow his pride and work with the Three Heroes?
Tropes for this episode include:
- Good Weapon, Evil Weapon: The Pope's replica weapon is meant to evoke the idea of a holy artifact, being shining gold, and since the Church thinks the shield is the weapon of the Devil, he prefers to waste mana on a barrier spell rather than use its shield-form.
- Holy Hand Grenade: The Pope wields a replica of the four cardinal weapons. It is shown to be incredibly powerful, allowing the Pope to effortlessly block everything thrown at him and can use the same techniques as the heroes themselves. However, it is flawed, as each use of it take massive reserves of mana, draining swaths of his followers exponentially.
- Hypocrite:
- Motoyasu, after trying to kill Naofumi because he believed Malty’s claims that he killed Ren and Itsuki along with other false crimes while refusing to hear his side of the story, is willing to team up with Naofumi. While Naofumi is hesitant, Motoyasu plays the victim and goes on about how they are being unfairly persecuted, not even apologizing for doing just that to him only a few minutes ago.
- When Naofumi refuses to work with the Three Heroes, Motoyasu accuses him of doing a "lone wolf act", ignoring the fact that they pushed him away and have done nothing to earn his trust. Not only that, but they have been proven to be incompetent and make a poor team overall, so of course he would prefer working with his own party.
- Large Ham: Motoyasu ups the ham when he goes on the offensive, everyone else clearly seeing through the act.
- The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort: Unwilling to use the shield-mode for his replica weapon, the Pope uses a barrier spell instead, which is still effective enough to keep him invincible.
- Never My Fault:
- Itsuki confirms to Naofumi that he did in-fact not steal his reward money, something that he was the one accusing him of.
- When Naofumi points out how the three heroes are the reason why they are all in the situation to begin with, Motoyasu agrees with him, thinking he was only talking about Ren and Itsuki and deflecting when one of them tries to ring him in on it.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Naofumi tears into Motoyasu, Ren, and Itsuki for all their recklessness and stupidity; like how they have been acting selfishly while calling themselves heroes, have stupidly done whatever they wanted in the world under the idea it was a video game and leaving him to clean their messes, they refuse to work together on anything, and they constantly blame him for everything and try to take everything from him. He also manages to sneak in one for Malty by saying how she was blind to the church's scheme too due to being too busy with her own conspiracies and manipulations of Motoyasu.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Ren and Itsuki show up to help, the attempts on their life having failed and discovering the truth behind Melty's supposed kidnapping.
