Arifureta - Episode 02

"Pandora's Box" (パンドラの箱) is the 2nd episode for Season One of the Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest anime adaptation. It aired in Japan on July 15, 2019.

It was pre-screened along with Epidsode 1 during the "Arifureta: Strongest Week Event" on July 7, 2019.

Synopsis
Hajime's classmates struggle with the aftermath of Hajime's fall. Hajime descends even further into the Labyrinth, where he makes a fateful encounter.

Summary
Not knowing that he is on the 1st floor of the Bottom of the Abyss, Hajime contemplates that since he can't find the way up, he has to continue going down the labyrinth, and wonders on which floor he is currently at. He had already accumulated all the necessary resources for the upcoming journey thanks to his increased stats and skills by consuming Monster meat. On the 2nd floor, in the darkness Hajime comes across a lizard-like monster with petrification eyes, and it manages to petrify Hajime's left stump a bit, but thanks to his stock of Holy Water, he was able to counter it and then using a flash-bang to blind the monster, Hajime kills the monster. Continuing on, Hajime is faced with a variety on monsters on various floors of the Bottom of the Abyss, until he reaches the 50th floor. He still wonders how long the labyrinth is, and considers that the doors in front of him on the 50th floor might give him some answers. Though, seeing the doors Hajime makes its comparison to "Pandora's Box", and wondered what hope lies beyond the doors. He then recalls his vow of returning back home alive in any possible, and if anything gets in his way as an enemy, he would kill them.

When Hajime reaches the doors, he finds odd inscriptions on the door, which he haven't read or seen before from all his study in the Kingdom's library. He considers that it might be something a lot older, and decides to Transmute the door to open his path. But when he tries to do so, the door counter-reacts, which forces Hajime to jump back. Suddenly, the two giant statue beside the door come alive to reveal cyclops-like monsters, who immediately start attacking. Hajime isn't surprised by the cliche events that transpired, and immediately kills the first cyclops down by shooting at its eye, in order to avoid a 2 vs 1 situation. Hajime attacks the second cyclops, but it uses defensive magic to block the incoming attacks. Hajime is a bit irritated about the defensive magic, but continues his focus attacks on the cyclops eye, which the monster keeps blocking using its arms and magic and tries to counter back, but its arm gets injured in the process. Hajime tries to taunts the cyclops to attack him, but the monster doesn't move away from the door, as if guarding something important. Hajime continues his assault on the cyclops, which forces it to go in defense. Hajime finally manages to break through the defensive magic, which makes the cyclops counter in as a last ditch effort, but he had already moved away from the location and then kills the cyclops by shooting its eye.

While going through the corpse of the cyclops, Hajime finds two Mana stones inside their body, and guesses that the monsters themselves were probably the key to the door. He uses the Mana stones on the door which unlocks it. Inside Hajime finds a strange spinning golden cube floating in the air. When he enters, the whole place starts brighten up as if unlocking more of itself, which surprises Hajime. Suddenly, a voice calls out to him, asking who is there. Hajime looks to find that the golden cube has stopped spinning and sees a naked girl stuck in it. Hajime is surprised to find a person in a place like this. After considering a bit, Hajime decides to leave the place and bids farewell to the girl for bother her. The girl is surprised by the reaction, but asks him to wait and help her. Hajime rejects the notion, even when the girl tells her she would do anything. Hajime answers back that in a hellish place like that labyrinth, a person wouldn't be sealed inside without a proper reason, and was done so purposely. The girl tells that she wasn't at fault, and that she was betrayed. Hearing this, Hajime stops while remembering the events on the bridge. Not liking that fact, Hajime decides to ask as to why she was betrayed and sealed down. The girl is confused a bit initially, but then goes on to answer that she belongs to Vampire race, and is extremely powerful. She used to use her power to protect the people of her nation. But one day, the ministers of her nation said that they didn't need her anymore, and her uncle informed that he would instead rule their nation. While she was fine with the decision, the others in her nation considered her as dangerous, and since they couldn't kill her, they decided to seal her instead. Hajime was surprised by the "couldn't be killed" part, and asks about it, to which she informs that she can heal from any type of injure or damage. Also she can directly manipulate Mana, and could even use Spells without a Magic Circle. This surprised Hajime, as her powers were rule-breaking that makes her practically a immortal.

The girl again asks Hajime to help her. He contemplates a bit, but decides to free her. He tries to transmute the cube the girl was stuck in, but the things is really hard to manipulate. Hajime goes full power to transmute the block, and finally manages to free the girl. The girl finally free from her shackles, ask Hajime's name, to which he responds and informs her. Hajime in return asks for the girl's name, but the girl ask him to name her. Hajime wondered if she lost her memories, but she tells him that she doesn't need anything from her past life now, and wants a new name. Hajime decides on the name Yue, as when he entered the room, the girl's golden hair and red eyes reminded him of the moon in the night sky, hence the name. The girl accepts the name, and thanks Hajime while hugging him. Suddenly, Hajime senses spikes coming his way, and protects Yue using his own body as cover while moving away, but ends up getting stabbed by them, which distraught Yue.

Meanwhile, in Heiligh Kingdom, Meld Loggins along with Shizuku, Kouki and Ryutarou come to the audience of the King - Eliheid S. B. Heiligh and the Pope - Ishtar Langbard, and inform them about the unknown trap found on the 20th floor of the Great Orcus Labyrinth which connected to the 65th floor of the Labyrinth, and the fact that the confrontation against the Behemoth and the Traum Soliders was regretfully vain, and that it ended up costing them the life of a God's Chosen Hero. The Pope and the King is worried that word regarding the death of a Chosen Hero is spreading around the Kingdom, so they order to not speak about more than needed, and maintain silence, and ask the other Chosen Heroes to agree with it.

Shizuku while being worried about her friend Kaori, who haven't woken up since Hajime fell from the bridge, recounts the event on how Meld had to knock Kaori unconscious in-order to stop her from doing something drastic after Hajime's fall. She then goes out of Kaori's room to the Castle Courtyard in-order to clear her mind while practicing her sword form. During this time she recalls about the day when they got summoned to Tortus and meet Ishtar who informed them about how there has been an ongoing bloody war between the humankind and the demonkind for centuries. While the power scale between the two side had remained on par for quite a while, but during recent years, the demonkind have learned the ability to control monsters, which tipped the scale in their favor. Because of this, humanity is on the brink of destruction. Seeing the plight of the humankind, the god of creation worshiped by the people of Tortus, Ehit summoned Heroes with incredible power to fight for the Kingdom and save humanity. Hearing this, Kouki jumped in and decided to fight for the sake of the humans of Tortus, and asks everyone to help him. But hearing that, the teacher of the students, Aiko Hatayama, who also got summoned along with the others, starts to object to Kouki's decision because she doesn't want her students to do dangerous work, and its her duty as the only adult present to protect the students. While Kouki is initially flustered because of Aiko's objection, Ryutarou confirms his support to Kouki's decision, which also prompts Shizuku and Kaori agree with it. This doesn't make Aiko happy, and she starts throwing a tantrum in order to stop her students.

After recollecting the events of the past, Shizuku finishes her sword training and feels that something is wrong and things aren't really that easy. Suddenly she hears mumbling from nearby and turns around to find Daisuke walking away. She ends up calling him, wondering what he was doing, which surprised Daisuke a lot, and he becomes more flustered. He replies to Shizuku that he wasn't doing anything, and asks her in return as to what she was doing. Shizuku says that she was practicing in order to not get rusty, and advises Daisuke to do the same, to which he vaguely replies that he doesn't need it and goes away. After he goes away, Shizuku wonders why he was acting weirdly. She then recalls that Daisuke always used to pick a fight with Hajime back in Japan, and even did the same things after being summoned to Tortus. And it was always Kaori, who tried to stop him from picking on Hajime. Shizuku wondered whether Daisuke had feelings for Kaori, and wondered more about the incident in the Labyrinth, but then gave up on that thought considering it as not possible.

Back in Kaori's room, Shizuku looks at her friend who is sleeping in bed worriedly. At that moment, Kaori slowly regains her consciousness. This finally reliefs her of worry and asks Kaori if she and her body is ok or not. Kaori informs that she feels ok, but bit tired. Shizuku informs her that she had been sleeping for five days now, so its obvious she is tired. Kaori is surprised to hear she was asleep for that long, and wonders why it happened. She starts to recall that she was in the Labyrinth, but Shizuku cuts her thoughts and asks if she needs water in order to divert her. Kaori says she can't clearly remember things, but then asks about Hajime whereabouts. Kaori asks if he is safe, and whether the others were able to save him or not. Shizuku couldn't reply to her, which make her understand the situation, but she doesn't want to believe it, and she tries to leave her room in order to look for Hajime, but couldn't because of her weakness.

While Shizuku tries to comfort Kaori, she informs Shizuku that she wants to believe that Hajime is still alive even though the chance is low. But she wants to confirm with her own eyes. So, she decides to get stronger in-order to be able to achieve her goal, and asks Shizuku to lend her strength to her. Shizuku agrees to which Kaori is grateful, but Shizuku tells her that their is no need to be grateful as they are friends.

Characters in Order of Appearance
Characters in italics debuted here.
 * Hajime Nagumo
 * Eliheid S. B. Heiligh
 * Ishtar Langbard
 * Meld Loggins
 * Shizuku Yaegashi
 * Kouki Amanogawa
 * Ryutarou Sakagami
 * Kaori Shirasaki
 * Daisuke Hiyama
 * Ehit (flashback; illustration)
 * Atsushi Tamai (flashback)
 * Yukitoshi Shimizu (flashback)
 * Kousuke Endou (flashback)
 * Aiko Hatayama (flashback)
 * Yue

Locations

 * Great Orcus Labyrinth
 * Heiligh Kingdom
 * Royal Palace
 * Divine Mountain
 * Holy Church - Main Cathedral (flashback)

Monsters

 * Basilisk
 * Rainbow Frog
 * Giant Moth
 * Tar Shark
 * Giant Centipede
 * Cyclops
 * Traum Soldiers (flashback)
 * Behemoth (flashback)

Differences from Light Novel

 * The Light Novel does not mention Hajime taking the Claw Bear's fur after defeating it.
 * In the Light Novel, Hajime ties a piece of Green Glowstone to what remains of his left arm. In the Anime, Hajime carries it in a lantern.
 * Hajime keeping records of all the Monsters he has encountered by writing about them on stone slates is not mentioned in the Light Novel.
 * In the Light Novel, Meld wishes to investigate the Heroes in order to determine who caused Hajime's fall and why, but was forbidden to do so by the king and the pope. This is omitted in the Anime.
 * In the Light Novel, it is mentioned by Shizuku that Hajime was ridiculed and scorned for his incompetence by the nobility of the Heiligh Kingdom, including the King and the Pope. This part is not mentioned in the Anime.
 * In the Light Novel, Hajime uses his "Transmutation" to dissolve a section of the rock that Yue is sealed into. In the Anime, he manages to break apart the entire rock.