Arifureta - Episode 09

"Dragon Slayer" (黒竜を穿つ者) is the 9th episode for Season One of the Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Anime adaptation. It aired in Japan on September 9, 2019.

Synopsis
Hajime's quest leads him and his classmates into the mountains, where they come across their quarry--and the huge black dragon attacking him!

Summary
Once in the mountains Hajime uses transmuted drones connected to his jewel eye to search for the adventurers. They find the nobles son, Will, the only survivor who reveals they were attacked by an army of monsters and a black dragon. While returning they are attacked by the dragon.

Hajime succeeds in knocking it from the sky and attempts to pierce its armour with his weapon the Pile Bunker, which can drive Azanthium stakes through any material. The dragon almost escapes until Shea knocks it out with Drucken. Deciding to forgo piercing the armour Hajime sadistically shoves the stake into its only unarmoured area; the anus.

However, the pain causes the dragon to reveal she is a Female Dragonborn, capable of taking a human form and begs him to remove the stake in exchange for everything she knows. She admits she was magically forced by someone to attack Will and his friends and as atonement, offers to help them stop that person. Hajime decides to kill her anyway but Yue convinces him to spare her. He removes the stake and the dragon transforms into a young woman named Tio, a shameless masochist who admits she enjoyed the stake, just a little. Now their ally Tio reveals the person, whoever he is, has an army of 60,000 monsters and is planning to attack the farming village.

Characters in Order of Appearance
Characters in italics debuted here.
 * Nana Miyazaki
 * Yuka Sonobe
 * Atsushi Tamai
 * Taeko Sugawara
 * Shea Haulia
 * Hajime Nagumo
 * Aiko Hatayama
 * Yue
 * Will Cudeta
 * Tio Klarus

Locations

 * Northern Mountain Range

Differences from Light Novel

 * In the Light Novel, Hajime finds a locket with a woman's picture in that he believes to have belonged to one of the deceased adventurers. It is later revealed to belong to Will, and the woman is his mother.
 * Will receiving medical treatment after he is rescued does not occur in the Light Novel.
 * In the Light Novel, Tio attacks everyone in her dragon form immediately after they find Will. In the Anime, Tio attacks them after they leave the waterfall and start heading back to Ur.
 * In the Light Novel, after Hajime brings out his shield to block Tio's first flaming breath attack, Aiko and Yuka brace Hajime from behind, followed by Atsushi, Taeko, Nana, and Will soon after. In the Anime, it is just Yuka and Atsushi that support Hajime.
 * In the Light Novel, Atsushi's weapons are shamshirs. In the Anime, they are shotels.
 * In the Light Novel, Hajime learns the expression "Kicking a dragon in the arse" from a traveling merchant named More Nos.
 * In the Light Novel, Tio is about to say Yue's original name after discovering that she is the last surviving vampire, but Yue stops her and insists that she is to be known by her current name, due to it is the one that Hajime gave her.