7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life

Episode 10

It was only a matter of time. That goes for two things in this episode: Arnold finding out that Rishe has been cross-dressing to get knight training and the discovery of black powder. The first one is on the lighter side because Arnold reacts pretty much as we'd expect him to: by backing Rishe into a wall via the good old kabedon, then throwing in a bonus knee between hers to drive the point home. It's something we've seen in countless shoujo romances, and it works because, by this point, we can be pretty sure that whatever Arnold does to Rishe, it won't be something she verbally objects to. Sure, he pushes the boundaries, but he's not particularly subtle about doing so, and Rishe's proved that she's willing to tell him where to get off. At this point, it feels like Arnold does things like this as part of their awkward flirtation.

That Arnold trusts her comes through clearly. He may not be willing to change his mind about Coyolles (at least, not without a good reason), but he respects Rishe enough to allow her to remain in knight training and to at least listen when she has something to say. If she comes up with a good reason for him to ally with Coyolles, I'm confident that he'll consider it, and that she's brought it up is very likely making him think harder about his initial reaction to Prince Kyle's request. If anything stands to get in the way, it's Rishe's relationship with Kyle – we've already seen on multiple occasions that Arnold is prone to jealousy, so if he thinks Kyle risks stealing Rishe away, he could be pushed into a very dangerous decision. Rishe wants to save Kyle and Coyolles because she's sick and tired of seeing the latter fall and the former die over and over again, but Arnold, as far as we know, has no way of knowing that. With that in mind, Rishe's decision to ask Theodore for help may not be her brightest move, although she's presumably aware of the risks.

It would be hard to blame her if she wasn't. After all, she has been forcibly reminded of Michel's dangerous discovery – black powder. That's gunpowder, and in a world where bladed weapons are the primary form of warfare, it could change everything, and not in a good way. Michel's burning desire to share the recipe with Arnold would only facilitate the war Rishe's died in six times already, and she already let the chance to stop Michel evade her in life number three. There's no way in hell she's going to let that happen again, and her determination could blind her to other concerns, although given her performance thus far, that doesn't seem likely. But she needs to balance Michel's desire to blow stuff up with Arnold's warmongering and stated reason for not agreeing to Kyle's proposition, and that largely means finding a use for black powder that isn't deadly.

Michel is the primary person she'll need to provide proof. His almost fatalistic worldview tells him that if something was created for a purpose, it must fulfill that, no matter how bad it might be for the rest of the world. That he became convinced of this because of his terrible childhood is depressing; his normal small-child urge to cause destruction was interpreted by his (horrible) father through the lens of his mother's death in childbirth, leading him to tell Michel that he was brought into the world to cause bad things. The implication is that Michel feels that if he isn't causing death and destruction, he's not fulfilling his purpose as a human being, which in turn means that Rishe has to show him how his poisons and powders can be used for better things. Since she can't just hop over to The Apothecary Diaries and grab Maomao, she'll have to come up with a good use for black powder on her own. It's a gamble, but if there's one thing that Rishe has proved in this seventh life, it's that she can learn and implement the knowledge she's accumulated. Michel and Arnold had better get ready to change their ways of thinking.

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7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.