Although this side story started out being about Aiz, it's really about Lefiya. That has been increasingly apparent as the books progress. Still, volume thirteen really cements the idea, and it feels like this is the moment author Fujino Ōmori has been striving for: when Lefiya and Bell are fully running parallel to each other. It was important to understand Aiz's role in both Loki Familia and Orario at large to reach this point, because we needed to know what drove her and what she lacked as a person. Aiz is strong, but she's incomplete in many ways, and Bell and Lefiya are the natural extensions of her journey. They need to surpass their master to truly grow. Bell showed this when he defended Wiene from Aiz's blind prejudice, and in this volume, Lefiya does the same when she recognizes her dependence on Filvis (or rather, on the memory of Filvis) and, for lack of a better term, grows up.

The School District is of paramount importance in this. Lefiya is the first (and thus far only) member of Loki Familia to come from the educational institution, largely because the school is run by Baldr, Loki's natural enemy. (In Norse mythology, Loki orchestrates Baldr's death.) But having ceded to the Guild's pressure, the last time the school vessel was in Orario, Loki sent recruiters, and Lefiya joined the familia. Now, nominally based on this, Loki, Finn, Gareth, and Riveria all send Lefiya to recruit in her turn, claiming it's because she attended the school and thus has experience with students.

In reality, Lefiya is being sent to her alma mater for herself. Following Filvis' death, Lefiya is at a loss. She's mourning without fully knowing why, feeling guilt that in fact stems more from her own survival than Filvis' demise. Lefiya feels like she should have done more, should have been better, and that she now owes it to Filvis to live the other elf's life. To that end, she cuts her hair, changes her battle gear, and seeks out Bete to teach her how to be a magic swordswoman. If you're thinking that Bete doesn't even use a sword, you're correct – what Lefiya is actually doing is having him teach her how to be ruthless and uncaring, which is precisely as unhealthy as it sounds.

What's interesting is that Lefiya doesn't see herself as being self-destructive. By remaking herself in Filvis' image, she thinks she's honoring the lost, not realizing that what she's doing is forfeiting her own existence. Filvis made Filvis' choices and paid that price; Lefiya needs to discover what she wants to do rather than mimicking the dead. Just as Bell has been working towards becoming his own vision of a hero, Lefiya needs to do the same, and it isn't until she's faced with a group of students to train that she fully realizes that. Helping them when everything goes wrong in the Dungeon is her Wiene moment, the time when she looks outside herself and sees other people who need her to survive and forge their own path forward. It's in that moment that she recognizes her value as Lefiya.

In terms of how this connects to the main series, it's interesting that Omori skips right over the War Game between Freya and Hestia Familias. Since Loki Familia wasn't permitted to participate, it does make sense, but having Lefiya pursuing Filvis' shadow in the Dungeon does feel a little like hand-waving away a major series plot point, especially since Omori says that Lefiya barely registers that the Game happened. Of course, looked at a different way, Lefiya not caring about such a major event in Orario's history does demonstrate how stuck in her own head she is – she can't even summon up her rivalry with Bell to make her interested in a war that could have derailed his entire trajectory and done away with him as a rival for Aiz's affection.

Lefiya has always had a lot of growing up to do. Her graduation from the School District at age twelve, while other students remain much longer (one of her students is sixteen, a year older than Lefiya herself), speaks to her relative immaturity. In her eyes, Filvis was the epitome of what a grown elf woman ought to be, and by losing her, Lefiya thought she had to grow up too quickly. But becoming someone else isn't growing up. It isn't maturing. It's simply a mark of someone who hasn't figured out who they are yet. Over the course of this novel, Lefiya learns that. The girl who emerges from the Dungeon with her students isn't a woman yet, but is well on her way. She's a very different sort of hero than Bell, but after this volume, it is certain that, like him, she will rise to meet the moment – as herself.