Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon Season 2

Episode 9

In the last episode, our heroes exposed the Netherlord's spy and stopped the monster threat to the village in the Dark Forest Stratum. However, with many of the villagers turned into trees by the floor boss, our heroes set out in this episode to take the giant tree down and undo the curse. Of course, they never get the chance. Instead, Kayolings, one of the Netherlord's underlings, set the tree and the forest ablaze—forcing Boxxo, Lamis, and the others to first survive the fire, then defeat Kayolings.

For the first part, Boxxo and Hulemy work to make a firebreak. While it's not enough to stop the fire's spread (it's far too massive for that), it does manage to buy enough time to evacuate the village. Even then, Boxxo is barely able to keep his friends alive during the fire with his magic barrier.

The result of the fire is twofold. The first is that Boxxo is almost fully depowered. He's used up nearly all of his magical reserves and, without a major influx of cash, is little more than a box on Lamis's back. Luckily, he is not needed for the fight this episode. With the non-traitor Menagerie of Fools members, the Band of Gluttons, Director Bear, and the old couple, even someone as high up in the Demon Lord's army as Kayolings is barely an obstacle.

The second result of the fire, and its implications, are more important. The fire has left the entirety of the Dark Forest Stratum uninhabitable. The humanoid population has to move to the Clear Lake Stratum to survive. And when you remember that Kayolings is the one who started the fire, the Netherlord's current objective becomes clear.

While the season started with each floor being isolated, this was never likely to be permanent. Though the adventurer population of some floors might be wiped out, it was clear that other floors would come out victorious against the monsters and re-establish the teleport gates—there are simply too many powerful adventurers in the dungeon for it to have gone any other way.

So what was the Netherlord's plan? Likely, to cull the humanoid population on each floor as much as possible and make holding every floor an impossibility, even when the teleportation gates were restored. The adventurers would have no choice but to retreat to a safe place—to consolidate their forces. We saw this happen on the origin floor. However, things on the Dark Forest Stratum were better than there, especially once the traitor was dealt with. There was no need to relocate the population—until Kayolings burned the forest.

To spell it out fully, the Netherlord is attempting to get all the humanoid inhabitants of the dungeon in one place. Whether this is simply to isolate them and allow himself free rein in the dungeon to pursue his own goals or to finish them all off in one stroke remains unclear. And worse still, none of our heroes seems to have noticed the trap they are walking into.

Well, at least Kikoyu and Boxxo are having fun with their little food rivalry…

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Hulemy is embarrassed to show her naked body in front of her vending machine crush. Lamis, meanwhile, is ready to jump him and have his little vending machine babies.

• The old couple really is quite powerful. I hope we get more of their backstory soon.

• I loved that our hero in this episode had to do nothing at all in the fight. It's nice to see that Boxxo isn't so pivotal to the team that they need him all the time.

• I'm not going to lie. Kayolings 'singing' her lines didn't do it for me. It's not that the voice actress was out of tune or anything, but they really needed to get a composer to write her an actual insert song—not just have her seemingly ad-lib it.

Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.