At the risk of incurring the wrath of people who are hate watching the show, I will say that the episode was fine. It is meeting my expectations in most ways.

The explanation that Malice was draining high level criminals was good that it confirmed certain suspicions that she is indeed power leveling and that doing so does result in a lack of practical experience.

Luce refusing to allow Elm or his father Isaac to negotiate her out of the room is a pretty funny running gag at this point. Also funny is that Elm sets a condition that should he win, Isaac has no more right to interfere with Elm’s life- clearly Elm has not thought this through.

Isaac already thinks it is impossible for Elm to win, but if Elm wins, Isaac would be forced to reconsider his decision to make Malice his heir, but Elm’s condition makes that decision irreversible. Elm really could have asked for the moon and just asked instead that Isaac pound sand instead.

The show is actually not bad, respect to the animators for actually doing the hard work instead of making it a slide show.

Finally, an episode that doesn't force you to skip forward most of the time.

Elymas continues to be plagued by his own stupidity, but it seems like the anime finally gives us an explanation for his stupidity. It's genetic. His entire family is as dumb as rocks. Even the family butler looks down on everybody in the family for their stupidity.

Elymas wasn't absurdly stupid in this episode. He just made the sort of average stupid decision many of us would make in the heat of the moment by agreeing to fight Malice, but the most likely outcomes for him are bad. The only good outcome I can see is if his father sees his power and reinstalls Elymas as the head of the family. But Elymas thinks that is not an option and that he's going to be done with the Edvaughn family after this.

So, possibility 1: Elymas loses. Malice obviously kills him or at least maims him permanently. Clearly a bad outcome.

Possibility 2: Elymas wins. Is Malice really going to abide by their agreement when she becomes head of the family? No. Her obsession will only grow because he's defeated her. Elymas gets nothing except more pressure. The same goes if Elymas doesn't clearly win, but his father is forced to stop the match and say that he's shown his power. This is a bad outcome.

Possibility 3: Elymas kills Malice. This works well if Elymas returns as head of the family, but he's claimed he's done with the family. So, all he's done is killed the next lord. He'd probably be executed. Bad outcome.

Possibility 4: Elymas ruins Malice. I guess this is the other possibly marginally good outcome. His victory either scars her physically or mentally so that she's afraid of him. It seems like she'd be sending assassins after him until she gets him. Not as clearly a good or bad outcome, but it's not an outcome that I'd be going for in his situation.

So, overall, I think Elymas's decision to fight was a rather stupid one. The probable outcomes are pretty bad, and he's immediately exposing the skillbook that he just purchased. I'm sure it will all work out for him, but I don't think he should expect that it will all work out for him. It's like he made a decision that relies on plot armor to be a good decision.