This continues but is close to the end of Taro’s “MacGyver/Kevin McAllister” phase, where he was deadly in relatively close combat with actual adventurers thanks to his improvisational cleverness with tools at hand. It’s kinda cool to see that he can do that, but it’s not his primary specialty.

Though Taro’s problem is fairly consistent and evident even here: he’s scary smart for his age, but never quite as smart as he thinks he is. He’s just given Bandit a lot of actionable information when he could have just knocked her out in the amount of time it took him to allude to his work and his allies. He is a bit of a diva in search of an audience.

Fortunately, he’s about to get one hell of a podium, one that’ll move him firmly into his next phase.