Episode 140

A Favor for Julius (ユリウスの頼み事) is the 140th Page of Yūki Tabata's Black Clover.

Summary
Julius Novachrono, dressed as an ordinary boy, is out exploring the capital as he usually does. He is found Marx Francois, who tells him that he needs to return to the office and finish his paperwork. Julius replies that he’s already finished today's workload. Julius asks Marx to do some favors for him.

Marx escorts Sally and Makusa North, a specially-appointed researcher from the Magic Tool Research Lab, to the Black Bulls base. When they arrive, they find Asta training with Noelle Silva, who are both shocked to see Sally out of prison.

Once inside the base, Marx explains that Sally has been called on to help develop a mana-increasing magic tool for the upcoming war with the Spade Kingdom. Noelle wants nothing to do with Sally, knowing how crazy she is, Asta on the other hand does not hesitate to remove his shirt and give Sally permission to perform any experiments she wants on him, as that is what he promised her during the Elf Tribes revival. Sally is ecstatic to finally experiment on Asta, but since her purpose is to develop a mana-enhancement device, she decides to save Asta, who does not have any mana, for last.

The rest of the Black Bulls arrive at the base, but once they saw Sally, they instantly turned around and made up excuses for why they had to leave. After trapping Marx and Makusa in her Gel Magic, Sally chases after the Black Bulls. She captures them one by one, some she catches by luring them with something they cannot resist, a bottle of wine for Vanessa Enoteca and a trail of cupcakes for Charmy Pappitson. Gauche Adlai and Grey try to fight back, but Sally shapes her gel into the shape of Gauche's little sister, Marie Adlai. Gauche refuses to let harm come to anything that even looks like Marie, so they are captured as well. When she catches each Black Bull member she tests injecting different liquids, which cause their magic power to explode and leave them unconscious.

Finally, Asta is the only one left. Asta is still intent on keeping his promise to let Sally experiment on him. However, Sally only takes a clipping of his hair and says that the hair is all she needs, although she is tempted to try taking his blood and organs as well. After everyone recovers, Makusa takes Sally's data back to the capital.

Later on, Marx is assigned to travel with Fuegoleon Vermillion and Nozel Silva to A Random Village, a small town located in the Forsaken Realm and investigate bandit trouble that has recently been going on there. At first, they wanted to send a team of their subordinates to deal with the problem, but Julius informs them that the situation is more complicated than that. Before they leave, Julius tells them a special word that they can say to gain the peoples trust. When they arrive, the three wear cloaks as disguises, trying to pass themselves off as Nobles who decided to give up the life of luxury, something that has happened in the past.

The three Magic Knights discover that the village is still in ruins following the elves' attack. The three split up to try and find out more information about the bandits, though the villagers are wary of them. Fuegoleon says the special word that Julius told them about, Chronovala, which turns out to be the fake name that Julius used whenever he went out in disguise as an old woman. Once the villagers knew that they are friends of "Chronovala" they immediately become friendly and hospitable to the strangers. Marx is amazed at how Julius is able to earn peoples respect, even when they do not know that it's him.

That night, the bandits attack the Magic Knights in the house that villagers let them stay in. Novel and Fuegoleon take them down easily and discover that the bandits are none other than the impoverished villagers themselves. They finally understand what Julius meant when he said the situation was complicated.

The two royal captains decide to overlook the attack if the villagers atone by helping other villages, and additional Magic Knights are sent to aid the reconstruction effort.

Items used

 * Special Properties +α