Having Hanano not realize earlier that Fran's "Lady Kaoru" is actually her senior feels weird. On the other hand we're talking about the girl who almost died of thirst despite being able to create water. Same goes for Francette, who conveniently misheard Hanano's name as "Hawawa" so that Kaoru doesn't have a chance to figure it out either.
My first thought about the group that was trying to report the lords misdeeds to the king was that they could have been just another bandit group which fabricated some sad story to get Lotte on their side. I think it's fine that there wasn't really a big twist (aside from the spy who betrayed them), but I wish this was at least brought up as a possibility.
And I checked the translations so many times, but I'm confused by where Kaoru was reportedly traveling to and where Hanano and Lotte wanted to intercept her. It feels like the destination slowly changed from the port town to the capital (which isn't a port town). Sorry if I made an error somewhere.
I still loved every moment of it. Hanano and Lotte make such a nice team. Thanks to that magically bending skirt for defending Hanano's dignity.