An online friend expressed disquiet at how Laios seemed to be way too happy-go-lucky on the way to the dragon encounter (basically, the entire anime before this episode), and seemingly not as devastated at the revelation at the end of this one.

I‌ countered as follows:

I think Laios really wants to save his sister: that’s the main reason behind this dungeon crawl to begin with. however, not only is he saving effort (doing on-site procurement) instead of lugging along enough food for the trip to and back, but also he’s enjoying the trip in whatever way he can. I think it’s because he’s of the opinion that there’s really no use in worrying as there’s nothing much they can do other than to “try to defeat the dragon and deal with the situation afterwards”