By Miya Kazuki and You Shiina. Released in Japan as “Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by quof.
The main series may have ended, but there are still stories to be told. Especially given this is one of TO Books’ best-selling juggernauts. As with the first collection, this contains extra short stories that were online exclusives, bookstore exclusives, or otherwise not collected with the short stories that follow Rozemyne’s narration in the main series. The stories run the gamut, timeline-wise, from the start of Part 2 to midway through Part 5… yes, that’s medium-sized Rozemyne on the cover, we’ll have to wait till the third volume (just out in Japan last month) for the post-growth glow-up stories. Unlike last time, this does give us a brief story from Rozemyne’s POV, as she discusses Ferdinand with his old attendant. For the most part, though, this is from the POV of others, and it helps to establish one of the things we’ve learned most from the side stories: thanks to rumors, hearsay, and general eccentricity, Ehrenfest is seen by others as deeply untrustworthy.
Among the many stories in this volume, we get two from the POV of Brunhilde, which take place very early in her career at Rozemyne’s attendant, and show us how difficult she found it to understand her at first, and how ignorant of noble customs Rozemyne is. We get Raimund’s backstory, which reads exactly like it is, as a bullied nerd finally finding a place for himself among other nerds. Florencia watches and makes occasional observations as Elvira and company accidentally invent genderbend fanfics. Tuuli realizes, thanks to Karin and Lutz, that’s she’s fallen for Benno, and the realization crushes her as she knows it will never happen. Justus reminisces about a time in the past when Ferdinand going to Ahrensbach was what everyone dreamed of. Barthold is very, very angry that people are trying to stop his treason. And Lutz and Tuuli have one of the least romantic engagements ever.
That last one should not surprise anyone who’s read the main series, where its main romance is remarkable for its lack of sexual charge. Rozemyne and Ferdinand both tend towards the asexual, though not aromantic, and Eckhart and Angelica’s on-again off-again engagement is mostly of interest to them because it means they can keep beating people up when needed. Sylvester and Florencia are very much NOT the norm. And so we see here. Tuuli is harboring a crush on Benno, but there are 87 reasons why that’s not realistic. She’s also busy with work all the time, and thus unlikely to meet any better options. Lutz is exactly the same. The two of them agree to get engaged quickly, but that’s less “we realized our feelings for each other” and more “we want to prevent Tuuli, who still lives on the wrong side of the tracks, from getting abducted by creeps”. It’s not remotely romantic, but it makes sense. And that’s good enough in this world.
As I said above, there’s a third short story book that just came out. But before we get that, we’ll get the first in the spinoff series, featuring Hannelore, who will be a very different narrator from Rozemyne, I expect. Till then, this is a good selection of stories.
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