By Harunori Biyori and Hitaki Yuu. Released in Japan as “Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyō Survival” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Camilla L.
After spending the last four books ignoring the otome game aspect of this world for the most part and being devoted to showing pages of stat upgrades and lots of monster fighting, we will finally be getting around to the actual game in the next volume, with academy hijinks and everything. That said, some aspects of the game still shine through, and one of them is that, though she doesn’t really notice it herself, everyone and their brother is falling head over heels for Alia. Random passersby on the street gawk at her. Royal knights all vow to protect her. Elena thinks they’re soulmates. And Karla… well, we’ll talk about Karla later. Alia’s got that heroine energy for sure. Heck, at the climax of this book she’s forced to get rid of having ash in her hair and let her peach flag fly. The trouble is, Alia does NOT think of herself as the heroine of an otome game, so all of this, with the exception of protecting Elena, is irrelevant to her.
Alis is finally, somewhat reluctantly, joining the Rainbow Blade, mostly as that’s the only way she’ll be able to help Elena, who is going to a very difficult dungeon, along with her brother, her brother’s fiancee candidates, an annoying uncle, and various retainers, in order to gain the fantastic “any wish” reward the dungeon can offer. After officially leveling up, and dodging a murder attempt, Alia and the rest of the adventuring party arrive and head through a secret door that allows you to skip seventy floors of the dungeon – which still leaves us with the most dangerous floors. Can Alia keep Elena and the rest of the royal family safe without getting murdered by dangerous ogres, terrifying minotaurs, and the scariest being of all, Karla?
As with the last book she appeared in, Karla is absolutely one of the best reasons to read this, as she is legitimately mentally disturbed in a way very few anime villains really manage to pull off. “Yandere” is a word I hate because it gets abused, but there’s no denying that Karla’s death wish revolves around her obsession with Alia, and her desire to level up – even if it means murdering piles of people, which she does here – is solely so that she can achieve her wish of fighting Alia in the ruins of the entire kingdom until Alia kills her. It is a grand guignol death wish, and I have no doubt it will be the series finale – hopefully NOT in the ruins of the capital. As for Clara, the other villainess in this story… meh. Even her name is easy to mistype when I mean Karla. I get that she’s sort of trapped, but she needs to get more interesting. (Arguably Elena does as well, but at least she manages to solve the worst of her problems by the end of this book.)
With a big YMMV reminder over the series, which always reminds us how young these girls really are, this remains a strangely compelling narrative. I’m hoping spending time at the academy with petty nobles and classwork might mean a few less stat screens, though.
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