By Fujino Omori and nilitsu. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka? Shohenshu” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jake Humphrey.
If you thought it was hard for me to write 500 words or so on the first SS collection, imagine how hard it’s going to be with this one, where I can’t even waste 100 of them describing what it is. That said, at least here there is slightly less of the “everybody loves Bell” show, mostly as he’s far more of a supporting character. These short stories, with one or two exceptions, focus on Loki Familia, and the majority are about either Aiz or Lefiya. Which means it is about romance somewhat – after all, Lefiya has a crush on Aiz at this point in the story (the stories go up to the 12th volume), and Aiz has vaguely warm feelings for Bell. Both of them have something in common, which is they can’t quite work out what Bell is to them. Lefiya settles on rival, and Aiz, strangely, settles on rabbit, but they’re both watching him dash ahead and wanting that.
The cover shows Aiz and Lyu, possibly as this also takes in the first Lyu volume and the Freya volume. That said, those wanting lots of Lyu will be disappointed. Most of these, as with the first, are 1-2 page stories that don’t impact much. They’re also mostly comedic, again with one or two exceptions, usually focusing on Leene, that one character we got to know well before she was brutally murdered. There are larger stories in here as well, which focus on Loki Familiar catching a unicorn, Tiona and her book nerd friendship with Bell, a romcom disaster set around the events of DanMachi 7/DanMachi SO 8, Aiz dreaming of various pasts and futures she could have, Aiz walking around the city talking with most of the regular cast and trying to figure out her own heart, a sequel to the Freya book focusing on Shalzad’s new king, and seeming to tie into Memoria Freese, and the last story, which I’ll go into below.
The final story takes place sometime after DanMachi 19 and Sword Oratoria 13, but not much longer after. It starts off silly, tying back to the first SS collection as Loki Familia are looking at the “character poll” and Lefiya is getting very, very angry that Bell beat Aiz in some categories. She goes off to find out who was responsible for this travesty… and runs into Syr, who is spreading the word of Bell, partly as part of her punishment (which goes over Lefiya’s head, as she missed everything and has no idea why Syr is) and partly as she’s still madly in love with Bell. Meanwhile, Aiz ends up running into Ryu, and the two are super awkward around each other, especially when they recall their first meeting. Naturally, the four eventually come together. This, the most recent story (it was written for the book itself) mostly made me happy as it shows that Syr is not going to just be a meek little good girl, even though she’s given up being Freya. She’s here to spread the word of Bell, and if Lefiya says “rival” and Aiz says “rabbit”, well, that’s fine with her.
So this was solid, but again, for fans only. Next up should be Sword Oratoria 14.
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