By Aoikou and Enji. Released in Japan as “Yuusha-goroshi no Hanayome” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Faye Duxovni.
I spoil one of the major “surprises” of this book in the third paragraph, just letting folks know.
There’s an implication in the afterword of this third volume that there will be more, as the author says this is the end of the first “arc”, talks about an online-only prequel, and tries to blackmail readers into buying enough copies to justify more of the series by implying they’ll throw sex in later. That said, it definitely has the feel of a final volume, and al the plot beats and secrets are revealed for all to see, so I won’t be surprised if we don’t get more. Alicia is still Best Girl, but I admit I was less wild about this volume than I was the first two, mostly because, in order to wrap things yup, it ended up being over 50% fighting against an annoying bad guy. As a general rule, anytime I can read a scene and have the bad guy say “Don’t you understand? Your weapons are USELESS against me!” a la MST3K and have it work perfectly, your bad guy is too over the top.
Now that Alicia’s mentor (and her beloved cat) have disappeared, Alicia and Cion are going around trying to stop the demons and negotiate with their leaders. This does not go particularly well. It goes even worse when the saint is also kidnapped, and there’s a huge wolf guy who is reminding Cion a lot of her missing mentor. And then there’s the guy we meet in the prologue, a former slave who tried to destroy everything ten years ago or so and has now reappeared and is trying to do all that over again. That said, the bad guy is very good at making our two heroines doubt themselves. Cion, who admits in the heat of battle that she loves Alicia without actually realizing it, is thrown off her game by almost anything, but especially the idea that Alicia may actually be an assassin sent to kill her. That can’t be right, can it?
And then there’s Alicia. She’s always been able to do most anything involving mana, even as she complains about running out of it. She’s survived being dead. Twice. And when she got a transfusion she grew animal ears and a tail. Funny, that. Oh yes, and she’s an orphan. Now we get the big reveal that she is in fact the daughter of the demon lord, which allows the bad guy to twist the relationship between her and Cion (who, y’know, killed the demon lord). That said, Alicia’s ancestry was never really why we read this book – and if I’m being honest, whether Alicia and Cion end up as a couple is not the reason either. We’re reading this to see if Alicia can meld her intense cynicism and bitterness over religion and the world they live in with the kind, pure heart and desire to save people. Which she finally does, trying her damnedest to save everyone, even the villain who has already murdered a WHOLE LOT of people. Fortunately, she gets a reward of “ignoring her boss and going on a vacation with her girlfriend and cat” at the end.
So yeah, good series, but too much fighting and it felt like a “you’re being cancelled, wrap it up” volume. For fans of Executioner and her Way of Life, as always.
0 Comments