By Shoji Goji and Saku Enomaru. Released in Japan as “Hitoribocchi no Isekai Kouryaku” by Overlap Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Andrew Schubauer. Adapted by Zubonjin.
This is the second volume in a row that can be described as “nothing happens except dungeons and fanservice”, with one exception, but even that exception stays pretty local. Haruka even remarks on the fact that the Empire, who you’d expect would be very angry about everything that’s been happening in the four months (!) since the arrival of our main cast, are instead being ominously silent. So instead Haruka concentrates on improving himself so that he can run dungeons without everyone being terrified he’s going to die, which he manages to make… some progress on. And he also manages to have a lot of sexy encounters with all the women in the cast, culminating in a scene I suspect I’ll have to simply not talk about in this review. Throughout this, though, we’re never allowed to forget how Haruka feels guilty over every bad thing that happens in this world, even things he can’t control, and that all the girls adore him, much as they might yell.
The one bit that’s not dungeon crawling or fanservice involves a ceremony to honor the dead. The dungeon crawls at the start of the book are less wacky than usual, and we’re reminded that all of these dungeons were, until the arrival of Haruka & Co., handled by the people of Omui, who fought to save their city and often died horribly. And that doesn’t even get into folks like that village that was destroyed by monsters, the one that Haruka continues to agonize over. So they decide to do a Shinto-esque ceremony, complete with a shrine on top of the hill (there is no hill, so Haruka built one expressly to have a hill for a shrine to be on top of), and the girls are all dressed as Shrine Maidens. Including Angelica, which is a bit awkward, as this shrine is dedicated in her name, and there’s a statue of her at the center of it. Should she really be eating yakitori next to it?
Moving on to the other 4/5 of the book, the dungeon sections are more interesting than usual as it shows, over the course of the book, that Haruka’s current style of “react so fast that he never dies” is not going to be sustainable. Eventually he is going to get hit – and indeed we see his HP rapidly go down. So he actually listens to what the dungeon emperors are saying, sits back and watches as they kill all the monsters, and takes notes. He’s got to be fast AND clever, not just instinctual. As for the fanservice, it continues to be the reason why, as much as I love this series, I cannot recommend it to anyone except people who are already reading it. There’s another round of underwear making (the series continues to imply that Haruka and the girls are gradually getting a bit less than human, as the girls’ bodies are basically “evolving” a bit too rapidly), and the girls’ attempts to flirt with/get a rise out of Haruka, in the hope that he’ll stop avoiding the very concept of being with anyone other than dead monster girls, ends up getting very… messy. This was the scene that, having read a Japanese wiki about the webnovel, I was waiting for to see if the light novel would cut it. It did not.
The next volume promises a new girl, if the cover is any indication. Until then, enjoy a book that uses the phrase “and stuff?” a lot, only the stuff is more like what you get in Oreo cookies. Also, another MariMite reference, the 2nd in the series!
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