By Bakufu Narayama and Ebisushi. Released in Japan as “Danzaisareta Akuyaku Reijō wa, Gyakkō-shite Kanpekina Akujo o Mezasu” by TO Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Alyssa Niioka. Adapted by Vida Cruz-Borja.
So yeah, I get to deliver a big apology here. I was fuming at the end of the 7th book in the series, which I saw as throwing away most of the good character development that we’d seen at the start of the volume as if someone accidentally set Fermina’s switch to ‘good’ and now it was back to ‘evil. As it turns out, the author was doing this deliberately, and it played into the start of THIS book, which shows us what happened between all that character development and the big brutal ending. Which is a whole heaping helping of gaslighting from “Father Norris”, who is of course Cardinal Nigel. Essentially, after hanging out with the most evil character in the series and being fed lies, of course Fermina is going to snap. Fortunately, this is still a cut above most other villainess books with “bad heroines”, and we get a nice subplot where she realizes that, in fact, being played for a sucker is not something she wants to experience the rest of her life.
As noted above, the prologue shows Nigel twisting the truth into a pretzel about the very real issues with refugees. This leads to the start of the book proper, where Claudia is being taken by Nigel to an Inquisition, where she will quietly be burned to death. Fortunately for all concerned, Claudia has friends in low places, so manages to get rescued and have Nigel put under house arrest for re-entering the country. Unfortunately, this does not solve her being accused of witchery, so she heads to a port to lay low for a bit… and ends up running into a drug-fuelled conspiracy that’s supposed to manufacture more evidence that she’s evil. Can she fix things and also help the adorable children of the town who are just worried why their daddies aren’t coming home? Meanwhile, Sylvester has started to have nightly dinners with Fermina. Which are only partly about manipulating information from her.
So now that I know what was going on, I can once again really love Fermina’s plotline, which only lacks a reunion with her little red-haired girl from the previous book. Sylvester is very patient with her, but frankly, he doesn’t have to do much at all, because it turns out when she’s free of both Claudia *and* “Father Norris”, she’s actually pretty good about thinking things through and realizing how much everyone around her is trying to use her for their own purposes… even when it’s not “evil purposes”. I have also never been so happy that someone keeps a diary. I did appreciate the end when she and Claudia are reunited, as it’s very clear Fermina still is not remotely near being friendly with her, despite literally coming to her defense at her Inquisition. Some things are personal. As for Claudia, she’s reunited with Sylvester (though Helen gets all the affection… damn, why isn’t this yuri?), and they’re both determined to be married ASAP. I also really enjoyed her confession to Sylvester, which, contrary to her assumptions, mostly made him go “ah, so that’s why”.
The next book… does not have a wedding outfit, so don’t expect it to happen there. Still, it feels like we’re nearing an ending. Recommended to all villainess fans.
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