My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer, Vol. 8

By MOJIKAKIYA and toi8. Released in Japan as “Boukensha ni Naritai to Miyako ni Deteitta Musume ga S-Rank ni Natteta” by Earth Star Novels. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

Given that we’re near the end of the series, it’s no surprise that we’re actually picking up a number of plot threads that have been lurking around since the start of the book, and some of those plot points are quite a bit darker than we’re used to. As an excuse for not meeting up with Bel and company for the last 20 years, “I was running around the country trying to rescue women from being used in forced breeding experiments with demons” is a good one. If I’m being honest, it’s what isn’t here that’s more of a surprise: Ange spends most of this volume brooding and in a blue funk, and I wondered the entire time whether it was going to tie in to her secret demon heritage and all that. But no, it’s just typical daddy issues, because that’s what this series runs on, really. And as Ange grows up, those issues get less fun for her.

After locating Percival, our intrepid group has only one to go before they can get the band back together. That said, all they can find of Satie are rumors… until they arrive at a city which is apparently trying to kill an elf woman. This is not good news for Marguerite and Maureen, who have to remind folks that elves are, in fact, unique persons. Fortunately, Ange has friends in high places, so things settle down. Even more fortunately, the elf being hunted is, of course, Satie, who has been doing the things I alluded to in the last paragraph. Unfortunately, the “prince” has nearly caught up with her and is really trying hard to kill her, probably because she knows that he’s not the real prince. Can Belgrieve, Percival and Kasim manage to rescue Satie, or is that going to fall to Ange?

So yeah, Ange is starting to regret her own actions a bit, mostly the fact that she was going around to every woman she knew and asking if they wanted to marry her dad. Now they’re about to reunite with Satie, who the others admit had a thing for Belgrieve, and he probably did for her, and she starts to realize that she might not be the closest person in his life anymore. Ange is old enough and mature enough to know that this is unfair to Belgrieve and that it’s just envy, but that does not make the feelings go away, and her wrestling with them is probably the best part of the book. The other good part of the book is a nice bit of light horror, as there is a spell that can be used to disguise a person as another person so well that the other person does not even know they’re a disguise, and this is used to chilling effect here.

Good stuff, and a rare cliffhanger for this series, so we’ll have to wait till the 9th volume to see if we can save the day. (I suspect the day will be saved, this is not that kind of series.)

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