By Sarasa Nagase and Mai Murasaki. Released in Japan as “Akuyaku Reijo Nanode Rasubosu o Katte Mimashita” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.
Everyone loves a good harem series. But, unless you’re reading The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You or other polyamorous titles, you’re going to wind up with fans of one love interest happy and the fans of the other love interests disappointed. This is even true in a series like this one, where there’s been no doubt since the beginning of the first volume that Aileen and Claude were the OTP. This series was based around a series of otome games, and as a result there are any number of hot guys that you could, theoretically, pair a heroine with. Sadly, Lilia blew all that up, and Aileen kicked fate in the nuts, so we’ve got a few guys who are dedicated to their work. Can’t have that, though. This is a romance, and romances with lots of unattached love interests get hit with “pair the spares”. That’s the entire purpose of this volume, taking place a little while after the main series.
This book consists of three stories, but honestly it feels like the author had a complete volume that didn’t quite meet the word count and so they added a (normal-sized) short story to the start and a (very small) short story to the end. The first has Elefas going back to his homeland to find that he’s suddenly married to Neifa, one of the harem queens of Baal’s that he has no use for now that he has Roxane. He thinks he can quickly get out of the marriage, but sadly she’s brilliant *and* has big boobs, a deadly combination. In the final story in the volume, Claude and Aileen try to go on a date where it’s just the two of them, despite everyone trying to stop them. The story that takes up the most time, though, involves Walt and Kyle, who get involved, once more, with demon snuff, as well as a very mysterious “fairy” girl.
The reason to read this is the middle story, though I did like Neifa, whose use of “all-ages” a la Lilia makes me wonder if she’s another import from Japan. (Lilia is fantastic in her one scene, where she looks like she’s being serious for once but later turns out to be a troll as always.) But Walt and Kyle – OK, mostly Walt – are the reason to pick this up. Walt tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, so even as he’s told to investigate a teenage girl who’s suspected of making and distributing a highly potent demon snuff, and even after discovering that yes, she is doing that, he still wants to prove that she’s innocent, because it doesn’t match with her character. In fact, her character doesn’t match from one day to the next, which is a bit of a spoiler except that the cast portraits at the start of the book give it away anyway. This is basically a thriller where they’re working against the clock trying to stop a horrible chain of self-sacrificing against a virulently disgusting bad guy who’s been sexually abusive (so yes, warning for that), and thankfully the day is saved.
The day is saved without Aileen, who only makes small appearances in the first two stories – after all, they don’t involve her being executed if she makes one wrong move, so what should she care? The next book, though, sees us back in familiar territory once more, as the author admits that the series isn’t ending just yet.
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