By Okina Baba and Tsukasa Kiryu. Released in Japan as “Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jenny McKeon.

This is definitely a book that has most of its important content at the back, saving its biggest scene for the final chapter and epilogue. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of other things going on here. White is learning good ways to regain more of her powers (get drunk); our ogre/oni is finally taken down and made somewhat sane again, and decides to just GO by Wrath now; our vampire has decided that she’s tired of being weaker than the rest of the group and decides to essentially bathe herself in evil to catch up, which works quite well – at least for this book; and probably most importantly, the demon lord arrives back in her domain and orders the war to recommence, despite the fact that the demons simply don’t have the manpower to win. She is not winning friends, though her extreme power means she’s certainly influencing people. Oh yes, and White goes to Japan. Of all the series to have a ‘return to Japan’ arc, this was not one I was expecting.

The entire series has sort of hammered this home, but this volume in particular wants you to realize how horrible most of the demon lord’s group is at communicating. Ariel is best of the lot, mostly as she has the Chatty Cathy part of Kumoko’s brain. The dissonance between White’s narrative voice and her actual outward expressions is well known to us, but here we see how it’s really causing problems, mostly as Sophia thinks that White is a lot more pissed off and angry than she actually is. Not that Sophia is any better, given her default mode seems to be ‘tantrum’. Really, this motley crew would get along with the cast of Overlord; they’re all basically broken evil people, and adding Wrath to the mix is unlikely to change any of that.

But yeah, the big part of the book is when White, who has realized how easy it is for her to teleport now, ends up going back to Japan. Fortunately, she arrives at the school in the middle of the night, and going home quickly finds D, who explains herself to White, who had figured out a lot of this already. I’m not sure the reader had; some of this was foreshadowed, but a lot of it was deliberately hidden from us, possibly to make the reveal that much bigger. The interesting thing here is White’s reaction to the fact that D not only manipulated her entire life, but did it for such a petty, vapid reason. White is justifiably furious… but also reacts the way a child would to their parent, feeling intense love just for the fact that D throws her a bone and says White can have “freedom”. It feels a lot like an abusive relationship, and I don’t think we’re supposed to love it, and it’s not helped by White’s hyperactive narration.

So I don’t know if this is a game changer (I doubt White will be acting any differently), but it’s certainly a startling revelation. In the meantime, we edge closer to war, meet some characters who I seem to recall getting killed off earlier in the series/later in the timeline, and are reminded once more that Potimas is the absolute worst. I’m still enjoying this, despite everyone being pretty terrible.