By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

You would think, now that we are at the 37th volume of this series (counting the two .5 books), that we would be finished with introducing new characters to add to an already overloaded cast, and yet. Coming to Earth to help our heroes with their battle against Ralgwin and his troops is another Princess, Nefilforna Canon Forthorthe. Honestly, there are so many people in this cast I’d like to pretend she doesn’t exist, but unfortunately, she’s Canon. (I’m so sorry.) She arrives and promptly proceeds to kick Koutarou’s ass in a mock battle – as he readily agrees, he only won the second time thanks to all the support he gets from everyone. She’s compared to Theia in that, while Theia has a natural talent for combat, Nefi is the sort who got really good at it through hard work and grinding. Good thing, too, as the raid against Ralgwin’s base, especially now that they’re armed with spirit guns, proves to be a giant pain in the neck.

Harumi is on the cover again, and gets a fair bit to do. The most notable thing is that the troops of Forthorthe that are allied with Koutarou’s group ar4e working with her for the first time, and are… a but weirded out that she is essentially Alaia’s reincarnation/soul carrier/whatever. Even Koutarou is not quite sure how Harumi and Alaia’s relationship is, and honestly, I don’t think it’s going to matter much in the long run. They both love Koutarou, and they both kick ass. Everyone here gets some good time in the spotlight, though as always Yurika gets made fun of, this time for being their “chemical warfare expert”, as her image of being Card Captor Sakura gets further and further away. The one who suffers the worst is probably Theia, who I suspect wanted to try her cool powered suit and so rushes ahead – she’s fine, but she put those under her in danger. She’s still too hotheaded.

Unfortunately, the raid is not a complete success. Ralgwin wants to get revenge for his uncle, but also has an actual logical brain, so is a much tougher opponent. And he has the benefit of a new villain rescuing him, whose identity we don’t quite get yet (though I can hazard a guess), but who seems to have teleportation skills of some sort. Honestly, it feels more like the author using magical writing powers to make sure that the book doesn’t end that soon. Fortunately, our gang does not seem too upset about it. Also fortunately, while she certainly admires him, Princess Nefi does not seem to fall in love with Koutarou, which is good. A harem of nine or ten girls is already quite a lot even by light novel standards, and adding more would seem to be overegging the pudding a bit.

Side stories continue to take a break, as the next book continues the main Ralgwin plot. Till then, this is a decent volume in a very long running series.