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.

The Rokujouma landscape post-Volume 29 has thrown a lot more obstacles in the way of our heroes, but it is not frankly in a huge rush to deal with them. This has become a series that has no real plans to stop, so things will get resolved when they get resolved. This also applies to the romance, where we see that Koutarou is still uncomfortable with the idea that all the other girls have already come to accept, which is to say that he’s going to be in a polycule. Physical affection is also a work in progress, as we see in this volume when he’s forced to share a giant robot cockpit with Kiriha. But at least we’ve resolved all the potential love interests and aren’t adding anyone new, right? …right? Well, OK there’s been an asterisk next to that since Vol. 29, but for the most part we’ve ignored it as Nalfa has barely been in these recent volumes. That changes here, and you get the feeling she will be added to said polycule. If she survives.

After the big battle last volume, most of the enemy have fled, likely to regroup around Forthorthe. But the Grey Knight has hung around, trying to figure out why Koutarou’s magical sword is “incomplete”. In the meantime, it’s the start of a new school semester, and there’s going to be a huge influx of alien students. Nalfa has to give the welcoming speech, and it’s making her a bit panicky. That said, everyone else is on edge, suspecting that the Grey Knight is going to be attacking the ceremony. Fortunately, it goes off without a hitch. Unfortunately, the Grey Knight finally clues in and realizes what it is that he is looking for: Nalfa. She’s got some power he needs to draw out. He tries attempting to kill her – this doesn’t work. Then he tries attempting to kill Koutarou – that works. Can our heroes save her with the power of Sanae x 3?

Sanae, Sanae and Sanae fighting against the grey Knight is easily the action highlight of the book, and also gets in a few good one-liners (is it the power of friendship when you’re all the same person?). As for the Grey Knight, well, he may be from a different timeline but he’s still hella powerful and dangerous, and it’s going to take a lot more than Sanaes to get rid of him. As for the romance side of things, if nothing else I think we see here that Nalfa may be the only other addition to the polycule. She’s very blunt about her love for Koutarou, just like the other girls – and not like Kotori, who holds Koutarou on a pedestal compared to her “cheating” brother, but doesn’t see him as a love interest. That said, this is somewhat irrelevant, as any further romantic progress, if it happens at all, will be at the very end of the series.

We’re back to Forthorthe for the foreseeable future in the next book, with a few additions – Kenji, Kotori and Nalfa need to come along so that they’re not used as hostages. (This will kill Kenji’s love life, but he’s comic relief anyway.) Vol. 40 just came out in Japan two days ago, though, so it may be another few months for us.