By Fujino Omori and Suzuhito Yasuda. Released in Japan as “Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka?” by GA Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

I needed this almost as much as Bell did. I suspect there are a few people who will be disappointed by this volume. After the highs and lows of the last few arcs, something like this, which is a deliberate “let’s do something totally different” thing, might feel out of place. But the volume is also filled with hints that we’re getting close to, if not the end of the series, then at least the beginning of the end of the series. Bell is being prepared for heroism, and he is going to be a hero. He’s being forced to pay attention to the world outside of Orario, and we see m,any signs that things outside Orario are not happy and peaceful. And, of course, despite yet another addition to the harem this time around, there’s still one main couple that is holding everything back. (Aiz is entirely absent from this book, pointedly so.) So yeah, let’s do it, why not a magical academy volume?

We pick up after the end of the last book. Freya Familia is no more, and in fact a large number of them are now staff at The Benevolent Mistress, presumably to watch over Syr, who is getting absolutely worked to death by irritated gods who are still upset about everything Freya did. Another large number of them are watching over Haruhime, whose secret level up powers are now known to all, and Lyu, who has returned from seeing off Astrea and has made peace with her past at last (and joined Hestia Familia) in order to make sure they are not kidnapped. Bell thinks his Familia,. now with added Lyu, should head right back into the dungeon, but Eine tells him it’s a good time to relax. It has been (good lord) six months since the start of the series. That’s a LOT to happen to Bell in that little time. He deserves a break. He deserves… to be abducted by Hermes and forced to infiltrate the massive floating school that’s just docked at Orario for the next few months.

There’s almost a deliberate lack of originality here. After nearly getting caught infiltrating the high security school, Bell has to disguise himself as an ordinary Level-1 rabbit boy and pretend to be meek and still learning. And then he promptly gets assigned with all the class losers, who can’t work together to save their lives, even though they’re powerful. Also in the group is Nina, Eine’s younger sister, who is having a lot of trouble living up to her sister’s standards and it’s crushing her. Her scenes with Bell are some of the best of the book. I also enjoyed seeing Bell studying hard, and his studies later proving useful in actual dungeon battles. Bell was always naive and inexperienced, but he was never stupid, and now that he’s no longer inexperienced (we’ll put a pin in naive for now), his smarts are really impressive.

Basically, by the end of this book you definitely see WHY the gods are pinning all their hopes on Bell. Unfortunately, we’re caught up with Japan again. Fortunately, we’re getting the last volume of depress-o-thon Astrea Record soon, as well as the first Sword Oratoria light novel in over four years. So there’s plenty of stories to be told in this world. This is just a “Bell is a student” one.