By Miya Kazuki and You Shiina. Released in Japan as “Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by quof.

This is another Bookworm volume that’s more relaxed and peaceful than others. The last book promised a huge upheaval in Rozemyne’s life, and this volume is all about how that upheaval is going to affect everyone around her. Its pretty much got everything you’d want in a Bookworm volume… well, OK, there’s a long, long, extended story told from Detlinde’s point of view. That was nightmarish to read. But other than that. The most amusing thing about the volume is the fact that everyone knows that something is going to happen soon to knock everything off the rails, because Rozemyne’s life is a series of such events. They have a year till she moves to the Sovereignty, those she employs have three years… but they’re all preparing to move at a moment’s notice because bad things always happen to this girl. Admittedly, she always makes them into good things, but that is beside the point.

Returning from the Archduke’s Conference, there’s a lot to discuss, namely how Rozemyne is moving to the Sovereignty in one year’s time. She’ll need servants, but not all of them can go with her, and Ehrenfest can’t lose ALL the people attached to her. So some folks have to choose whether to stay or go, which is made more difficult by the fact that Rozemyne, who is trying to be considerate, is not making her own feelings very clear. Meanwhile, she’s managed to save Ferdinand for now, at least, and proceeds to send him enormously valuable paper, and he sends her piles and piles of gifts in return, along with a letter that even asks, in obscure noble language, “do you like me in a romantic way?”. Rozemyne being the glorious asexual hamster that she is, does not understand this at all. (Yes, I know, Rozemyne’s asexuality will last exactly until the author decides to have her be attracted to Ferdinand, but let me have this for now.)

There’s a lot of great stuff happening here. Wilfried, given everything that’s been going on around him, and his low point in the last two books, took things a lot better than I expected. The scene with the four siblings having a tea party was marvelous, and it was amusing seeing Charlotte and Rozemyne trying to one-up one another in praise. Elvira and Rozemyne also had a long heart-to-heart, and we get a better understanding of just how AWFUL everything was in Ehrenfest before Hurricane Rozemyne arrived a good 20 or so books ago. Of course, there’s still some ominous rumblings going on – the aforementioned Detlinde story is a walking collapsing disaster, and Sylvester’s story basically has to have him talk his way out of a cleverly engineered trap (probably by Georgina, let’s face it). So yeah, even we don’t think everything will go smoothly in a year’s time.

Next tie we’re back to the academy, but no one cares, because if you look at the cover for the next book in the series… it’s finally happening! Join us for literal character growth.

By Miya Kazuki and You Shiina. Released in Japan as “Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by quof.

If you go to Pixiv and look at fanart of the Bookworm series (please god set your setting to all ages), you will find that a good 90% of it is Rozemyne/Ferdinand shipping. If you go to AO3 to look for Bookworm fanfics, you will likewise see that 90% of it is shipping Rozemyne with Ferdinand. And, I assume, if the idea of the ship really bothers you, you’ve probably already dropped the series. And in this book we see that it’s not just fans of this fictional universe: all the nobles see it. Rozemyne and Ferdinand are far too close. The books have basically has as a major selling point that we see Rozemyne’s view of a thing, and then frequently get the noble view, showing how incredibly wrong or off base she is. She’s not a great narrator in the “truth” sense. And we see that here as well – only Rozemyne is in denial about this, saying that Ferdinand is like family, and that she’d do the same for other members of her family. Uh-huh.

The bulk of this book is taken up with the Archduke’s Conference, which normally would not involve Rozemyne, but she’s there to do blessings. She’s also sent to the underground archive, along with Hannelore and Hildebrand, to translate the writing there. Unfortunately, this means that she’s there when Detlinde stops by to essentially Detlinde all over the library, so she and the others have to hide. They do so by essentially sneaking out the back of the library and into a forested area, where they find a small, unlooked-after shrine. Rozemyne being who she is, she immediately cleans it, then goes to see what’s inside… and gets sucked into the shrine. What she finds is that she’s a potential Zent candidate and she gets a clue for finding the magic doodad that will automatically grand power to whoever finds it.

There’s no getting around it, this is a much darker book than the last few have been. Leaving aside the final story in the volume, which seems to imply we’re about to have a supporting cast member be horribly murdered, there’s everything about Rozemyne being a Zent candidate. The problem being that she’s not a royal. And this leads to bad things happening to her and Ehrenfest. Anastasius and Eglantine, two royals she thought were her friends, show how little that friendship really means when the fate of the nation is at stake. Her marriage to Wilfried is annulled, which does not bother her at all, but now she’s engaged to Sigiswald, which is bad because, as Adolphine already knows, he’s a terrible human being. And she has to leave Ehrenfest, who initially are supposed to just accept it and suffer, though thankfully Rozemyne’s inner Benno rises to the fore and she gets some concessions. This whole book is a game-changer, and the game is getting more dangerous.

And, as noted above, there is Ferdinand, who at least is no longer in danger of being executed for failing to contain the disaster that is Detlinde. Will he show up in the next book? Probably. And will Rozemyne stop looking nine years old? Probably not just yet.

By Miya Kazuki and You Shiina. Released in Japan as “Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by quof.

With each successive volume in this arc, that subtitle is becoming more and more like foreshadowing. We see here that Hartmut is already brainwashing everyone in the temple to add Rozemyne to the list of Gods, and though she tries to shut him down you get the sense that she won’t be able to for very long. We also see, even if they may not think of her as a Goddess just yet, they definitely think of her as a Saint. The bulk of the first half of this book is that the Liesegangs, now the dominant power after Sylvester p;urged his own base to get rid of the Veronica Faction, think that Wilfried is useless and awful, and that Rozemyne should absolutely be the next Aub. While they’re not wrong about Wilfried (I’ve sort of given up on him, the narrative makes it clear why he’s gotten so awful but it doesn’t make me like him), they forget that Rozemyne simply has no interest in this.

Rozemyne arrives home to find that things are… not great. She’s surprised and rather upset to find Sylvester telling her to try to lay off getting the duchy elevated for the moment, because they’ve done it so fast that no one is ready for what it entails. Of course, what that really means is that the older generation like things as they are and fear change. Sylvester is essentially unable to do anything because the Liesegangs are dominant, but fortunately Rozemyne’s retainer Brunhilde has a wonderful solution that will solve most of these problems. Meanwhile, Rozemyne returns to the temple, now filled with a lot more children whose parents were executed or imprisoned, and gets ready to train Melchior to take over for her. And there’s still time to visit other areas of Ehrenfest and learn some very important past history of the duchy.

The story of Eisenreich is another reminder that women in this world have to struggle to get any headway at all, and that frequently even after achieving their goals they’re still unhappy. The aub’s daughter who essentially saved the country centuries earlier was given a poisoned chalice of a position, and it’s not a surprise that trying to keep the duchy together eventually broke her. We get this history after all the politics with the current generation, with Brunhilde stepping forward to offer herself up as Sylvester’s second wife… but this only comes after her father sires a son, meaning all the power that she would have been coming to will now be taken from her. She ends up consoling Charlotte, who (as we saw in the short story book last time) is bemoaning the exact same thing. We know that Charlotte is the most obvious choice to be the next Aub. But that knowledge does not help us… or Charlotte.

All this plus Angelica gets extra blessings!… with the help of her sword literally telling her what to say. Angelica, I love you. And hey, only three more books till THAT spoiler!