By Satsuki Otonashi and MiRea. Released in Japan as “Moto Ansatsusha, Tenseishite Kizoku no Reijou ni Narimashita” by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Jordan Taylor.

This one is definitely a slow starter. It’s taking a while to make its point, and in order to make it effectively we need to get deep into the mind of its heroine, whose reincarnation has not changed her mindset all that much, and who tends to regard almost everyone in this new world as a terrible person. Unfortunately, she’s not wrong. The main reason this is such a slog to begin with is that the only other characters in the book who are not Selena are either people she’s saved who are now devoted to her, her absent father, and terrible, terrible nobles. If this is meant to be a critique of villainess books, good job, as it felt like it was mashing together quite a few of them, with terrible adopted “heroines”, frivolous princes, arrogant ojous, etc. Even the love interest, the first prince, is in the “everything bores me except you, you’re fascinating” camp. Fortunately, things do eventually pick up once Selena is faced with something where she has to protect.

Our protagonist is 9956, a nameless assassin who dies trying to kill a prince, and ends up reincarnated as the daughter of a duke, Selena Violette. Unfortunately, she was reborn with her old memories, so she acts, as a child, like… well, like a former assassin (she tries to kill a dog with a cake knife). As a result, while her husband is away (something that happens a lot), her mother adopts a commoner girl into the family, Rosemary, who is far nicer ans sweeter and nothing like Selena at all. Unfortunately, Rosemary proves to be a holy terror, being a spoiled brat who uses tears to get her way, and if that doesn’t work she’ll order servants to attack Selena. Selena is fairly blase about this, and in fact keeps trying to hammer home to the adopted daughter that she actually needs to behave like a noble and actually study. This does no good at all. Then the nation’s two princes get involved…

So yes, the first 2/3 of this is a drag, as everyone is SO unpleasant, and also because the narrative is filtered through Selena, who has to force herself not to kill people. This is what fascinates Evan, the first prince, who had her investigated as he found it impossible to imagine someone with her background behaving the way she does. He’s clearly smitten, but also realizes that she, at the moment, is not capable of feeling much of anything, much less love. Unfortunately, before he can slowly show her what love is, one of the terrible nobles who Selena has been destroying over the past hundred pages decides to incite a monster rampage at their hunting party, forcing Selena to fight for her life… and also, much to her surprise, fight to protect the other nobles. Yes, even the nasty ones. I will admit, I wish this had been a single volume. There’s a point near the end where you can hear the author stop and add the number 1 to the cover in their head, and it makes the end a bit less dramatic than I’d like. But oh well.

So yeah, this was eventually a very good read. Just be prepared for some of the world nobles in the world before you get there.