By Riku Nanano and cura. Released in Japan as “Koujo Denka no Kateikyoushi” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by William Varteresian.

Imagine a horse race, with a lot of impressive participants. The race starts, everyone is going flat out… except one horse who just stands there, staring, and perhaps snorting with amusement. What’s going on? Is she just going to let the other horses win? Then, when everyone else is about 3/4 of the way into the race, the remaining horse starts to run. She ends up winning by 10 furlongs. That’s sort of how this book feels for those who are wondering who Allen will end up with in this series. It’s Lydia’s world and we just live in it. There are a few scenes dedicated to the rest of the cast, but even there, the main POV character is not the titular Duke’s Daughter, but her older sister, who is also possibly the only one of the harem herd Lydia regards as a rival. Tina? There was a character poll in Japan. Tina came in 6th. No prizes for guessing who won, and it wasn’t close.

(I want you to look at the cover to Volume 6, and then look at this volume. They’re the same character.)

After the events of the last book, Allen and Lydia (and Atra) have gone on the run to the City of Water, in the middle of the Southern Alliance that is currently at war with Lydia’s family. They check into a hotel under an an assumed name, and, Lydia ensures, as a married couple. What follows is about half a volume of the sweetest gloop you could possibly want. Sadly, the plot has to kick in sometime. The Doge is trying to broker for peace, especially after he and Allen have a secret discussion at a fantastic cafe, but one of the countries is being particularly difficult… because, of course, their reins are being held by the Church. The younger brother of the City’s Don has the Church trying to kidnap him for nefarious reasons. And there’s a mysterious woman who is, according to Atra, a “scary, sad fiend”. Which is true, especially the scary part.

I hate gushing (that’s a lie, I love gushing), but this book is a massive reward for Lydia fans who have been waiting for her to spend an extended period with Allen since the first volume. She’s at her most self-confident here, having Allen pamper her, declare that he will never hate her, and connecting their mana together, something she’s longed for for years, even if it’s just temporary. Even the climax of the book, which technically has Allen and Lydia fight against a powerful enemy and lose, is triumphant. As for the others? Well, Stella’s still having mana leakage issues, and I’m sure she’ll get a book of her own later. And, um… Felicia and Lily’s breasts are big? Yeah, I may love this series, but it’s still what it is, so of course there’s a “small-breasted girls vs. large-breasted girls” argument. All of them miss the point, as Allen is not the sort to pick a partner based on looks. Honestly, Allen is not the sort to pick a partner, period. Lydia’s working on that.

This looks like a multi-volume arc, and I’m sure the girls will intrude on Allen and Lydia’s love-love honeymoon in the next book. Till then, though, please enjoy a victory lap from the angriest redhead around. (OK,. the angriest redhead in this series, at least. Sorry, Lina.)

By Riku Nanano and cura. Released in Japan as “Koujo Denka no Kateikyoushi” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by William Varteresian.

I’ve talked before about how at times I am unhappy with the story the author is telling, preferring that he tell the story of Allen and Lydia’s awesome life in the past, which we have been getting dribbled onto us in bits and babs, making us confused but also making us long to have been there. There’s more of that here, including Lily talking about her own past with Allen (and the implications of why she is super duper uber powerful and talented and yet is so determined to be a maid). But of course, the protagonist of this series is not merely Allen, though he’s certainly the primary one. The secondary protagonist is Tina Howard. And we’re seeing events as Tina would see them. She’s just as frustrated and annoyed that she isn’t able to know Allen as well as Lydia does, simply because she didn’t meet him till the first book, which Lydia has known him for years. Sadly, more bad news for Tina: Lydia starts her comeback here.

Well, OK, she doesn’t get the cover – she’ll have to wait till next time. The majority of this book is the epilogue to the arc we’ve been having for some time now, which means there’s less fighting (though we do get some awesome fights) and a lot more political finagling and wrangling. Allen is clearly the hero of the hour, and this time everyone is finally determined to give him the recognition – and title – and wife – he so richly deserves. This can be rather difficult, given that Allen seriously regards himself as powerless compared to everyone around him and deeply unworthy of most of his love interests. He even blows off a major meeting to go and stop Gil from trying to commit suicide by “it’s all my fault, please execute me but spare the others”. That said, the royal family also has its reasons they do not want Allen to get honored – and once they fail at preventing it, they try for the next best thing.

Lydia, theoretically, should be at a low ebb here. She hasn’t killed anyone, but she’s committed massive amounts of property damage, went mad when she thought for a moment that Allen might have been dead, and ended up becoming so overpowered that she has less mana than even Allen, at least temporarily. But none of that actually matters, because it’s clear that when Lydia and Allen are in the same room, she has such self-confidence and swagger that no one else matters at all. Don’t get me wrong, everyone else gets their chance to show off in front of Allen and also try to get him to pet them/snuggle them/other safe kinds of affection. But all Lydia really does is grumble mildly at these, she doesn’t regard any of them as real threats. Because she’s Allen’s partner. Even if that means helping him in the duel to prove he deserves the glory he’s being given. And even if it means fleeing the country with him. In fact, she packed in advance.

So yes, we now get what is jokingly referred to as the “honeymoon” arc, though there’s still no “he chose this girl” romance yet, and honestly the ongoing war would likely get in the way anyway. This remains one of my favorite light novel series.

By Riku Nanano and cura. Released in Japan as “Koujo Denka no Kateikyoushi” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by William Varteresian.

OK, I will admit, the author cleared the bar that I had set up for them. I’ve already grumped quite a bit about Lydia’s character arc during the last two to three books, and I had certain expectations of how it would resolve itself. I did not like those expectations, but I had them. Lydia was going to go berserk, everyone would make the terrible decision to kill her, and then Allen would return and talk her down. Thankfully, that is NOT what happened – at least not the last part. Lydia manages to get talked down by all the other love interests yelling “snap out of it, you idiot” at regular intervals till she does. This allows her to be part of the final battle, which I appreciated. Of course, I might be less grumpy if we ever learned more about Lydia and Allen’s past than anecdotes. Surprisingly, Tina doesn’t get much to do here either. Honestly, the love interest with the most focus is Lynne, as Narrator #2.

The rebellion is going very badly for the rebels, who decide to stake it all on one last battle for the Great Tree. Fortunately for those defending it, reinforcements are coming from all over the land. Unfortunately, Allen is still missing and presumed dead, meaning that most of the love interests are moping, and Lydia is… well, not in her right mind, we’ll put it that way. As for Allen, he’s trying to get the approval of an ancient ghost, and then has to battle the real enemy behind all this – the Church. (I know, the church, evil, in a Japanese light novel? Try to contain your shock.) Unfortunately, he may have finally come across something which really IS too much for him, as opposed to all the things he handles with ease while saying they’re too much for him. He may be forced to… ask for help.

Yeah, the final part of the book is basically “what if we all battled the final boss together?”, though the boss in this case is just a created monster thing. There was decent stuff in this book, but I won’t lie, I’m happy to see the back of this arc. In addition to Lydia running amok, I was also not fond of a death fakeout near the end, which was done purely to give Allen the rage and despair to fight even harder, but if you’re going to do that, don’t just do a “just kidding” afterwards. In the end, honestly, no one we care about died, or was even injured. One minor character’s father was kidnapped, which may be what starts the next arc, but other than that everyone does fine. A bit more than fine, honestly – Stella has become so overpowered I may have to start calling her Allen soon.

So yeah, good riddance to this arc, but I still enjoy the series. Next volume apparently stars Lily, the “Maid” of the Leinster family, and I am hoping will let her do something other than be comedy relief, because that’s all she’s done so far.