By KAYA and Naru. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shōjo wa Mazu Ippo kara Hajimetai: Mamono ga Iru toka Kiitenai!” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Amy Osteraas.

It’s always interesting reading a final volume that isn’t. This is NOT the final volume in this series – the 6th book is running on the JNC chapter release schedule as we speak – but if you didn’t know that, and you finished this volume, which does not even have an afterword, I think you’d be pretty convinced that this was the ending. It wraps up almost all the plot points from the previous books – though I still say Sara is a monster attractor. She finally goes to the capital, she accepts the fact that she’s a celebrity and will have to deal with it, she, Allen, Nelly and Chris realize they’re all a family, and she not only gets the prime minister to reject Liam’s marriage proposal but rejects him personally. It does everything but say “our fight has only just begun”. Still, I’m glad there’s more of this, as I like the cast, and I like Sara. She’s just fun to head when she’s snarking.

Everyone is getting invited to the capital, it would seem. Sara has to go for multiple reasons – not only does she have to introduce herself to the King (and deal with Liam’s annoying marriage proposal), but the capital is asking for extra apothecaries due to the dragon migration currently going on – the same thing that tore Nelly away from Sara in the second book. Unfortunately, once Sara gets there she discovers similar problems to previous books – she’s only 14, and looks about 12, and she’s only been an apothecary for two months, though she’s already a prodigy. As such, she’s disregarded and belittled once she’s there, and paired off with the other rookie commoners. Fortunately, Sara is the heroine, so the plot comes to find her anyway.

Sara admits in this book that she is very happy to be an apothecary, but honestly I think her true talents may lie in management. When they wrap things up in the capital, and Sara realizes they’re just going to do the same thing with the same problems next year, she gets very angry. And then it’s explained to her that none of the guilds collaborate with each other at all, or even help out unless asked, and thus no one has given any thought to anything but the immediate problem of that month. Long-term thinking doesn’t happen here, mostly as everyone’s competing for power and prestige. Fortunately, Sara is an Invited, and has some of the most powerful people in the company as her found family, so she is able to call everyone around to the royal table and cut through the bullshit. Though admittedly, she doesn’t recognize the King. As for marriage… there’s a minor hint that Allen is thinking about marriage, but for the most part this book is content on the two of them having a sibling bond, and for now that’s absolutely fine.

So, NOT the end, I guess. I look forward to seeing what happens in the next arc.

By KAYA and Naru. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shōjo wa Mazu Ippo kara Hajimetai: Mamono ga Iru toka Kiitenai!” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Amy Osteraas.

I am frequently proved wrong when I write reviews of light novels, but it’s rare I’m proven this wrong this fast. Last volume I wondered if we could get a bit more of happy, joyful Sara because I was annoyed with cranky, grouchy Sara. I am prepared to do a complete 180 – after this volume, I think the reason I find Sara most interesting is because she’s always so bitter about everything. First of all, it helps to differentiate her as a character from various other plucky young girls who were reincarnated and now have massive amounts of power in their adorable teenage bodies, and secondly because it’s not really tied into her past life in Japan. We know she spent most of it sick, and that is why she seems to find such joy in seemingly normal things in this world (like the butterflies), but the cranky “why are you telling me what to do/including me in your drama?” is entirely her own self, and it’s just fun.

Sara, Allen, Nelly and Chris are headed towards Nelly’s hometown to get Nelly’s family to become Sara’s guardian, so that she is less likely to be forcibly abducted by the knights. On their way there, they come across a village dealing with an infestatio0n of seven-colored swallowtails, a butterfly monster whose skin can cause paralysis when touched. When they arrive in Hydrangea, Nelly’s hometown, there is some predictable family stuff, and we learn that Nelly is basically exactly what we guessed she was, but their dungeon is also having a swallowtail infestation. In addition, Sara seems to have finally realized that when she’s not being pushed into it by anyone, she really DOES want to be an apothecary, so she starts learning basic things at the guild -her education with Chris having been erratic, to say the least.

One source of Sara’s constant simmering annoyance is the fact that everyone is trying to decide her future for her, be it passively or actively. Chris, of course, wants her to be an apothecary, and that’s one reason she took so long to decide she actually likes doing that. Nelly and Allen want her to be a hunter, since she’s got fantastic power and ability for it, but, as we see in possibly the best scene in the book, she simply doesn’t have the stomach for it – she can’t kill off monsters like it’s a game, she sees them as living creatures who don’t deserve to die. I loved her delight at seeing hellhounds in Hydrangea’s dungeon, essentially putting them on the same level as her wolves from back home. Speaking of home, it’s interesting to hear that the ‘Dark Mountain” is not just a dangerous place, but a real dungeon – dungeons simply work differently in this world. So Sara was essentially reborn at the bottom of a dungeon, like a final boss. How apropos.

The cliffhanger ending of “if we can’t take her by force, we’ll take her by marriage” implies she’s going to have to go to the capital next volume, so I do not expect her snark to recede anytime soon. This remains an enjoyable reincarnation series.

By KAYA and Naru. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shōjo wa Mazu Ippo kara Hajimetai: Mamono ga Iru toka Kiitenai!” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Amy Osteraas.

It can sometimes be difficult, when a series is told entirely from one person’s point of view, to remind ourselves that they may not necessarily be the best narrator for the job. Sara tells the entire story in these books, and for the most part that’s fine, but there is a good deal of snark, apathy and general grouchiness to her entire character that makes the narration fun but also reminds us that everyone else doesn’t necessarily adore her. That said, the people she’s grouchiest to (Ted, the knights) generally deserve it. As the series goes on, I’m hoping that we get more of her joyful delight at seeing the ocean, which we get at the end of this book, and a bit less of her “whatever, I don’t care” attitude when people try to railroad her into annoying things. Though she’s right, she really should settle on figuring out what to do with her life soon.

Sara and Nelly head back to Rosa to do some shopping for clothes, but end up getting sidelined by a ton of plot. The other Invited we met in the capital last time, Haruto, has arrived in the town, and is acting like a 10-year-old kid – which, to be fair, is about when he died in Japan, so Sara has a big leg up on him. More dangerously, the knights are returning to get Sara and forcibly have a noble adopt her and get her working for the state. She really does not want to do that, so after letting Haruto and fellow Invited Bradley handle the cottage on the mountain, she, Allen and Nelly join Chris is a trip to a town two weeks away that is trying to train new apothecaries. Unfortunately, when they get there it turns out almost every single apothecary has in fact left the town. Oh yes, also frogs. LOTS of frogs.

Because Sara has for the most part been living on a mountain with a mentor who does not really care about much of anything, or else in a town that is very clearly the “last dungeon” town in this fantasy world, she has not really had a normal isekai reincarnation like everyone else in this series. That’s clearly for the good, as it turns out that while reincarnates are coddled, they’re also pretty much used as government-sponsored slaves, with a name change. You can see why – Sara is really, REALLY powerful, and we see more of that here, though at last we seem to have finally hit a magic thing that makes her feel tired rather than just being easy as pie. The next book is set up by Nelly suggesting they go to her hometown to get her family (who are nobility) to adopt Sara, which should stop the knights from trying to abduct her. I’m fairly certain it will not be that simple.

So yeah, Sara’s not sure what she wants to do with her life here yet, but till she’s safe and can relax, I don’t really blame her. Also, the gimmick is that Sara attracts monsters, right? I think we all get that by now, even if the cast don’t yet. She’s a Monster Magnet.