By Almond and Yoshiro Ambe. Released in Japan as “Mujikaku Seijo wa Kyō mo Muishiki ni Chikara o Tare Nagasu: Imadai no Seijo wa Anede wa Naku, Imōto no Watashi Datta Mitai Desu” by Earth Star Luna. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Dawson Chen.
It’s never a good sign when I’m checking Amazon Japan to see how long a series has left to go. Fortunately, this series looks like it ends with the 4th volume, so I guess I’ll finish it. It’s not doing anything wrong per se, and doesn’t have random slavery or the usual light novel turnoffs, but it’s a damp wet towel of a book. Our heroes hear of a setback, think of a plan, and the plan, for the most part, goes swimmingly. The bad guys are really bad, the good guys are really good, with the exception of Teodore being a standard “glasses sadist” for laughs. There are one or two exceptions, which I’ll get to later, but if I’m being honest, the most interesting and exciting part of the book was when this volume’s antagonist snaps and decides to start choking Carolina to death in front of royalty and hundreds of people. Dumb, but exciting.
Carolina’s father arrives with bad news: Archbishop Mills is on his way to the kingdom and wants an audience with Carolina, likely to try to get her to come back to Celestia. Unfortunately, they’re not quite ready to reveal how powerful she is to the world yet. So they try several stopgap measures. She puts off her decision while she “thinks about it”, they investigate the bishop for his horrible crimes (can’t have a light novel without a Church of Evil, though in this case it’s just one Bishop of Evil), and create a Saint for their own Empire. Unfortunately, while they get enough support to do this, they can’t just make it Carolina, especially since her power is a secret. There’s going to be a magic competition. And her main opponent is Monica, the noble girl who despises her.
So there are a couple of bits that weren’t too bad, most of which revolve around accepting that sometimes people change, and sometimes kids can’t change situations because they’re kids. Marisa and Owen both had terrible childhoods that left them with many regrets, and indeed we saw Marisa’s younger sister of terrible in the last book. But they need people to vote for their new Saint idea, and that means she has to talk to her OLDER sister, who also treated her like crap. Then she finds… her sister happily married, and love has softened her, and she deeply regrets what she did and apologizes. Marisa really doesn’t know how to take this. As for Owen, it turns out that his brother’s disinterest was not that in the slightest, but just a massive miscommunication, and now the two of them are getting along again. Now, both of them credit Carolina for basically making them nice enough to reach out and make amends, but I’m used to perfectly pure heroines.
I didn’t mention Flora at all, but the final volume has basically one question: will she be saved or will she die? We’ll find out. Bet the answer is the obvious one.
