By Piero Karasu and Yuri Kisaragi. Released in Japan as “Tensei Oujo to Tensai Reijou no Mahou Kakumei” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Haydn Trowell.
Technically this book is the second half of an arc that began with the last one. That said, what this book really does is take everything that we’ve learned in the last seven books and boil it down into an examination of how monarchies really function, especially ones where the nobles don’t necessarily do what the ruler says. And that’s not even the case either, because of course this is a magical kingdom, and being a magical ruler is not remotely the same as being, say, Henry VIII. The magical revolution is still ongoing, and there are people who are very unhappy… not with the revolution itself (i.e. Anis’ magical tools) but simply with the loss of power that this entails. And the fact that it’s come from the non-magical Anis. What does all this mean? It means that both Anis and Euphie spend more time being utterly furious than in any other book we’ve read to date, and both consider simply executing everyone to solve the problem. (Spoiler: they don’t do that.)
Anis is busy working on the construction of her new magical city when she gets an urgent message from Lainie to return to the royal palace, and when she does she finds that Euphie is in her room on forcible rest. What’s worse, she hasn’t been able to sleep for days, and when she tries to eat food it’s tasteless and she can barely choke it down. Euphie is losing touch with her humanity and moving towards being a spirit contractor. And the reason for this? Well, they were meeting with the Western Nobles, who have always been difficult. But when one noble, Count Leghorn (I did try doing the Foghorn Leghorn voice, but it doesn’t match the character) venerates Euphie in a religious fervor, and suggests that all of Anis’ accomplishments have been falsified, Euphie almost loses control of herself in rage. So now she’s on forced leave… and tells all this to Anis, who is now ALSO losing control of herself in rage.
I haven’t really talked much about Lainie lately, who gets the bulk of the narrative here that’s not Anis or Euphie. (Most of the POV in this book is Euphie, and it’s really good.) This series began by combining an isekai with a villainess story, and Lainie was the “heroine” in that scenario. Now a loyal maid, she’s just as livid with what the Western nobles are doing but is not quite as close to it as Anis and Euphie are, so instead calls in the cavalry to come up with a solution. It’s pretty terrific. I also liked her discussion with Lumi, who points out that neither Anis nor Euphie are truly human anymore, and isn’t that a bit disturbing? Lainie believes in them, but then Lainie is a vampire, so she’s dealing with the same problems. The Western nobles have a much higher bar to clear… and they don’t clear it. There are no mass executions, but trust me, an epic smackdown happens.
This book shows that “happily ever after” is hard to achieve and requires constant effort, and even that may not be good enough. Fortunately, it ends rather triumphantly. We get a short story collection before Book 9… but both only came out a couple months ago in Japan, so it may be a bit. Highly recommended.
