By Umikaze Minamino and Katana Canata. Released in Japan as “Kyōran Reijō Nia Liston: Byōjaku Reijō ni Tenseishita Kami-goroshi no Bujin no Kareinaru Musō Roku” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by okaykei.

I have to give the author credit. When I began this new volume, which starts after the epic tournament arc, I wondered if we really were going back to Nia films herself racing dogs again. I felt the story was somewhat played out, frankly. And much to my surprise, the main character agrees with me. The best scene in the book may be right at the start of the book, where Nia blithely asks Lynokis “what am I even doing with my life?”, and realizes that being the strongest means throwing away everyone near and dear to you… and she’s already done that in her previous life, and while she still can’t remember much it made her feel empty. She needs something new. Fortunately, the author agrees with us, as we ditch 9/10ths of the cast and go back to just Nia and Lynokis creating chaos wherever they go. So much chaos, in fact, that Nia forgets that’s not actually her goal.

The tournament was a resounding success. For Nia, for the winners (at least after they wriggle out of being a wanted criminal). and for the kingdom. Unfortunately, having not seen anyone in the tournament who could come close to beating her, Nia is a bit depressed. Moreover, when you have a huge event that gets everyone to buy Magivision, you need to follow up with more brilliant ideas or it will stagnate. And so the King orders the kids to come up with a brilliant idea… and reminds them that they’re kids, so as long as it’s not literally illegal, they can get away with just about anything. Nia is here to test that “just about”, and she finds that there are indeed limits. As while they do get a huge event that drives sales even higher, um, she’s now been thrown out of the country.

I will admit, this may be the single funniest book in the series. The entirely of the chapter “The King Falls Into a Pit Trap” had me giggling, and I appreciated that it started with the aftermath – the author wanted to create an absence of tension so we weren’t distracted from the hilarity of the king falling into a pit trap. Even the queen agrees. As for Nia’s exile, sure, I may miss the rest of the cast a bit, but not much, and my main disappointment is that Lynokis is still around, so we still have lolicon jokes. That said, I regret I must give a content warning that countless other light novels have: if you dislike starving orphans being snapped up by the heroine and given food and housing in exchange for working, well, here it is again. The orphans are pretty cute, though.

All this plus a new royal to torture. Nia is here to kick ass and spread the word of magivision, and she tends to forget about the latter, so kicking ass is what you get.