By Harunadon and Kurodeko. Released in Japan as “Tsuihousareta Seijo desu ga, Jitsu wa Kunijuu kara Aisaresugitete Kowain desu kedo!?” by Earth Star Luna. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Camilla L.

And then it all falls apart. The afterword of this series mentions that the author really wanted to do this sort of plot, which made me raise an eyebrow, and that they suspect no other author has taken a swerve like this, which I know isn’t true. They then tell us that the editor has asked that the next cover they want to see Evelyn smile, and encourage us with a “so you’d better buy this enough!” threat. Reader, they did not buy this enough, and this third and final volume came out in 2023, with Evelyn still not quite married. That said, unlike another series I read recently, everything is pretty wrapped up here. In fact, everything was pretty wrapped up in Book 2. The most painful thing about this book is that it’s unnecessary, flabby, and will do something for a laugh and then abandon it when exposition is needed. It’s not good.

Evelyn wakes up in a room with the other eleven supporting characters of this series, where they are told by a mysterious rabbit that they are going to be playing… a DEATH GAME! Evelyn, needless to say, finds this horrifying, especially when she’s told that a lot of people in the kingdom go missing every year, and it’s now assumed they’re killed off in this game. In the first game, they run a relay race against zombies, who bite Alex and Mary, who are theoretically now zombified… though it seems to be taking a long time. In the second death game, they’re divided into two teams of six to play “Wolves and Villagers”. Evelyn’s group is narrated by her, and Kira gets the narration for the other group. This allows everyone to play detective… some badly. But who’s really behind all this?

I appreciate that this series runs on Rule of Silly, but I do expect some consistency. We get an extended gag of Evelyn not getting the Wolves and Villagers rules as she’s too thick, but then near the end she’s able to rattle off all the various deductions she’s made with ease. I am generally not a fan of death games in general, so his was always going to be an uphill battle. But the relay race vs. zombies thing didn’t really make any sense, and only worked as a sort of way to force Mary to apologize to her sister without making it sound out of character. Evelyn is engaged to Theodore, and loves him, but really the only reason she’s not marrying Kira is his age – they have the far stronger bond. And the revelation of the culprit’s motivations just made me sigh, but at least it fit in with everything else in this series.

I don’t expect more of this. It was very silly but fun, then very silly and a lot less fun. Go read the author’s other series, which are far better.