By Zappon and Yasumo. Released in Japan as “Shin no Nakama ja Nai to Yuusha no Party wo Oidasaretanode, Henkyou de Slow Life Surukoto ni Shimashita” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

The second volume of Gap Moe: The Light Novel. No, hear me out here. It’s nothing to do with any of the characters, but rather to do with the two moods of the book which are pulling on each other. the majority of the book is quite serious and rather dark. There’s drug addiction, beatings, child abuse, lots of death, demons possessing people, and, in the end, a cliffhanger which promises an absolute nightmare descending on Red and Rit in the third volume, especially if the Hero has as much of a brother complex as I suspect she does. And this is contrasted with the schmoopiest romance I’ve seen this side of SAO: Sugary Days. Rin and Rit are deeply in love with each other, have grown and matured enough to get past the self-deprecating or tsundere masks they’ve been hiding behind, and are here to be as sickeningly sweet as you can possibly imagine. It’s pretty great.

While Red and Rit go on a lakeside picnic, buy a double bed, and sit in each other’s laps a lot, other things threaten their bliss. Al, the kid from last volume with the weapon blessing, is still having trouble reconciling his feelings with his blessing. Then his parents are attacked by the kid who bullied him previously, who was supposed to have turned over a new lead. Could this be related to the new, highly addictive drug going around that changes your blessing for you? Could it be related to the ongoing class war that still infests the town? Or could it be related to the fact that the local slumlord kingpin has made a deal with a demon to rule the city? Oh yes, and the Hero’s Party continues to fall about without Gideon, Ares is desperate and pathetic, and Ruti gets even more terrifying by the page.

As you can see, the idea that this is Slow Life is hogwash… except that Rin and Rit are determined to make their own little world exactly that. They’ve got the apothecary, they’ve got the day-long dates, they’ve got still being too shy to even grope each other properly… really, I’m not exaggerating, it is SICKLY sweet. But that’s good, because without this the rest of the book would just be grim. And the grim stuff gets equally good attention. This town may be where Red and Rit have chosen to reside, but it’s an ugly little town. Albert, the creep knight from the last volume, shows up here and is even worse, and it’s darkly hilarious that the demon cannot fulfill his contract because this city is too lazy and halfassed to be properly conquered. As I said last time, my one complaint is that it really goes into ridiculous detail about its worldbuilding, the blessings in particular. And honestly, I’m well aware that for most readers my complaint is their high point.

So yes, this is an excellent light novel, and you should read it. And I really hope that Ruti does not kill Rit stone dead in the next book, as that would make the rest of the series rather short.

By Zappon and Yasumo. Released in Japan as “Shin no Nakama ja Nai to Yuusha no Party wo Oidasaretanode, Henkyou de Slow Life Surukoto ni Shimashita” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Dale DeLucia.

I probably should not have read this only a few weeks after Roll Over and Die, as the first thought that came to mind is that when the woman is leaving the party she’s branded, sold into slavery, and left for dead, but when it’s the guy he just moves to the country, opens a shop, and gets a girlfriend almost instantaneously. That said, the whole “you are a disgrace to the party, go!” plot is apparently also a big thing in Japanese webnovels now, though so far it’s been less “the party” and more “that one asshole guy in the party”. In any case, our hero starting up his apothecary and hooking up with his former ally is only part of the story here, as we also flash back to the party in action, get a few glimpses of life as the hero, and, perhaps most importantly, talk endlessly about the magical systems in place in this world.

This is not a “game world” per se, but the plot hinges on a common game element: Gideon, the banished guy, was born at Level 30, and is the very definition of “the strong guy who joins your party early in the game to help you level up”. Unfortunately, when the party grows strong enough, this type of character usually leaves, and Gideon doesn’t do that – mostly as the Hero is his little sister. So when one of the party with a hate on for Gideon and a crush on the hero tells him he’s useless now, Gideon quietly accepts it, leaves the party, changes his name to Red, moves to a backwater sleepy town, and opens an apothecary. Luckily he’s helped in this by Rit, an adventurer and princess whose kingdom the hero’s party saved earlier. Rit has had a not-so-secret crush on Red since that time, and essentially invites herself into his shop, his home, and his bedroom. Together the two grow closer and have a nice quiet life. But what of the hero?

I’ll start off with the negatives: Red/Gideon is not the most magnetic hero. He fits the stock “boring adventurer guy” a little too well, and it feels ridiculous that he’s just quietly listen and leave the party without, y’know, asking anyone else in the party about it. There’s also a heaping helping of explanations about “blessings”, which are essentially the powers that people have, as well as the weak points that come with them. (Gideon, for example, cannot go past the Level 30 he was born with.) It’s interesting in regards to the ongoing story, but also tends to go on a bit too much. On the bright side, Rit is genuinely likeable. We get a large number of flashbacks showing her being a giant tsundere towards Gideon and everyone else, but now that she’s grown up and accepted her feelings, she’s quite fun and cheerful, and their romance is very sweet. Most importantly, though, are the last few pages. We learned very little about the little sister hero throughout the book except that she had something of a brother complex and was relatively emotionless. Towards the end we see the emotionlessness is a result of the many, many blessings she has, and that it has not been good for her mental health. I am definitely hoping to see more of her later on.

Overall, this does a good job trying to balance the “slow life” that its audience likely bought it for with actually having a plot and future character development. I do hope it has Red become a little less of the stock light novel hero in future books, though. But I’ll be reading more.