By You Fuguruma and Nama. Released in Japan as “Kasei Madoushi no Isekai Seikatsu: Boukenchuu no Kasei Fugyou Uketamawarimasu!” by Ichijinsha Bunko Iris NEO. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Hengtee Lim.

It’s always interesting seeing how light novels based around a typical “fantasy RPG’ setting handle monsters. Some of them tend to go in the direction of “monsters are people too”, particularly when it comes to demon lords, to the point the recent manga Frieren was written in part to push back against that. A lot more of them tend to see monsters as simply things that our heroes hit with their weapons for drop loot. Housekeeping Mage tries to sit somewhere in the middle. We already know about the slime familiars, and we get another familiar added to the extended family here as well. But we also get a dragon that is the subject of cruel experiments, and while they can sympathize with its plight and give it the best death possible, they still have to kill it, because the alternative is the loss of human settlements. On the bright side, that does lead to some really cool fight sequences.

Alec and Shiori are called back to Brovito, home of the foot baths, in order to investigate a rumor that there’s a fenrir in the woods. What they do find turns out to be not QUITE a fenrir, but certainly an intelligent wolf variant, one who immediately bonds with Alec as a soulmate, and is made into a familiar so rapidly it’s almost comical. The bulk of the book, though, it taken up with a crisis: an ice dragon, buried in a frozen lake for two hundred years, has woken up, and the knights are unable to handle it, so have called in the adventurers. This will take everyone’s skills, and there’s a big chance there will be some deaths. And to make things worse, this is the fault of the Empire, whose dying embers are still glowing, and who even know have grudges to settle.

The series has gradually been getting more optimistic and less bleak with each book, so I was not too surprised that after the great battle, the casualty count was low. Honestly, it’s more interested in romance, now that Alec and Shiori are lovers and ready to get married as soon as he can sort out his family issues. (His brother always seems to be on the verge of visiting but never quite makes it by the end of each book.) We also get another inevitable proposal here, as Clemens and Nadia finally make things official after he takes an arrow for Alec and almost dies. Speaking of which, the reason he doesn’t die, doctor Ellen says, is because she’s been studying harder and learning more thanks to Shiori’s example. For all that Japan loves to write about folks dying from heart attacks from working too hard, most of these books agree that if it’s a job they love which is rewarding, they want to work ALL the overtime and do ALL the things.

We’ve caught up with Japan, so I’m not sure when we’ll get the next book, but the author says it should wrap up in 2-3 more arcs. I’m still enjoying it.

By You Fuguruma and Nama. Released in Japan as “Kasei Madoushi no Isekai Seikatsu: Boukenchuu no Kasei Fugyou Uketamawarimasu!” by Ichijinsha Bunko Iris NEO. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Hengtee Lim.

It’s been over a year since we saw the last volume of this series, so I was already struggling to recall what happened in the last book. For the author to them spring a major supporting character we had not seen since the first volume might be just a bit mean. But it ended up being a really good subplot, so I will forgive them. Honestly, this author is pretty good at mapping out the past, present and future of this world. We’ve gotten most of the past already, and we get another big chunk in the side story that ends this volume. The present, as always, is what’s taking forever, as all of the things that Alec and Shiori have to do at the end of the last book… they still need to do. And we get glimpses of the future all through this book, as we’re starting to see the “little did they know that in twenty years” narrative device used by authors who see an ending in sight.

Having finally gotten together with Alec *and* confessed about all of her past (including being from Japan), Shiori is now ready to move forward, which means teaching the other adventurers and mages in the city about her housekeeping magic. It’s harder than it seems, as most of them are either dealing with having to hold back or else simply never having had the imagination to think about such things. All these mages have is hammers, and Shiori is teaching them all the other ways to solve a problem besides nails. Unfortunately, her class is interrupted by a nearby avalanche, and they head to a nearby village to help… only to find that there’s also a magical beat on the loose… one that may have been engineered by the Empire.

So yeah, I wasn’t expecting to see Vivi again, mostly as I had completely forgotten about Vivi. Remember when those three girls abused Shiori back at the start of the series? And she used illusion magic to terrify them so badly that two fled back home and one ended up dead? Well, Vivi is one of the ones who fled back home, she’s had a heaping helping of humility, and she wants to apologize to Shiori, who graciously accepts it. (Of course she does. Were you expecting something else?) The interesting thing is that we them have Vivi attending Shiori’s housekeeping mage class, and also following to help with the avalanche. The extended focus on her POV not only allows us to see the depths of how much she actually has changed, but also demonstrates the dangers of using magic the same way every time (her left hand can now barely use magic since she always casts with her right) as well as how apologizing doesn’t always solve everything – the rest of the group are very reluctant to approve of her till after the disaster, when her actions help demonstrate what her words didn’t. I was very pleased with her entire subplot.

Will Alec and Shiori be any closer to marrying next time? Or will the building of the magic academy (oh no, not a magic academy!) take up all its time? Fortunately, we won’t have to wait another 14 months to find out – the next volume is out in the spring.

By You Fuguruma and Nama. Released in Japan as “Kasei Madoushi no Isekai Seikatsu: Boukenchuu no Kasei Fugyou Uketamawarimasu!” by Ichijinsha Bunko Iris NEO. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Hengtee Lim.

Generally speaking when you get a book in the current genre of “Cinderella”, be they a villainess or just a betrayed female lead in general, the actual betrayal part is rapidly overwritten by the good stuff. Our heroine finds a new life with those who love and care about her, and finds joys that she never had in the past. And that does happen in this story as well – Shiori is extremely happy with Alec and secure in her job as a housekeeping mage. But she’s also been through not one but two traumatic, world-shattering events over the course of just a year or two, and they still impact her every day. She’s been hiding her past in Japan from everyone for the very simple reason that she can’t prove it. As for her love for Alec, and his true identity as royalty, she’s very upfront about what she wants if she is forced to leave Alec forever – the mercy of death. This book can be chilling.

There’s a new visitor to Storydia – a merchant from the East and her bodyguard. This is bad news for Shiori, who has tried to wave off her background by claiming that she comes form the East. Now that there are actual people from Mizuho here, her story is not going to hold up. Especially as she can’t read the written language they have, meaning that her last desperate hope – that she merely went back in time, and this was some unheard of historical period – is dashed to bits. After a mild nervous breakdown, she finally confesses everything to Alec and Zack, and they do believe her – even through her fears that she’ll be abandoned and left for dead, which understandably still haunt her. That said, Alec’s true past also comes out in this conversation, and now that it’s out in the open, it can’t be ignore anymore – Shiori is going to have to have conversations with the local lord. And the king.

Honestly, over the course of this volume it becomes clear that this adventurer’s guild is essentially an isle of misfit toys for nobles with tragic pasts. We already know about Alec. We’d heard about Zack earlier, but it’s fleshed out more now. And now it turns out that Nadia was meant to marry one of the older princes who ended up dying, and that Clemens was also a noble with a promising future who, after being tricked by a woman, had to flee nasty rumors in order to save his family. That said, I don’t think anyone can quite top Shiori. As I said before, having “magically transported from Japan with no language skills, money or belongings” OR having “my adventuring party/family all grew to dislike me and eventually left me to die in a dungeon” would be good enough tragic backstories. Together… look, normally I would criticize the relationship between Alex and Shiori as being too codependent to be healthy. But after this book? Heck, go nuts.

This is not quite happily ever after yet – Alec and Shoiri are together for now, and the lord approves, but there is still the King to think about. And, um, the little matter that folks are starting to consider Shiori a literal Saint. Ridiculous. Her magic power isn’t even omnipotent! In any case, this was an excellent volume in an excellent, if heavy, series.