By Rika and HIROKAZU. Released in Japan as “Isekai ni Kita kedo, Seikatsu Mahou shika Tsukaemasen” by Mag Garden Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by sachi salehi.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned Ascendance of a Bookworm in these reviews yet, which is a bit of a surprise. We do have a reincarnated girl who is now in the nobility but knows little about it, trying to earn money for her family by inventing things she remembers from back in Japan. She has a posse of friends and classmates, she has adorable siblings, and she has a dad who’s kinda useless. (Sylvester is the dad I mean in this case.) And she’s even intriguing royalty. But if this is a Bookworm lookee likee, there’s one thing that it’s been missing to this point: where’s Ferdinand? Good news, as hitting this series like a bomb is court mage Primus Geitz. He’s the most powerful magic user in the country. He’s a bit of a jerk, but also immediately understands Patience in a way few have so far. And he’s already proposing, much to her horror. Now we’ll see how close it really gets to Bookworm.

We pick up where we left off, with Patience and company discovering amazing new things in the local ruins. As the book goes on, more and more people show up to verify and explore this, and unfortunately, Patience (and later Angela) is the only one who can activate the Open Sesame trap door that lets them into this. She’s also using her household magic to clean ancient moldy ruins and ancient hard to read texts into just as new. And she’s using echolocation to find where the electricity and wiring is in this ancient ruin, as that’s a lost art in this magic-only world. And she’s using teleportation to rescue her brother from … well, not certain death, but a scary dark place. And she’s also telling everyone how solar power works. Finally, it’s up to Geitz, rapidly becoming her least favorite person, to say what we all guessed: she’s not using Household Magic. It’s a lot bigger than what.

Again, Patience is going to have to deal with a fiance soon. Not only does this world not really believe in marrying for love, it also tends to engage em young to keep them tied down somewhere important. That’s especially true of Patience, who is rapidly becoming the most important 11-year-old in history. And this book doesn’t even have half of her fiance candidates. Probably because it adds Geitz. Unlike Ferdinand, though, Geitz has not yet revealed his softer side, and is happily ready to bribe and blackmail Patience’s brothers as he realizes that she’ll do anything they say. I suppose she can always try marrying royalty… but the job she actually is starting to want, a sort of wandering diplomat, is feeling farther away with this book, as she simply as too much magic and too many innovations.

And what’s worse, this arc still isn’t over. And there’s far too many plot strands still up in the air, including Patience’s father. Did I also mention she’s now a Baronetess? I didn’t even know that had a feminine version. For those who enjoy watching OP tweens suffer.

By Rika and HIROKAZU. Released in Japan as “Isekai ni Kita kedo, Seikatsu Mahou shika Tsukaemasen” by Mag Garden Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by sachi salehi.

For once, Patience ends up having a really good volume with minimal chaos. Sure, her summer vacation keeps getting interrupted with visits to every single noble family around, but as is pointed out to her, this is what noble girls her age are supposed to be doing, in preparation for her coming out party in a couple of years. It’s all about connections, and while she has made many connections with the eccentric nerd population of the school, her female friends pretty much consist of Princess Margaret and her relatives. What’s more, given this is one of those noble families in a magic academy books, everyone’s getting engaged when they’re eleven or twelve, and the option of “don’t get married but have a career instead” is likely not going to be happening. Alas for Patience, most of her suitors are obsessed nerds. Or literal royalty. Fortunately, there’s one exception, and he’s the one she is starting to fall for. A bit. Maybe.

Patience and her two brothers are headed off to Samuel’s family territory, which is near the sea. You know what that means, especially with that cover. Beach time! Which means it’s time for Patience to buckle down and invent waterproof swimsuits, even if she has to make them more modest than she’d like, and also use monster materials that gross her out a bit. The territory also has an extensive set of ruins, which are actually in very good shape, from the country’s shrouded past of war. Indeed, some of the ships shown in the murals are so advanced Patience suspects they were invented by other folks reincarnated from Japan. Elsewhere, she’s making dyes, making pool floats, and avoiding Albert’s father, who remains so obsessed with music he would happily marry an eleven-year-old just to lock her away. Fortunately, even her marriage-happy aunt realizes this is not the marriage Patience wants.

I appreciate that Patience, as she grows up, is getting some character development. For all that she suspects her poor horse-riding is due to the OG Patience’s reticence, in reality it’s likely more due to her just being too skittish of the horse, which is therefore skittish of her. That said, Patience is very much an “if all you have is a hammer” sort of character, so it should not come as a surprise to find that the solution is Household Spells. She also starts to realize that, Japanese knowledge or no, she’s very sheltered when it comes to THIS world, and like most nobles she has no idea what the value of money is here, or how she looks when she walks into a normal store dressed as she usually does. And it’s just going to get fancier, as she finally gets some good news about her father… who stays behind the entire book, so how that plays out will have to wait.

Technically this is a two-parter, as the rest of her obsessed alchemy friends have only just arrived to explore/excavate the ruins. We’ll see that next time. Stay strong, Patience, and stop using the word shotacon.

By Rika and HIROKAZU. Released in Japan as “Isekai ni Kita kedo, Seikatsu Mahou shika Tsukaemasen” by Mag Garden Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by sachi salehi.

Despite the fact that Patience is 11 years old going on 12 in this volume, this is still a series full of nobles, and as such we know that marriage is going to always be on the table. And yes, arranged marriages can be made at a young age, though obviously just “waiting till they’re older”. And Patience, as everyone tells her but she refuses to believe, is a very hot property, financial woes or no. Who will she end up with? Obviously the music-obsessed father and son are out, though the son is certainly a better choice than the father. If she continues to try to invent all the things, Caesar is probably the best choice. Prince Keith is a really obvious choice, but let’s face it, Patience is never going to be royalty. And then there’s Percival, who offers to be husband and wife diplomats with her, which would allow her to do everything she’s already doing and travel the world. Sometimes an obvious choice is really obvious.

Most of this book consists of Fun Academy Life, and there aren’t really any climactic conflicts, other than trying to keep Patience away from the music-mad noble who will kidnap and marry her. She continues to take classes in nearly everything, and passes nearly everything. She’s in the Music Club, still locked in eternal political battles. She’s also in the Alchemy Club, inventing so many things that listing them would take the rest of this review. (Hrm… nah.) And she’s preparing for the noble equivalent of the Culture Festival, along with a ball where she and the other students have to make their own ballgowns. She’s definitely standing out with the polka dots, but since she’s trying not to use household magic even she’s struggling to make it in time. And she’s also attracting the notice of damn near everybody, as I said.

There’s actually little to no household magic in this volume aside from Patience occasionally using it as essentially a Sonic Screwdriver. For the most part she’s relying on her knowledge from Japan and her drawing ability (which is remarked on twice in succession, which made me wonder if it’s an error or a gag) to so the usual “inventing mayonnaise” sort of thing we always seen in these reincarnation isekais. Fortunately, she struggles – yes, she can draw a bicycle and get a reasonable facsimile, but rubber, if it exists here, is unknown, so they have to make do. And she also is not particularly good at noble politics. She can certainly freeze out petty teen Louise, who is trying to intimidate Patience without success, but Margaret can still wrap Patience around her finger, and Patience’s noble relatives can also make demands. This means she barely has time to see her brothers… except no, the brothers are all over this book. She sees them all the time. She’s just obsessed.

Next time we get the ocean, and possibly a resolution to Patience’s “but we are poor disgraced nobles” problem – the Queen hints her fortunes will soon rise. In the meantime, this is fun relaxing “let’s invent all the things” isekai.