By Sty and Tsumeki. Released in Japan as “Shiou no Kikan: Moto Yuusha no Ore, Jibun ga Soshikishita Chuuni Himitsukessha wo Tomeru Tame ni Futatabi Isekai ni Shoukansareteshimau” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

Occasionally there are series where I’ll buy it for one reason, usually because it’s advertised as something that intrigues me, only to end up enjoying the book for a completely different reason. This was one of those. The book seems to have been pitched (and judging by that cover, it was pitched in Japan that way as well) as being very much “for fans of The Eminence in Shadow”. There’s a guy prone to making over the top statements, there’s a society of evil made up of extremely loyal servants (though not all of them are women in this one), and there’s lots of fun comedy. But there’s another book that exists behind this book, the prequel that the author thankfully never wrote. And that book certainly is not a comedy. And it drives everything that happens in this book, and makes it a lot more interesting.

Back in middle school, an entire class full of students was summoned to another world by God to defeat the Demon King, each of them gaining special cool powers. At the end of this battle, the demon king is dead, but so are all the classmates, except one, whose special power gains strength whenever an ally dies. He’s returned to Japan, a month after he left, and after police questioning and hospitalization, he’s left to pick up his shattered life. Three years later he’s about to graduate high school when suddenly he’s summoned again. It turns out the “secret society of evil” he created while he was there, made up of various eccentrics, is causing havoc in his absence, and he has to return to clean it up. Two problems. One, he hates remembering his chuuni phase and wants nothing to do with all this edgelord stuff. Two, it’s almost 200 years later!

As noted, while there is humor in this it’s not the reason to read it. It’s mostly “ha ha, it’s funny as he’s horrified by his middle school dramatics being written in stone”. But there are several better reasons. First of all, Shio has suffered genuine trauma from his isekai stunt, and has lingering PTSD. He also feels guilt because, albeit unintentionally, he abandoned his secret society allies for two hundred years… and now it turns out someone is committing genuinely evil acts in its name, as opposed to merely using it to look cool which actually doing good. Most of all, thanks to his actions at the start of the book, ANOTHER class of students has been isekai’d to this world… to stop him. And they may not survive either.

So yeah, the dark, tragic edges in this series interested me a lot more than the funny parts. It was good, I’ll read another.