By Daken and toi8. Released in Japan as “Dare ga Yuusha wo Koroshita ka” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kim Morrissy.

(I won’t be spoiling too much about this book, but by necessity this does spoil a big reveal for the FIRST book, so beware that.)

It’s always tricky when you write a perfectly self-contained novel that gets so popular you have to write a sequel to it, and it’s even trickier when you are an author who is known to a certain degree for clever plot twists. By now anyone who picks up the second volume of this book will be sitting back and saying “well, go on, impress me”. When I heard about the plot for this book, I wondered if it was a prequel to the previous book, showing one of the many failed parties that the Prophet tried to gather together who failed to defeat the demon lord. And that’s kinda sorta true. But for the most part this book wants to explore what the idea of a hero and heroism is, and whether it’s something that some people have and some people don’t or if it all depends on circumstances. Because the hero’s party we see here have a reputation that is, shall we say, less than ideal.

The bulk of this book takes place right before the events of the first in the series. The Prophet is searching for someone who can be a hero, unite the Sword Saint, the Holy Maiden, and the Great Sage (who, you may recall from Book One, have shall we say DIFFICULT personalities), defeat the demon lord and save humanity. This is hard, and she’s tried to do this a large number of times, including the noble knight Carmine, whose corpse we see as this book starts. But we also see another party, which also looks DIFFICULT. They’re led by a man named Leonard, who is, not to put too fine a point on it, an asshole. He only believes in the power of money, he demands ten times the requested fee to be paid before he does a job, and if a cute li’l orphan tries to join the retreat at the last minute? Well, cute li’l orphan will cost extra, of course. He’s the OPPOSITE of a hero… or is he?

Since we have read the first book, and therefore know its plot twists, we’re allowed to take a much closer look here at the character of the Prophet, aka the Queen. We see her morbid fascination with Leonard’s party, which is literally the opposite of the actual Hero’s party from the first book (Leonard is a weirdo, and he has three relatively normal companions). As it turns out, though, they’re much more closely linked than she expects. Seeing her desperation and despair as the search goes on, especially since the nature of the time loops mean there’s no one who she can talk to about it, is touching and makes me go along with the somewhat unrealistic final page. As for Leonard himself, we guessed it was an act from the start, but he’s also the best character in the book, having both a lot of cynical common sense but also an idealistic goal that he knows will probably end in his death. Even assholes can still be heroes.

There’s a third volume to this, and I’ve no idea how it will be intermingling with the first two. But the author has my respect enough that I’ll definitely check it out.

By Daken and toi8. Released in Japan as “Dare ga Yuusha wo Koroshita ka” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Kim Morrissy.

It’s always hard to try to review a book whose very nature requires that the reader is surprised as it goes along. It’s even harder to do this when the book is excellent, as your review essentially amounts to “You’ve got to read this, it’s great!” “Why?” “I can’t tell you, spoilers!”. But here we are, and this book is great, so let’s settle down and try to do this. At its heart this book takes a long look at the fantasy standard “hero’s party goes to defeat the demon lord” cliche. There’s a prophecy, there’s the hero/swordsman/mage/healer party composition, there’s a promised reward of a royal daughter, and, inevitably, there’s a death. Because the book is called “Who Killed the Hero?”, I can at least talk about that. The death, in turn, leads the book and its cast to ask about the nature of the hero, why they have to defeat the demon lord when others cannot, and how a story can be turned on its ear by a simple investigation.

Four years earlier, the hero, Ares, led an elite team to defeat the demon lord. There was noble swordsman Leon, beautiful priestess Maria, and intelligent yet cynical mage Solon. They succeed… and yet, when they return, Ares did not come back with them, and they said that he perished on the return visit. Now someone is going around, getting the word on the street, talking to the other members of the hero’s party, as well as the prophet who made the prophecy about the hero in the first place, to try to figure out what happened. Because no one’s quite sure. Some say Ares was killed by a rogue demon. Some say the other members of the party killed him as there was a love triangle going on. And even the person who is going all around the capital trying to figure things out has their own agenda. What happened?

This is, by necessity, not a book with a large cast, and I enjoyed all the characters tremendously. My favorite was undoubtedly Maria, theoretically a girl devoted to God but in reality someone who will have a boy go and get her the “best” bread every day because it amuses her… only to be stunned when he actually manages to learn the things she was theoretically teaching him. I also was fond of the young princess, who listens to the hero say that he’ll defeat the demon lord, but he’s not coming back, and refuses to accept that. There are a lot of cynical people in this book, and it’s dealing, through almost its entirety, with a death. Despite that, I was amazed at how life-affirming and happy it is, and that once you get all the answers in the end even the one person whose life you assumed would end here ends up being forced into happiness.

There’s two more volumes of this, which seem to have a similar premise but a different cast. Similar to Brunhild the Dragonslayer, I think. In any case, despite not being able to give much away, this is a very rewarding book. Seek it out.