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.
