Volume 18 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story & Full Wraparound Cover Jacket illustration The Hunter’s Pride and the Clan Member’s Thoughts

@Ojive eagerly waiting for those volumes.

Somehow I missed reading the final part until going, "Huh? What's going on?!" upon reading the first section of the next volume.

Well.
My prediction as to the solution/resolution was a tad off the mark.
More than a tad.

He did stand off the current Guardian Knight.
He didn't act as Carina's Guardian Knight as part of her 'qualification conflict' thingy.
He did act in a manner allowing the various Great Spirits involved to hammer out a non-aggression pact.
Nobody died. This time, anyway.

So.
He and Charlotte know how each of them feels about the other.
His reputation has been sent through the wash. (This is a good thing.)
There's been a peaceful [?!] resolution of the conflict between North and South. For certain values of 'peaceful', anyway.
Life should be good now.

Queue hysterical laughter, given at least three volumes to go.

I was actually a pretty big fan of the romance to start with, I thought it portrayed a marriage of convenience slowly becoming more well. I got frustrated when their relationship increasingly became one of vassal and servant. Much of the interactions we see of Zenjirou and Aura is him making reports to her. The fact that the story is going to become a harem, with focus given to the next girl (look who gets the covers) doesn't say good things about the relationship between Zenjirou and Aura. It's just going to be more Aura imposing on Zenjirou, Zenjirou accepting said imposition as necessary and Aura worrying about when her imposing on Zenjirou will reach a breaking point but not actually working on improving things for him.

Something I find pretty frustrating is that Aura is pushing Zenjirou into getting a concubine, something he does not like, but a few times when he displays a rapport with a woman she is quick to squash it. Granted the few times it's happened the lady was politically nonviable, or at least undesirable, as a concubine, but shouldn't she be encouraging him? I would love it if they were monogamous, but Aura doesn't think that is viable.

@Windsagio to be fair, it makes sense that you'd lock out account names like that from being created anyway, but yeah it gets the odd double take.

Overall interesting volume with getting the gang back together as the premise states. Felt like Part 8 was rushed. Rushed because:

spoiler

@RichardM Please see this topic about future volumes:

https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3478/future-volume-release-schedule

Reading this long after the rest of y'all, and not going through your comments as I'm not finished with this volume yet.

So, Kazuhiro's gramps wasn't just make a chance comment that happened to line up with what was really going down.
Kazuhiro doesn't grasp that when he shifts worlds, he shifts worlds.
Who knows just how early on in his life it was when a near relative glanced in to see how he was doing in his sleep and saw the blankets slowly settle to the bed, the lump of his body no longer there.
If it's not a hereditary thing, I'm sure there was some freaking at first, but then when he reappeared in the morning, and the same happened night after night...
You adjust.

I suspect you would worry about what happens the first time he went to sleep in the arms of another, how they would react.
That no news of such freaking was heard could have one of several explanations, with variations, I suppose.

He never got close enough for such to occur, or he didn't do the world shift in such circumstances. It didn't go poorly. It did go poorly, but didn't cause a stir.

Options 2 & 3 have the sub-options of they travel with him or they don't travel with him.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what gets shared with him by his gramps down the line, now that his gramps knows that when he shifts worlds, anyone in his arms shifts as well.
Or at least a specific girl shifts as well, and she doesn't freak out about it.

Had to post, as this is where folks would get what I'm burbling about.

Ah!
I was nearly at the end!

Gramps could tell something was concealing the true form of her ears, and properly identified her as a half Elf half Fairy.
That, plus other comments of his, leads me to believe this inter-reality travel isn't new to Kazuhiro's generation of his family.

Ugh.
So, the one maybe-hero collects intriguing women, does he, and then discards them once bored.
And the rings on his hands are tied into this.
One wonders what race he really is...

Future volumes will hopefully reveal more, along with his getting his comeuppance, I hope.

I can assume that Zorace was the one who taught Fie how to write in Orstoll Standard and that is why he recognizes Fie, but I can't figure out what he meant when he said about the agreement he made with someone else, or what Fie meant when she thought a similar exchange had just happened earlier.

@Exagone313 I disagree. I think he did think this through thoroughly, and since even though it would be good for the Empire it would be bad for whatever fuckery Shu Kojin has planned, he decided his plans were more important than the Empire. Kojin is that guy through and through.

@Rahul-Balaggan Gotcha aye that is why I actually bought it from JNC instead of BW. I just didn't know if the author invented any characters for the LN that weren't in the WN or has changed any storylines. MobuSeka for instance introduced Deirdre and Clarice who weren't in the WN so just wanted to double check.

Volume 14 (Premium Edition): 3 Bonus Short Stories The Archdemon's Birthday Party ~Their Diary~ The Archdemon's Birthday Party ~Lilith's Agony~

@Mimiga grin Nice to see a new fan being born! Looking forward to you catching up with us in Volume 5...

Finished reading this volume in one day. Let me just reiterate that I'm really liking this series so far.

Starting to reread volume 3, but can't help but keep picturing Fermo as a dwarf rather than a human.

@GeorgeMTO

Though everything has indicated that they have not only hidden their past from their parents but from any and everyone else as well. It just doesn't seem like Mizuto would have ever divulged that information to Kawanami.

Volume 11 (Premium Edition): 2 Bonus Short Stories The Shopkeepers' Winter A Worker's Reminiscence

Hello,

I would like to take this time to once again thank everyone for their patience until the next volume can start pre-publication.

It is truly appreciated, thank you.

(Just going to repost the message in the future volumes release topic)

Hello!

For members new to J-Novel Club that want to know more about when future volumes will start pre-publication on the site:

After a volume's last part comes out, there is usually a 2-3 week break before the new volume's first part comes out. For Ascendance of a Bookworm in particular, there is usually no break. If a series is caught up with the Japanese releases, whenever a new volume is released, the new volume needs to be licensed separately. Licensing can vary wildly in how long it takes, so there are no hard estimates on when the the next volume will start streaming, sorry! As for why a future volume is not on the schedule, because of the nature of posting parts as they are translated, there is not much time between when we know a volume is ready for streaming and when it actually starts, so it will not be added onto the schedule until a few days before release or on the day of. Please rest assured - when part 1 is ready to go live and the English cover is ready, it will be added to the schedule.

Thank you for your patience; new volumes will start when they are ready!

@HarmlessDave Good theory. Though we can't yet rule out the possibility the author just wanted to shake it up a bit after more-or-less committing to the pseudo-medieval fantasy setting for the first four volumes, and just have a zany character speaking in (almost) nothing but AmericanWestern pop-culture references. There's other elements of her characterization that I won't comment on here that could support that reading.

Really enjoyed this. I think the goofy comedy dynamics going on here was what I mainly enjoyed about the main series volume one. Two went pretty heavy on the action instead and I obviously didn't enjoy it as much as the series has slid quite a ways down my backlog but this has made me want to get back to the third volume, reminding me how much fun the main duo are.