right now i have 2 main theories.

he was always Kreis; the book he wrote was a half remembered vision of his past life. (this is why professor keeps telling him not to worry about being a doubleganger). alternatively, we also saw in this chapter that stronger feelings can send him further back in time, so maybe his "current" self was kreis' past life, and him thinking up the story was the point he jumped back to.

i don't think that kreis' revenge is the "wish" he's there to fulfil based on the fact that siegfried becomes an apocalyptical, world destroying monster when he looses kries, i think the wish he's there to fufill is a wish seig may have had at the end of the original timeline. his wish is, presumably, the sentiment that that things were different. e.g "in another life, i wish i could have been happy with the one i loved" or "i wish i could have spared him from this fate"

@karasutengu
I fully expect both princesses to fall for her.

The power of MONEY, Kaiba from Yugioh would be proud

That said...in real life, fishing was more of a hobby that I only humored now and then. It was only in-game that I was totally hooked.

So in other words, in games, Kizuna is a fish... or, perhaps, a whale.

Is... the author a crazy cat person? They seem really obsessed with them.

Guess who’s getting kidnapped?

So I just finished my re-read with the novel now fully released and having given myself a bit of time away from it. Here are some bullet pointed highlights compared to my original thoughts for any interested.

On my initial read I was really critical of the pacing and order of events. With the weekly release schedule it felt like everything took a long time to actually get to the plot and resolve, especially with the MC's habit of going on narrative tangents. On re-read though it isn't nearly as bad as it seemed. The author actually did a really good job of using things like the camping trip to work in character details. The MC struggles to take anything seriously because she just legitimately doesn't feel any of the danger that everyone else feels. As she tells the wannabe knight, in the forest she is at the peak of the food chain.

The author would have helped themselves so much by topping off the Sienna plotline. She is the evil sneaky stepsister but the story totally forgot about her beyond waving a flag occasionally to say "See! She's still here!" I don't think anyone would have wanted a total resolution but simply mentioning in the final chapter if anything at all happened to her or if she was up to anything, even just implying that the brother is now actively suspicious of her. It would have helped a lot!

I could say a lot more but I wanted to point out one amusing thing that I totally missed on the initial readthrough. The books synopsis makes this incident seem like a major deal to the world at large, but if you read the first chapter prolog carefully you'll notice that it only actually says that this is a major deal to the academy with repercussions for the nation.

Oh and unfortunately I'm giving up my pet theory that the first prince is a reincarnated version of her second life's husband. On re-read it's clearly stated that she didn't actually "love" her husband in the traditional sense and instead treated it like her own political marriage. She appreciated the safety and comfort he gave her but with that so clearly stated it wouldn't make sense to have him show back up in this life. Instead I'm guessing that it is just the cliche that she interacted with the prince when they were very young and she showed off magic/intelligence beyond her years making him fall in love with her.

@Michael-Simmons-kwkv650 said in The Despicable Duke Settles His Affairs Discussion:

When will romance authors realize that consent is way more sexy than rape?

Right?!?!?!

I was excited for some cute gay romance and got something really messed up

Yes. Cute gay romance would have been great. I could go for some cute gay romance.

I actually would like to read more stories with sexually explicit content, and was glad to see J-Novel Club experimenting with offering a racy boys love novel. But then, disappointment.

I know it's prevalent, but I do not want to read stories where sexual assault is something that the main romantic interest does. This seems like it would be a low bar, a standard that would be easy to meet. And yet.

Give me some higher quality smut, dammit. I feel like singing that Tom Lehrer song.

A lot of stories would be improved by people discussing things a little bit. Like,

"I want to do X, Y, and Z with you"
"Go for it"

or

"Would you like me to...?"
"By all means."

I wish people would use their imagination more about what kinds of interactions people could have that are fun and exciting and healthy. Or at least, not at sexual assault levels of badness.

@Sebastien-Lelievre-pbm2m4m

Hello,

Yes, it is already up for pre-order and releases in September

https://j-novel.club/series/the-magic-in-this-other-world-is-too-far-behind?buy=volume-10

Welp, now both of these idiots realize they have feelings. So now they just have to convey that to each other!

Also, ahhh, the happy and sad feeling of the volume ending.

@shiratori-keira said in JNC OLN Contest 2025 Finalists! - Discussion:

I'm just a bit curious about how the judging works. Like, are the judges American or Japanese? From JNC or Kadokawa? Do Kadokawa's editors only read the works that pass to the final round?

We got a bit more information on the judges last year. The initial judges were mostly JNC staff, with Sam himself doing a large amount of reading. But the final judges were Sam, Frog-Kun (aka Kim Morrissy, a long time reviewer and translator for Japanese material and also an author themself), Akiko Fujita (Chief Editor at Kadokawa/Enterbrain) and Carlo Zen (Japanese author whose most known work is Saga of Tanya the Evil). Bookwalker also likely had multiple people from their management committee discussing who got their prize.

Unsure how this has changed this year (probably no Carlo Zen, definitely no Frog-kun) as we didn't have someone taking photos of every slide this year. Maybe once Sam has unwound after the con he'll give us the full presentation with reviewer comments.

Only about halfway through this volume so far, but I find Makina to be the least likable character in this story by far. She knows Yotsuba is dating two other girls but rather than just trying to join as one of her lovers, she wants to kick the other girls down. She's just a homewrecker, and she doesn't belong in the harem.

Finished reading the volume, so far the series is in a kind of limbo where I'm not really looking forward to read it but it's not a chore like Isekai tensei was. We'll see what direction it takes in the next volumes, Allen's promotion and discovery of wind magic seem a good start to make things more interesting. I just wish there was a 3-4 years timeskip because it feels weird every time the story mentions the characters being 12...I wonder if it's meant to be a series aimed at a younger audience.
People mentioned the clever foreshadowing in the title but I want to file a complain for false advertising, I was told swords are up and I got a protagonist who wants to become a mage and fights with a bow.

So now that I've actually read the two parts I am clearly not as interested in otaku-tsundere pairings as the author is. I'll probably give it another part or two to see if things shift? Maybe?

And we see that while Ernie is good, he's trained his people quite well. They actually managed to pin him down. Thankfully the Boss was there and noticed things were just a little unusual.

@Burgerlava Yes, she still remains innocent and outside of fightning strategy, she still remains clueless about human interactions.

Damn I cried for Raielfam Sudra. I know he had it rough but reading it spelled out like this is different. I hope his fortune continues to trend upwards.

Getting close to the point of rage quitting this series. Zelos acts the same doormat he had in his previous, rather unhappy life. Except now he has all the power to say things like, what a nice kingdom you've got here, would be a shame to find a crater there next time you use me

Really? The after birth illustration does not include the baby dragon?