@karasutengu said in Frontier Lord Vol. 8 Discussion!:

@Kurzaa I think he is the guy who hired assassins in the first volume to kill Dias, but they failed. His hatred for Dias is an obsession due to a miss-conceived wrong the man holds against Dias. At one time he was captured (I think), but escaped and is more determined than ever to get his revenge against the lovable big ax guy.

Didn't feel like the same sort of villain, the guy from v1 had a smalltime potatoes vibe, as seen in these dialogue samples:

" Because our target is Dias. Yes, that Dias! Think you can beat him in broad daylight? I'm not sure we can kill him even while he sleeps, and with the cover of darkness on our side. But know that if he's cottoned on to our attempt, we're through."

"And I want you to kill Eldan too, if you see him," whispered the client. "You may as well if he's here. I heard he came here to meet with that damned bastard Dias anyway. The more thrones we have without lords to sit on them, the better."

"Shit! Shit! Shit! They claimed to be the finest mercenaries! Liars! Useless! Taken down like mere flies! I told them that it was all over if Dias caught wind of us!"

"Dias! My old wounds ache, and it's all because of you! Always getting in my way, you wrteched upstart orphan! You crazy mongrel! You monster! Why won't you just die?!"

Granted he was fairly irate throughout that entire encounter, but this final example came after "the man was finally done shouting" and "clarity seemed to return to the man's face."

"Damn it," he sighed. "I have failed. That was not cheap, but...there is nothing I can do but cut my losses. No more lingering on past failures. Next time will be different. Next time, next time, next tiiiiime. Know this, Dias: I will not give up until this grudge has been repaid."

The dude in this part seemed more detached from the world, ancient even, though perhaps I am overreading into this guy being in a lonely, dark, and quiet place where no other signs of life existed. Unless this is the man from before who came across some dark god or something and changed, I feel like they are different people.

@Phabiohost I can understand your frustration. I had the same problem reading the final two volumes of "Enough with This Slow Life! I Was Reincarnated as a High Elf and Now I’m Bored".
The author knew the end of the series was set at Vol 8 and starting skipping 50 year cycles (or more) in each release without any major explanation. Many readers (myself included) bemoaned this fact since it affected the story line so much.

What? Liam turned down an offer of "new magic"? Could he actually be maturing a little due to the serious situation the dragons are in. If so, I may rethink my opinion of him.

I agree harems are over done but I like how this one is written and he is of course clueless. I do like strategy and well written but not dawnout fighting scenes. I miss this series and I hope we can read more. The women might be his downfall and not all agree to be with him, maybe they have more confidence In themselves and fight to have him all for their self.

@GeorgeMTO Sweet!

Just finished a re-read of the series in order to catch up on this volume, extremely disappointed to learn that this is also me catching up to JP. /sigh

@Windsagio said in Seventh Vol. 10 Discussion!:

To me it was clear. Basil. Basil Walt, the founder beat Agrissa.

he was the one who absolutely insisted the child of calamity is real

Unfortunately, the timelines don't really add up for this. The fall of the pan-continental empire is supposed to be ~300+ years ago. Assuming an average generational length about 30 years (which is on the longer side of estimates), that'd be 10+ generations ago, but even including Lyle, we're only at 9 maximum.

Also, having just finished the reread, I was able to roughly remember when Basil talked in detail about the Heretical God's Child, and the quote supports my generational math:

"The way my gramps told it, it almost sounded like they were locked in a dream. When asked what their motivations were—why they split into loyalists and traditionalists and fought each other—he said they had no idea. Why do you think that is?” the founder asked solemnly.
“Uh, maybe because their passion for freedom had cooled—”

“Wrong! It’s because of the Heretical God’s Child!”

So we’re going down this road again, huh? But I decided to keep my silence and listen to what he had to say.

“Have you heard of the Courtesan Beauty, Agrissa?

(Vol 1, Ch 5) (emphasis mine).

Novem’s memory is specifically about Basil, in comparison to Lyle.

I'm not sure this counts for much -- Novem seems to know things about all the feudal Walt heads and their (mis)deeds. She's seemingly knowledgable about the 5th's relationship with a Qilin, the 6th's bastard child in a village in the middle of nowhere (which is supported, I think, by the idea that the village was getting financial support while his kid was alive despite no Walt head knowing about it -- gotta be the Fuchs, right?), and the 7th's predilection for snapping to open up his Box space (as well as the arguably more-damning fact that the snapping is not actually necessary to open the holes). She also seems to be familiar with the 3rd's tendency to say "let's have fun with this" or something similar when jumping into things, since she's initially surprised that Lyle has picked that up.

it explains why the Walt family has Septem’s Jewel.

This one's already explained:

“Yes,” Novem affirmed. “The yellow Jewel Ceres holds is the same yellow Jewel that Lady Zenoah brought into House Walt.”

The seventh powerlessly agreed. “That’s right. Zenoah was looking after it. If everything went without incident, she was supposed to pass it down to Clare or Ceres, but...”

(Vol 7, "Ch 86" [9th chapter of that volume])

They didn't always have it, it was a late/recent addition.

Hope it doesn't feel like I'm ripping into you or anything, but once I noticed, I felt I had to point all this out.

I just caught onto this while writing this, but "Septem" and "Novem" are quite similar names. "Septem" derives (at least, in our world -- who know if it's the same diegetically) from the Latin "sept", meaning literally the number 7... which tracks, since that's apparently the name of the 7th Goddess.

If "Novem" is supposed to have the same kind of etymology (i.e. a Latin root modified with "-em"), "Nov" would either be the number 9 or relating to "new" (Latin "novus", from which modern English derives words like "novice" and "nova"). If I had to bet which of the two it is, I'd bet on the former, but really neither would surprise me.

As for whether it's supposed to have the same kind of etymology... I'd say it's almost certain if you consider this line we heard way back before we could parse its significance:

With the staff in hand, Gerald offered it to Novem. “Take this with you. It’s only one single staff. Even if the Walts do complain, we can easily make excuses. Besides, it’s only fitting that you have this. You have inherited the name Novem, after all...”

(Vol 1, Prologue) (emphasis mine)

(EDIT: added/fixed volume and chapter references)

Was just rereading the end of this...

I can just imagine after class is over and people flock to Makina's desk to ask questions and she straight up tells everyone "I owe my career to Yotsuba." and declines to elaborate.

Can't wait for volume 4, seeing how Yuna and Rinka handle this will be the highlight.

@HarmlessDave Also do vaccines work properly on her? They didn't test them on elves.

@LeavesCat Thanks for jogging my poor ole' memory.

I've started to read the epub of Volume 2, and the Cat Speak is much better! Thank you for listening to the feedback.

The Afterword for Vol 12 was spot on! It would’ve spoilt the gimmick if read first.
The self-conscious monologue was funny too, in the sense that the author was aware of how steamy it went in this volume.

@wandering-dreamer said in The Trials and Tribulations of My Next Life as a Noblewoman Vol 2 Part 1 Discussion!:

Unrelated to the current discussion, I feel like the imperial princess must be Six’s “true” master, they both seem to have that same disdain for other people/being kind (but Six is better at hiding it).

They do have similarities. However, I wonder if it is the other way around. Six doesn't seem like he would like taking orders. What if Six is a mentor to the princess?

@Zerio said in The Tanaka Family Reincarnates Vol. 2 Discussion:

Since Francesca was introduced with the prefix Marquess, does this mean she was the head of her family?

No. Emma gets the title 'Countess'. They just do titles differently in this world, and kids get the rank of their parent. We haven't learned what happens to the various edge cases. (E.g. if Emma marries a baron, is she still a countess because of her dad? Does her title change when her dad dies or retires? If she remains a countess, what titles do her kids get?)

@Hylebos said in Zilbagias the Demon Prince Vol. 4 Discussion!:

@tsukikira said in Zilbagias the Demon Prince Vol. 4 Discussion!:

Are we waiting for a relicense for volume 5? Hopefully not, but not sure where J-Novel club's current licenses end...

It could be any number of things, it's best not to try to poke too deep into the cosmic haggis that is the licensing process looking for answers. It will be out when it's out.

No, it's not normal to be any number of things. Given how J-Novel has acted until now, I was expecting either a note that the translator was busy or a statement like the one we got, which means J-Novel has to effectively get the license for the next volume. There's no reason not to ask; It's not a secret that they need to ask for licenses if any volumes come out after their current negotiations, and apparently it has come out... after the license negotiations, which I didn't know. Being upfront about this is the easiest solution, and because the question has now been asked in the latest volume thread, it'll be here for everyone who comes to this volume's thread to ask.

Hello, that one guy that always reviews things months after they came out (I have a big backlog, okay), here to offer my random thoughts on this one.

If you're like me and skim the forum to see if something's worth buying: yes, this one is. I actually really like this series so far.

Having (for some reason) read no fewer than four "low status woman gets into an arranged marriage with a higher-status man, hijinx ensue" series in the past couple months, this is easily the best in that niche genre. Why? Because of the protagonist. Agnes is cool as hell. Most of the female leads in stories like this are 1) super plain looking, 2) very timid and unsure of themselves, 3) have very poor communication skills and most of the driving force of the plots revolve around dumb misunderstandings a normal person would have talked out and avoided.

Agnes is none of these things, being probably the most attractive female lead to a romance novel like this I've seen in some time. She's very self-confident once she's removed from her garbage circumstances. She's able to figure out "it's not me it's them" in regards to her past abuses. She leads one of the most healthy relationships with her new husband I've seen in a while, they communicate effectively the whole time.

In fact I'd go and say that's the series' greatest strength so far: the protagonists are all genuinely intelligent people that solve their problems intelligently with a minimum of "dumb misunderstandings" which I think is my single least favorite light novel trope of all time. It's basically totally gone here, which is very, very nice.

Hell, Agnes gets laid at the end of chapter 5. I've read books like this where that can take until the double digits of entries for some reason, lol. Both involved parties have a loving marriage and do the things that generally actually happen in such a relationship without the whole "oh not that's too much I'm going to be weirdly chaste for no reason" thing that happens in... a lot... of these types of books.

Having recently read the (honestly pretty bad) second entry into the goblin maiden series. There's a similar plot point there as one here: a powerful person tells the male lead "tough cookies man you're gonna have to divorce your wife now". In that series the protagonist for some reason, without consulting with his beloved wife at all, just decides "okay well I guess I'd better prepare for a divorce, if that's what'll make her happy oh well". In this story, the basically same thing happens, and Nazel's reaction to it is "immediately tell Agnes, mutually decide that's not gonna happen, make a plan to get out of it, and execute it". I like that. That's how a married couple should be acting.

As far as the plot being over, ya know, I don't really mind. The characters in this series (so far, maybe the next one is really bad, who knows) are likeable enough I'm perfectly fine with spending more time with them. There's enough stuff left hanging I think there are still stories left to tell. I mean, come now, Agnes needs to have a bun put in that oven. I hope something nice happens between Paul and Kelly, both of those poor guys seem like they haven't had a lot of happiness in their lives. Torre and Lucianne need to get married. The frontier still seems like a pretty underdeveloped place in general. I'm looking forwards to it. I thought this story was well enough written, I preordered the next one.

Random observations and thoughts:

The fact that the antagonist is "Princess Mia" was amusing. I kept thinking like, man, this is an even darker ending than the one the actual Princess Mia originally recieved. This is the timeline where she screws up so badly she doesn't even make it to the point where the revolution breaks out and she gets beheaded at 20. The good news is I'm sure eventually a time portal will open up on the island and she'll manage to go back to when she was 12, eat some really good tomato soup, meet Anne and Abel, and change the course of history for the better. If you know you know. :^)

I'm fine with how screwed Robin is. That was one of the more psychopathic and openly evil antagonists I've seen in a LN in quite some time. The guy's punishment is fitting.

I love how, again, our heroes notice the pattern and come to the correct conclusion that Robin is obviously using some form of mind control that seems to mostly affect women. Again, Nazel and Agnes are not stupid people and figure out what's going on pretty quickly. It's refreshing to see in a genre that's usually misunderstanding city.

I'm sad we didn't get an illustration of Agnes in her swimsuit. There's always next time :^)

I hope Lucianne gets out of her punishment soon. It really isn't like it's her fault, I hope they went light on her. The award for "the most useless magical abilities ever" have to go to her, man. "Turning your hair into a weapon" when you're a scared little shrinking wallflower. These gifts are not given out equally.

Agnes' love of throwing hardened food like rocks at people as a weapon was hilarious. I'm sure a hardened potato probably would hurt if it hit you in the head.

An eight legged spider horse hybrid sounds terrifying. I'm glad she's apparantly quite nice.

Names of characters: "Robin", "Mia", "Agnes", "Paul", "Kelly", "Julian", "Henry", and... "Nazelbart". Man, he drew the short end of the stick for names, jeez.

I liked how fast Agnes and Paul turn on their parents. They're obviously guilty and nasty people and both of them don't really bother getting sentimental about it. Another thing I wasn't really expecting.

Not gonna lie, I hope we catch up with Mia in the next book or two. Unlike her mother and Robin who were both terrible people, what's wrong with them is wrong all the way through them, Mia's problems mostly stem from "mind control courtesy of Robin" mixed with "having truly abhorrent influences in her life in the form of her mother and supporters". She's already starting to reform. Ironically she seems on track to become what she was going to become anyways, a ruler of a region, just a smaller-time ruler of a smaller time region. She's currently enjoying being the one-eyed king of the land of the blind. I find that kind of funny.

I hope we get to see an illustration of tomboyprincess later. I have a type and it's her, deal with it. Bertram's a lucky boy.

So yeah. It was good. Read it. I hope the next one's good too. Easily the best of this genre of book I've read outside of maybe Marielle Clerac, which wins simply due to having a dozen issues to this series' 3.

@Ingraman
Yeah, I didn't remember a beach scene in the volume...

Finally managed to catch up.

I guess many agree that Eiwass is sus.
If I understand correctly, the powerful mercenary during the Sarjas attack was part of this mysterious organization, and he seemed to know some details about Ellie and Flugel. If Eiwass is the young master, this would explain his intel on Ellie as well.

Also, I forgot whether Silver Witch is a name for Elizabeth Leiston or Ellie Leis. But the fact that Spider knew her nickname might be another evidence.

As usual, I really enjoy the future exercpts.
So, it seems like Adel got to be a queen before the kingdom fall, and Ellie would manage to kill Bulat.

But I'm really concerned about the fact that there was no record of the Silver Witch having a kid. What happened to Alice???

@Abedeus Personally, I see the Kiryuu-vs.-Fallen Black encounter as the closest thing to a real 'final fight' that the series could've given us while sticking to its guns! I'm inclined to agree with the story itself on the point that Andou and Kiryuu having a full-blown brawl just never would've made sense, narratively or thematically, and going back to show us the rewritten-by-Andou-and-Kiryuu version in full detail would've felt superfluous to me since by that point, that narrative and its themes were already very firmly concluded. It would've been a (presumably lengthy) digression into a completely different series, essentially, and while I would absolutely love to read that digression, I also deeply sympathize with Andou's speech near the end of the novel about how it's far better to go out at your peak than to keep dragging out a story until you have no choice but to end it

Which is all to say: I see your point, but man, personally? This is exactly the ending that I felt this series needed, and I'm extremely happy that its author had the guts to commit to everything he'd set up and go through with it

@arghc said in Dahlia in Bloom Vol. 9 Discussion!:

Dahlia side stories!

And backstories. And maybe even some front stories if we're lucky.

@Rahul-Balaggan Thanks for the quick response. 😊 Eagerly awaiting the next installment.