@calibus the way I read it was that she killed herself before anything could happen. When Lily absorbed her body, some "trace" of her soul remained. Presumably Miho liked him even though nothing ever developed between them, so Lily answered Miho's dying regret, while giving into her own desires as a servant, and forced herself on him. Afterwards, that remaining part of Miho vanished.

I might have misread things. Certainly wouldn't have been the first time. But I like my interpretation which gives the girl some closure and makes her death a little less tragic. If you really want to gripe, consider that she abandoned her junior, Katou, to that horrible fate. Armed with a knife, perhaps the two might have been able to fight back.

@rkkn I hate exposition as well but the author has done a fairly decent job of making it tolerable.

I don't like the way the PoV side stories are handled though. I like them, but right now I am reading three stories of Gabera's in a row, all in the same setting, taking place one right out of the other, but with a slightly different topic in each one. This makes sense if you assume the story was published online a chapter at a time before being turned into a light novel. But when it was rewritten for publishing, all three chapters should have been merged into one scene.

well, I stuck this one out to the end but don't have much good to say. I kept reading because the setting and premise is interesting enough, and I wanted to see them level up. learn, grow, etc. but it ended up being mostly the ol' sudden dramatic level up during crisis trope. Well, it was to be expected given how tropey the rest of it was.

And speaking of crisis, when Sid first arrived to the dragon fight, he apparently had enough time to give the students an unhurried speech while Alvin was literally dying and could be killed by the dragon at any moment. And then again later when the other students join in, there was time for a touching unhurried farewell while these students that haven't even fully grapsed how to use Will hold off a dragon by themselves? I guess they got the crisis power up too? Also once Sid has his limiter removed, one of the first things that happens is the dragon's lower jaw gets cut off. So how is it biting at Sid afterwards? All the fight scenes are just terrible.

80 points for the goddess!
I really want to see what Kanata's scores are for Melissa, the king, and true form Zaggy

but dang, hard to believe that in that entire army no one had above a 9. This world is rough.
Speaking of which, it really is a pretty dark world. Apparently when you die the gods eat your soul? Geez. Rather unexpected given the tone of the story.

I think it's a power fantasy specific to women. A villainess character is powerful in the social sphere both personally and in status. She's also freed from certain societal expectations associated with "proper" women because she is assumed to be "Bad". Although in a lot of Villainess stories the characters end up being nice characters anyways, but they still have the excuse to be more forward and brash then female characters might usually be in Japanese works.

Nice. The alternate PoV was a fun read.
I hope to see Yuki become a kick ass mage after meeting up with Haruka and co

Is the manga deviating from the novel? Around the part where the fight with the fox sisters occurs, and Balirossa is spitted out after Ghozal drinks the gourd, and Flio healing Balirossa, and Ghozal's injuries later at night, well, just happened to read chapter 31 of the manga;

spoiler

That's, well, a lot stuff NOT in the novel, not to mention the implications for future events involving the extra cast...?

By and large I've enjoyed the Jessica Bannister series, but there's been two things that have been nagging a bit more recently. The first is a slight, incoherency, in when Jessica gets snippy. I don't mean inconsistency, she's been fairly consistent in when she gets snippy, but the way her attitude can shift to a brusque impatience often feels dissonant with a lot of her other internal thought patterns. I might simply not have as good a grasp of her character as I think I do, but at least a part of it feels like the author rushing a bit in certain parts.

The second, somewhat bigger issue, is some of the endings feel less like a solution to the crisis du jour was properly setup/foreshadowed/built towards. Case in point is this latest one, where Nadine just seems to, give up. It's extremely ambivalent as to what role exactly Jessica played, or how her prior interactions with Monique and her family helped resolve things. Maybe her presence in and of itself helped, but that impression was not a very strong one.

@rkkn I liked the web novel Death March, no matter how choppy it is. Can't bring myself to read the LN because of the changes.

BTW same goes for Slime, the author has dedicated entire LN volumes to what are (rightfully imo) minor, useless and irritating characters.

Volume 19 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story & Textless Color Illustrations The Wolf Girl's Dream

Volume 3 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story Ripples and Waves

@pcj said in Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower Vol. 5 Discussion:

@alfaerin said in Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower Vol. 5 Discussion:

Shohi and his camp may prefer to push Rimi as the empress instead.

That would be an interesting way to solve it. Let her be empress regnant and both of them can be her consorts. Dunno how well that would fly in their society though.

I mean that's the solution I've been thinking since around volume 2
However, it would probably mean she would go down in history as an evil woman who ensnared men and took over the Empire

@blarg-harblarg-ipzw6jh If it's any consolation, he does forge a sword in vol 2. Yes, he forges a sword.

It‘s a shame that it ended after Volume 5 since I was looking forward to his future adventures. Which brings me to my question. As i‘ve read in this thread, the Japanese publisher dropped the series and not the author. Does this mean that it could be revived under another publisher (something like Netflix did with cancelled shows in the past) if the author is willing or does it work differently in Japan?

@weasalopes I only got one out of three too. My doom radar was off, though I only picked the minor to minor moderate option. Still, though he only saw Dahlia as a vision, his mother was mentioned. Of course that doesn't really equate the "brother or other relative" option.

Either way the poll was fun.

Those were some great bonus stories 😁

Volumes 8 (Premium Edition): Exclusive Translator's Column

Oh more extras, awesome. Looks like the second story takes place at a point in the story beyond volume 2 though as it's introducing names for characters that are not yet in the main story content.

Volume 1 (Premium Edition): Bonus High-Resolution color inserts

Volume 6 (Premium Edition): Textless Cover Images