Thread by @dramata1

Geez, I wasn't expecting it to be 306 pages long...

There is an illustration in here of Iori totally shredding on a lute in the middle of a bar (plus bonus fantasy Choi), and I've never been more excited to parse a Japanese novel before

Prologue: Althena Victorious, knight of the Principality of Esaga, is fighting a lone, losing battle against a horde of lunar eclipse-agitated goblins that wiped out her whole patrolling unit. Her gear is in bad shape and her blade's too dulled by fighting to kill in one hit.

Suddenly, a pillar of light and magic circle manifest, and from it emerges a red-haired and badly injured man who collapses before her. She redoubles her fighting to protect him, as is her knightly duty, but in her exhaustion, her focus lapses for a critical split second.

At that moment, fire and heat erupt behind her, along with a goblin's cry and the smell of burning flesh. She turns to see what was a goblin rushing at her back with a club, getting engulfed in purple fire, leaving collapsed and charred remains behind.

Fire magic? But who? We hadn't brought any mages with us. The answer became clear soon enough. The man from the pillar had purple flames dancing in the palm of his hand—A color very close to that of my own eyes and hair.

The goblins that had been relentless before that point all grow cold feet and ditch. The man collapses again, leaving Althena to sort this mess out. End prologue.

Chapter 1: The Visitor with the Purple Flame opens up with something I never knew I needed before: A retelling of the Three Treasures ending of KOF '97 from Iori's first-person POV.

"Kill Kusanagi and Yata."

Who the hell thinks they can order me around?

"Break the Three Treasures and their insipid pledge... Child of Orochi. Yagami."

Orochi... Oh, I get it. You're Orochi, huh.

"RAAAAAAGH!"

Who the hell is doing that annoying roaring? Oh... Oh, that's me.

Long story short, Iori's got Orochi in a stranglehold and Kyo rushes in to finish the job. Everything erupts in light, filling the lunar-eclipse night with brilliance, and that's the last thing Iori remembers.

There's your isekai hook.

Why call it The King of Fantasy when they could have called it "Cursed by a 660 Year Old Blood Pact and Obsessed with My Blood Rival, But Then I Go Apeshit on the Source of My Blood Pact Curse and My Blood Rival and Some Lady Intervene and Kill Me and Now I'm in a Fantasy World"

It warms my heart to see people immediately jumping at the chance to treat this as "canon" but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you guys

Boy, what a novel... The next part is back to Althena's POV.

Iori comes to with his head resting in Althena's lap. The moment he registers this, he recoils and jumps away, which sends him straight into a nearby shallow stream.

"I was... resting in a woman's lap?!" He slumps in the middle of the stream. "This must be the next life."

He assumes this is the Sanzu River, the goblins are devilkin, and Althena is Datsueba, here to claim him. She's very confused, but she assures him he's alive.

Althena says they're in the Principality of Esaga. "Esaka? You mean we're in Esaka, Osaka? Look, lady, you speak the language well but Japan isn't a principality."

Iori insists that if he's alive, this is obviously Japan. So what are the devilkin? Goblins? He's only heard of those from some video game his little sister played. Althena explains he showed up in a glowing pillar that wasn't quite light and wasn't quite fire.

Iori starts to scoff at the idea that he got sent somewhere, but then he remembers Orochi was using teleportation in their fight. He checks his watch. It's stopped. He starts to wonder if the intermingling of his power, Orochi's power, and Kyo's power somehow sent him here.

Althena is impressed by Iori's wrist-clock. The ones she's used to are as tall as people. Iori gives her a pitying look.

"What time period are you from? You know what, sure, let's just say this is Esaga and it's a principality. Whatever helps your frame of reference."

"I'm Althena Victorious, a knight of the Principality of Esaga."

"A knight, huh? No wonder you've got a stick up your ass."

Althena suppresses her indignation, maintains her knightly courtesy, and gives him a heartfelt thank-you for saving her life.

"When someone starts a fight with me, I finish it. It sure as hell wasn't for you."

Iori gets right up in Althena's personal space to peer at her.

"You remind me of a fighter I'm familiar with. I think her name was Athena?"

"Athena, you say?"

"Don't worry about it. She's some rando barely worthy of my notice. I pay more attention to my own fingernails."

Iori asks why he's fine when he was such a wreck before. It's because Althena fed him a healing potion while he was out. Talking about healing potions finally gets it through Iori's head that he's not in Kansas anymore.

He questions why Althena's still such a mess that she can barely stand. It's because the healing potion she gave him was her last. He obviously needed it more than she did. He gets pissed, but she insists a knight should put civilians first. "What a damn goody-two-shoes."

Iori demands Althena guide him to the nearest city. Althena realizes that this is his way of offering to take her to get medical attention.

"Don't get any funny ideas. I'm not about to die out in the sticks of some random world. You just happen to make a decent guide."

Althena's willing enough to lead Iori to the capital city of Schesaga. She has to deliver the report that her whole patrol unit has been wiped out. But she decides to warn him of something first. An old prophecy passed down in this world.

"When the full moon is eclipsed, a dark lord will be born in the company of flames."

Well, this guy has a moon design on his back. Tonight was a full moon and a total lunar eclipse. He generated fire, and he came out of nowhere from a glowing pillar.

Althena thinks the parallels are apparent, even if she personally doesn't buy him being a dark lord. She warns other people might not be as open-minded as she is.

"You're the only one that saw me jump here. Seems to me this problem can be solved by you keeping your mouth shut."

Althena tries to walk on her own using her sword as a makeshift walking stick, but her sword buckles under her, and she nearly falls until Iori snags her arm. He gives her a shoulder to lean on, no easy task for him when he's head and shoulders taller than she is.

Althena finally gives up on the ruined sword and ditches it. As they make their way off together, she finally asks the man his name.

"Iori Yagami."

End of Chapter 1.

Chapter 2: To the New World

Althena and Iori spend an uneventful three days hiking to Schesaga. Iori gives Althena a rundown on what he was doing before coming here, but she has no idea what Kay-Oh-Eff is. She briefs him on the world they're in now, in return.

On the last day of the trip, Althena wakes up riding on Iori's back. She apparently kept nodding off while hiking until he lost patience and just hauled her himself to keep her from slowing them down.

At the gate to the capital, the guards don't question it much when Althena identifies Iori as a guy who saved her when her unit got wiped out. Iori's ready to split off, but Althena suggests he spend a few days at the New World, an inn in town, so that they can keep in touch.

Iori stops at a merchant stand, not to shop, but because he's perplexed he can read the sign. It's just hitting him that he's got native-level language fluency here. The merchant wants to buy a "mithril ring" he's wearing, but he sells the merchant his broken watch for $ instead.

When he reaches the New World, a combination inn-tavern, it's got another name under the main one: Pao Pao. The proprieter is a dark-skinned man named Chard Merye.

Iori says Althena sent him, and Chard tells him not to worry about paying in advance. Althena's a regular who comes in and drinks alone. Even though she gets scorned by her knightly peers and dumped with all the new recruits (like her wiped out unit), she never gripes about it.

Chard's glad Althena's got a boyfriend and tells Iori to take good care of her. Iori doesn't bother correcting the guy.

End of Chapter 2.

Incidentally, if it wasn't apparent enough from the text, "Chard Merye" is a play on the proprietor of the actual Pao Pao Cafe, Richard Meyer.

snk.fandom.com/wiki/Richard_M…

I should put this in the main thread too, so here it is.

https://twitter.com/dramata1/status/1149757459046772736

Chapter 3: A Knight's Responsibility opens with Iori having a dream of getting owned by Kyo's Orochi Nagi in a 1v1. Althena comes to check up on him and remarks that people say dreams are usually a portent of something. Who knows?

Althena is having a pretty miserable day. Today's the day she has to make the rounds and give the bad news to the families of the soldiers that died. She shows Iori around town, but when she has to get back to work, he keeps tagging along anyway, griping all the while.

Althena and her fresh recruits got sent out on an expedition under a lunar eclipse that agitates monsters, with zero mage backup. It was doomed from the start, and Althena's objections at the time were overruled. Now she's been left to bear the anger of their families by herself.

Even their bodies are likely gone by now, eaten by ghouls, but Iori is impressed that Althena still managed to gather their ID tags to return to their families. Althena realizes that Iori sticking around is helping to keep her heart from breaking completely, and she's grateful.

By the time they get back to the inn, it's dark out, and the Pao Pao Tavern is packed and busy. Iori makes a face at the guy up on stage playing music. Althena explains that's a minstrel, and Iori comments, "What a hack." Althena inwardly wishes Iori knew what a filter was.

A large bearded man with two chains around his chest rises to his feet and yells out loudly, "Hey, the redhead says you suck!" The minstrel up on stage, a skinny little half-elf with sunglasses, acts mock-offended, then claims the lady knight and her companion will put on a show.

Althena is put on the spot. She looks to Chard over at the bar for help, but he just shrugs. As she's about to step up and bite the bullet, Iori walks past her and picks up the lute, then starts playing right there without even sitting down.

Althena observes that normally performers use specialized tools to strum the strings of their instruments, but Iori is using his own long, sturdy nails. His playing wows the whole tavern.

The minstrel and his posse all jeer afterward and pick a fight. Iori's down for one. The minstrel crouches, backpedals, then rises again in an odd sequence. Iori asks him what the hell he's doing.

Althena warns him of how fights work in this world—They have very specific tells. That one's a tell for a high-end dagger technique. Iori's unimpressed and tells the whole posse to come at him at once. They oblige him.

Althena calls out, "No fire!" Iori doesn't use fire, but he puts a Choi head-sized hole in the floorboards, a Chang-shaped hole in the ceiling, and an imprint of the third posse member's face in the wall. Althena and Chard spend the rest of the night cleaning up the mess.

Althena pieces together that the minstrel was a scam artist, and his posse was a pair of adventurers from the Adventurers' Guild. She picks up the minstrel's abandoned lute and tells Iori he should become a minstrel. It's a better fit for him than the other guy anyway.

Iori is skeptical, but Althena points out that having a job will make him stand out less in town, and it might give him an easier time doing research if he wants to do any—say, on finding a way home? Fine, he grudgingly takes the lute. End of chapter 3.

Chapter 4: A Hero Is Born

The next morning, there are bells chiming outside, way louder than the usual church or clock tower bells. They're coming from Switter Castle, Esaga's seat of power.

Althena gives Iori's door a cursory knock before going in, but she walks in on him shirtless and quickly turns around, blushing. After a few moments Iori says she can turn around, but he's just thrown on a shirt he's still buttoning, leaving his barrel chest and abs exposed.

What's the occasion for the ringing? Turns out there's a fighting tournament traditionally held in the days immediately following an eclipse. That gets Iori's curiosity piqued. His first question is whether magic's allowed. The answer is yes.

I've skipped over a lot of the details about the setting, but essentially, magic is fueled by specially powered crystals, and these crystals are treated as currency across the realm instead of precious metals. It means magic costs money directly, and rich mages have an advantage.

Iori's being reticent when Althena asks if he's interested, so she decides to take him by a shop called Bugler Arms & Armor. It's run by a proprietress named Makirita Bugler, a courteous girl in white attire with well-groomed black hair that has two artful stray forelocks.

Iori's expression sours for a split second when he sees the girl, but it's gone as quickly as Althena spots it.

It would've been nice if they'd provided an illustration, but we can make an educated guess based on the description.

Althena wants to get Iori some defensive gear. They go through different armor options, but everything's either too cheap-looking, too unbecoming, or too unwieldy. Even the rad-sounding magic cloak turns out to be a bit of a dud. They end up leaving emptyhanded.

This post-eclipse tournament is the kingdom's way of naming a hero who will slay the dark lord if one ever arises following an eclipse. When Iori hears this, he turns to leave the castle, all interest lost. Althena thinks it would be really fun, though.

She tugs on his sleeve as Iori walks off, which just means he drags her with him. He snaps at her that he hates soldiers more than anyone else—Hurt, she lets go of his sleeve, causing him to faceplant into the ground. Whoops. He adds that she's an exception, to her relief.

Iori grudgingly agrees to sign on when she says she will. She thinks it would be funny for a potential dark lord to get labeled as a hero, so why not? And so Althena the knight and Iori the bard join the pool of 64 entrants.

A running theme I'm seeing in this book is that they only give detailed physical descriptions of SNK analogue characters. Not-Choi's third posse member was described as "a man of medium build" and now the heir apparent of Esaga is described as "a 20 year-old highly educated man".

Iori the Wandering Bard's first opponent is the Invincible, Impregnable, Impeccable, Immoral, Inhumane, Injurous Outlaw, Gar Gantua, AKA the guy with the chains from the Pao Pao Tavern. This time he's got an iron ball attached to his chains.

"Hey, say somethin'! I'll even let you pick whether you wanna get flattened by my muscles or my iron ball!"

"What muscles? You're all fat."

Iori keeps taunting the big guy and baits him into a super, which Iori preempts with an Aoi Hana to launch him into the air.

Gar Gantua lands hard, and his iron ball lands on top of him, leaving him twitching on the ground.

"You can just die like that." Iori gives a classic victory quote and walks off.

For a long time after this tournament, bards visiting Esaga get the hairy eyeball from people.

Althena and Iori both make it through their respective halves of the bracket and face each other in the finals. Althena's other motive for being in this tournament is to face Iori in combat. He hasn't used fire once, and she wants to be worthwhile enough to make him use it.

Althena's signature projectile move is Blue Gale, in which a swordswing produces a shockwave that runs along the ground. The shockwave's light reflection gives it a bluish tint, hence the name.

Iori rolls past the Blue Gale at the last second, springs at Althena, delivers a gouging claw strike, and then throws her and slams her to the ground in what she IDs as a Sakahagi throw. She's amazed that he dug a gouge into her plate mail with his bare hands... and thrilled.

Iori finally busts out the fire and sends a Yamibarai at her, which she cancels out with a Blue Gale. The fight's heating up. While this is going on, the audience is chatting eagerly.

"I thought he was a bard!"

"You sure that guy's not a mage?"

"There was no incantation. It has to be a parlor trick."

"That's a hell of a parlor trick, though! It's purple!"

"The real question is how he fights in those pants with his legs tied!"

Althena has a plan. She uses her ultimate technique, Accel Sword, to bait Iori into a dodge so that he stumbles on an indentation that she knows is in the ground near him. But he sidesteps the indentation and thwarts her follow-up overhead strike.

Iori counters with an Oni Yaki that burns Althena and sends her flying into the air. But before she can slam into the ground, he dismisses the flames and catches her in his arms. The battle's over, and while she's injured, it's nothing a healing potion can't fix. He went easy.

The top prize is given to both finalists, so Iori and Althena both attend the awards ceremony, in which Prince Esaga confers upon Iori the title of hero, and with it, a year-long appointment to find the dark lord and slay them. All job-related expenses paid.

Althena knows that nobody takes the job seriously. People compete for it so that they can invoice whatever they want as "job-related". Expensive drinks, cushy inns, presents for women for the sake of "information gathering", you name it.

Iori is unimpressed and tells the prince to give it to Althena instead. Althena is mortified—She wasn't planning on exploiting it either, but he could have just stayed quiet and accepted it. Mido the Heir Apparent applauds his gumption and his lack of greed.

Mido turns upon Althena and accuses her of breaking the knight's code by entering the tournament. There is no such rule and they know it. Then he makes a show of letting her off the hook, only to call her out again for losing to a bard, embarrassing the knights of the realm.

"Does the phrase 'big fish in a small pond' mean anything to you?" Iori interrupts him. "You seriously pick heroes out of this pissant tournament?"

Mido goes livid with rage. "You dare to mock our realm's fighting tournament?!"

Iori leans in and mutters to Althena. "I hate soldiers for one simple reason: They're a bunch of conceited assholes who like to make shows of force and use violence against non-hostiles."

Then Iori looks directly at Mido. "The one thing I can't stand more than anything else is violence. And the way you're lording your position and power over the lady knight is just low-brow verbal violence. I bet you get off on wielding power over people who can't fight back."

For a moment, the heir apparent is incensed, but he composes himself and lets the matter slide as "advice from a commoner". Althena has a bad feeling about this.

The other shoe doesn't take long to drop. Mido abruptly charges Iori with going out to slay a dragon that's been rampaging the area near the border between Esaga and their southern neighbor Higatsumi.

Prince Esaga starts to object. This has never been asked of a hero before, and they could hire a specialist team to deal with this. But Mido insists that a man who can produce flames with no incantation should have no problem with a dragon—if they're not a parlor trick, that is.

After the ceremony, they go back to the Pao Pao Tavern to celebrate. Althena gets drunk and gripes to Iori about how easily he shut down her moves. Iori gives away the trick and tells her he recognized the Blue Gale on sight. He knows it as a move called Reppuken.

Iori observes that Mido's got it in for Althena, and rightly guesses he was the one who dispatched her on an expeditionary patrol during a lunar eclipse with no support. Now he's in the same boat with this dragon business, but unsurprisingly, he doesn't seem to care much.

Althena asks why he fought her if he hates violence.

"Is your sword violence?"
"No!"
"There you go. It's not violence to trade blows with someone coming at you. What's violent is wielding power devoid of pride against non-hostiles."

Althena finds that stance comforting. She eventually passes out at the tavern table, and Chard sets her up with a room for the night.

Iori: "I thought you said she never complained."
Chard: "Well, clearly she's opened up to you."

End of Chapter 4.

Now that I'm about a third of the way through this book, I'd like to share my personal impressions so far.

I really like the concept of the setting, a place with lots of SNK cameos. It makes the world somewhat more engaging and fleshed-out than Random Isekai Setting #582.

While the fights so far are about as anticlimactic as one would expect from a book whose title roughly translates to "Iori Yagami Blazes Through a Fantasy World" (subtitle: Remember Me When You Look at the Moon), the more interesting part is the Althena-Iori relationship dynamic.

The choice to make most of the book take place from Althena's first-person POV means we're in the perspective of a character trying to figure out what makes Iori tick. In a sense, it's an outsider's critical analysis of Iori's characterization.

This is demonstrated more in the next chapter, when Althena's trying to decide whether Iori chooses to take up the dragon-slaying job because he thinks he's got the chops or because he's become self-destructive and self-negligent since coming to another world.

Iori's a more entertaining conversationalist than I would have given him credit for in this story, and he gets some pretty solid key characterization moments across the board. The story serves more as an examination of him than of the setting, at least so far.

The romantic tension between Iori and Althena is something I find to be pretty cute, honestly. There's a funny scene when Althena comes into the Pao Pao Tavern and Chard flashes her a big grin and wink and thumbs-up, and she's not sure why. It just makes me think of this guy.

In summary, I grabbed this book on a lark to see if it had any goofy/cheesy highlights, but I'm finding myself genuinely enjoying it for what it is so far. We'll see how I feel when I'm done with it, I guess. More in a bit.

Note on translations: While I'm trying to convey character voice decently in these summaries, I'm already thinking of tons of ways I could have written lines better. I wish I could edit tweets. In that sense, you can consider this thread a rough draft.

There's a lot of details not covered here, as well. This thread is a broad summary at best. A lot of Althena's inner narration is entertaining, but I'd wear myself out trying to cover everything, so I'll save that fun for if anyone ever publishes this novel in English.

Anyway, it's time for Chapter 5: Dragon Slaying and the Fire Hero.

Althena wakes up in her undergarments, nursing a hangover from hell. Iori's sitting in a chair near her bed, and she immediately assumes the worst when she sees him and realizes what she's wearing.

It's not that she considers Iori entirely out of the question, but she's barely known the guy like 4 or 5 days! She's inwardly cursing her drunken self for giving up her virginity that easily when Iori lets out a chuckle. "You think I'd put the moves on a woman with beer breath?"

Althena barely has time to act upset at this remark before she feels a surge of bile rising. What a way to start the morning, with hangover vomit. She opts not to ask who undressed her (she doesn't want Iori to give her more crap), but he tells her anyway: She did it herself.

Whether there's really a dragon on the outskirts is up in the air. They only exist in legend, and no one's seen one for centuries. Some say they're extinct, some say they're sleeping.

Compounding the matter is the fact that this tip comes from the heir apparent's intel network. The knighthood hadn't heard anything about this before Mido brought it up. They'd have to visit the source of the intel in person to verify it.

Althena offers to go with Iori to the castle if he wants to turn the job down, but Iori says he'll take it. He's got no interest in heroes or dragons, but anything beats being completely directionless.

Althena is struck by the fact that to Iori, everything going on is just another way to kill time. She's on the fence about whether he's taking up dragon-slaying because he thinks he's strong enough to do it, or because he's just given up on himself.

If she were in his shoes, Althena would be looking into how she came to a strange world and how she'd go back to her old one, but he doesn't seem to be doing any of that, and that's really sad to her.

Althena heads back to the knight dorm to clean up, while Iori heads to the adventurers' guildhall to see what info he can dig up. He comes up blank on dragons, but there's another curious rumor: A fire-wielding hero has wiped out a secret den of evil mages to the south.

Iori's immediately ready to go look into this fake hero. It's way more interesting to him than the dragon. Why?

Iori: "Do you remember the name Kyo Kusanagi?"

Althena: "Yes. He's your big rival, right?"

Iori: "Him? Hah, don't be ridiculous."

Althena: "Oh, um, sorry."

Iori's pretty sure that Kyo would have been sent here the same way he was, all things considered. For a moment, he kindles his right hand in purple flame, then extinguishes it, clenching his fist. People on the streets gape at him.

He explains that Kyo can control fire, and that he's got a weird sense of righteousness, so Althena connects the dots and concludes that this guy taking out a den of evil mages would add up.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the woods, a mage girl is forming a giant magic circle to resurrect... something? Who knows? End of Chapter 5.

Chapter 6: The Magical Girl in the Southern Forest

Iori and Althena venture into the Higatsu Forest. We learn Althena has an extremely justified case of arachnophobia when a giant spider snares her with paralyzing webbing.

No points for guessing what happens to the spider. Turns out purple flame ignites spiders and their webbing real quick.

After curing the paralysis with a potion, they move on and find a girl with a funny nose drawing a magic circle and muttering to herself about resurrection.

The circle is huge and entirely clear of foliage. More to the point, trees are toppled away from it, as though there was an explosion. Althena warns that she senses an evil presence, but Iori says there is none and marches forward.

Althena grabs onto the first thing she can snag to stop him, his leg-belt, sending him crashing to the ground.

"Are you doing that on purpose?!" Iori snaps, alerting the girl to their presence.

The girl whirls around to face them. She's wearing a face mask, so at least the funny nose isn't her real one. She sweeps back her cape and strikes a pose. "Now that you've seen this magic circle, you're not walking away scot-free!"

The girl demands they introduce themselves, but before Althena can even get a word in, she declares herself to be Super-Tier Magical Girl Lilili, Genius Mage Extraordinaire.

"Whatever, tengu." Iori closes right in for a beatdown without missing a beat.

Lilili panics for a moment, then whips out a photomark (my makeshift coined word for 光貨, the crystal currency/magic fuel) and cracks it between her thumb and forefinger. Usually mages have specialized tools for breaking photomarks to get their power. She did it barehanded.

"Koroh-En!" After reciting an incantation, she thrusts out her hand, manifests a magic circle in front of it, and sends out a mass of fire. This is Iori's first fight against a mage, but he sidesteps it by pure reflex... ignoring the fact that Althena is behind him.

Before the mass of fire can hit Althena, it fizzles out harmlessly on its own. Lilili gets upset at this, then chuckles and says they've forced her to use her Maoh-Shoh-Koh-En. She busts out a whole handful of photomarks and starts a longer incantation.

Naturally, Iori isn't about to let her finish. As he runs in, she breaks off her incantation to brag about how he can't hurt her because she has an Excelsior Cloak! That's the same one Makirita gave them a sales pitch for. Perfect magical defense... for the head. Against magic.

You can guess why they opted not to buy it—It's a limited defensive area (just the head) and does nothing vs. physical attacks.

Iori grabs her and slams her face-first into the ground with a burst of purple flame that the cloak does nothing to stop.

"Iori... That's just mean."

The girl sits back up and takes off her mask. They try to question her, but she keeps dodging the questions until Iori looms in menacingly with purple flames that make her suddenly inspired to talk. Her real name is Lililium, and they don't have family names in her country.

In the Magic Kingdom of Higatsumi, mages are divided into tiers according to their ability. Lilili is in a high tier called Super, and her mask is her magic focus. She's at the top of her graduating class in the secret Kyokugen School of Magical Arts.

They were having a graduation ceremony on the night of the eclipse. Lilili got permission to demonstrate a cool Maoh-Shoh-Koh-En, but she got so drunk she messed up the spell, and amplified by the eclipse, it caused the explosion that blew up the school.

The rest of the students and faculty are back in town resting and resupplying, while she's being tasked with drawing a magic circle by hand (normally they use magic for these) both as punishment, and to restore the school building. That's what the "resurrection" talk was about.

Why'd she attack? Because Iori attacked. Why'd she yell about not walking away scot-free and provoke Iori into an attack? She was using the literal definition of "scot" as in a tax or fee. She was ready to pay them hush money to not tell anyone about this place.

With the mysteries solved, they all set up camp for the night. I won't go into detail, but this is the point of the book where my review score drops from 4/5 to maybe 2/5 tops. You know the anime trope about teen girls groping other girls with bigger boobs? Yeah, that one. Sigh.

Anyway, moving on, Lilili distinctly reminds Iori of the Sakazaki girl from his world. She has some opinions on the matter of dimensional doubles, and she goes into a supermagistring theory lecture. TLDR: Superpowered people have a decent chance of existing in multiple worlds.

Lilili whines for Iori to sing her something when it's time to go to sleep, and he tells her to piss off. "You're a bard, aren't you?!"

End of Chapter 6.

Chapter 7: A New Team Is Formed

Iori tells Lilili to get on with the restoration. She finally gives it a shot and throws all her remaining photomarks (and some of Althena's) into the spell. She accurately reproduces the entire school, furniture and all! ...Only, inches tall.

Maybe it was the hangover? Who knows. Well, that's just great. Lilili's out of food, resources, and job prospects with her graduation on hold until the school is restored. So she decides to tag along with Iori and Althena for the time being, for lack of better options.

There's not much to write home about in the mid-part of this chapter. It's the hot springs episode. They go to a place called the Fantasy Lodge to take shelter from the rain. Insert tropes about anime girls in the girls' side of a hot spring here.

I skimmed this part of the chapter, both because reading it exhaustively was going to make me age 5 years, and because I didn't want people sitting near me at jury duty seeing the, uh, awkward illustration while I was reading in my downtime.

Later, when they're eating in the ryotei dining hall, a familiar half-elven bard impersonator comes in and starts crowing about how the Fire Hero is here. The other diners immediately flock around and start asking Iori to show his colored fire.

The bard impersonator beams triumphantly, his revenge successful, and starts to take his leave, until a lute goes flying at him.

Iori: "You forgot something."

Lilili is shocked, SHOCKED! to find out Iori's not really a bard. She's never felt so deceived!

Iori grabs the bard by the arm. Althena's afraid it's going to be a repeat of the Pao Pao Tavern brawl. Instead, Iori says he'll use him for a fire demonstration. He runs like hell.

The whole "fake fire hero" lead was a bust, since it turns out the "den of evil mages" was just a benign secret mage school and the "fire hero" was just a drunk Lilili. But they still have two items on their agenda: dragon-slaying and dispatching a dark lord.

As an aside, I liked Althena's description of Lilili's height: "She was a full head shorter than me, but with her hair-antenna, she matched my height."

Once the commotion dies down, the innkeeper brings them another round of drinks and remarks on what an eclectic party they are. "Party?" Iori looks dubious. Althena realizes the concept is lost on him and explains that it's a group of adventurers.

Iori is dismissive of Lilili and tells her that she should go back to whatever family she has. She doesn't actually have family other than an adoptive or step-brother, unclear which (義理), and she doubts she'll see her brother again anyway.

She's from an island-based empire called the Theocracy of Obenzakka, which became closed-off 2 years ago. Althena concludes that now that she's a powerful mage, she's unlikely to be let back in. Iori takes the hint and doesn't bring it up again.

Lilili is upset that they didn't tell her Iori was the Fire Hero sooner. She could've made a killing setting up a Real vs. Fake showdown people could bet on. Oh well. She says the dragon rumors in Esaga match up with the ones in Higatsumi.

The innkeep corroborates the rumors with his own tales of burned travelers and accounts of suddenly disappearing livestock. This is sounding way more like an actual flame dragon than an exaggerated account of Kyo.

They turn up a lead that the dragon might be nesting in a Higatsumi photomark mine. Lilili knows where the mine is, and she'll take them there as long as they let her join the party. Fine, it's a deal.

Iori's inwardly annoyed about being stuck in KOF format even here in this world, but there's also something comfortingly familiar about it.

End of Chapter 7.

That fairly uneventful chapter leaves us right around the two-thirds mark of this book. My opinion of it has become less favorable than the first third, but there's still another hundred-and-change pages to go. That leads us into the next section...

Chapter 8: Assassinate Iori

For this leg of their southward journey, they're traveling through a craggy area with narrow passes that limit the amount of daylight that gets through. In light of that, they call an earlier rest. It helps, since now they're using the horse to haul supplies while they all walk.

Iori has refused to use his flame to start a campfire since the initial hike to Schesaga. Lilili balks at having to spend photomarks on starting one, but once Althena promises to pay her back later, she flashes a thumbs-up and an "Easy-peasy!" (よゆうッチ！)

When she summons the magic circle and recites the incantation to kindle the fire, before she even finishes it, Iori idly says "Fire, huh." He did this before, IDing Lilili's school-restoration spell as "Regenerate". Lilili and Althena are puzzled at how he recognizes them.

Iori: "Can't you read the letters in the magic circles?"
Althena/Lilili: "Huh?!"

Apparently the 'runes' that manifest in magic circles have been impossible for mage-scholars to decipher. Iori says they're just the English alphabet from his world.

Althena and Lilili banter back and forth over whether Iori might really be a dark lord. Iori, unsurprisingly, doesn't give a shit whether he is or not.

Althena goes out to stand watch, and she hears a horse neigh. She looks over and spots their horse with an arrow in its neck.

Althena quickly sounds the alarm and draws her sword. She can spot three torches on the cliffs up ahead, and tinier flames coming in. Fire arrows. There's also a rain of regular arrows, potshots that hit the ground harmlessly. Althena fears they might be poison-laced, though.

Lilili's getting a defensive spell up, but those have particularly long incantations, so Althena steps up to start swatting down arrows that get too close with her sword. Iori, meanwhile, is catching them out of the air barehanded and leaving a messy pile of them at his feet.

Once the barrier goes up, the rain of arrows dies down, giving them time to get their bearings. Althena thinks the silhouettes outlined by torchlight were goblins. Lilili is deathly afraid of bald creatures. Iori says Althena should be able to handle a few goblins by herself.

"Fine, I'll take point and—"
"Don't move, Victorious."

Right as Althena's about to march out, sword drawn, a figure emerges from the shadows and snares her by the neck and arm in a swift and expert-level pinning maneuver.

Althena refuses to let herself be a liability to the team. She's about to yell out for them to disregard her when Iori cuts her off.

Iori: "Mage, fire everything you've got. The lady knight will pay you back later!"
Lilili: "HECK YEAH! I love you, Iori!!"

Lilili goes hog wild firing out Koroh-Ens at goblins like they're going out of style. Althena pieces together that Lilili does way better with her magic when she's completely unconcerned about the financials involved. Her goblin-phobia probably explains the overkill, too.

The goblins all run like hell. Meanwhile...

"Dodge, lady knight!"

Iori sends a Yamibarai at Althena. The girl currently being pinned in place. Althena twists and throws her assailant into the fire while she gets clear.

The man rips his oni mask off while the fires are burning, revealing the face of the third member of the scammer-bard's posse. "How...?!" He stares at them incredulously, his expression twisting into a sneer as he collapses. The goblins are gone, leaving just the man's corpse.

They bury the body and set up camp again. Althena keeps his guild tag to return to the Adventurers' Guild later. She anticipated the possibility of a monster attack, but a human attack was the last thing on her mind when she went out to stand watch.

She can't make sense of why goblins would be working with a guild member. Lilili comes up with the answer: The goblins had runes carved into their foreheads that marked them as under another mage's control. That's some serious taboo magic right there.

Iori isn't entirely shocked. "Trash thinks the same way no matter what world you're in, huh."

It still doesn't add up to Althena. Why would he attack them, knowing who she was? And why would he go out of his way to employ mind-controlled goblins?

After seeing Lilili in action earlier, Althena's got a new theory as to why Lilili's performance was so poor in the Higatsu Forest. She thinks there might be counterfeit low-quality photomarks in circulation, meaning Lilili is a way better mage than they gave her credit for.

This is relevant to them because if the dragon is nesting in a mine for photocite (the material photomarks are made from), it would be a stretch to call that a coincidence. Althena doesn't like the looks of this one bit.

End of Chapter 8.

Chapter 9: The Blood of Orochi

This chapter opens up with a hooded man meeting an adventurer in a Fantasy Lodge room. It's the same adventurer that tipped off Team Iori about the photocite mine. He's drinking the wine they bought him as their payment for the tip.

He'd offer the hooded man a drink, but then he remembers the man's a non-drinker. He tells the hooded man he's a bit late, and that the adventurer's dead now. He was kind of a chump to take up a job like this based on one embarrassment anyway—he was gonna die sooner or later.

The adventurer goes on a tangent about Higatsumi wine, and how in that country they use magic to brew it, barrel it, and preserve it. He gets up and grabs a staff off the wall, bragging about how with this fine wine in his system, he's strong enough to handle this personally.

He tells the hooded man not to worry—He's a hired demon (傭魔), and this time he'll come up with a way better monster option than goblins. He says the hooded man can have the rest of the bottle, then remembers with a pitying smirk that he's a non-drinker and just strolls on out.

Once the "adventurer" is gone, the hooded man's shoulders tremble in unbridled anger. The hooded man flips the table, sending the bottle and wineglasses crashing to the floor.

Meanwhile, back on the road, Team Iori's been wandering the borderlands for 3 days. Lilili's offer to lead them to the mine was nice and all, but there was one catch. None of them has a map.

In the past 3 days they've rescued elfmaids abducted by goblins, gotten Lilili abducted and had to rescue her (story truncated into an offhanded half-sentence mention by the narrator, not me), and generally dealt with a bunch of random encounters.

It's harder going now that they've lost their horse, but at least today they've finally reached the foot of the western Higatsumi Mountains. Lilili actually gets them to a mine. Higatsumi operates more than one, of course, but this is the one they're gonna investigate.

It's completely devoid of human presence. They can't tell if it's because the mine's closed, or because something happened to the workers. They check their provisions and proceed onward within.

The mine doesn't SEEM old or abandoned, which makes it more puzzling to Althena when she finds the occasional silver lantern that's rusted beyond any hope of use.

As they go deeper within, they find kobolds mining the photocite in the mine. Strange, when Higatsumi doesn't use monsters for manual labor. Further in are a number of orcs driving the kobolds. Past them is the adventurer with the staff. Iori doesn't remember him being a mage.

Althena confronts him about having some vendetta against Iori. The mage is confused. "What are you talking about? You're my target, Althena Victorious." He explains what a 傭魔 is - It's not a hired demon like I initially thought, it's just a fancy term for a mage-merc.

Althena thinks back to the goblin attack at the start of the book, where symbols vanished from the goblins' foreheads after they got stabbed. He was behind that too, apparently, and it would've worked if not for Iori coming in at random and meddling. He'd be better off dead, too.

Iori: "Sounds like you'd be better off dead. I'd like to see what some scrub who sends others to do his dirty work can even accomplish."

The mage-merc's brow twitches. He turns back to Althena and makes some pretty uncouth threats.

While he's talking shit, Althena and Iori are casually covering Lilili while she's incanting and summoning a magic circle behind their cloaks. She finishes the spell and unleashes a Koroh-En that doesn't hit the man but incinerates an orc near him, leaving nothing but ashes.

"No! Naragashiwa! Do you have any idea how many photomarks it costs to employ an orc?!" Even then, the rest of the monsters don't attack, likely because they haven't been ordered to. Althena concludes they ran off last time because they were ordered to retreat.

Just as Team Iori is about to give the mage-merc hell, another man interrupts to yell at the mage-merc, who actively facepalms, taking the wind out of the whole team's sails. "You've gotta be shitting me..." The mage groans out loud as a hooded man storms past the monsters.

The mage-merc demands to know why someone so privileged would come out in person when he TOLD the guy to just wait at the Fantasy Lodge. Instead of answering, the hooded man marches up next to the mage-merc and throws off his hood. It's Mido, the Heir Apparent of Esaga.

Althena's actually relieved by this incredibly predictable turn of events. She'd had an inkling, but if it'd turned out to be someone else like the knight commander, she would have been too crushed to raise her sword.

Not so for Mido. The guy's an arrogant asshole and she has no hesitation whatsoever about turning her sword on him in the name of justice. The Esaga knighthood is meant to be the country's shield and the people's sword, not the country's sword.

Apparently this whole thing started because she'd been investigating counterfeiting photomarks back before being dispatched on that eclipse expedition. If she'd just looked the other way, Mido wouldn't be having her killed.

It's part of Mido's efforts to get his country more powerful, since right now Higatsumi produces most of the currency in the region. It's both currency and magic fuel, so diluting that causes the nation to grow weaker both magically and financially.

Counterfeiting alone wouldn't be enough, which is why he spread rumors of a dragon, so Higatsumi would abandon this mine for an Esaga takeover. Mido is doing all of this behind his father the prince's back as well, seeing no reason to inform him.

Mido is ready for the hero and his companions to die to support the dragon story. Really, anyone can be the hero. They can just pick another one after Iori dies. The air is crackling now. Everybody's ready to rumble.

Then Lilili runs up to Althena.

"I'm outta photomarks!"

The warning comes as they're in the thick of things. Over half the monsters are still standing, and now Lilili's exhausted her energy on magic barriers to guard against the mage-merc's attacks. Those barriers are going to dwindle away soon.

Althena's got durability enchantments on her sword and armor this time, so her sword isn't growing dull and her armor's deflecting physical attacks nicely. Iori, meanwhile, is completely ungeared and uninjured anyway, and he's leaving trails of monster corpses in his wake.

Iori is busting out his whole moveset for this brawl, and he's still doing fine without using any fire. Althena's debating how to get Lilili to safety when Iori speaks. "Don't you have a bunch of photomarks right here? The non-counterfeit kind?" "Ooh yeah, we do!"

Lilili gets struck by inspiration. She presses something into Iori's hand, and he immediately puts 2 and 2 together. He charges into the midst of the enemy to plant the catalyst right in the middle of them. Lilili gathers up photocite around them, reciting a familiar incantation.

Althena takes a graze wound from a goblin arrow while defending Lilili, but she shrugs it off. Finally, Lilili casts the Regenerate spell. This has the effect of materializing an entire magic school right there in the middle of a mineshaft. On top of the monsters. Splat.

They take a quick breather while Lilili cures Althena's poison, but the battle's far from over. Althena's not concerned about Mido's swordsmanship, but she IS concerned about the mage-merc having nothing to lose with all his monsters gone.

The mage-merc is crying crocodile tears. "Kunugi... Shinomuni... Lowell... Cobalt... I named each and every one of them! I doted on them! How do you think it feels for all of them to go up in smoke at once?! Huh?!"

(I can't believe he gave a kobold a Lufia 2 English name)

The mage-merc goes off on Mido for endangering himself and being a liability. He trips Mido with his staff and then plants his boot on Mido's head.

"How DARE—"
"Shut up, you worthless heir! I'm having a moment here!"

The mage-merc bashes some photocite free of the wall with his staff and starts an incantation that involves calling on red, white, and black flames. Lilili doesn't recognize it. Is it taboo magic? Iori gets the picture real quick when he reads the runes: "Explosion".

Iori grabs Althena and Lilili and books it the hell out of there. He pulls up his hood and yells at them to cover their ears and open their mouths. His quick thinking ensures they make it out of the ensuing cave-in alive.

The cave is a giant hollow with a hole in the ceiling opening up to ground level when they make it back in. Lilili mourns the now-permanent loss of her magic school. The catalyst she was using was a fragment of the original school, and that was her last piece.

"Ahh, it's so tricky managing the strength of a magically-induced detonation. No wonder it's taboo magic! We were almost goners there!"

The mage-merc is still standing in the middle of the magic circle with his boot on Mido's head. The magic circle protected them from the spell.

"Take your filthy boots off me, you cur—"

Mido's protests are cut short by the mage-merc removing his foot and kicking his midsection instead. Althena yells at the merc to stop, and Mido looks up at Althena with a bruised and teary-eyed expression.

Once the mage-merc steps away, Althena observes that the photocite that's been fueling their respective mega-spells has been shattered by the strain... into conveniently-sized and much more portable photomarks.

The mage points out they're at an impasse now with all this magic fuel to spare. How about a bargain? He thinks handing over Mido is a fair trade for a guarantee of his own safety.

Iori: "You still don't get it? I don't MAKE bargains."

As the mage pleads for his life, they all start picking up a trembling that's growing more pronounced. The walls are destabilized and rupturing. The ruptures are reaching up to the ceiling, which dangerously close to crumbling.

A booming call rings out over the sounds of the cave-in, directed at "You who have used my magic to disturb my slumber". After the dustclouds clear, the ruptured wall reveals a new cave opening, with a large silhouette lying beyond it.

The voice declares that the spell was an esoteric art that they passed on. In other words, this figure invented that spell. Althena's instincts are screaming at her to run the hell away right now, but she overrides her instincts and refuses to leave Iori and Lilili behind.

He calls himself Alighieri the Fire Dragon, Ruler of the Three Flames. The mage-merc isn't sticking around. He drops his staff and scrambles away, but the dragon sends a blast of fire breath past Team Iori that vaporizes the mage-merc on the spot.

"Know that my awakening heralds the end of Man."

The figure finally fully reveals himself. It's a dragon straight out of legend... except for one difference.

This one's got three heads.

Mido, somehow still alive, stutters out an order for Victorious to slay the dragon, while clinging in a rather undignified way to Althena's cloak.

Althena: "Have you considered asking the hero nicely?"
Mido: "What use would he be?! He's just using phosphorus or something!"

Althena tells Mido to buckle down, since they're going to have to stop the dragon here. Mido yells at Althena for being useless, shoves her away, and takes off running. I misread what I translated as vaporized earlier—the mage is charred but alive enough to grab his ankle.

"Miserable wretch." The dragon incinerates Mido and the mage both. Afterward, Alighieri directs all six of its reptilian eyes upon Team Iori.

"Kneel before me, humans, and I shall grant you a swift and painless death."

Guess Iori's not the only one that doesn't make bargains.

"Hmhmhm... Hahaha... HAAAHAHAHA!"

"Uh, Althena, I think Iori's lost it..."

"A three-headed dragon, huh? Even here I can't escape Orochi's destiny? Sounds more and more like my blood is bound to monsters."

Alighieri takes this as mockery and rears back. Lilili brings up a defensive barrier just in time to guard against more fire breath.

Lilili can't keep this up for long, and the only reason it's working at all is the high-quality photocite in the area. At her wits' end, Althena asks to borrow Lilili's Excelsior Cloak. It can protect the head, which Lilili can regenerate her from! No Althena, you're not Piccolo.

"Just stay back and watch." Iori tosses back his cloak and leaves the barrier's protection. The cloak burns up immediately, but he's sending out enough purple flames to keep the red flames at bay.

A: Impossible! Those flames...
I: I'm pretty sure we've fought monsters like you for millennia.
A: How could a mere human—?!
I: You say this is the beginning of the end? Wrong. It's the end of your beginning.

Iori's flames overwhelm the dragon and engulf it. All the fire's gone.

I: You won't die that easy!

Iori summons more flames sends them along the ground. They hit Alighieri and erupt in a purple pillar that leaves him burned.

A: What... How...?!

I: That was Reverse Form 108: Yasakazuki. It's a good look on a paper tiger like you.

Iori's barrage is relentless. Eventually the dragon collapses to the ground.

I: Playtime is over!

Iori crosses his hands over his head, briefly sparking a flash of blue-white light. By the time the others' vision adjusts, he's closed in on the left head with Koh-Hebisake.

Iori proceeds to rip, tear, and bash the head. "Cry!" The dragon screeches in pain. "Scream! And then..." Iori delivers eight gouging, rending blows, then curls his fingers into his claws and plunges his hands into the dragon's eyes. His hands erupt in purple flame. "DIE!!"

The left head is blown apart. Blood rains down all over Iori. The other two heads can't process what just happened. How can someone exist in this world that controls fire with no incantation?! Iori starts to laugh and gloat that they're finally figuring it out. Until... *cough*

Iori suddenly goes down on one knee, coughing up blood repeatedly. The girls are confused. He's never shown any signs of illness before now. Iori is grimacing. This is not the time for a Riot of the Blood. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve and rises shakily.

The dragon takes this opportunity to incant a spell of its own. Dragons, being inherently magical creatures, don't need external fuel like photomarks. It casts an imprisonment spell that causes his body to convulse and go rigid, leaving him defenseless on the ground.

Lilili explains this is a mental attack that takes away the target's self and shatters the ego. Lilili doesn't know the counterspell against it, and no potions will help (theirs are broken anyway), so all they can do is wait it out. And call out to him, I guess.

While Iori's having an internal existential crisis, Althena's determined to buy time. She asks Lilili to give her sword a fire enchantment. It depletes Althena's internal reserves, but she's undeterred and asks Lilili to lay it on double.

The dragon courteously lets them finish, then breathes white and black fire (the red's gone now). Althena's Fire Sword gives her a speed boost that enables her to dodge the breath and deliver a leaping strike with magically enhanced flames that breach the dragon's scales.

Lilili's in the back doing a long incantation, so Althena keeps the dragon occupied herself. Finally, Lilili finishes and casts Maoh-Shoh-Koh-En, firing out blast after ginormous blast of crackling, brilliant fire.

When the dust clears, Alighieri has its wings furled around it. When it flaps its wings, it sends everything flying. RIP the ashes of the two dead guys. Althena catches Iori and shields him from flying debris.

Lilili's fine when Althena calls out to her, but she's beyond exhausted and can't even use all the free magic fuel lying around anymore. They're at the end of their rope. Althena delivers a tender confession to Iori's inanimate form, then tells Lilili to take him and run.

Althena turns to the dragon and delivers a war cry that kindles her Fire Sword brighter and brighter. The middle head goes in for a snap. She plants her hand on the ground and springs off in a sprint toward it, and in that motion, does the inputs for her super.

"ACCEL FIRE GALE!" She twists and goes into a full-body spin in mid-air, aimed at the middle head's neck. The sword blow cleaves through scale, flesh, and bone, severing the head and sending it crashing to the ground.

But the blow is enough to sap the last of her strength. She can't even stop herself from an uncontrolled plummet to the ground, and her sword is broken in two.

Iori gets broken out of his existential funk by a snarky voice and a bright red flame. Iori tells Kyo to shut up and go back to waiting for his death.

Althena hears a loud howling as he comes back to reality.

I thought they were done with weird tangents, but they put in one last one for the road.

Althena's fading out and saying her last goodbyes.

I: It'd be bad for my heart if you died because of me. Drink.

He cuts his palm and holds it to her mouth. She drinks.

I got nothin'.

Althena's senses start to return to her. No, seriously, I have NO idea how this works. Last I checked Iori wasn't a vampire. But sure, magic Orochi blood, why not???

A: How did you break my spell without magic?!
I: Yours is nothing compared to Orochi's bindings.
A: Orochi?
I: This.

Iori brings his right hand up to his eye. Althena can't tell what she's showing, but whatever it is causes Alighieri to backpedal in oddly human fashion.

Lilili remarks that Althena's eyes have turned red. With reptilian pupils. Oh, that's what Iori's showing the dragon. And the dragon is terror-struck by it.

Iori points upward. "Remember me when you look at the moon!" With the ceiling collapsed, there's a crescent moon overhead.

Alighieri's ready to go Fuck This and fly off like a wounded Monster Hunter encounter, but Iori's not having it. He leaps onto Alighieri's remaining head and goes to town on it, pounding it with blasts of purple hellfire, laughing loudly all the while.

The dragon collapses to the ground, and Iori's got a parting shot for it.

"You had five heads too few to go toe to toe with me."

"Incredible... A dark lord? No, a mere human. Yet of the Three Dragonlords, I am but..." Alighieri trails off there, dead.

That's over with, and Althena's eyes are back to normal. Lilili thinks they're gonna go down in history for this. Iori's dismissive. It was just another 3v3 for him.

He warns Althena to beware, though—She's going to shoulder the Orochi curse, and the Riot of the Blood with it.

Iori: You may come to regret not dying back there.
Althena: No, this is the life you've given me. I have no regrets whatsoever.

End of Chapter 9.

Final Chapter

They make it back to Esaka battered but intact after catching a wagon ride with a merchant. Althena apologizes to the soldier whose horse she borrowed and offers to repay him, but he refuses, saying that delivering news of a dragon-slaying is enough for him.

The Adventurers' Guild gives Team Iori a proper heroes' welcome. It's not quite as warm of a reception at Switter Castle, where Prince Nanbork Esaga grieves the loss of his foolish son. He wants to keep the matter hush-hush and write his son's death off as caused by illness.

He'd love to give Lilili a job teaching at the castle, but she hasn't technically graduated. At one point, Iori gets a glint in his eye that gives Althena a bad feeling. She inwardly braces as Iori draws himself up and informs the king that he's actually the dark lord.

The prince is aghast at this terrible revelation. What he thought was a heroic dragon-slaying was actually a dark lord increasing his territory?! He banishes Iori on the spot. Iori still gets paid, of course. Iori gives a trademark cackle and strides on out.

After Iori and Lilili take their leave, the prince informs Althena he's held her in high regard for quite some time, and that he'd been hoping to arrange for Althena to marry his son. Althena doesn't say it out loud, but HELL NO, she never would've said yes anyway.

As they leave town, Lilili asks Iori if he'd be up for going back to Higatsumi with her. Iori wants to find Kyo. A world without him is just boring. But it's not like he's got any leads, so sure, he'll tag along.

Just then, Althena joins them. She got permission from His Highness to stick around to ascertain whether or not Iori's really a dark lord. She and Lilili start to fight over Iori and cling to his arms, then he snaps at them to back off and throws them both behind him.

Meanwhile, in some dark, quiet place, a man in black robes sits in a sinister-looking dragon-styled chair. He leans languidly on his armrest and gazes down from his dais at the monsters kneeling before him.

To the man's sides are a slender, blond young man and a large, shirtless man that stand ominously like guardian deities, not letting anybody past them.

One of the monsters offers a timid report: "Dark Lord, Alighieri, one of the Three Dragonlords, has fallen."

The blond man replies. "Who did it?"

"Someone with, um, purple flames."

The shirtless giant asks the next question. "Where are they now?"

"He appears to be headed for the Magic Kingdom of Higatsumi."

At this news, the dark lord holds up his right hand, kindling it in bright red flame.

"I've been bored ever since the eclipse. Finally..."

He extinguishes the flame, plunging the hall back into darkness and silence.

The end.

Boy, what a ride. It had a number of highs and lows. The last third went straight into Slayers territory with that mage-merc battle.

I'm not sure how I feel about the story overall, but I'll probably read the next book when/if it comes out. I guess I'm invested now.