countess is a coward no more

By Ageha Sakura and TCB. Released in Japan as “Tensei Saki ga Kiyowa Sugiru Hakushaku Fujin datta” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Bérénice Vourdon.

In this volume, we get a flashback to Aurora’s childhood. She grew up in a village that was terrified of her massive magical power and her insatiable curiosity to use it. Her parents wanted nothing to do with her. The mayor essentially sold her to an elf as a research subject. Fortunately, that went well… till her master just up and left one day, leaving Aurora to handle all the magic requests on her own, taking in three disciples. We meet the third of these disciples in this book, Lance, and he too is a former research subject who was rescued, this time by Aurora. Even now that she’s reincarnated, she had a terrible childhood where she was abused by everyone, and even after getting her memories back struggles with any overtures of affection. The main problem with Aurora *and* her proteges is that they still have the emotional capacity of children a great deal of the time. They don’t know how to ask for help, or forgive.

Things continue to go downhill for Char and Lam. They do manage to escape from her first protege, mostly as he gets into a petty battle with her second protege. Unfortunately, the kingdom wants to pile on more work, reasoning that working mages to death is what people are supposed to do. Oh yes, and the church is still being a thorn in everyone’s side… especially when it turns out that her THIRD protege, Lance, is the head of the church. He couldn’t reincarnate himself with the magic he had, so he simply made a deal to learn how to live for over 500 years. All of them want to show Lam that they’re the best and she should stay with them (though Lance, at least, will allow Char to be first husband). That said, there’s a Big Bad behind all of this, and he turns out to be… wait for it… another protege! Not Aurora’s this time, though.

This was better than the second book, mostly as I was able to see better the reason that everyone in the cast is, to a greater or lesser extent, a whiny manbaby. Char discovering that Aurora is actually Lam went much better than both the reader and Lam herself expected, and he is finally – finally! – able to convey to her by the end of the book that the reason he keeps hugging, kissing, and saying he’s fond of her is he loves her. The second half of the book is less “let’s have a big magic battle” and more “let’s try not to have Lam kill herself the exact same way that Aurora did five hundred years ago”, which relies on convincing her that it’s OK to rely on others and that sometimes they can protect themselves. When you’re used to doing it all, realizing someone else can do it to can be very hard.

The webnovel ended here, but apparently there’s more of this coming. I still prefer the Lady Bumpkin series by the same author, but this was a decent new volume.

By Ageha Sakura and TCB. Released in Japan as “Tensei Saki ga Kiyowa Sugiru Hakushaku Fujin datta” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Bérénice Vourdon.

This is not an isekai title, and it’s not QUITE a reincarnation title, even though it features that, mostly as they’re not reincarnated from Japan. Everyone in this fantasy world seems to have been born in it at some point. But it is one of those titles, like Reborn to Master the Blade or A Tale of the Secret Saint, where our protagonist was an incredibly powerful and influential person in the past, and now that they’ve reincarnated into the future, they find that their past is not so easy to get rid of. This is more literally true for Lam than others in this genre, as not only was she forcibly reincarnated via a spell, but all of her disciples are there as well. And unfortunately, this gets to one of the parts of the title that I wish weren’t the case… all of her disciples are, to one degree or another, yanderes. Fortunately, she has minimal interest in anyone but Char… who gets SLIGHTLY more than minimal.

Things start off fairly normally, as Lam decides she wants to attend a tea party for nobility, which goes about as well as you’d expect, given that she’s still assumed to be an introverted coward by those who haven’t met her new self. After that, though, we get the real plot, as Lam is asked to go to the country of Levres, whose prince wants to meet her. Naturally, Char comes along, and they take Canon as well. It turns out that the prince is the reincarnation of her second disciple, Glacial, who was reincarnated properly with his memories from the start, unlike Lam’s broken reincarnation. Now Prince Fleche, he wants Lam to marry him and live with him forever – much to Char’s displeasure. Unfortunately, the hatred of mages has also followed them to this kingdom, helped along by the Church.

This series has a very big problem for me, which is not a deal breaker so far but the ice is getting thinner. The problem is that while I like the basic situation, I usually want to sympathize with… anyone. Lam is fairly emotionally stunted, quick to deal with “insects” when she’s annoyed, and, while she’s not aromantic per se, she might as well be given her inability to get anyone’s point. The men in her life are all various shades of obsessed with/in love with her, and Char is possibly the only one who actually cares about what SHE thinks about this… and the implication is that if he finds out she was actually Aurora, he won’t care about her own feelings either. The bad guys are also mostly immature brats with far too much power and a tendency to not care about anyone or anything. And given they all have magic, even the people trying to prejudice the world against magic, that’s not a good thing. You want to smack them.

This ends with a cliffhanger, so we’ll see how all these men decide to resolve who gets to marry and have sex with a woman who really doesn’t want to be married to anyone but Char, and who still tends to blush and have a look of horror if sex is mentioned. I’ll keep going, but buyer beware.

By Ageha Sakura and TCB. Released in Japan as “Tensei Saki ga Kiyowa Sugiru Hakushaku Fujin datta” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Bérénice Vourdon.

I hadn’t realized till I’d finished this book that the author also wrote a book I read less than two months ago, also a J-Novel Heart title, Lady Bumpkin and Her Lord Villain. That one came before this one, I think, which may explain one reason why this book does not bother with any of the heroine’s coward period. We open on page 1 with her getting her memories from a past life back, and after a short “everyone was abusing her since the day she was born” explanation, our heroine never looks back, taking control of her life and making sweeping changes. And honestly, I will admit that that’s probably for the best, though I have one caveat I’ll get to later. Lam, the countess, was a magical legend 500 years ago, and now she’s in the future where magic is much less impressive and much more oppressed. Shades of Reborn to Master the Blade, but Lam is quite happy to continue using magic, as long as she can retrain her weak body. You’ve read this sort of thing before.

Lam was born into a commoner-turned-baron’s household, and when she was found to have residual mana in her she was abused and belittled by her entire family. When she came of age she was sold to an earl, who doesn’t care about her, and is beaten and abused by her servants. Then one day, after getting hit one too many times, she remembers she used to be the legendary with Aurora, who was powerful, saved many people, and had equally powerful apprentices. Sadly, she can’t remember how she died, but that’s not important right now. What is important is beating the shit out of every servant, firing their asses, and getting a divorce from her husband. She’s successful in all but the last of these – now that she’s no longer a nervous wreck who can’t respond to anyone, he finds her super attractive. Even more so when he sees the magic she can now wield…

So, two issues with this book, one of which is not the author’s fault. The petty issue is it makes me think of the Kenny Rogers song Coward of the County, which I hate. The less petty issue is there’s a lot of “if only she’s been stronger and stood up to her bullies she might have been able to fix things”, which always irritates me, mostly as it’s still a prevailing attitude to this day. Other than that, this is fun enough. Lam is the sort who likes to pretend that she’s got it all together even when she doesn’t, and is at her most interesting when she’s struggling with stamina/romance, or when she’s forging new family bonds. Char, the earl and her husband, seems to be the classic “stoic uncaring guy whose heart is opened by a woman”, only it turns out he’s also a massive Aurora otaku, which is the funniest part of the book. Also, unlike a lot of books like this, this was written knowing there would be more than one volume, so there’s a cliffhanger.

Also, Lam’s sisters are named Lem and Lim. Presumably Lom and Lum were busy doing the Pink Panther movies and Urusei Yatsura. For fans of the disgraced noble genre, even though the disgrace all happens before the novel starts.