Demon lord Zagan has been defeated! Long live the alliance! After fighting alongside the Hero of Light to drive back the demon army, Makoto Takatsuki finds himself stuck in the infirmary battling a new enemy—boredom. As he sits idle, the alliance braces for another incursion from the demon continent. However, the next attack comes from an unexpected Alexander, the Hero of the Sun, targets Furiae, seeking to take her into custody. Highland’s State-Authorized Hero is a powerful foe...so strong that even Sakurai cannot match him! Meanwhile, Makoto is contacted by the Goddess of the Sun, Althena, who pleads for him to save humanity from the Great Demon Lord. Hunted by enemies and allies alike, can Makoto and his friends unite the continent before Iblis’s resurrection shrouds the world in darkness?
Makoto and his team are back after the battle, recovering and waiting for the reward ceremony. Meanwhile the pope is plotting something and the day of the major demon lord is resurrected comes ever closer.
The summary sounds more exciting than the actual story was. The day to day aspects of the story are about as entertaining as earlier volumes, although due to all the switching in point of view and all focussed on Makoto's "womanizing" ways it felt a lot like the author trying to fill a book without much progress either in plot or character development. The situation with the pope was resolved way too quickly and with no effective consequences. That in itself would have been fine, intermezzo novels are part and parcel of light novel genre and do not come as a surprise. The setup for the next arc though, ugh. And author, you might sound enthusiastic about an arc with a completely new cast, but I am not. I like the current one well enough. If I want new characters I can start reading a new series. It feels too much like the author was surprised the end of the story drew near and that they quickly needed something to add a few more books to it.
Anyway, the volume was entertaining enough, and I will give volume 10 a chance since my expectations were never too high to begin with, but this one is a 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 due to it being the 9th volume in an otherwise decent series.