I know a lot of people really hate this volume along with volume 11 for being “just filler,” and “focusing too much on side characters who we already know are gonna die” and are even suggesting that people skip them entirely to get back to the main story faster. But for me, this volume solidified what the previous one was trying to do.
Volume 11 focuses on the stories of Julius and his party members, who are very separated from the main cast most of the time. I will admit, I was immediately turned off by this idea and put off reading the book for several months. Though it wasn’t the most enjoyable out of the series, it’s not like it was hard to read and I finished it within a few hours. I could appreciate the extra information and background it gave from a world building perspective. When we’re stuck watching White and Ariel the entire time, it’s hard to remember what life is like for the humans and that Julian is actually the standard for strength, just not compared to literal gods.
In the end, the book is summarizing his motivations as compared and contrasted to Ariel’s. Julian doesn’t want to fight but is forced to for humanity’s sake while Ariel doesn’t want to fight but is forced to for the world’s sake. The hero and demon lord are two sides of the same coin, intrinsically connected by the same burden they are both assigned against their will. Maybe it took a while to make that point, but I can still appreciate that that the author made it nonetheless.
Additionally, that volume set up for the events in this one. Namely, the countless tragic deaths. Sure, we knew they were coming. It was revealed ages ago in the story but at that point we couldn’t truly appreciate them. Shun gets the devastating news that his brother is dead. Big whoop. We only ever heard about him from Shun’s short anecdotes and knew basically nothing about his party members. But because of volume 11, I felt genuine sorrow for these characters. They’re motivations, dreams, aspirations. We knew they would never come to fruition but they were a part of their individual deaths.
Regardless of what they logically had planned for their futures, they all lived and died for Shun and what he stood for: hope. It was a big theme in this book. It was the main cause for both sides. Humans hoped that the hero would save humanity, while the demons hoped to stop the demon lord from destroying demon kind.
I know stories are meant for entertainment and that this story is formatted a bit inconveniently, but stories are also meant to convey themes through motifs and parallels and such. I think we should appreciated this volume for that much, if nothing else.