What do you think?
Rate this book
処刑少女の生きる道 (Light Novel) #3
The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 3: The Cage of Iron Sand
To kill Akari, Menou scours the outer reaches of the West in search of a legendary blade that turns all it touches into salt. There, she stumbles across Sahara, a monk, who has history with the young Executioner and begs her to take her life for reasons unknown. Meanwhile, the one of the Four Great Calamities begins to unfold in the undeveloped regions of the East and slowly inches toward them, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake...
248 pages, Paperback
First published February 13, 2020
14 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 24, 2022
When Akari is unexpectedly kidnapped, Menou finds herself caught up in a fight with a surprisingly well-armed group of thugs. After Menou saves Akari and rescues an old friend, things take an even odder turn, but there’re a LOT of odd turns ahead, and maybe a betrayal for good measure…
There’s a lot going on in this series and some of it has always worked a lot better than others. The core conceit, that somebody is tasked with killing isekai’d people from Japan because the latter essentially destroyed the world last time they ran amuck, is really well done.
As confusing as it might be, the goofy Scripture combat that invokes holy verses to attack really has grown on me and the inventiveness of things like the Sword of Salt are a ton of fun. The revelation that the sinister Mechanical Society is basically a bunch of isekai tropes given life, infecting people with the ability to gain experience points and level up, is especially inspired.
Which makes it more annoying that these characters are all so ridiculous and that aspect so drenched in tropes. They cram a freaking swimsuit chapter into this volume for heaven’s sake and this is a fantasy realm!
Ahem. You also have the brutally monstrous Momo, although the addition of Menou’s friend, Sahara, provides the acknowledgment that somebody out there recognizes how awful she is. Between Momo and the ever-ridiculous Ashuna (best dress down for combat!) there’s never a male gaze far from things.
Sahara is an interesting addition, being much different than she should be to Menou’s memory, making an oddly familiar request, and seemingly very thinly drawn until her backstory is fleshed out suddenly and we realize that she’s just a small and petty person. It’s a good take for that character and the denouement to her story provides some unique changes to things going forward.
Akari remains the best character and while Menou is changing due to her influence, the yuri aspect of this is actually pretty uninteresting. There’s a lot of tell-don’t-show, where a throwaway line from the narration stands in for developing the relationship to a point where it’s believable that Menou’s ideals are slipping.
No, Akari is interesting because of her abilities to mess with time and her Cassandra-esque dilemma of nobody believing her despite having immense foreknowledge of events. The reason why nobody trusts her is justified quite well and leads to a great twist in things at the end.
By the end of this volume we’ve gotten a couple of great fight scenes, including one that’s particularly fun because of how unexpected the match-up was, and the author always does those justice. It is crazy pants nonsense in the shonen mould, but done well enough to be fun.
Now, that’s not to say that sentient holograms and a zombie apocalypse might not have shown up, but not for nothing do I describe this series as ‘all over creation’.
3 stars - is this good? Yes. Is it bad? Also yes. This is a story that is constantly at odds with itself and while I have grown used to its style and even enjoy it for what it is, I’d never describe it as a top-tier series. And naturally I’ll devour the next book once it’s out. Purely for reviewing purposes. Cough.
There’s a lot going on in this series and some of it has always worked a lot better than others. The core conceit, that somebody is tasked with killing isekai’d people from Japan because the latter essentially destroyed the world last time they ran amuck, is really well done.
As confusing as it might be, the goofy Scripture combat that invokes holy verses to attack really has grown on me and the inventiveness of things like the Sword of Salt are a ton of fun. The revelation that the sinister Mechanical Society is basically a bunch of isekai tropes given life, infecting people with the ability to gain experience points and level up, is especially inspired.
Which makes it more annoying that these characters are all so ridiculous and that aspect so drenched in tropes. They cram a freaking swimsuit chapter into this volume for heaven’s sake and this is a fantasy realm!
Ahem. You also have the brutally monstrous Momo, although the addition of Menou’s friend, Sahara, provides the acknowledgment that somebody out there recognizes how awful she is. Between Momo and the ever-ridiculous Ashuna (best dress down for combat!) there’s never a male gaze far from things.
Sahara is an interesting addition, being much different than she should be to Menou’s memory, making an oddly familiar request, and seemingly very thinly drawn until her backstory is fleshed out suddenly and we realize that she’s just a small and petty person. It’s a good take for that character and the denouement to her story provides some unique changes to things going forward.
Akari remains the best character and while Menou is changing due to her influence, the yuri aspect of this is actually pretty uninteresting. There’s a lot of tell-don’t-show, where a throwaway line from the narration stands in for developing the relationship to a point where it’s believable that Menou’s ideals are slipping.
No, Akari is interesting because of her abilities to mess with time and her Cassandra-esque dilemma of nobody believing her despite having immense foreknowledge of events. The reason why nobody trusts her is justified quite well and leads to a great twist in things at the end.
By the end of this volume we’ve gotten a couple of great fight scenes, including one that’s particularly fun because of how unexpected the match-up was, and the author always does those justice. It is crazy pants nonsense in the shonen mould, but done well enough to be fun.
Now, that’s not to say that sentient holograms and a zombie apocalypse might not have shown up, but not for nothing do I describe this series as ‘all over creation’.
3 stars - is this good? Yes. Is it bad? Also yes. This is a story that is constantly at odds with itself and while I have grown used to its style and even enjoy it for what it is, I’d never describe it as a top-tier series. And naturally I’ll devour the next book once it’s out. Purely for reviewing purposes. Cough.
March 9, 2022
It seems impossible for me to talk about this series without gushing praise. Three novels down, this series is a MUST-READ for anyone looking for a change of pace in isekai formulas.
A reverse-isekai of sorts, this series follows Menou – an executioner tasked with eliminating Otherworlders from Japan, who enter this world with terrifyingly strong powers.
While growing ever closer to her seemingly unkillable target, Menou is dragged into political plots and awakening evil spreading across the land — and must confront her own traumatic past and the training that led her to be an Executioner.
The storyline is gripping and full of unexpected twists and turns. The all-female cast brings with it a broad array of great archetypes far behind the usual staples we see in female roles.
While minimal, the yuri and ecchi moments are a welcome change of pace; but make no mistake, this series is mostly all about magical battles, political intrigue, and mind-bending time-traveling plots.
Volume 3 is stronger than ever, although a little smaller than the past two. New characters, huge reveals, and unexpected betrayal!! It was everything I could have hoped for, and my anticipating for volume 4 is palpable!
Do yourself a favor and pick up this series now!
A reverse-isekai of sorts, this series follows Menou – an executioner tasked with eliminating Otherworlders from Japan, who enter this world with terrifyingly strong powers.
While growing ever closer to her seemingly unkillable target, Menou is dragged into political plots and awakening evil spreading across the land — and must confront her own traumatic past and the training that led her to be an Executioner.
The storyline is gripping and full of unexpected twists and turns. The all-female cast brings with it a broad array of great archetypes far behind the usual staples we see in female roles.
While minimal, the yuri and ecchi moments are a welcome change of pace; but make no mistake, this series is mostly all about magical battles, political intrigue, and mind-bending time-traveling plots.
Volume 3 is stronger than ever, although a little smaller than the past two. New characters, huge reveals, and unexpected betrayal!! It was everything I could have hoped for, and my anticipating for volume 4 is palpable!
Do yourself a favor and pick up this series now!
July 13, 2022
Menou is still putting the cute in execute.
Sahara was an interesting character and addition to the story. Momo is still a violent psychopath. Akari has secrets.
And Flare... Flare is going to be interesting moving forward, isn't she.
Sahara was an interesting character and addition to the story. Momo is still a violent psychopath. Akari has secrets.
And Flare... Flare is going to be interesting moving forward, isn't she.
Read
June 1, 2025Bon faut dire que c'est pas le tome le plus intéressant jusqu'ici. Le twist se voit venir à des kilomètres, et le setup est pas très intéressant (on est dans le désert face à un groupe de bandits, mouais).
C'est le plus court jusqu'ici et de fait on a plutôt l'impression d'être face à un tome de transition, plusieurs intrigues ne sont pas résolues.
Cela étant dit j'aime bien certaines choses qui sont mises en place, toujours du côté d'Akari, et j'espère que son évolution va se poursuivre dans ce sens.
C'est le plus court jusqu'ici et de fait on a plutôt l'impression d'être face à un tome de transition, plusieurs intrigues ne sont pas résolues.
Cela étant dit j'aime bien certaines choses qui sont mises en place, toujours du côté d'Akari, et j'espère que son évolution va se poursuivre dans ce sens.
May 25, 2022
And the plot thickens...
I found this one much better than the first two volumes, maybe it's because yay more action scenes, and more mysteries that got me wanting to actually finish it all in one go so I'd know already what happens next that I actually enjoyed this volume.
The writing still feels a bit too flat for me, but I can carry on just cause of how things are about to be more interesting now.
I found this one much better than the first two volumes, maybe it's because yay more action scenes, and more mysteries that got me wanting to actually finish it all in one go so I'd know already what happens next that I actually enjoyed this volume.
The writing still feels a bit too flat for me, but I can carry on just cause of how things are about to be more interesting now.
January 11, 2022
Excellent book, always knows how to keep the readers attention & the story just keeps moving forward & much more details about akira that are finally answered ! Can’t wait for the next volume & thankful it got a anime adaption !
December 29, 2025
I was gonna swap to some other GL isekei LN after this but I guess i'll keep going
December 23, 2023
Incredibly fun continuation of an increasingly buck-wild series. Some of the cheesecake and stabs at humor are a bit weak, but watching this cast of characters become increasingly complicated in motive and morality kept me reading up to a conclusion that was as touching as it was exciting; a character they introduce in this one had an especially grounded and ugly motivation that I could relate to.
I think I'm starting to come around to toxic women-love-women stories where one or both parties want to hurt and/or kill the other.
I think I'm starting to come around to toxic women-love-women stories where one or both parties want to hurt and/or kill the other.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews