It’s contract negotiation time. No, seriously, that’s pretty much the whole book. Also Dahlia gets an employee and learns a little etiquette.
Phew. No. Thank. You. I’m used to merchant stories getting into the weeds when it comes to economics, but this story has neither enough spice nor enough wolf to stand with the genre stalwarts and instead takes another path - the one where I’m bored to tears.
It’s not helping that Dahlia herself barely understands what’s going on, but nobody really explains it to her, so it’s just… so… much… talking head. I don’t often use the phrase ‘my eyes glazed over’ because that’s not true, but they absolutely did here.
And that’s 75% of the book. Business stuff. Even when they go back to artificing towards the end, that gets mired down in more technical details than I suspect any reader is willing to put up with. This feels like an illustrated textbook for a place that doesn’t exist and about as interesting.
They toss in the odd joke, which does lighten things up, but the ongoing negotiations need a lot more than a couple of moments to stave off a mind-bogglingly dull volume. Are you curious about how Dahlia will balance her books and work with her supplies? I hope so!
Things do pick up towards the end, as Volf and Dahlia keep on being “very good friends” and have another one of their huge meals together. Their foodie relationship has been one of my favourite things in the manga and there’s a very funny scene where Dahlia gets a crash course on etiquette that nearly wrecks them both.
They also find a new use for something that nearly propels Dahlia through the wall and them mucking about with technology to various degrees of effectiveness is as good as ever. That’s the stuff that makes the story worth keeping up with.
I also like that Dahlia’s father has so much presence from beyond the grave, although he seems to have anticipated her moves so much that he comes off like paternal Batman at times.
But it’s all the other bits that just drag it way down and made it a real bear. I have consistently found this series to be rather a good time, but this isn’t close to enough of what made it a good time to begin with. I would really hate to see this devolve into mercantile digressions on the regular.
2.5 stars - normally this would be saved from the bottom by the decent parts, but this is a fantasy slice-of-life that reveals an incredibly dry cake this time around.