Walking My Second Path in Life: Volume 3

Walking My Second Path in Life #3

by Otaku de Neet, Kurodeko (Illustrator), Andrew Schubauer (Translator)

Plucky Princess Fie escaped a life of social exile as King Roy’s unwanted second bride to walk her second path in life as a squire for the Royal Knights. However, Fie’s chaotic, fun-filled days as a squire are numbered when the king’s chancellor happens to recognize her and reveals her true identity. WIll this be Fie's chance to finally meet her lawfully wedded husband for (maybe) the first time? But wait, what will he think about her having a boyfriend? In the final volume of Walking My Second Path in Life, Fie faces her biggest misadventure yet. Don’t worry, it’s nothing she can’t handle… Right?

Genres: Light Novel, Fantasy, Romance

285 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 15, 2022

Reviews

[Pieter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story leaves me a bit conflicted. On the one hand I am happy that the author finished the story. It is was reasonably well written and a good read. On the other hand it felt rather rushed, nor am I too happy with the end. She did all the training, only to stop and be the happy stay-at-home wife? It just does not sit well with me.

[jericho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back to square 1, what was the effort even for?

I loved the first two books even if by the end of the second book the main character was loging agency in their own story..... But the conclusion was downright upsetting. The girl who always got the short end of the stick and just kinda accepted it, more or less ends her story the same way. Looking at it everything pre epilogue (because I don't even want to go into how I feel about how that trys to frame the ending with some contrived throw away lines and consolations), fie never shows any romantic interest in ether of her love interests, and most of her arguments to be with them equate to "it would be terrible" and "I wouldn't want him to be sad". Even when she talks about missing her love interests it's counted among how she misses all her friends, but it must be extra hard on him since he would miss me. Her final decision between them came down to " he said he liked me first, so I'll let him pick". I talk about that first because, the other part being the impact of all her effort was basically missing. All her training equated to nothing but a one sided duel which she lost after throwing everything she learned at him because she was upset he got to be a knight and she didn't and ended with him slapping away her weapon and saying he would make her happy even if she couldn't be a knight. In the end what was even the point. She learned so much she never even got to use. The whole last book felt like build ups with no pay off. There was a war that ended with they took it slow and won without issue and no actual conflict. They could have had an assassination attempt on her sister by a single un discovered spy as a last ditch effort for the bad guys to gain any ground in the war, and give fie a chance to shine, using the skills she trained in assassination to inturn to overcome the assassin who under estimated her so she could save her sister. It wouldn't have been that hard. There's more I could go into but you get my point. All in all good series with a bad ending, still would recommend checking it out, but with a warning to not get to invested into the conclusions.

[Volin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to say, I'm greatly disappointed by the ending. What's the point of putting so much effort just to throw it away in the end? People around her truly getting on my nerves due to how much they treat the FL as if she's fragile while being insensitive. Why would she have to abandon her dream and freedom just because an unwritten rule? I dont see why she doesn't try to move to another country or something. Is it because she's a princess? but it seems like her parents hardly care about her. So I dont see the problem. Im still suprise that her parents didnt say anything about FL's sister. Is the writer simply decided to make a rushed ending due to some circumstances? I'd like to pretend this book ended in volume 2.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book feels like a "had to write it". It closes the story, but it's a disappointment to me. The interesting adventures of the earlier books end in the first quarter of this book as Heath is found out to be Fie. Lots of the story goes on about the other characters and how they deal with it. Not much action of adventure in this last book.

[My · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly did like the first two books, so I got disappointed when I saw that this was the finale.

I thought the reveal of Fie's true identity was done nicely, but everything after that felt like it dropped the ball. Too many developments felt a bit too ridiculous and I still don't understand how Fielle never came into the picture until well after the reveal, nothing about even looking for her sister.

There was also a missed opportunity there for the super ninja spy to have had character development and informed Roy. The story then could also have double-downed on Roy's disdain for women and added to the reveal.

And Roy, for all his guilt and his capacity as king, having agonized over how to make it up to Fie, never thought once that he can exact changes and give Fie her biggest desire - to be a knight. No, his great big scandalous decision is to dissolve his marriage then bestow his wife to another man. Never mind that his great big scandalous decision could have been an upheaval to the knight system and progressed the story in an entirely different way.

Then we have Fie, someone whose life was mostly decided for her and is touted as the biggest troublemaker, and yet again she settles with her roles being decided on by external influences, not once fighting for the chance to be a knight?

Heck, even Queen had decisions thrusted onto him and he was just along for the ride (and to pine).

I don't know, I really liked the portions when Fie was a squire the best because it was mostly of her taking her life back and living it how she wanted. These were also the most eventful things that happened in the books.

Overall: I was really rooting for this series but I do feel that it wasn't given much wiggle room to come into its own. Many of the major players in the story got relegated to the background and nothing particularly exciting happened after Fie jumped through a flaming hoop (I think everything was tied up too neatly, like /too/ neatly).

I don't normally write long reviews (or review at all) as I'm easily pleased but this one really compelled me to.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

An unsatisfactory end to the series, with a bunch of nonsense shoved in at the last minute. The afterword explains it - the author pretty much gave up and had to be pushed and prodded over an entire year to produce this volume. The not-great writing from the first volumes deteriorated further, as they probably just wanted to wrap this up and get it done. At least the author was self aware enough to admit the writing is amateurish.

I wasn’t happy that Fie ended up with Queen. It didn’t seem fair to him, as it was obvious she never moved beyond liking him as a friend despite randomly deciding it was time to start kissing. The entire time he is just dragged along with her whims. It would have made far more sense to stay married to Roy or be single. The absolutely ridiculous backstory and end they gave Fielle was BS. Suddenly she has a sad background of being constantly misunderstood as wonderful, despite being slow, clumsy, and awkward beyond belief. Really? The lively and quick Fie looked bad next to her?? Then she had a secret romance, the guy had an assassination attempt and was unconscious apparently for over a year, and his good friend Roy was protecting her by faking a marriage…but got so lazy he didn’t fake marry her sister, he married Fie for real. What.

I wanted Roy to have Cain report so the poor guy could finally unload all his angst over his assignment following her the last year, but he gets relegated to leaves rustling in the tree. Literally does not appear again.

I assume the author was trying to add word count, because a lot of things were crammed in towards the end. Such as a war arc that was never mentioned before and fizzled out, hinting that Gormus had a crush on Fie after discovering her identity (despite not seeing her as a girl until much later), a hint of BL between Remie and another squire, a random half brother to the king who had been hidden all his life, but was found after the non-war ended and apparently was great friends with Fie….he was literally never mentioned until the epilogue, which skips a few years to Fie with a baby. There was also a king from a neighboring country that is assassinated by his own people after Roy let’s them know what he’s been up to. He’s away at a conference, and on the way back his carriage is led into the forest and his trusted adjunct stabs him. This part didn’t even make sense, because it says they left behind the guards by suddenly turning into the forest (in no way is a carriage going to outmaneuver guys on horseback) and besides which, the guards can’t see what’s going on in the carriage so there’s no reason to pull away. Apparently during the conference, after getting the info the adjunct sends a fast horse to their kingdom, his younger brother stages a coup, and now they need for him to mysteriously die so as to keep the reputation clean. Look, how did you decide to do all that so quickly, much less execute the coup? Isn’t the fact that there is a coup at all enough to ruin the kings reputation? Coups do not happen when the king is liked by people. Then it says “the carriage door never opened again” - did the adjunct kill herself? Dies the carriage stay forever in the forest? The guards can’t find it?? What kind of melodramatic and bad writing is this?

Then the bonus story made me feel that the squires were dumb. How could it never occur to them that someone could dress up and pretend to be the legendary guy? Ignoring the fact that the legend was silly to begin with…

[Silvermoss · Rating 3 out of 5]

slightly disappointed

I enjoyed the over story, however, I can't help but feel somewhat disappointed in how the ending turned out. Not that it was a bad ending, mind you, but not what I was originally hoping for after 3 years of waiting either, sadly. Oh well, I'm glad to have at least finished this story's journey to the end.

**Update**
I've been reminiscing this story and going over the whole trilogy more in detail, however, it doesn't change my rating nor my disappointment in the non-climatic ending to this series. I agree with the other reviewers that ended too nicely, and that it feels flat after the big review. Honestly, I was hoping to see more Fii & Roy moments and explore their relationship more deeply. I also disagree with how the story ended since although it was Fii's choice still in a sense, it wasn't what she truly desired. Perhaps it's because the story was given only 3 volumes so there wasn't enough pages to thoroughly include all the major characters and develop their relationship with Fii more.

I also went through some of the web novel differences to the novel and I would say I enjoyed some of the web novel's story more. I hope that the author also continues and finishes the web novel version as an "alternate" ending.

[RHTQ1 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ick. The shift felt so rushed, the transition so awful, the ending a lukewarm epilogue with a silver lining. If she wants to be a mom, that's fine. If you wanted the drama of her identity being revealed, also fine. But this felt so pointless! All her hard work at getting stronger, down the drain with no apparent use? Even ignoring the many fighting skills and techniques, what about the assertiveness she apparently learned as a squire? Why did she putter about as a wandering princess for so long, not seeking knowledge? Her identity reveal was crucial, why was "he" hinted as some kind of cliffhanger?

[Michelle]

While I enjoyed most of this series, I honestly couldn't really enjoy the ending. There was the unexpected reveal of the situation with her sister, but I didn't really like how her story ended. She ends up settling, mostly because she doesn't know what else to do. And then she is just at home and hasn't seen anyone for a while. It just doesn't seem like the happy ending she was really hoping for.

[Katla · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first book was really god and then the second was ókey and the third was.....
I'm sorry but it was a big disappointment.
She is way to young and is still a child herself, why is she having children!!

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

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