Usato gets his first taste of battle after surviving the hellish training of the rescue team! Making the most of his newfound abilites, Usato aids the injured and heals the wounded, but danger lies just around the corner for his friends, Suzune and Kazuki! The two heroes find themselves face to face with the Demon Lord army’s black knight, a foe equipped with a terrifying, ominous suit of dark armor that’s seemingly impenetrable to any and all attacks. When their efforts amount to nothing, Suzune and Kazuki are left with their backs against the wall―the black knight’s blade getting ever closer. To save his friends, Usato will have to make healing magic his weapon and use it the “wrong” way to topple this ostensibly invincible foe.
The demon army has a terrifying ace in the Black Knight, but Usato and the Rescue Squad are hard at work to save as many lives as possible. And when the battle is over, the kingdom determines it's going to need the help of as many as possible if they want to win this war.
I'm still upset this battle sequence wasn't folded into the previous book. I realize they're light novels, but it still wouldn't have added more than 50 pages to finish out the arc. So that leaves this book in a really weird place, as it's essentially a chunk of the previous book plus the ramp up for the new arc, while not having long enough to get to a really good part for the new stuff.
That said, it's nice to finally be moving beyond the borders of the kingdom. It's not even that we've seen a whole lot of this particular kingdom, but this is a good chance to launch Usato straight at a new unsuspecting group of people willing to judge him solely by his magic's stereotypes. But again, despite arriving at the magical school where they're delivering the first letter, the book once again ends without actually getting to the heart of the arc. So it's a bit disappointing as there's a lot of setup but not much chance to get any payoff.
Overall if you liked the first book, this one is practically required just to see how it should have ended. I rate this book Recommended.
Ok, after the first book I wasn’t sure if I’d continue. However, this one fixed MANY of the issues. It was a lot less choppy. You had a better idea of transitions between character narrations. And characters had less radical shifts in personality. I’m getting excited to see how this continues. All that said I’m still docking one star for the abrupt ending point. This is less “cliff hanger” and more “poor choice of break point”. They really should have had the first part in the first book(introductory arc completion) and the second part(new town arc) continue through instead of stopping mid arc…
From the war at the beginning tonthe magic city at the end, this book was a wonderful experience. If you liked the first one (or the anime), then make sure to give it a look.
It was a good story that took me almost a year to read. It didn`t help that I was trying to translate as I went. Hopefully the next one will be quicker.