Tags: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy, Romance, Shoujo, Isekai

Synopsis:

(This review will contain spoilers for the first and second volume of the series)

Fia Struggles to Keep Her Secret as her Familiar Comes Under the Spotlight.

Seven Seas’ series of saintly misunderstandings returns. This time, Fia’ll struggle to keep her sainthood secret when her black dragon familiar, Zavilia, is spotted in Starfall forest leading to an expedition to return him to his nest.

After finally achieving her dream of becoming a knight, the second volume of A Secret Saint picks off exactly where the first volume left off with Fia gaining experience by training under the beast tamer brigade. Spending time with the fourth brigade has brought in a host of new quirky characters to enjoy as well as a slew of new comedic misunderstanding situations which certainly seem to have been turned up for the latest volume.

A particular highlight of the second volume stems from the introduction of new character and captain of the fourth brigade, Quentin. His character has truly helped in developing a much more slapstick comedy element to the series. Quentin has the innate ability to be able to see peoples power levels, meaning that unlike the rest of the brigade leaders he can see both Fia’s and Zavilia’s true power, causing him quite the shock as you might imagine. This leads to numerous hilarious misunderstandings when Quentin decides on referring to Fia as “Miss,” leading many of the captain’s wondering just what kind of strange fetishes the man has and whether Fia has that type of side to her too, much to her displeasure. Furthermore, both Quentin and Fia’s interactions with one another have a lot of character to them as well. They almost act like a comedy double act with Quentin playing the straight man to Fia’s funny man. This is an especially well used device on behalf of the author in this volume, as this double act serves as an entertaining way to impart important information to the reader – Zavilia talking about the familiar pact shocking Fia to the point of spitting out water all over Quentin whilst he listens intently.

The second volume also treats us to another beast hunting expedition, albeit it’ll turn out to be a rather short one. Members from both the fourth brigade and the sixth brigade alongside their captains Quentin and Zachary and extra member Fia, go on an expedition to return the black dragon, Zavilia to its nest restoring the monster ecosystem within Starfall Forest. Almost exactly repeating the events of the first volume, the brigade once again falls victim to several difficult to handle monster attacks, each requiring Fia to unleash her saintly knowledge paying no regard as to whether her secret could end up being revealed, but for Fia that doesn’t matter when her brigade is in danger. These all culminate in an encounter with a pair of blue dragons, which could only be defeated with Zavilia finally showing off his full strength.

As a part of the expedition, we finally get a much needed section dedicated towards Zavilia’s past. Being a slightly more serious and emotional part of the novel, it provides a much needed reprieve from the comedic misunderstandings. Given that this is such an important moment within the series and gives a better understanding as to why Zavilia chose Fia, I think it better not to spoil this scene and just let the reader enjoy it for the first time themselves. Needless to say however, this is definitely one of the better handled serious moments of the series doing well to lead into the emotional climax of the novel, Zavilia leaving to becoming dragon king to protect Fia.

With Zavilia having left Fia’s side, the final parts of the main story has Fia telling both Zachary and Quentin about her secret, amending it so it revolves around Zavilia’s abilities rather than her abilities as great saint. Whilst neither believe this to be the full truth, they agree to keep her secret not only for her safety but for the safety of the brigade and the whole country.

Now, some of you readers may have noticed that I haven’t talked all that much about the events of the second volume and the reason for that is that this is all that happens, the main body of plot in this volume is exceedingly short with 40% of the novel consisting entirely of side stories and extra stories. Whilst some of these side stories have some really important information in them, especially pertaining to how the captains of the different brigades react to the black dragon being Fia’s familiar, it still remains a fact that these stories aren’t necessary to understand the main plot or the plot going forward. This isn’t the fault of Seven Seas or the translators of the series, however, given that this was priced at £7.12, on the pricier end of the digital light novel spectrum, I’m not at all sure that your getting all the bang for your buck!

Regardless of the plot’s shortness, it is still very entertaining and a step up from the previous volume. In this volume, I feel as though the author has finally found their comedic misunderstanding niche doing a great job of towing the line of absurdist comedy in a way that still feels fresh and fun rather than aggravating, which some within this genre tend to be. Moreover, there’s a nice blend of serious and emotional scenes that truly make the reader care about the characters. Overall, volume 2 remains a fun read that’ll definitely leave you excited for its return in a third volume.