Tags: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Harem, Comedy, Slice of Life, Isekai

Labyrinths of Hexes, Ghosts and Witch Doctors!

World’s Strongest Rearguard is back for a seventh edition. This time, it’s extra spooky!

Searching for a way to remove Theresia’s hex and finally defeat the spectre that is the Shining Simian Lord, Arihito and his seeker party venture into new District Five labyrinths to increase their points and find useful items for their quest. This brings them to Twilight Lakeside, a labyrinth bathed in eternal twilight filled with monsters of a spooky variety. From ghosts to ghouls and scarecrows to sea serpents, a hidden cottage in the labyrinth may provide the answers they seek.

Having read volume 7, I can say that fans of the series will come out suitably satisfied with the content of this novel. After their first encounter with the Simian Lord, they once again hit the ground running searching for answers and exploring ever stronger labyrinths. As a result, we get some much-needed development with some of the more prominent members of Arihito’s team.

Elitia, for the second volume running, gets the lion’s share of the development. Finally able to open up to the team and battling with a newfound purpose, she’s able to lift the cursed status of her weapon finding all new op powers. Suzuna has some good moments as her powers find better integration within their teams’ structure and I can see how she’ll be instrumental in the upcoming battles. Even, Arihito and Theresia get some development as Arihito learns how to be more assertive and the hex affects Theresia.

This volume also sees a good bit more information shed about Ceres’ people as they find Lynée, The Witch Doctor, residing in one of the labyrinths. She provides them with the information they need in removing a hex alongside curing Kyouka of her ghastly plague.

One large problem remains with this volume, however, and it plagues the previous volume as well, the sheer lack of overall plot. For two volumes now, we’ve been stuck waiting for the team to defeat The Shining Simian Lord. Only defeating one small labyrinth a volume and having a lot of the page space dedicated to every skill each of the team members has, has become a tad grating given that defeating a living armour is only given part of the last chapter. Hopefully, the next volume will be full on as they finally confront the simian once again.

Overall, The World’s Strongest Rearguard is good for what plot we get. Having explored an interesting new labyrinth and gotten Elitia some new powers, I can only hope that more time in the next volume is dedicated to labyrinth exploring, the series’ strongest aspect.