Tags: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Comedy, Romance, School Life, Isekai

Sub-Tags: OP, Strong Lead, Personal Growth, Villain

Slowe’s Guide to Stopping an Engagement!

Finishing off my round of three reviews, my final read from the group looked at the penultimate volume of Piggy Duke as Slowe and Alicia come to find out their engagement is back on!

A Shock Engagement!

Just as Slowe and Charlotte are getting their relationship on track, the ninth volume in the series pulls yet another curve ball out the bag as Slowe’s heroic deeds have landed him a retry engagement with Alicia.

Showcasing the development growth of his character from the start of the series, Slowe no longer reverts to the black-hearted Piggy Duke of old, thinking of a slightly more sensible plan to dissolve their engagement. As such, Slowe, Alicia, Charlotte and a hired adventurer named Blau, embark on a dangerous mission to collect the binary wand from Cirquista’s central labyrinth.

Besides the shocking announcement, Slowe’s re-engagement with Alicia allows for some interesting information to be divulged about how Cirquista treats its royals. To ensure their survival on the world stage, Cirquista uses its royals as political pawns where their marriages are chosen solely due to the potential agreements that could be made between nations.

A Mysterious Adventurer

As for the volume’s central plot, the journey to the labyrinth and the subsequent stealing of the binary wand certainly has its moments, especially if you’re looking for the relationship dynamics between Slowe, Alicia and Charlotte.

However, of particular interest in this volume is the adventurer hired for their journey to the centre of the labyrinth, Blau. A monster tamer by trade, she has quite the disdain for Slowe and clearly has her own agenda as to why she wants to reach the central levels.

As it turns out, she’s an old friend of Slowe’s uncle and a close friend to Cirquista’s royalty. By taking Slowe and Alicia to the central levels, she hopes to get the two of them to become closer, and nothing quite says closer like trapping the two of them alone to face off against Looter Stain.

Unlike in some previous volumes, Blau’s meddling lands just on the right side of things, as Slowe’s and Blau’s conversations amount to little more than bickering rather than hate-filled rants toward one another.

Stain and Skeletons

Blau’s plan to get Slowe and Alicia closer together in a fight against Looter Stain doesn’t work, but what it does do is give Slowe an unexpected reunion.

One of the labyrinth’s bosses and Looter Stain’s minion happens to be Slowe’s missing uncle, Louis. Defeated by the slime, he’s been building up subordinates in readiness for the right person to come along and defeat Looter Stain, and Slowe is just the right man for the job.

What occurs next is yet another one of this series’ signature massive boss battles. Slowe and skeletons versus a highly defensive slime and his monster subordinates. It’s epically staged and feels right for a fight this late in the series.

Overall, Piggy Duke’s latest volume is another good addition to the series. Finally solving the potential blossoming romance between Alicia and Slowe, there are some great characters and epic fights to be had here. I highly recommend this series, and as we move into the series’ conclusion, it seems Slowe’ll have to defeat the toughest boss of them all, his family!