Quinta and the scholars make their way to her original hometown. Though her secret has already been partially revealed, will she be able to keep Nestor in the dark? Or, will this be the end of their journey!? The story continues!
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Author
This series was written by Nari Kusakawa. (X)
Genre & Tropes
Fantasy, adventure, action. There are hints of romance, but it’s not a big factor in the story.
Info about this series (complete)
This series is complete in Japanese at seven volumes.
TL;DR rating
I loved this volume! As always, a lot happened. We learned a big secret about all three main characters, and finally almost got some relationship progression between who I can only assume will end up dating.
My thoughts on this volume (spoilers!)
As this is such a heavy story, I like to save it for when I have a lot of brain power to spare. Every volume of this series is jam-packed with content, so it takes me quite a while to read! This volume was no different, and I had to just sit in silence and digest everything for a few minutes after I finished reading
While there had been an actually big bad witch looming around the story, their identity was finally revealed in this volume! I had been making small guesses as to where the plot would go up until this point, and I could not have been more wrong. I had assumed the real Quinta found our fake Quinta, and was out for revenge. When the witch with similar stars on her face to our fake Quinta made her big appearance in the previous volume, I was even more sure that she was the original Quinta.
While ended up being very incorrect about who the big bad witch was, I was actually happy about that! I much prefer how the plot actually progressed compared to my imagination. As this witch was a completely new character, tied to one of the three lead’s very large secrets, I was happy they weren’t the original Quinta! I do hope she had some history with her, as it would explain her motivations more—as of right now, we really don’t understand why she’s doing what she’s doing—but I’m happy to read along and find out. Her ending the volume with an “I’m looking forward to seeing the appeal of a fallen man” was just…so, so good.
Watching how the original Quinta first discovered our fake Quinta was quite sad, but still touching. I really wasn’t expecting their short time together to begin and like that, but it really explained a lot of fake Quinta’s actions! Like… “Why can she only use magic three times a day?”, or “Why does she seemingly know nothing about the world of magic despite being a witch who lived on her own?” everything was explained!
Click here to learn about their first meeting—big spoilers
The protagonist of this story goes by the name “Quinta”, but it’s quickly revealed that she’s just borrowing the name. While the real Quinta is an extremely powerful witch, and more than 300 years old… Our protagonist is just a 16 year old girl. While her magic is also incredibly powerful, she can only use it three times a day. So… why is she pretending to be an old and powerful witch?
In this volume, we learn what caused our protagonist to become Quinta. Originally, her name was Emma. After losing her parents and being taken in by her grandfather, she had been living a quiet but happy life. While he was out working in the forest one day he forgot his lunch, and Emma went out of her way to deliver it to him. Sadly, the forest was full of large holes from magic and various projects happening at the time, and while her grandfather knew how to maneuver them, Emma did not. She fell into a hole just as she was reaching her grandfather, twisted her neck upon impact, and passed away instantly.
Seeing the horrific scene, the original Quinta appeared and magically recovered her body from the hole. There she made a deal with Emma’s grandfather—if Emma would take on the name of Quinta and accept all of her magical powers, Quinta would revive Emma. Her grandfather accepted, and Quinta gave all of her lifeforce to Emma—now Quinta.
Now as the new Quinta, she would be forced to live on the move. As there are always others looking to challenge a grand witch, the village could never be safe if she were to stay there. So she said goodbye to her grandfather, and set out on a journey. She had actually only been living on her own as Quinta for about one year come the start of her journey with Nestor.
While learning about her past was a rather cathartic experience, that wasn’t the only exciting thing to happen in this volume! We were also blessed with Nestor conversing with himself in the dreamworld, trying to figure out his feelings for Quinta. His being so academically smart, yet so socially awkward in this instance made for some good comedy. Nestor really is a lovable character, so it was refreshing to see his more human side.
Of course I can’t forget to talk about that shocking ending…While the cover does literally have “betrayal” written on it, I wasn’t expecting the betrayal to be that big. Once it was revealed, I again had to scrap all of my imagining of how the series would go from here! I don’t think Nestor and Quinta will ever make it to the library…
Check out the series for yourself! (Japanese only)
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