After last volume's tragic conclusion with Lynx's death, having Mariela's crazy master show up was just the thing she needed. Now that Mariela is resolved to advance her skills as an alchemist, having her teacher appear in her life again to "guide" her along the way is fun.Â
Freyja is overbearing, boisterous, alcoholic, and wise. Her epitaph is the "Sage of Calamity", and she truly lives up to it. She practically steals the show in the scenes that she's in, which makes sense given her strong personality. While some might find this annoying, I did enjoy seeing her true (tough) love towards Mariela.Â
One of my favorite parts of these kinds of the stories is the "leveling up" of an enterprise once scale becomes necessary. In this case, since Mariela is determined to make enough potions to fuel the entirety of Labyrinth City's dungeon-conquering exploits, the city basically has to adapt it's resources to accommodate her. It's fun seeing how they come up with solutions to keeping her identity as an alchemist secret while mass producing more potions (even though there are definitely people on her side who have already caught on to her true abilities).Â
This volume also has many important story points play out to completion. We discover the secrets of the Schutzenwald and Aguinas families, as well as the truth behind the history of Endalsia. Although it was a slow buildup, the outcome of these plot points is satisfactory, and really ties the worldbuilding together.Â
A lot of subplots get wrapped up in this book, and you can really feel the end of the series coming. The characters are going to make a final push towards conquering the labyrinth next volume, and I can't wait to see how that turns out!