The Ninety-ninth Dawn | Tsukumo no Reimei | 九十九の黎明 [LN 1-4]

 

Tsukumo no Reimei Volumes 1-4 by Akira Nashiki, Illustrations by Tokihito Saiga. Translated by Machine Translation (Google Translate), Original Japanese Edition Published by Publishing Link. 

One of the first blog posts I ever wrote for this blog was for Dawn of the Mapmaker, Volume 1.

This is a book that had an immediate impact on me, and one that I gave 5/5 stars. I really enjoyed the first volume, and hoped that the Cross Infinite World would finish the series, since it was only 4 volumes long (pretty short, considering how long light novel series usually run). I even emailed them, and received a reply that they still planned on continuing, but were waiting out of respect for the original artist (Monokubo) who unfortunately passed away.

After 3 years (and considering that the English volume 1 was published in 2018, it's been 8 years) of waiting, no official English volumes were forthcoming. No announcements of subsequent books ever materialized. I can only assume that the series wasn't continued because it wasn't a big seller, which makes me sad. This is a truly special series, and I hope to convey that in this post.

I always wanted to continue reading this series, but my Japanese ability isn't sufficient for reading full length novels. I contemplated machine translation, but the outputs 3 years ago were brain-meltingly clunky, so I decided against it.

Well last year, a Japanese publishing company called Publishing Link announced an official ebook release of the series, with all new cover art and additional cast illustration. I was super excited, and was eager to read it someday.

Well considering the advancements in AI and machine translation, I decided to give it a shot! I bought the ebooks and then ran them through a translation service (I will probably detail my methods in a separate blog post and link back to it here).

To my surprise, while it still wasn't as good a proper professional translation, it was still readable and understandable. I read all four volumes this way, and want to talk about my impressions of this series. Keep in mind that I read a machine translated version, so if I get any major details incorrect, it's because of that (lol).

Recapping, this series is about a girl named Unen who has advanced mapmaking abilities taught to her by her adoptive father, Hereh. Hereh is a fugitive who disappeared from the village 3 years ago, fleeing from pursuers who were looking for him. After being approached by two mysterious adventurers named Ori and Mouru who are tracking Hereh, Unen decides to cooperate with them in their search for Hereh, and find out why he decided to flee all those years ago.

As I've stated previously, from the outset this is a very different series in the light novel space. There are no game mechanics, no isekai, and no wish fulfillment. While there is magic, it feels mostly low-fantasy. It's gritty, and not afraid to tackle dark, emotionally complex subjects. Oddly, in terms of "vibes", the closest comparison that I could draw is to Apothecary Diaries.

Unen, Mouru, and Ori travel to places while tracking Hereh, and help some people along the way using a combination of their abilities. Mouru is a sorcerer/mage, Ori is a strong swordsman, and Unen has her education and childlike appearance. These are very dynamic characters that are fun to follow, and they endear themselves to the reader very quickly. Throughout the series, you see the three of them grow much closer, as they learn to trust one-another and their unique abilities.

The plot is a little slow in the beginning, but it picks up by the end of the 2nd volume. By the 4th, I couldn't even put down the book, it was that gripping. The world-building is also great! There are many twists and turns that I was surprised by, and it's a joy to discover the world at the same time as Unen.

Please believe me when I say that this series is deserving of your time and investment. There were several moments where I teared up, only wanting happiness for these characters. The story that's delivered over the 4 volumes is great, and I'll be thinking about it for a while.

Now that the non-spoiler reaction is out of the way, onto spoilers! Beware since I'll be spoiling the entire series. Go read and then come back! 😊

I could NOT have anticipated what the story would end up becoming, and I'm genuinely shocked at the direction of this series. The method it takes of introducing scientific and sci-fi concepts slowly in the low fantasy setting was fun, and it had me guessing the entire time until the truth was revealed. The fact that even the title has deeper meaning when you think about it's relation to the series makes me regret CIW's choice to localize the book as "Dawn of the Mapmaker". Tsukumo no Reimei (or The Ninety-Nine Dawns / Ninety-ninth Dawn) really is a fitting title.

There are so few light novels that explore sci-fi, so I'm excited that this series went that direction. I'm honestly still not clear about how the magic abilities work, given that the sources of magic aren't really gods as we would think of them? This is probably one of the areas where I suffer from reading a machine translation, since these concepts are integral to the plot but not very well explained with a pure literal machine translation.

​Another thing I want to comment on is the relationship between Unen and Ori. I was hardcore shipping them already in the first volume, but when the plot was pushing them into a more sibling-type relationship, I was so convinced that my ship was sunk. Then the ending happened where Unen said that she loves Ori (and everybody else) and now my ship is sailing for real 😎. Mouru knew what was up the entire time, that's why he was teasing Ori, which is hilarious.

I love the found-family between these characters, and the feeling of belonging that they bring to one another. My dream is that this series receives a complete English translation, AND a manga and anime adaptation. I truly believe this series is a diamond in the rough, just waiting to be discovered.