2.5/5

It seems that as the story grows in the world of Slime so does the need for set up. That’s basically this entire volume. We always heard snippets from the Eastern Empire, but here in this volume everything seems to come to the fore. Regrettably, that’s also this volume’s downfall.

On a writer’s level I understand the decisions made for this volume. It’s a precursor and has to set up history and new characters to an entire nation that was veiled on mystery until this point. There’s no easy way to exposition that without barfing all over the reader. But as a reader I found it to be a frustrating experience. Very little of the book is devoted to the characters you love to follow and the exposition they do provide to allow you context into these new antagonists stops the story to a screeching halt. There was a reason I took a few months off from finishing this.

Overall, I like where this is hinting at going, but at the end of the day it was a set up volume dedicated to what needed to happen to advance the story and at times it felt like a chore.