So…next mission: Ballroom dancing!
All in all, pretty lighthearted, with Glenn in the same predicament and Neill and Casey helping out. 頑張って, Monica!
Still not sure what to make of Ms. Pale. We only get these tiny snippet of her thoughts.
The scene at the end took a surprisingly dark turn. So, Monica’s father was lynched? Was this a new reveal or did it get mentioned in Vol 1?
And very interesting worldbuilding information about the neighboring country with the new emperor who legalized research into formally forbidden forms of magic. I wonder how soon this will become relevant. Will we see body manipulation magic soon?
元気の良すぎるグレンの大声を至近距離で浴び、三半規管に大ダメージを受けた体を激しく揺さぶられたモニカは、とうとう白目を剝いて動かなくなる
I didn’t know dancing could be that dangerous. Damn.
それでもグレンは気を悪くした様子もなく、モニカの手を引いて、堂々とダンスホールに立った。
By the way, can I just use this opportunity to remark on how little Monica bullying this book had so far? Just the opposite actually. We’ve had so far:
Considering that Monica being bullied was one of my least favourite parts of the last volume, I wholeheartedly support this direction.
「そういうことなら仕方ないわね！ わたしがピアノを弾いてあげてもいいわよ！」
亜麻色の髪をくるくると指に巻きつけながら早口に言うのは、ラナである。どうやら扉の前でこっそり立ち聞きしていたらしい。
Haha. That’s such a Lana thing to do.
（わたしなんかに友達扱いされて、ラナが迷惑だったら……どうしよう……）
Quite the opposite, I would think.
「そうよ！ 友達のわたしが協力してあげるんだから、感謝しなさいよね！」
It’s not like I was standing in front of the room the whole time, waiting for a good excuse to come in… baka!!
「……ラナ、ありがとう」
モニカは制服の上からギュッと胸を押さえ、か細い声で礼を言う。
胸を押さえていないと、嬉しくて心臓が飛び出してしまいそうだったのだ。
!
それは笑えるぐらい拙いステップだった。まるで、ダンスの練習を怠けていた、幼い日のリンジーのよう！
──いいこと、リンジー。社交の場に出たら、もう誰も貴女を助けてくれないのよ？
リンジーの姉は何度も口を酸っぱくしてそう言っていたけれど、幼いリンジーは耳を貸さず、そして女学校のダンスの授業で大恥をかいた。
貴族の子女が通う女学校は、学びの場であると同時に社交の場だ。ダンスが下手な者は陰で笑われ、それっきり。誰も助けてなんてくれない。
だからリンジーは、隠れて一人で練習するしかなかった。
だけど今、扉の向こう側では少年少女が手を取り合い、一生懸命ダンスを教えあっている。
「…………ふふっ」
リンジーは口元に手を当てて小さく微笑み、そっとダンスルームの扉を閉めた。
I didn’t expect her to actually get some backstory!
「そういうのって魔術でチョチョイとどうにかできないのかよ？ お前は無詠唱で魔術を使えるんだろ？ こっそりダンスが上手になる魔術を使うことも、できるんじゃねぇのか？」
Look, I know Monica is extremely good at magic, but you’re just asking for the impossible here. 
モニカはあまり父に構ってもらえたことはなかったけれど、それでも父の集めた蔵書を読んで、たまに父の研究の話を聞かせてもらえるだけで、充分に幸せだった。
Aw. I guess the time with her father wasn’t perfect either, but she clearly loves him and remembers him fondly.
それなのに、最後は民衆から罵倒され、石を投げられ、そして……。
（いやだ、いやだ、いやだ）
モニカの脳裏にチラつくのは、炎の赤。
父の姿が、父が積み上げてきた膨大な数字が、全て炎の中に消えていく光景
Yeah… I kind of expected that, after a very brief spoiling flashback somewhere in the first four episodes of the anime 
How’s that for a trauma? And we already know that the more tragic part of Monica’s childhood - or indeed, her life - was just beginning at that point, with a possibly abusive adoptive father following.
思考を放棄し、大好きな数式の世界に逃げようとするモニカの頭をよぎるのは、侵入者を前にモニカを逃がそうとしたエリオットの姿。
エリオットは危険を前にして、それでも平民を守るのが貴族の義務だと言い、モニカを逃がそうとした。
Oh my. Will she be inspired to take on more responsibility by Eliott of all people?
生徒会役員が社交ダンスもできないようでは、他の生徒に示しがつかない──美貌の令嬢ブリジット・グレイアムの言葉は正しい
「よいしょ」
I never expected all of this reflection. Nice.
「よいしょ」
モニカは勢いをつけて起き上がり、ベッドから下りる。
ベッドで丸くなっていたネロが、不思議そうにモニカを見上げた。
「うん？ もう寝るんじゃないのか？」
「……もうちょっとだけ、ダンスの練習する
Or for that matter, this determination. Nice!
その晩、モニカは一七回ネロの足を踏み、二三回ネロの足を蹴り、「使い魔虐待だ」とネロに訴えられた。
Haha. After all, that’s how you win in ballroom dancing! 
What an excellent end to this chapter.
Yeah. In a way, it’s more than I expected (backstory snippets?!), but it still seems a little much considering that she was introduced very early, but barely had any role to play so far.
(Don’t tell me she’s the mysterious conspirator?!)
A new reveal for the books, as far as I remember, and something that was very, very briefly alluded to in episode 3 or 4 of the anime in a flashback where someone was being burned at the stake.
Probably.
And I was surprised that this even include medical magic. Although from what we learned here it seems that it’s less “manipulating bodies can be abused” and more “manipulating bodies, even for medical purposes, is extremely dangerous and poisons them”. So maybe lots of people suffered and they decided that even research on how to do it properly is dangerous and unethical?
Probably. If they’ve made the observation that the side effects of healing magic are usually worse than whatever you’re trying to heal, it makes sense. Banning it entirely also closes legal loopholes like “Honestly, gov, I was just trying to treat his ingrown toenail! I don’t know why he suddenly dropped dead!”
This is my second series after Tongari where healing magic is banned, but in this universe, the reason seems more solid.
I wonder what Monica’s father was working on before he was killed, and if it had something to do with these illegal disciplines of magic. I should start reading faster again, or else I’ll start forgetting all the things that might become important later on in the story.
Yes! Another thing that makes this volume feel more lighthearted is that other people than Monica occasionally get bullied/teased, so that she has company in her mysery. Like Felix teasing Eliott and Cyril, and those two at odds with each other. Speaking of which, Brigitte and Casey also seem like natural antagonists, because the former has high standards when it comes to feminine elegance in noblewomen, and the latter..well, doesn’t. I wonder if this is going to be brought up at some point.
Yeah, I’m also curious. I don’t think we’ve heard about him doing magic at all so far, and Monica was just enumerating a fair number of disciplines he worked in without mentioning it.
So, if not magic… what then? And was it something that was “just” taboo, or… did he actually do something very bad, and Monica doesn’t know, blocked out the memory or simply doesn’t believe it? He seems quite single-minded, and a lynching of someone whose goal is to heal people must have some kind of reason in what sounds like a rather modern time…
And I now realize that I cannot remember if we ever heard about Monica’s mother. And I wonder if this is all related somehow.
Also: Those people can actually take it. Especially Eliott.
Unlike Monica, who’s already doing an excelling job tormenting herself and really doesn’t need external bullying.
Thank you for solving this problem for me, at least this exists from volume 2 to volume 3 as well (at least for me, a lot of smaller things from volume 2 get picked up in 3 again. For example (not a real spoiler, only about what gets picked up in 3 again, but if you want to go in totally blind don’t reveal that) Eliott and Monica playing chess becomes a big thing in vol 3 and it was nice to read a refresher on how their first match went..)
It has been a few months since I finished volume 2 and apparently I forgot a lot about it because a lot of your posts made me go “ahhh.. yeah.. that happened too…” and reading your recaps make it easier to follow 3 again after this long break But I can’t comment anything because I am scared I would spoil something.
Or you wait a bit and read volume 3 with us together
Well, I wasn’t planning on reading it now, but I wanted to watch the anime and since it covers volume 3 too I wanted to finish it first… But I can wait up for ya’ll at volume 4 
