we did lose a week, apologies! I remember an earlier message from Jintor that this arc ends in Vol 11, so hopefully that will bring a welcome change for you 
Yeah I agree. I think I might have said before but I feel like Frieren is at its best with short light hearted story arcs focussed on the main characters. I was catching up on season one of the anime this week and it reminded me how fun this story can be.
BUT! The conclusion of the Aura arc was one of the highlights of the series so far. So I’m hoping the time invested in all the backstory for this arc will pay dividends. Certainly felt like things were becoming more enjoyable towards the end of this volume.
I feel the same about this (very long) story arc, though I’ve been attributing some of that to how complicated the dialogue has been, and how the story arc relates to a very long period of time (e.g., I keep having to remind myself that Macht had his memory wiped and then decided to do his whole “experiment with being nice to humans” thing). I figured if my Japanese were better, I’d be enjoying this story arc a bit more …
Ah no, it goes on a bit in English too, though not quite so much as that out-of-nowhere tournament arc.