Today I read volume 9 of Ore wa Seikan Kokka no Akutoku Ryoshu (俺は星間国家の悪徳領主). As usual, it was an amazing experience with lots of comedy, action scenes, space battles, and some suffering for The Guide as is tradition. You can read the previous post here.

The story continues from the end of the last volume with Riam back on his home planet after his various commitments to the Empire are done. He is now facing the impending marriage with Rosetta. He doesn't really want to go through with it for various reasons, but mainly he is taken aback because Rosetta is just too sweet, which clashes with his "malevolent" intentions.

After hearing news (from his espionage team) of various individuals faking being the master of the Issen-ryuu, he decides to start a journey. He travels with his disciple Ellen Taira and the other two members of the school (Fuka and Riho) to find their master Yasushi and destroy whoever is impersonating him.

At the same time, Yasushi (together with his partner Nina and his little son) is trying to escape from Riam and everyone else targeting him, as they all think he is some sort of Sword God. He decides to open a small dojo on a planet outside the Empire's sphere of influence to avoid detection.

From the enemy side, we have The Guide plotting to destroy Riam by using a monster entity from his plane of existence called Gudwar. He creates a small army of people using the Issen-ryuu themselves by exploiting Yasushi's desperate attempts to survive via his new dojo.

Rosetta, of course, won't stay put on the planet. She wants to show her darling how much she loves him, so she starts preparing a huge fleet (under the name "Rosetta Bodyguard") to clear any enemy of Riam that could appear in his territories.

The volume alternates between four factions as they move inevitably to meet at the end in a grand battle. There are lots of fun moments, especially when Yasushi's misunderstandings are involved. We also see good development as Riam manages to elevate his technique to be able to hit enemies even outside the normal plane of existence.

We don't know exactly what the thing was that appeared behind Riam while he was fighting Gudwar, but The Guide seemed to be extremely scared of it, to the point of leaving his ally to the mercy of Riam and running away. I guess we will know more about it in a future volume.

I also liked how we got a lot more focus on Ellen in this volume. She is a small girl conflicted between her wish to become a powerful disciple of Riam to make him proud, and her fear of not being able to reach a high enough level to master the Issen-ryuu technique. She is also the only one who is able to see through Yasushi's lies, which brings quite a few hilarious scenes.

Yasushi, in an attempt to get back at Riam for ruining his plans, ends up convincing him to marry Rosetta. He knew this would be an inconvenience to Riam, but the plan backfires when the two actually start to get closer to each other after Riam's confession. To add more to Yasushi's issues (and creating more hilarity), Riam prepares a marriage ceremony for him too. Riam thought Yasushi hadn't married yet for some higher purpose, not simply because he was planning to run away as soon as his son was old enough...

I can't wait to read the next volume. The marriage with Rosetta is something I have been expecting for a while. That poor girl really is dedicated and she deserves a bit more happiness.