Tearmoon Empire: Volume 7

What's amazing about this series is that Mia's growth as a character is undeniable, and yet the fact that she's petty, cowardly, and gluttonous never changes no matter how much she's grown. Mia is still the same old Mia in vol. 7, but we get to see different sides of her as she deals with various issues. The book starts by wrapping up the plot involving the Chaos Serpents and children of the four dukes, with Mia returning home for her birthday celebration festival. This part of the story is a bit heavy on the politics than usual. It's definitely not what Mia intended, but it seems like her path towards becoming Tearmoon's first ever empress is starting to be laid out.

After that, the story shifts to a problem in Perujin involving Shalloak Cornrouge, the Merchant King who refused Mia's request for help and also humiliated her in the previous timeline. This leads to Mia visiting Perujin in person, which is nice since we've known Rania and Arshia for quite a while now, and we can finally see their home country in this book. In her attempt to solve the conflict, we also get to see how impeccable Mia's etiquette is. She is a princess after all. She's grown quite diplomatic and compassionate, showing massive improvements to how she used to be in vol. 1, even if the reason behind her actions are usually as simple as... food. The way she solves the main problem, however, does nothing to clear people's misconceptions of her. So her reputation as the Great Sage of the Empire continues to soar, and the Mia cult is ever-expanding.

As a side note, Mia has also become pretty sharp when it comes to sensing danger. She knows by instinct which course of action would lead her straight back to the guillotine, and she does everything she could to avoid that outcome. Regardless of her true intentions, she's actually doing an amazing job at being a princess and potential empress LOL. However, the book also points out Mia's habit of overeating and what kind of future it could lead her to. As the result, there's quite a lot of fat jokes again in this volume, so do keep that in mind if you're sensitive to that.

Looks like the next book will be focusing on Sion, who seems to have developed some feelings for Mia by now. Exciting. What's not exciting, however, is the fact that I have to wait two more months for it to come out. Cries.