Title: Overlord Vol. 10
Author: Kugane Maruyama (Story), Hugin Miyama (Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Shounen, Battle
Publication Date: May 21, 2019
The Story
Volume ten of Overlord can be summed up rather quickly as the vast majority of the volume focuses on Sebastian heading to the heart of the eight fingers’ brothel to free others who may have been held captive there. Climb and Brain end up running into Sebastian after he made a scene in the middle of the city and they end up joining him on his little miniature raid. Sebas’ goal is to stall for time so he can protect Tsuare, whom he saved in our previous volume. Once all is said and done, Sebas returns back and is informed that Ainz wants a word with him, no doubt because he has been suspected of treason.
Meanwhile, Climb reports what happened to Renner who agrees to offer sanctuary to those who need protection; however, Renner starts to show an ugly side stating that she will kill anyone who will talk badly about her Climb. Oh boy… we have ourselves a yandere! Hide your knives while you can!
The story in this volume was pretty straightforward without any twists. I did think that Climb’s newfound apprenticeship with Sebastian is going to lead to trouble with Princess Renner’s newfound obsession with him. Brain, on the other hand, looks to be going through a bit of a redemption arc as well but it remains to be seen how this will end up affecting Sebastian/Climb and (to an extent) Ainz.
For a side character, Climb got the most development in this volume followed by Brain. Climb too notice of Sebastian’s killing intent and decided that he would be the perfect master to train him. Climb even had the mental fortitude to resist Sebastian’s killing intent and avoid his deathblow. Even though Climb is still rather weak, it was progress for him as a solider serving Princess Renner. He’s still too polite for his own good and that’s going to end up getting him kill- oh wait, that already happened! While he didn’t actually die, Climb foolish stood against Succurante by himself and it almost cost him his life. While his bravery could have been marked as admirable, given the fact that he was nowhere near prepared for such a fight could only be seen as foolish.
Brain, on the other hand, feels like he needs to be useful again. He was once filled with pride when people used to recognize who he was but now that doesn’t even faze him anymore as he simply just doesn’t care. He wants to find meaning in his existence once again so he ends up following Sebastian in hopes that he can find that meaning and purpose. I don’t think he has gotten what he was looking for completely yet. We’ll have to see how the aftermath of this little raid plays out to see what Brain will do.
Sebastian himself is trying to settle matters on his own. This gave off a false impression that he has betrayed the Tomb of Nazarick and, thus, Ainz was alerted to this. This was all because he showed compassion to a human and got himself involved with the Eight Fingers. Even though this all happened, it still speaks to Sebastian as a character. He is a gentleman through and through that will see things through until the very end… no matter how it negatively affects him. Despite being a gentleman, he will not hesitate to kill anyone in his way but when he does, he still does it so politely and respectfully. I just love characters of this archetype! Sebastian is no exception. Plus, he has my favorite name so that bumps him up a few places in my pecking order of favorite characters from this series!
Final Thoughts
So far, I haven’t seen any continuance of the cliffhanger from the last volume to see if my thoughts were correct. I wondered if Solution’s accusation of Sebastian being a traitor was merely a ruse but with this volume’s cliffhanger ending, they may just be true after all. Even if Solution has branded Sebastian as a traitor, I doubt that Ainz is going to think that way about him. Ainz can always be more level-headed than his subordinates for obvious reasons. I would suspect that he will converse with Sebastian, gain all the information on what has been happening, and then spin this into a plan that will only be to his benefit… kind of like what he did with the lizard men. This seems like the kind of situation that Ainz would be able to take advantage of.
The other wild card to this whole ordeal is Princess Renner. With her infatuation with Climb and Climb’s unmoving devotion towards her, this is going to end up becoming one hell of an obstacle. I have a feeling that Renner is going to have to die in order to sort this out and Sebastian is going to be the one to do it. Otherwise, why would they surround him with so many characters and then introduce this new plot point with Renner that ties all of this together?
Then again, I could be wrong. Let’s hope we don’t get another filler volume to make me wait. I want to be proven right (or wrong)! Either way, this was still a fun volume and even though it felt like a side story, we still got to know Sebastian a little more and some of the newer side characters got their time to shine. It made the world of Overlord feel that much bigger and that’s not a bad thing at all!
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**This item was provided for review by Yen Press
