In I’m in Love with the Villainess Audiobook, Volume 5, Rae, Claire, the main cast and we, the listeners, learn the “Truth of the World,” and it is not anything we could have expected.

But, first, the combined power of Rae and Claire and their children, Aleah and May, will unlock powerful magic, will complete a coup, and remake the world entirely…. and then they will take on the three Archdemons and finally the powerful Demon Queen herself.

And we will marvel as this fantasy isekai turns into something else, entirely.

And, then, they will all go home to live, one presumes, happily every after.

This final volume of inori’s epic fantasy series pulls in a lot of the random loose ends that had been strewn about the narrative. Why, for instance, does Rae keep running into people with her exact face? Why does magic work the way it does? Why does the Demon Queen want to destroy humanity? All these questions will be answered. If you have not yet read the ending, I expect it will surprise you. It certainly made me rethink everything I knew about this story and the characters.

Once again, the whole has been narrated by Courtney Shaw and she has done a fine job. She committed to the choices made in earlier volumes, so anything that rubbed me the wrong way remained, and, once again, a choice was made for pronunciation that was at odds with my choice, but I’ll get over that. ^_^ I hope inori-sensei was happy with the choices made and that really is all that matters.^_^

Ratings (for the adaptation only):

Overall – 10

If you haven’t been moved to read the books (and I am not the person to insist you do) or you have, and really love them,  I highly recommend listening to the audiobooks for a new way to appreciate them, to engage with the story or just to sit back and hear the characters come to life.

And the story is not quite done with! Next moth will see the debut of I’m in Love with the Villainess: She’s so Cheeky for a Commoner Audiobook, Volume 1, the first of three volume telling the story from Claire and others’ points of view. As I said with the LN editions, these contain a lot of original content, so don’t skip them. There is a lot happening from other people’s perspectives. Only the Google Play link is available so far, but I’ll add the rest as they become available.