By Natsu Hyuuga and Touko Shino. Released in Japan as “Kusuriya no Hitorigoto” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Kevin Steinbach. It had to come sometime. The Apothecary Diaries has finally given us a short story volume. Well, sort of. This is not exactly the “we collected all the bookstore-exclusive stories and bunched them in a book” volume we see from other light novel series. The stories detail the main cast’s return to the rear palace after a year away in the West, what has happened in their absence, and what’s going to happen going forward. With one exception right at the very end, Maomao is not the POV character for any of these stories, which makes them unique. That said, Maomao certainly inhabits...

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