The Case of the Seven Bells

"Blue flowers are fatal to you - remember that."

"The Blue Geranium"

This is one cover that probably looks a lot better in full-size printed on actual paper than as a small thumbnail on your screen...

The Demon God has been defeated and sealed away, but can not be killed. The Demon God will inevitably rise again, but the Goddess of Fate watches over the world, and when the Demon God starts to wake again, six heroes will awaken in the world, destined to seal the Demon God again. Each generation, warriors hoping to become a destined hero undergo a ceremony to present themselves as a candidate, and when the time comes, six of these people will receive the mark of the hero somewhere on their body in the shape of a flower's petal. Because nobody knows exactly when this happens, the six heroes who are awakened might all be in different corners of the world when their call for duty comes, so it is a rule for the Six Heroes of the Flower to make their way to a designated spot near the seal of the Demon God within a month, where they will gather and then set out to fight the evil again, while monsters and other minions of the Demon God will of course attempt to fight the heroes off. Adlet, a cocky young man who boasts to be the strongest man in the world and has absolute confidence he will be chosen as a hero, really turns out to be a hero when a flower mark appears on his body. There is the small problem of him being in prison now, but Nashetania, the princess of Piena and the Saint of Blades, which grants her the power to conjure swords out of nowhere, releases Adlet out of the Piena prison as she reveals she too is a hero. The two travel to the rendez-vous point, fighting against demons together as they make their way there. They end up with a motley crew, from the assassin Hans to Mora, head of all Saints and Goldof, a personal knight to Nashetania. But there's also Fremy, someone who until recently had actually been killing off potential heroes, but is now chosen as one of them. But when the heroes arrive at the temple where they are supposed to gather, a trap is set by the evil legions bent on holding them off until the Demon God revives again: a magical mist field that had been set standby around this temple has been activated. The mist messes with the sense of direction of everyone inside it, making it impossible for them to actually walk out of the covered area. It was originally intended to trap demons there, so the heroes could head towards the Demon God, but now this trap has been used to trap the heroes themselves in the mist field, making it impossible for them to wander far away from the temple. But what is even more distressing is the realization, there are not six heroes here, but seven! There have always been only six heroes, so they soon realize one of them must be a fake sent by the demons, and that this fake must have used the trap to capture all heroes, but which of them is the fake? They all carry the mark of the hero, but unless they quickly find out who the imposter is and force them them to lift the mist field, the Demon God will rise and take over the world. The six heroes can fight, but can they also think  their way out of this obstable in Yamagata Ishio's Rokka no Yuusha ("Heroes of the Six Flowers" 2011), also known as Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers? 

Rokka no Yuusha is a light novel series by Yamagata Ishio and featuring illustrations by Miyagi, with the main series being 6 volumes long running from 2011 until 2015, and was followed up by one additional extra volume one year later. There has been a manga and anime adaptation, and the books have also been released in the United States, so imagine quite some people are actually already aware of this series one way or another. I had known about the series for some while, but it took me quite some time to finally get started on it. I have read a few other mystery novels set in a fantasy setting, like Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer, Isekai no Meitantei, RPG School and Seijo Victoria no Kousatsu, but I always interested in seeing more, and Rokka no Yuusha in particular is so widely available, I knew I had to get started on it sooner or later.

As one would expect, the book starts out focusing more on the fantasy elements, first presenting the story of the Demon God reviving, the legend of the six heroes awakening, and then telling the story of Adlet, the young, over-confident protagonist who never even doubts he will be chosen as a hero, and who only dreams of becoming one and fighting the Demon God with his comrades. The first half is very, very focused on the "gathering of the heroes" part, and if you're here just for the mystery, you'll have to be patient, as this part is pretty stereotypical, with heroes slowly gathering and meeting each other, some of the heroes being typical hero-like characters and others who might not seem fit to be a Hero of the Flower initially. It's only in the second half the book really starts to focus on the mystery, when the heroes have arrived at the temple from which the magic mist field can be started. Someone starts the field while the heroes are still there, even though it was supposed to be activated after the heroes had left the area, so now they are all trapped, and they realize that seven heroes have gathered at the temple instead of six, meaning one of them has to be an imposter, likely someone sent by the demons to stop the heroes from reaching the Demon God.

Some of the heroes already know each other, others have more shady backgrounds, and even someone being well-known is no guarantee they are indeed a hero chosen by fate, so the deductions actually do end up being based on very "normal" evidence like testimonies and witness accounts, but even so, even after the plot shifts to the mystery, it does take some time for the story to focus on that. Partially because the book also presents a lot of combat: when in a "normal" detective story people start accusing each other of being the culprit, you might see some fighting, but obviously, fighting in a fantasy setting, with people being able to wield magic or are obviously superhumanly powered, is a tad different. At some point, Adlet ends up being suspected as the imposter, and as everyone thinks killing him is the way to lift the mist field, he has to fight off and flee from his fellow heroes as he tries to figure out who then is the real imposter. Lots of action here, and if you have ever read a shounen battle manga, you probably know what to expect from these fights, and how they are also used to help flesh out and delve deeper into the characters.

When it comes down to the mystery, it was... well, I have to admit, because the book ultimately did not focus very strongly on the mystery of who activated the mist field due to the many fights, and it seemed more intent on just dwelling on the "there's a seventh hero!" surprise mystery, I was getting a bit worried, but there are certainly parts regarding the mystery that are actually cleverly set in the world of Rokka no Yuusha (a fantasy world) and could only work there. Adlet 's main concern is that he arrived at the temple first which was locked from the inside, but saw nobody in the temple activate the mist field (making him the main suspect as the self-proclaimed first on the scene) and some parts of the trick behind how the imposter managed to activate the field even though the room was sealed are both foreshadowed and hidden well. I think some more focus on for example the working of magic and other world-specific "rules" would have helped faciliate the trick a bit better, but it was certainly better than I had started to fear. The motive behind the deed is a lot less memorable, it kinda comes out of nowhere, and because Rokka no Yuusha is a series, the problem is barely resolved in this first book: yes, they identify the culprit, but they have not gotten one step closer to fighting the Demon God, and the book actually ends on a cliffhanger by throwing another surprise at the reader at the very end, so as a standalone book, it offers an okay mystery, that is however just a small part of the whole story. And depending on how invested you are in the main story, the mystery is not 'big' enough to really keep you entertained all the time.

And that's the point I am now at. The first volume of Rokka no Yuusha, which corresponds with the contents of the anime series, has an okay mystery in it, but it's at least equal parts fantasy action and it's also just a minor part of a bigger story that is not even close to being resolved in the first volume. I don't think I am invested enough in the story to want to read the rest too, at least not now, and I also have no idea what kind of mysteries the next novels will throw at you (the cliffhanger kinda has me worried to be honest, though I can only hope it's not really to going to do that in the second volume). It's worth a look at if you want to read a fantasy mystery novel, but be aware the mystery element is fairly light and that it is just the prologue to a larger story.

Original Japanese title(s): 山形石雄『六花の勇者』