Dahlia wanted to assist her new friend Volf with walking comfortably. She also wanted to make it easier for people to wash their hands. All of these things are very simple for modern day people, but unfortunately for her, that’s all very new for those in this fantasy world. These are all innovative and essentially revolutionary creations there.
But Dahlia probably couldn’t have imagined that three guilds would want to gather together for a meeting with her, yet that’s exactly what’s happening now! Volf’s testing with his fellow Beast Hunters leads to a demand of larger proportions and Gabriella impressing upon her contacts within the nobility leads to the soap dispenser being a big need leads to a round of very important meetings with high-ranking nobles. Now many orders must be made in order to satisfy a number of people and with the involvement of many different departments.
And Dahlia’s not at all ready for it!
This volume of Magic Artisan Dahlia Wilts No More definitely shows her wilting this time, but not because of her determination to make a new path for herself. Instead, her magical apparatuses interest a number of guilds and knights, and they want to make deals. As she literally just created her own business, Dahlia’s nowhere near ready to actually handle this. Thankfully Volf and Gabriella end up doing their best to assist however they can — while they are aiming to improve their respective operations, their friendship with and motivations to help Dahlia do matter to them. So basically, much of volume 4 is all about Dahlia finding some way to placate the Merchants, Tailors, and Adventurers’ Guild, and do so in a way that doesn’t actually give people the wrong idea about her or puts an excessive strain on everyone involved.
The good news is Dahlia does accomplish some of this, but her lack of noble knowledge does serve as a detriment in a few of the meetings (which leads Volf to mentioning that he’ll hand her a book on noble etiquette once all the meetings finished). Her values also ends up clashing with craftsman Gandolfi, but in way that shows that her prior-world perspectives can’t always apply in this new world, and that the type of experience a person has is what matters the most. The meetings aren’t overly aggressive on the surface, but the whirlwind of activity and hustle that does happen in all these talks only gets Dahlia involved in more craziness than she could’ve expected.
While meetings do dominate this volume, the past of characters also plays a role, which explains their motivations — cue Ivano, for example, making a suggestion that does benefit all sides but seems to conveniently help Dahlia’s new business side out during the meeting, or Volf and Guido recalling Volf’s mother’s tragic death years ago as they attempt to reconcile. This was also used for comedic effort too — see Dahlia referencing her father having fungus on his foot to explain the importance of toe socks and dry soles, but her not saying “which” father came down with it, so everyone can only think Carlo had it — so the usage of it was very good.
The only real problem with this volume was some of the art seemed off-model. The comedic bits were timed pretty well, but how characters were framed in a panel didn’t seem very natural. This is not a series that needs the best art ever, and with all this talking it would likely be a detriment — but it’s always unfortunate since that can take you out of the reading experience. Thankfully it’s only a few pages throughout what was a fairly chunky volume that had this issue, so there’s no stopping the Dahlia’s creations causing chaos in the fantasy world. No seriously, the end of this volume only manages to frighten Dahlia even more, so we certainly have to see what noble etiquette she can learn before then!