The Fall 2024 Light Novel Guide

Lacey Longs for Freedom: The Dawn Witch's Low-Key Life after Defeating the Demon King

What's It About? 

Now that she's defeated the Demon King and become the country's greatest mage, Lacey has officially fulfilled her life's purpose. All that's left is to spend the rest of her days in a loveless political marriage. But when her engagement is broken off, Lacey realizes that all she wants is to live freely. Her wish is granted, and she moves into an empty mansion near a sleepy village.

Settling in is hard for her; shy and self-effacing, Lacey doesn't know anything about living on her own! She can fry legions of monsters, but frying up a meal? She'd rather starve. Luckily, her friends have her back; with the support of the community, her former party member Wayne, and a monster pet, Lacey slowly learns to take care of herself and come out of her shell.

Meanwhile, Lacey's worth becomes clear to the townspeople when she solves their problems with magic that's both unconventional and spectacular. So begins Lacey's newfound calling as a magical handywoman!

Lacey Longs for Freedom: The Dawn Witch's Low-Key Life after Defeating the Demon King is written by Hyogo Amasaga with illustration by Kouichi. English translation by Alex Honto. Published by J-Novel Heart; PublishDrive edition (September 18, 2024)

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

You don't have to wait long for the freedom Lacey longs for to come into the story – by chapter two, our heroine has managed to kiss her unfulfilling life goodbye and embark on her true story. It's hard to fault the story, though; Lacey, as the “Dawn Witch” of the party that killed the dark lord has always lived in the shadow of her fame and mission. At only fifteen, she mastered her magic and worked for the good of the kingdom. She feels like she didn't have much choice in the matter – as an orphan, she's been made to feel that she “owes” king and country something for her mere existence. The only person who appears to feel otherwise is Wayne, the hero harboring a remarkably obvious crush on the mage…well, obvious to anyone who isn't Lacey. But that, too, may be self-defense rather than pure oblivion because she's been betrothed to a particularly loathsome specimen of noble manhood since before she'd be considered legal in our world, and again, Lacey's spent most of her life feeling trapped into service to the country.

Fortunately for her, she got a way out: each member of the party that defeated the demon lord was granted a wish, and Lacey hasn't used hers. She does so now, with Wayne's help, and manages to net herself an abandoned mansion in a small village, where her life really begins. That makes this feel like an answer to the question nobody asked: “What if Frieren was a cozy fantasy?” Lacey's everyday life is mined for soft, cozy adventures that largely involve her using her magic to help her new villager friends and to start an “anything shop” business, where she sells her skills without realizing how powerful they are. She adopts a phoenix chick and is adopted by a wild boar. She farms and gathers, and she occasionally visits another old partymate. Wayne is the one constant between her two lives, and he may be hoping that she would eventually catch a clue and allow him to be something more than just a friend. It's mostly cute and sweet with comfortably low stakes.

The main drive of the story is Lacey learning that she can be her own person. It occasionally meanders away from that point, which means that the book doesn't always work as well as it ought to, and there is a 90s aesthetic to the illustrations that feels at odds with the story's tone. It's overall a charming reading experience, a soft plot about a heroine who truly deserves to find out who she is when not tasked with saving the world.

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Lauren Orsini

Rating:

In Lacey Longs for Freedom, our protagonist gets her long-awaited freedom in Chapter 2. Then what? This inconsequential light novel follows similar story beats to Frieren: Beyond Journey's End but without the pathos. After defeating the Demon King, Lacey spends her newly quiet days in a small village doing very little of importance, like magical odd jobs for the villagers and cultivating a subtle, blink-and-you'll-miss-it romance with her former party's hero. There is nothing offensive in this squeaky clean novel that'd be a perfect recommendation for the 13-year-old anime fan in your life (I'd say even younger, but it does feature a scene with two of-age characters responsibly drinking alcohol). As an adult, however, I found it mostly dull.

What do you do after the quest of a lifetime? For 15-year-old Lacey, the bucket list consists mainly of living the ordinary life that she was denied before. After narrowly squeezing out of a planned arranged marriage to a cheating noble, the king apologizes to Lacey for her troubles by bequeathing her a mansion in a small village. Shy and antisocial, Lacey doesn't consider herself good for anything aside from her powerful offensive magic skills and vows to find ways to use her magic to help people instead. Her adventures include rescuing an adorable phoenix chick, concocting a magical scent to destinkify a smelly town, and other missions that would qualify as the simplest of side quests in any video game. After this brief story concludes, there's a bonus chapter about Lacey's nonverbal pets going on an adventure to save a miniature dragon with material and tone better fit for a children's program.

I am of the belief that YA literature is for everyone, but after Lacey Longs for Freedom, I am reminded that not all of it is. Some of it is too juvenile to be interesting to anyone over the age of 17. Lacey's personal mission to become more confident and social, combined with her super special powers and adorable pets, make for the quintessential middle-grade storyline of getting comfortable with being you. But in my opinion, there are far better “the hero's party after defeating the Demon King” stories out there to choose from.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. Yen Press, BookWalker Global, and J-Novel Club are subsidiaries of KWE.