An utterly delightful entry in the Lady revenge genre which is apparently a thing. As is typical of the genre. Our Lady is engaged to royalty who snubs her and cancels the engagement choosing some random waif as a replacement while lying about how she was actually the evil/abusive one. It's a premise i've seen three times now and it hasn't lost an ounce of shine. What differentiates this from the rest of the pack is the commitment to violence. Becoming an economic powerhouse being trained in physical defense and magically gifted is par for the course but Ellie the main character engages in brutality withzero hesitation. I expected her to use her power and influence to turn her enemies to her side but she actually offers no forgiveness to basically anyone. Poor farmers who turned to brigandry, soldiers who were lied to, nobles who were forced to act. It seems it not matter to our protagonist she will get violent revenge on all of them slicing and dicing them up with swords and magic equally.

It feels somewhat cruel at times to slaughter a man who is begging for your forgiveness and offering to work for you to make up for what he's done. But with the barest of justification she goes for it. Thirty chapters in is enough to get a VERY solid foothold on the tone of the series but not it's direction. It's unclear if there's any limit to who Ellie will kill in the name of revenge. There are a few who seem like they didn't buy in but are still working for the kingdom will she kill them for working with those who threw her out? Who knows. In exile she has become a master merchant and how big will her corporation actually get? She's clearly training her young disciples to take places high up in the organization she's expanding. But will she take over the empire she's swearing to benefit to enact death to the entire kingdom she swore vengeance against? It's unclear But the ride so far is engaging.