"Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!" (bless this wonderful world!) volume 3 by Akatsuki Natsume. This time the cover matches the content, and this volume is mostly about Dakness (not her real name).
Unlike the previous two volumes where Kazuma start off dead in the very first paragraph of the prologue, this time he survived one page further, and was sentenced to death at the end of the prologue instead. The collateral damage done by Kazuma's party resulted in a court trial that is detailed in chapter 1. Since Kazuma has not exactly been building a positive reputation, and Aqua is on his defending council, it went about just as well as we might expect. But instead of being executed right away, he had until the end of volume 3 to prove his worth.
The trial included recaps of various poor choices made in previous volumes, and made all the seeds that the author had planted much more obvious. I never thought Megumin's unexpected knowledge about frogs from volume 1 would be put to use again, nor did I expect Aqua's magic circle from volume 2 would lead to the appearance of the final boss for this volume. There are various seemly trivial bits early on in the series that snowballed into significant events later on, and watching them unfold is like watching a Rube Goldberg machine.
The "final boss" for volume 3 is yet another henchman of the devil, whose lifelong dream is this scheme that is not exactly devious, but absolutely pointless in the spirit that fits this novel. He was among the handful of new characters to appear in this volume, another notable one proclaims to be Megumin's rival, and actually has just under 1 second of screen time in the anime's opening sequence. But perhaps more rewarding than these new characters is learning the family background for Dakness, and seeing her stubborn masochist personality being key to victory was the greatest highlight for this volume.
Overall, many new things happened in volume 3, but they all connect nicely with earlier events. Looking forward to more from these characters.
Previous (2016-05-09): "Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!" volume 2 by Akatsuki Natsume
Next (2016-05-31): "Japanese Contemporary Illustrators meet Old Master Painters", published by Side Ranch