After reading volume one of Araura I had to see where the story was going and ended up reading volume two. Volume two is titled Those Forsaken and it continues with the journey started by Anea and Renzia. Now a lot of the stuff we’ve established in volume one takes a back seat as along their journey they end up in a town called Wendros where we get to get more a glimpse into Renzia’s past.

In this volume we are introduced to a lot of new characters most of which are part of the Yangsho clan a group of people who know Renzia very well and have a lot of animosity towards him. Like volume one we’re not spoon-fed all of the answers immediately but instead we are gradually given bits and pieces of information which flesh out the story little by little. I still really like this approach as it gives room for the story to shine and constantly find engaging ways to keep readers invested.

As the story progresses it seems like Renzia done something horrible to the Yangsho clan but as we do get those details we start to piece together a very different perspective as Renzia starts to tell more about his side of the story, but because he’s not the most forthcoming character any details from Renzia himself are few and far between compared to the supporting cast which is a fun storytelling element. As the reader it’s easy to infer there’s more to the story but Renzia’s characteristics in many ways forces us to be patient and wait to find out more.

We don’t get much in the way of fighting in this volume as it’s primarily plot development but that works well here as we do a lot of lore building driven around the culture, history and people of the Yangsho clan with a multitude of surprising revelations. It definitely sets up an emotional and physical struggle as the end of the volume shows Renzia confronting the leader of the Yangsho.

However, the story is not all about Renzia. We also get moments where we dive into already established characters who had a fight with the mysterious assassin, Omaku Higaro in volume one. This fight was a great way to get the assassin out of the picture for us to be able to focus more on stories for Renzia to flesh out his back story a bit while also establishing Omaku as a legitimate threat as the side characters that had to contend with him took some serious damage and we see just how lucky they were as they explain there situation in more detail in this volume. We don’t spend a lot of time fleshing out this part of the story but at the same time it’s enough that you feel the looming threat Omaku is for our heroes.

Overall this volume focuses mainly on lore building while also sharing a sneak peak into the mysterious past of our protagonist Renzia and it’s a fun story to dive into and get those bits and pieces of information. Naturally where we still have more to learn I’m invested to find out more about where the story is going and I need to get a copy of volume three as soon as I can.