Literature / Sexiled (2018)

Tanya Artemiciov is not in a good mood. Not only was she kicked out of her adventure party after five years, her longtime friend (or rather, former friend) and co-founder had the audacity to tell her that it was because she needs to start thinking about "marriage and kids!" Politely excusing herself to have a vent session, Tanya proceeds to rain Explosion spell upon Explosion spell upon the nearby wasteland while cussing her head off— and accidentally unleashes a legendary sorceress who had been sealed away 300 years ago!

Luckily, the so-called "Wicked Dragonwhore" —better known as Laplace— is actually much more amicable than all the legends say. In fact, she's so kind that Tanya is able to convince her to form a new party with her. And with this new party, Tanya decides that it's time to seek revenge!

Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress! is a yuri Light Novel series written by Ameko Kaeruda (A Lily Blooms in Another World) and illustrated by Kazutomo Miya. Originally a Web Serial Novel that was first released on Shousetsuka ni Narou in 2018, it was picked up for publication by Overlap Novels in 2019. The novels are licensed in English by J-Novel Club.

---

This work provides examples of:

• And I Must Scream: Before being freed by Tanya, Laplace was sealed in stone in a wasteland, drained of her mana, and very much aware of her surroundings for 300 years.
• Anti-Magic: Laplace reveals that the spell "Somniferous Mist", which is used to put targets to sleep, is actually intended to completely cancel out the target's mana. She should know, since she's the one who invented the spell in the first place; her first-hand knowledge enables Tanya to defeat the Red Dragon without causing it any harm.
• The Atoner: It's implied that Nadine was the assassin who murdered Alisa's parents in the past, explaining why she's so dedicated to helping the girl and her siblings in the present.
• Badass Normal: Nadine, relatively speaking. Her skills as an assassin were all the result of hard work and study. The crowd at the Sparring Tournament is shocked upon realizing that her ability to dodge literally a hundred fireballs isn't the result of a special class skill; she's just that good.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Laplace is nearing her wits' end after two weeks of caring for a gaggle of potential Academy aspirants.
• Bait-and-Switch: In-Universe; Nadine tells Laplace that the teachers at the adventurers' academy still describe Tanya as a fantastic student who became top of her class through sheer effort, despite having no magical lineage... right before they express pity that she was born a woman.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Nadine becomes fiercely loyal to Tanya and Laplace because they were the first adventurers to not mock her for her low level as a Healer and instead treat her like a friend and teammate.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Tanya is kind and has a strong sense of justice, but god help anyone who commits injustice within her field of vision.
  • Nadine is a Nice Girl who is dedicated to being a Healer despite her struggles. She's also a former assassin who still retains all of her skills.
• BFS: When Tanya becomes a Magi-Knight, Laplace creates a sword the length of Tanya's own body for her to use (specifically, a copy of Excalibur). Since Laplace optimized it to work with Tanya's mana, she's able to wield the huge weapon without issue.
• Big-Breast Pride: After a scene in which Laplace goes off about how female adventurers don't have to show skin, Tanya points out that her new robes expose her cleavage. Laplace agrees that she doesn't need to show off her chest, but in this case, she wants to.
  Tanya: Why would you want to?
  Laplace: Because it's fun!
• Big Eater: Both Nadine and Laplace are noted several times to have ridiculously big appetites.
• Bland-Name Product: When Tanya and Laplace go shopping for new outfits, the narration mentions several retailers that specialize in clothing for adventurers, including "Door-mart," "Bullseye," "Costlow," and "Beastkin's Wearhouse."
• Bring My Brown Pants: During their match Nadine puts a knife at Katherine's throat, coldly telling her she can either forfeit or die. Katherine's fright is so great that she actually wets herself in front of the entire audience.
• Brought Down to Badass: After Laplace is freed, she's unable to cast any sort of offensive magic. She's still an immensely powerful sorceress with access to overpowered spells that the world's forgotten during the years she was sealed.
• Chainmail Bikini: When Tanya shops for a new outfit after becoming a Magi-Knight, the only thing she can find is a set of pink bikini armor. Laplace points out how ridiculously skimpy and impractical such an outfit is.
• Charm Person: The first team Lilium fights in the Sparring Tournament hired a female Shaman to use Charm magic to try to win over all their opponents without fighting. Since the magic doesn't affect women, fighting the all-female Lilium renders the strategy completely ineffectual.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The first page after the prologue opens on Tanya "venting" — casting multiple Explosion spells on the wasteland while dropping f-bomb after f-bomb.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: What's the final, most humiliating part of Tanya's revenge against Ryan? She forces him to read his overly-pretentious and "edgy" seventh grade poetry out loud in front of the tournament audience.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Nadine is introduced as a Nice Girl working at the Guild as a receptionist before joining Lilium as their Healer. She actually comes from a long line of professional assassins. Wanting to gain the approval of her sexist father, Nadine threw herself into mastering the skills needed to become a great assassin. Despite this, her father refused to acknowledge her and chose the son of another assassin family to become his heir via Arranged Marriage; Nadine was expected to teach him everything she knew before marrying him and retiring to "go back to being a woman." Tragically, said chosen heir was actually The Mole who arranged for the deaths of Nadine's entire family and their servants. Nadine, the Sole Survivor, was then expelled by the Court since they found her Not Worth Killing despite having carried out successful assassinations on their orders. Nadine then enrolled in the adventurers' academy in an attempt to become a Healer, only to find herself massively unsuited for the role after years of being a killer (hence her low level of 3). She finally resigned herself to a quiet life as a Guild receptionist before meeting Tanya and Laplace.
• Dirty Coward: Ryan, for all of his smug condescension towards Tanya, becomes blatantly afraid whenever it looks like he might actually have to fight her. He desperately tries to forfeit the championship match rather than face Tanya, to the point that he prostrates himself before her and starts licking her boots unprompted, much to Tanya's disgust.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Ryan's reaction to being forced to read his old and embarrassing poetry in front of a laughing audience? Summon a dragon. Tanya points out that not only is this far too grievous a retaliation just for being roasted, but it also puts all the spectators (most of whom are Rank C or lower) in grave peril.
• Double Standard: The administration at the Imperial Magic Academy justifies deducting points from female applicants due to their "beliefs" that A) women would have an unfair advantage in oral exams and verbal communication, B) male students are late bloomers who will eventually improve, and C) that most of the female adventurers would just retire in a few years anyway. Tanya angrily calls them out on all of this.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Tanya's situation at the start of the story. Despite her impressive magical power, skill, and having graduated at the top of her class at the adventurer academy, Tanya is looked down upon by her guild and expelled for no other reason than being a woman.
• Exposed to the Elements:
  • Noted to be a problem with the Stripperific outfits female adventurers are forced to wear. One of the reasons Tanya hates wearing such outfits is because they offer no warmth in colder temperatures.
  • Invoked by Laplace during the Sparring Tournament: when facing a team comprised of two female Healers and one male knight, Laplace creates a cold, snowy environment to force the scantily-clad women to flee the arena. Since the team's entire strategy depended on the pair healing and buffing the knight as he fought, Lilium quickly claims victory.
• Famed In-Story: Tanya is surprised to discover that female students at the Imperial Magic Academy see her as an inspiration since she was a female student who graduated at the top of her class.
• Feminist Fantasy: The two female mages leading this story are depicted at having good reasons to be angry at their treatment by society.
• Femme Fatale: Averted; after she confesses her past as an assassin, Nadine explains that a lot of older men she met back then immediately (and incorrectly) assumed that she was a femme fatale who did "sex stuff on the side." Nadine is more confused by this conclusion than anything else.
• Generic Cuteness: Ryan is described in the text as having a receding hairline but he doesn't seem to have anything of the sort in his lone illustration.
• Gold Digger: Katherine flat-out admits to Nadine that her adventuring is an avenue to picking up men and trying to find a husband to support her. She starts to get over it after her humiliating defeat in the Sparring Tournament and realizing what a selfish Jerkass Ryan is.
• Gratuitous French: Laplace likes to sprinkle French phrases in her speech.
• Heartwarming Orphan: Alisa, a young and friendly Nice Girl who's trying to find a tutor to help her get into the adventurers' academy so she can support her multiple younger siblings. Nadine asks Tanya to tutor her in exchange for Nadine joining Lilium. Thanks to Tanya and Laplace, Alisa passes the entrance exams and is admitted to the academy.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • When Tanya and Laplace register as a party together, they're so powerful (both are maxed out at Level 100) that they immediately qualify as Rank S, the second highest party ranking possible. Unfortunately, Tanya realizes that they're too high-ranking to enter the tournament to fight Ryan and the rest of Tanya's old party, denying her revenge. They're able to subvert it by registering Nadine, who's only Level 3, to even their party out to Rank C.
  • After being thoroughly humiliated in his match against Tanya, Ryan resorts to summoning a dragon into the arena. Not only does Tanya defeat it without much issue, the dragon ends up destroying what's left of Ryan's clothes, leaving him naked in front of the entire crowd.
• Humiliation Conga: Tanya's goal in the first volume is to defeat Ryan in the Sparring Tournament and embarrass him publicly for kicking her out of their party. It ends up even worse for him during the actual championship match: Ryan humiliates himself in front of the crowd unprompted in a desperate bid for Tanya's mercy, Laplace and Nadine announce all of Ryan's past misdeeds for the public to hear, and Tanya forces Ryan to read his awful poetry from seventh grade to everyone. To top it all off, after he summons a Red Dragon and puts everyone in danger, Ryan ends up losing what's left of his clothes and is left in front of the crowd completely naked.
• Inelegant Blubbering:
  • Laplace compliments Tanya on her fighting ability, and Tanya, with the memory of Ryan kicking her out of the party still fresh in her mind, can do nothing but "sob like she was twenty years younger." Laplace is actually a little concerned by her "peculiar crying noises."
  • Nadine later does much the same thing (which Laplace points out) after she reveals her past as an assassin to Tanya and Laplace. She's moved to tears when they not only accept her completely, but make it clear that they want Nadine to remain a Healer as long as it's what Nadine herself genuinely wants.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: During the penultimate match of the tournament, Nadine, a level 3 Healer who was so unusually weak that no one other than Lilium wanted her in their party, has to face Katherine, a surprisingly talented mage. It looks like it might turn into a curbstomp match, but instead Nadine finally shows her true colors as a former Assassin. She easily dodges all of Katherine's spells and is able to freeze her in terror just with her aura. Eventually she grabs Katherine with a knife at her throat and coldly tells her she can either forfeit or die, terrifying her enough to make her lose control of her bladder.
• Little Bit Beastly: The world of Sexiled has beastkin, the most notable one being Katherine Foxxi, a foxkin Mage who, of course, has a pair of fox ears.
• Magic Kiss: Laplace gives Tanya one just before battling the Wyvern who guarded her prison. Doing so streamlines the "mana circuits" of Tanya's body, giving her access to her full natural power.
• Magic Knight: Tanya switches her adventurer class from Mage to Magi-Knight, allowing her to both cast spells and wield the Cool Sword Laplace creates for her.
• Men Get Old, Women Get Replaced: After all of his talk about expelling Tanya from their party so she could "settle down", it's revealed that Ryan hired on the younger (and more scantily-clad) Katherine soon afterward.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After Alisa takes the exam to enter the Imperial Magic Academy, Tanya and co. are confronted by a Spoiled Brat who reveals that the academy administration knocks points off of female applicants' scores to stop more women from entering. Tanya is so incensed by this that she and Laplace confront the administration and terrify them into not only ceasing the practice, but enrolling every female applicant they've cheated out of admission.
• Non-Malicious Monster: The Red Dragon that Ryan summons after being humiliated by Tanya during the tournament. While it's ill-tempered and definitely poses a massive threat, Tanya notes that it's basically just an animal that was brought there against its will and doesn't deserve to be killed. Thankfully, she's able to safely negate its mana and put it to sleep with Laplace's help.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Goliath, the Master Mercenary, first comes across as a somewhat-creepy but goofy individual when first meeting Lilium. However, he drops the act when talking with Ryan privately, hinting that he's just as competent and dangerous as his reputation implies. Sure enough, when facing off with Laplace in the first round of the tournament, he quickly demonstrates his skill and power to the point that Laplace estimates he may be on par with, or possibly even stronger than, Tanya.
  • During the 2-v-2 fight, Tanya realizes that Katherine is actually a brilliant Mage, and is intentionally putting on a ditzy, Valley Girl-esque persona to both hide her talent and to appeal to men like Ryan.
• Obliviously Evil: Downplayed; Ryan isn't outright evil, per se, but he is a sexist Jerkass who constantly insults Tanya both before and after he expels her from the party they founded together. He justifies this with the belief that she should switch over to being a Healer, find a boyfriend, and settle down; he seems to think he's doing Tanya a favor and really doesn't seem to understand why she's so mad at him.
  Ryan: I'm a nice guy! I was just trying to make sure she wouldn't end up an old maid!
• Old Maid: Tanya is 25 when her party dumps her. Ryan basically invokes this trope to justify kicking Tanya out of the party, saying that she's around the age where she should start thinking about settling down and starting a family.
• Pass the Popcorn: When Tanya finally begins her revenge match against Ryan, Laplace and Nadine settle in to watch with a big supply of snacks, including popcorn. In the manga version, they even take over the commentating for the fight.
• Power Floats: Laplace frequently employs levitation magic to float around in lieu of walking. While it's a sign of how magically skilled she is (since such magic is exceedingly rare), it's also Played for Laughs: not only does cheerfully flying and flipping through the air help identify her as a Blithe Spirit, Laplace is so used to floating everywhere that she has a lot of trouble walking in heeled shoes.
• Product Placement: Played for Laughs; while she and Nadine are commentating on Tanya's match with Ryan, Laplace takes the opportunity to advertise the magical outfit she made for Tanya to the crowd. She even offers mini-posters of herself to anyone who places orders for equipment from her.
• Proud Beauty: Laplace is quite proud of her beauty and is not shy about letting everyone know it. There's a reason that when she needs an alias to compete in a tournament, she decides to call herself the "Stone Cold Stunner."
• Queer Flowers: Tanya decides to name her new party Lilium after the flower Alisa sends with her thank you letter. What with Laplace and Tanya's relationship, it's pretty obvious the subtext is intentional.
• Really 700 Years Old: Laplace is over 300 years old, but doesn't look a day over 25 due to her immortality. Sir Maxwell is also well over 300 years old.
• Red Baron:
  • The "Wicked Dragonwhore" for Laplace pre-book. She later gives herself the title "Stone Cold Stunner" in order to compete in the tournament.
  • The wyvern standing guard over Laplace's prison in the desert is known as "the King of the Western Wasteland."
• Retired Monster: Inverted; Nadine is a former assassin who, after the rest of her family was wiped out, decided to give up killing and become a Healer.
• Revenge: Tanya's goal in the first volume is to defeat Ryan in the Sparring Tournament to get back at him for kicking her out of their party.
• Right in Front of Me:
  • The Spoiled Brat at the Imperial Magic Academy who reveals that female applicants have their points cut down snarks that only "a freak of nature" like Tanya Artemiciov would be smart enough to pass while still being outdone by "a real man" like him... right in front of Tanya herself. Laplace finds the situation hilarious, but Tanya is too angry to be amused.
  • During the Sparring Tournament, an Archer approaches Lilium and asks to join up with them. He gets shot down immediately after asking where the Magi-Knight leader of the group (who he assumes is a man) is, despite Tanya sitting right before him.
    Tanya: Are you blind? There's exactly one person here carrying a giant sword, and you wanna ask me where the leader is?
• Ripped from the Headlines: The revelation that the Imperial Magic Academy cuts down the scores of female applicants is based on a real-life scandal where Tokyo Medical University was caught docking the grades of female students.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Tanya may be temperamental and somewhat uncouth, but she also has a kind heart as well as a strong sense of right and wrong that repeatedly leads her to lend a hand to the disenfranchised women she encounters.
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Sexiled takes place in one of these universes, with stats being a pretty important plot point: in order to face Ryan's party in the tournament, Tanya's party has to be Rank C or lower, with ranks being decided by the party's average stats. But in a twist, Tanya and Laplace's stats are far, far too high.
• R-Rated Opening: Technically, with Tanya dropping a Cluster F-Bomb as she "vents" in the wasteland.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Subverted — the "Wicked Dragonwhore" Laplace was sealed away 300 years ago, but she's not as evil as she's made out to be.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Even putting her "venting session" in the novel's R-Rated Opening aside, Tanya swears quite a lot, both in her inner monologue and out loud.
• Skewed Priorities: When Lilium is clearing a dungeon filled with over thirty large stone golems, all impervious to anything but magical attacks, Laplace is more occupied with learning how to walk in her new shoes. Justified, since she's using the situation to help Tanya master her new abilities as a Magi-Knight.
• Smug Snake: For all of his smarmy condescension towards her, Ryan immediately becomes terrified whenever he's confronted with the possibility of actually fighting Tanya. It reaches the point where he repeatedly tries to forfeit the championship match of the Sparring Tournament rather than face Tanya in a fight.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Tanya's magical incantation taken on some... interesting qualities while venting in the wasteland.
  Tanya: “From twilight I summon the ultimate fucking destruction! Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; heed my call and unleash your fucking might! Fuck this shit!”
• Stay in the Kitchen: An unfortunately common attitude in the world of Sexiled:
  • When Tanya first decided to become an adventurer, her village elders tried to discourage her, arguing that "women have no business trying to be adventurers."
  • When he kicks Tanya out of the party they founded together, Ryan justifies it with the assertion that she should get married and have kids before too long, and that switching to the Healer class is a better, "safer" option for "settling down."
  • Female adventurers are "encouraged" to choose the Healer class, so much so that it's the only training program at Tanya's academy that was majority-female (even Mages, Tanya's original class, is 90% male). Female knights are almost unheard of.
  • Tanya discovers that the Imperial Magic Academy deliberately knocks points off of female applicants' scores, in part due to the sexist assumption that most of them would just retire in a few years to settle down anyway.
  • Nadine's father refused to accept her as the heir to their family of assassins' legacy. Instead, he chose the son from another assassin family to wed her in an Arranged Marriage. Nadine was expected to teach him everything she knew before marrying him and retiring in order to "go back to being a woman."
• Stripperiffic: While out shopping for new clothes, Laplace is baffled upon realizing that every outfit designed for female adventurers is ridiculously and impractically skimpy, to the point that most just look like revealing swimsuits. Tanya's original outfit shows off a lot of her legs, cleavage, and midriff; while shopping for a knight outfit, the only thing she can find is a set of pink bikini armor (which Laplace honestly mistakes for a stripper costume). The "justification" for this is the widespread belief that women need to expose as much skin as possible to boost their mana sensitivity. When Laplace reveals that this isn't true at all, Tanya (who doesn't care for such outfits whatsoever) is outraged that she's been tricked into wearing such revealing clothing.
• Strong and Skilled: While Tanya possesses massive magical potential, her strength in battle is largely due to years of magical study and training.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Once she and Tanya are done shopping for equipment, Laplace insists on paying the shopkeeper with her own money. Unfortunately, her money is from when she was sealed 300 years ago, and is worthless as currency. Tanya ends up having to spend almost her entire life's savings to pay for their purchases and the damage they did to the store's wall.
• Super Ringer: Just before they face off against Ryan in the Sparring Tournament, Lilium learns that Ryan has hired a stand-in to fight for him in the championship match. Nadine is shocked to discover that it's Goliath, the Master Mercenary, a supposedly undefeated Mage with a fearsome reputation.
• Tongue-Tied: To prevent Ryan from forfeiting his match with Tanya, and thus denying Tanya her revenge, Laplace puts a curse on Ryan that renders him unintelligible anytime he tries to forfeit or surrender.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Ryan and the other members of Tanya's party who expelled her, despite Tanya's skills and raw power playing a significant role in their victories. Ryan even goes so far as to dismiss her contributions in battle as flukes.
  • One of Tanya's frustrations with her former teammates was their tendency to tell her to only weaken an enemy monster instead of defeating it outright, then promptly take all of the credit upon delivering a killing blow to the weakened creature.
• Unskilled, but Strong: As a Magi-Knight, Tanya has no issues in the "magi" department, being a highly trained spellcaster who has only grown since meeting Laplace. On the "knight" side of things, however, she is a complete novice with the blade. Demonstrated when Lillium does some dungeon crawling together. Tanya has no issue spellcasting or infusing her weapon with her spells, but when it comes to actually using the sword she's just swinging really hard. However, thanks to her magical skills, she can swing very hard indeed, and has no issue with the golems they go up against even after Laplace alters them to have varying elemental powers, as a way to demonstrate what a Magi-Knight is.
• We Used to Be Friends: Tanya admits to herself that there was a time Ryan was genuinely her best friend, and that the two of them dreamed of going on adventures together. It makes his sexist, Jerkass treatment of her in the present even worse.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: While they're strapped for cash, Laplace gives Tanya a small talisman she made as a sign of luck. To Laplace, it's just one of several trinkets that she makes in her spare time. However, Tanya reveals that a genuine "Talisman of Laplace" has become absurdly valuable over the 300 years the sorceress was sealed away. When the two sell it, they get 16 million gold coins, leaving them very, very wealthy.

---