Bisexual Love Triangle: Chloe Halford had multiple pursuers while she attended Kimberly. Theodore McFarlane recalls having fought a duel with Edgar Groves over their relationships with her. Current Kimberly Headmistress Esmeralda, Chloe's underclassman, was also in love with her, and Chloe didn't tell her when she and Edgar became a couple, not wanting Emmy to think she didn't have a chance just because they were both women. Oliver Horn is her son with Edgar.

Adults Are Useless: By design. As a general rule, the instructors at Kimberly seldom intervene in problems internal to the student body: they're not even allowed to go into the labyrinth after a missing student until the eighth day—at which point it's usually assumed they'll be trying to recover bodies rather than rescue survivors. The students are expected to solve their problems themselves as part of a curriculum meant to foster self-reliance, teamwork, problem-solving, and fighting skill, which is all Training from Hell for Gnostic Hunters. Constructed World: The world is fairly transparently a Historical Fantasy version of the Eurasian supercontinent, taking place in an equivalent to the European Union. Azia is Asia and Yamatsukini is Japan circa the Sengoku Period, Yelgland seems to be Britain, and Farnland is probably Finland given Katie's surname Aalto. Other locations mentioned include Ytallia (Italy) and Indus (India). Non-Heteronormative Society: Played with. Chela mentions in volume 2 that Muggle society is fairly heteronormative, but among mages, the only thing that really matters is your own abilities: at least eight named characters including main cast member Pete Reston are known to be some flavor of queer, and this is considered unremarkable or even a point in their favor. That said, there is some stigma around Sex Magic, enough that there's campus club for students with gender- and sex-related magical traits which serves as the In-Universe equivalent of an LGBT student union (founder Carlos Whitrow is nonbinary and asexual, with a Beautiful Singing Voice that counters other sex-related magics). The main plot of Volume 2 revolves around a sword arts tournament among the first-years, organized by Tullio Rossi, an Ytallian student with a ( mostly imagined) rivalry with Oliver. Each participant is given a medallion and duels others to take theirs, with the students with the most medallions at the end of the week advancing to the playoff round. The tournament is aborted before the playoffs when Ophelia Salvadori is consumed by the spell in an unrelated incident and kidnaps several of the participants. When Oliver and the others notice Nanao's depressed mood, they encourage her to open up about her troubles. She begins by recalling her time in Yamatsu, just before she enrolled in Kimberly. During a fierce battle with the enemy, Nanao found herself just moments from being impaled by enemy spears, when a strange Western Sorcerer appeared to save her from her fate. Seeing Nanao's potential, the foreign gentleman offers to enroll her in Kimberly Magic Academy, to which she accepts. Since then, Nanao felt like she was in an extended dream, thinking she had really died on the battlefield, and that her new life in Kimberly was all some sort of illusion. With these thoughts in mind, Nanao becomes desperate to fulfill her dearest wish before this dream ends: "Enjoy the sword of mutual love", an ideology taught during Nanao's time in her sword academy. "In essence, a proper swordsman must not meet hatred with hatred and fight for revenge. To have a duel with an opponent one accepts and respects, with no animosity between you—on the path of the sword, this is called shiawase." (Vol. I Chapter 2: Sword Arts, pg 117) Shiawase (幸せ) meaning "happiness" or "good fortune", is the kind of duel to the death that Nanao truly desires. When she first crossed swords with Oliver, she felt that more than ever before. She had finally found her shiawase, her happiness.While Nanao seems to have taken Chela's advice to heart since then, even with her growing affection for Oliver, her desire to duel him still lingers. Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: The origin of sword arts was a swordsman killing a noted mage in a fair duel, after which the mages realized that from a mutual cold start, a man with a sword can close with and strike a mage twelve feet away in the time it takes for that mage to cast a single spell. Similarly, seven mages conspired to kill Chloe Halford in the prologue. Oliver's Series Goal is to avenge her by killing them.

a b c d e f g "Reign of the Seven Spellblades Anime Reveals 1st Promo Video, Main Cast, Staff, July Premiere". Anime News Network. March 9, 2023 . Retrieved March 9, 2023.Grave Soil: A Lanoff-style "earth stance" skill which makes the ground semi-solid. This spell makes the enemy lose their footing. Kimberly is built atop of an ancient labyrinth that has a tendency to encroach upon the school buildings after nightfall: Oliver, Pete, and Michela return to a classroom to retrieve a forgotten textbook only to discover when they try to leave that the door now opens into the upper levels of the labyrinth.