It's a good novel to read at your own leisure. Don't expect action nor a large plot, this is a leisure life type of story with a lot of convenience, but I give 4 stars for the world building, and
remove 1 star due to something a bit annoying that I will explain later. If not for this, I would give it 5 stars easily.
Ok, I only have one negative for this story, one that really bothers me a lot as it
never changes.
Wataru is a meek guy, however, as I plan to explain later in the positive points,
I do like him as a protagonist, the problem is his relationship with the girls from "Girasole", the A Class Adventurer Party of 6 girls that are constantly with him. You may think they are like harem members, right? And... Maybe? No?
The point is, they are always in the story, but
their relationship with the protagonist never changes and is completely stagnant. I don't care if they become harem members, or they leave, or they show a bit more personality or the story maybe goes a bit more into their stories but...
However, there is nothing really to go in, as the story already shot down any possible mystery or interesting plot for them: They are commoners (so no hidden princess/noble cliche), they are not some legendary party (they are well known where in the region they acting, but unknown outside), and unlike most heroines in a story whose family either is already killed from some tragic event, or have some noble/royal parent who is allowing their daughter away, they are shown to gave normal families, and they are able to visit them sometimes (on the background).
So really, there is nothing to add to them, and yet,
their relationship with the MC is absolutely stagnant.
- The leader (human) is aloof and brave, and the most active
- The vice leader (human) is responsible and becomes a slime lover
- The scout (human) becomes a slime lover
- The mage (fox girl) is erotic, and the only one aware of the party's "charms"
- The tank (bear girl) likes to eat a lot, and she is big yet soothing
- The priestess (dog girl) has big breasts, is very nice, and religious
Done, I essentially described all party members. These are all the relevant traits that these characters will show in the story. The only "change" that they faced is the "slime lover" trait, which was actually influenced by the protagonist, meaning that, until then, Scout girl was a generic scout with a name.
The world building is quite interesting. You have a bit of a stagnant world with monsters, there is no demon king, there is a human supremacist empire engaging in war and trafficking demi-human races and this sort of political shit.
A Status System exists, so people can rise levels and become stronger and stuff, this was a bit relevant at the start of the story, but are completely irrelevant and forgotten later on (What I mean is that, we don't get status screens anymore, nor what level the main characters are after their grinding, at most we get "[I/They] [reached/are over] level [100/200/300]" as part of the narrative).
MC was reincarnated into this new world with the Ship Summoning skill, a broken skill that may look ridiculous, but actually has a reason to exist in this world.
And no, this is not one of those stories where the protagonist gets a bullsh*t skill and is able to use it in a clever way and becomes OP. From the start, the ships are invincible and have an invincible barrier to protect whoever is inside straight of the box, there is no Weak to Strong,
this is NOT an ACTION story.
So rather than fighting, Wataru becomes a merchant, and thanks to his cheat skill, that makes it super easy, so really, there are hardly any obstacles, rather, the obstacles are mainly the political inconveniences of revealing his skill,
which is why I say this is more of a leisure type of novel.
Wataru, the protagonist, is a meek guy: He is weak minded, a bit of a pe*vert, but very self-serving.
Yes, he likes girls, yes, he can be baited, however, unlike stories where either the MC is dense, or the story forces him to save the tragic girl with his OP powers and she loves him for the rest of his life, Wataru
actively tries to avoid such problems, and if he really has to accept such request,
he will request a reward. In short, when he is being baited,
he knows he is being baited, and will try to take advantage of it, even if a bit disrespectful.
Ah, and for those thinking "Is this another one of those protagonists that never gets laid", he does get laid with his 2 s*aves: The submissive dark elf, and the fiery tiger girl. Due to how contracts in this world work, however, and a bit of influence from god, these two make two extremely hard requests to be accepted as s*aves, but MC can achieve them, so once he accomplishes those conditions, they are all his to consume, and consume he does.
And as I mentioned before, there is the Adventurer Party with him, who are constantly with him too, but as I also mentioned, no, their relationship doesn't change, it's always the same.
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The other interesting part are the Pantheon of this isekai world, mainly the Creator God, the strongest god and the one who reincarnated the protagonist and gave him the Ship Summoning skill (because his name, Wataru, reminds him of Water).
The Pantheon of Gods actually become recurrent characters in the story, and you can see their influence in the world, like in how contracts are made (like in commerce and s*avery), in how people pray, in how they act or why they don't interact with the world (But interact with MC because he is an isekaijin).
So there are many other stories where the God appears in the first chapter, and then doesn't appear anymore, or don't inflict enough influence in the world by themselves, but here, they do influence, mainly through the protagonist, through their requests and of course, rewards. There are a lot of interactions among them, and you are also able to understand more of their personalities, and the reason why Wataru got the skill he got.
# CONCLUSION
This webnovel has been straight adapted to manga, which I would recommend checking first, mainly for the character design, and get a feel of what's to come.
Again, this is not an action novel, if you are expecting a unique plot to save the world or something, that does not happen. This is a story of a guy with invincible ships, that has to make money to buy better ships, and wants to live a leisure life with girls, he doesn't really care much about men, what he wants are females to spend his time leisurely in a luxury cruiser once he gets it.
That's not to say the world doesn't have problems that MC gets involved with, but most of that will be spent with him in a boat, and the other characters doing all the action.
The world building however is what I really liked, as the author seems to have been done enough changes to this isekai society regarding the existence and influences of gods in this world, so Wataru learns how lacking of common sense he is through these.
As the story advances and Wataru gets many large boats with lots of luxuries inside, so we also get to see the characters taking advantage of modern knowledge and items, such as video recorders, gacha machines, and isekai food.
