- #1
@MyRAMEN said it best. This novel repeats the same formula every 5-20 chapters."Barbarian appears, everyone's fearful, event happens, barbarian saves everyone, MC plot armor reasoning activates for staying still and not exploring the world which he repeatedly states is his goal, worse event happens, somehow everyone forgets the Barbarian existed, Barbarian saves everyone, Barbarian travels a bit."That's literally what happens every single time.On top of that, all the characters he met along the way are essentially tossed into a back closet, gathering dust.The world-building is somewhat unreliable, and even after hundreds of chapters, we still know almost nothing about the White Snowfield.The MC has a System... kind of. I legit think the author just added a system-like thing just to add the tag.The MC claims he wants to "see the fantasy world", like an outsider looking in. The way he talks about it makes us readers feel like he'll take a non-interference approach, but he always ends up in the middle of things.That would be fine if his personality weren't so annoyingly frustrating. It's like reading about a thousand-year-old man with the personality of a five-year-old, in the body of a god. He only has 1 personality trait: Curiosity, which is tied to the reasoning of 'Fantasy = Good/Fun'. (Somehow these NU reviews like the MCs personality, but I just don't understand. I mean, it's not like it's horrible, but combined with the lackluster plot, it can get boring. I'd like to see more sides of him, but as of right now, he is incredibly 1-D.) He says that the thought of exploring a Fantasy world kept him going through all his suffering for who knows how long (probably hundreds of years), but what kind of suffering did he go through? We don't know. Why does he love fantasy so much? Well, he pretty much idolizes the thought of "fantasy", which he has basically defined as "anything outside of the White Snowfield". Mind you, the White Snowfield is in the fantasy world and is probably the most "fantasy" thing of all.In fact, all the forbidden zones (similar to the White Snowfield) are way more fantasy than everything else, but the MC exclusively refuses to explore them.We even see stuff like Magic Nanobots, which he claims is fantasy because it's in a fantasy world....There's not really much logic to anything, whether that be the MC, plot, or world-building.There are also a number of things that I personally dislike, but I'll leave it at that.However, despite all my criticisms, if you read this novel in short bursts of 10-20 chapters, it's enjoyable. At least then, the quick repetitive nature of the novel is bearable. Edit (at Chapter 325) : I'll raise my rating to 3.8/5. The story starts to ramp up after around 200 chapters. If you liked the first 100-200 chapters, then it only gets better. We start to see more sides of the MC, learn more about the White Snowfields, and the scale of the battles gets bigger. The translator is also good. I just wish it didn't take so long to get to this point, but oh well. If the story continues like this, I can only imagine it getting better.
