- #1
Characters: 5/5Spoiler
- @ all the people who have ever complained about dumbass/dense MCs: this is an MC you will probably love. He sort of reminds me of Cheating Men Must Die's MC (the manga, haven't read the novel), with the sense of having a lot of life experience and being very intelligent and skilled, but not omniscient. He's poor and in extreme debt; he's street smart, and his skills actually make sense and are justified! He's not just another "I'm strong cuz I'm the protag and need to win" character.
- ML is more like a sentient system, and I enjoy how dramatic he is in the early chapters, especially when put beside MC. It's really interesting to see an ML who acts like the MC's servant for once, since the usual trend for qt novels (which this sort of is?) is a badass ML in a high position who can help MC (which ML does do later on, but even then there's this sense of "rich butler and poor master" rather than "pretty boy and his golden thigh"). There's mutual care and trust between the two of them, and ML often admires MC's strength on his own.
- The other characters are colorful and fill in the world very well. There's a lot of side characters who aren't focused on too much, and they're all entertaining when they show up.
- The gore is pretty vivid and (unfortunately) easy to picture, but it's not overly descriptive to the point of fetishizing it. The first arc is full of it, but the arcs after that are more into the horror mystery aspect with the gore mostly just at the end. The main story chapters also don't really have any gore, they're more like a standard "protag vs the world" shounen anime.
- The plots are fairly normal (?) and don't really have twists. The first arc is a demented "poor person's Bring Me game"; second arc is a hot springs mu*der mystery; third is a "locked in a mansion", human sacrifice monster horror; etc... YMMV on if that's a good thing or not, but as a lover of classic horror movie tropes this is definitely my jam.
- The writing (and TL) is clear and concise, which is a relief after just going through so many 100+ chapter novels where half the chapters are just reworded and repeated stuff that waste time. When MC finds a clue or realizes something, it isn't repeated constantly like the author is saying "do you get it yet?" In fact, from the comments, it's more like the stuff is mentioned so briefly that some readers ask "Who was HB again? When did XL get that item?" etc
- Speaking of writing, it isn't perfect. MC's entire backstory is confusing, when I try to timeline the past I just get a headache. There's plot things that get introduced but then dropped, like the shadow things from the first arc that were introduced like they were a common thing but never showed up again in the subsequent arcs. Side character plots happen in the background which can be a little confusing and shocking when you see how a character has progressed. Also, it doesn't even seem like the summary is accurate? It makes it seem like the main plot is MC going through worlds and making each boss mad enough for a final all-bosses confrontation, when the world bosses are honestly negligible outside of instances and the main conflict is actually MC and ML finding out more about their past and the world. It falls into the common qt problem of "don't think about it too much because it won't make sense".