- #1
Excellent novel.First things first. To be honest, the prose/translation has its issues. Prose is simplistic and lacking style, everything is pretty barebones in terms of description, and characters' thoughts tend to be pretty simple. Despite this, there are excellent nuggets of story telling here. Other reviews have already given adequate summaries of the setting. Allow me to add some detail;-There are two sides in this constant war; Humanity's side, allied with the dwarves, holy elves as well as many beastfolk, versus the Darklings' side, led by the demons who are served by other beastfolk, some eccentric dwarves, the undead, dark elves, and some other monster races like ogres and goblins. Oh and devils, masses of power bound to certain concepts like <Guiding others>, <Bravery>, <Sadism>, and so forth, that are mostly amoral and primarily interested in following their own nature but bind themselves to demons due to their excellent magical compatibility. Humanity's side is always losing - and the gap in power is actually ginormous, as it seems many of the key elite forces of demonkind are rarely deployed to the frontline, instead leisurely staying in the back, such as the demon king candidates and the demon king himself who mostly does paperwork.-Our protagonist, Jilbagias, truly hates demonkind. Over the 113 chapters I've read, not once does he ever question the need to exterminate demonkind and dark elves. Reason being, they are all generally without exception cruel, supremacist, brutish, violent, warlike and prone to disregarding any arts or crafts not related to combat. Even allied races are treated like s*aves or inferior servant races, whereas towards their enemies they behave like butchers that take special delight in tormenting and killing them. Apparently some readers have criticized his unbending attitude towards the demons, given his demon mother's evident love for him, and that not all demons/dark elves have treated him badly. Still, nevertheless, these people remain cruel and vicious to humanity and other non-evil races, so you can't consider them good people.-He remains a much kinder individual than pretty much anyone around him, and preserves his remorse and determination to help humanity - and this is unlikely to change drastically, as the very source of his power, the devil of <Taboo> to whom he is contracted, requires him to feel emotional distress by violating values and principles to make him stronger. No pain, remorse or guilt means he can't grow stronger.-A refreshing take on revenge stories. Habitually the genre is filled with literal garbage, where the walking wish-fulfillment protagonist masquerading as a human being walks around exterminating others guilt free, because their enemies are literally the worst scum imaginable and commit repeated atrocities for no more reason than *omoshiroi I love evil* even when there's no benefit and great risk to doing so. Here Jilbagias' enemies are not defined solely by their sadism and cruelty. They are his new family and servants. Many are loyal, intelligent, like gossiping or are diligent in their training. His mother and dark elves servants have done nothing but help him to the best of their abilities, and his father too, despite being a butcher of human lives who sees humanity as nothing more than a toy and tool for demon kind to vent their battlelust with, nevertheless treats him with respect. Hence there is actual emotional turmoil and investment, and characters worth following, and you can actually find yourself invested in his story.-Not too overpowered. While he is contracted to a Demon God, and amasses power much faster than any of his peers, nevertheless at of curent chapters he is a mere 5 years old - and all his other siblings/mother/father have had decades or over a century more time to amass magic power, such that he is still years or even decades away from being able to rival them at his current pace. His power is also gimmicky as it relies on imposing restrictions, sometimes on himself, and he cannot reveal his true abilities given that it would raise many issues. Still managed to kill a draconic patriarch-class foe (albeit weakened) and seems to be building power rapidly, so this may change.