I Was Reincarnated as a Poor Farmer in a Different World, so I Decided to Make Bricks to Build a Castle Chapter 267 Discussion

My review of this story. I will try to not be biased cuz I'm the translator.

I think the most important thing to address is that this is a slow-paced novel. As I've placed into the "Status in COO", there's 688 chapters in the main story. And, for the first 40-ish chapters, the main point of view is showing how Ars is discovering to use his magic, and how he differs from others along the way.

Be warned, he will be pretty much in solitude for a while because I believe it is how the author developed the world while also trying their (don't know the gender, doesn't say on their syosetu profile) hand on the character building. What am I talking about, you ask? Well, it might be considered a spoiler, so I'll place it under a spoiler tag.

Spoiler

We are told by the novel that for quite some time, children aren't even given names because naming is a very important ceremony. Being named allows you to use Life Magic. Our protagonist, Ars, is slowly tinkering with this magic because of how Holy it is regarded as. We slowly learn more about how it works while reading on. But anyways.

Readers are also shown that children are often left to their own devices depending on their status in the family. Ars, being the 3rd son in his already-poor family, is pretty much left to his own devices a lot. Because of this, we rarely see interaction between him and his family. The first few chapters show this, up to chapter 19. At this chapter, things take a turn where he learns about how Naming works.

This leads him to be able to give abilities to his beasts that he's raising, allowing them to use magic as well.

Now, because of this, people start getting interested. Especially when he gets a certificate to maintain land, making him a land owner. Our actual interactions start near this area, when Ars starts interacting with his brothers. And, just saying, but it seems like the Author went in after finishing the story and added in the eldest brother for reasons I can't answer.

Tldr;

The world is highly based on social class and magic-using ability, so Ars was basically not cared for. So, he too shut himself off from the world and became a recluse who only came back from the cultivated lands to eat dinner. The family is shown to not be that important, because Ars estimated that he'd have to move out when his eldest brother became head of the farmer family.

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But don't excessively worry! Ars starts having actual interactions with actual humans around chapter 50. That's when important stuff starts happening. Considering the total amount of chapters, Ars spending merely 50-ish chapters to build up his knowledge of the world which is very unlike Earth seems reasonable, no?

The chapters are short. About 1k ~ 1.2k words. Sometimes less. I know this is bad for readers, but I'm thankful as a translator. And considering the overall amount of chapters, it isn't really that bad.

Sorry if this review was confusing. I just wanted to state that this is a novel where world-building really takes place, so character-building might lack at some points. But it is still enjoyable to read. And the plot actually starts to seem like Cancellara wanted to really connect previous chapters to later chapters.