S*ave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN) Chapter v15 part5 Discussion

Compared to the web novel, the light novel version of the MC behaves more like a typical isekai protagonist — unwarranted confidence and arrogance, and casually dismissive of danger. As much as I disliked the overblown paranoia of the web novel MC, the light novel MC bugs me to a similar level, just in a different way. Given a choice, I'd prefer the paranoia, because it fits better with how his original character is described, and at least provided an interesting flaw.

The light novel's editing is mostly better than the web novel, but there are a number of glaring errors that keep showing up that contradict prior text, or are just flat out wrong. They don't really disrupt the story's coherence, but they do stand out pretty badly. I'm not sure if these are errors on the translator's part, or in the original books.

Examples:

Spoiler

When he fights the first group of bandits, in the WN he kills all of them, while in the LN he explicitly does not. However when he contemplates some of the bandits chasing after him in town, he notes that that shouldn't happen because he killed all of them, in both the WN and the LN.

When he sells the weapons to the merchant when he first arrives in town, in the WN he keeps the saber because of its higher quality (which the merchant doesn't recognize), while in the LN he explicitly does not. However later on, in both the WN and the LN, he ends up wearing the saber because (he notes) he did not sell it to the merchant.

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On characters:

Later in the WN, when he has the full party, the author becomes awful at maintaining characterization. They have token lines they repeat because he can't be bothered to show how they interact with events, but doesn't want to entirely forget that they exist. The exception is Sherry, the intelligence agent of the group, who provides exposition dumps for the MC.

That was also the period where the author basically abandoned the story, releasing like 12 chapters in 5 years (compared to 200 in the prior couple years). He may have signed the deal for the light novel around then, but it gives the impression that he has no plans for plot past what the current WN story has reached, which is a shame. I can only hope that the editor for the LN pushed him to work more on the vapid characterization parts, to help round the characters out. We'll see once I get further into the LN series.

On mechanics:

Spoiler

Based on my knowledge of the WN, I'd want to correct danglinhson and cbrtlsseca on bonus points: MC has 99 points + (the level of his primary job - 1). He does get extra points for leveling his primary job, but he does not get extra points for any additional jobs he has set.

As for his leveling strategy: While I would certainly do things differently, his choices are not actually bad. Durandal improves his leveling speed more than boosting XP gain while using a more mundane weapon would (see: the slow rabbit in the woods outside the first village), while also aiding survivability (HP drain) and sustainability (MP drain). When optimizing for XP per unit time, it's an excellent choice in the early stages.

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I think the biggest weakness of the mechanical system is that it bottlenecks on the MC, but he's not so overpowered that he can ignore the growth of his s*aves. They need to improve, and at a vastly accelerated pace, if they're to be useful for a more advanced plot progression. If he doesn't unlock the bonus point system for them (both for extra jobs and accelerated XP gain), the entire plot runs out of steam.