- #1
Rare, the protagonist of this story belongs to a family of martial artists that are hell bent on using the power of mind instead of brute physical strength. Having prioritised elegance over strength, rare became an existence that swung too far into two stats at the start of the game, the MND and INT. Like a certain shield loli, if you might. The difference here, however, is that she deliberately choose worse starting conditions than normal players to get bonus starting XP, about 50-100 XP, IIRC. These bonus XP let's her steamroll her starting zone and end up dominate with sheer XP value. I don't know if this counts as spoiler or not, but a character's strength is measured by how much XP they have invested/earned. Rare had a treasure trove of XP at her disposal. But, here's where things get interesting.
As mentioned earlier, Rare's family were a bunch of martial artists who single-mindedly desired to hone their minds, they didn't want to practice brutish arts like the way of the sword. To put it bluntly, they were a bunch of elitists who looked down at the act of physically tempering your body and honing your craft. Rare, being one of them, was the same. She vehemently refused to get ANY close combat skills, as she never planned to show herself to other players, only going for magic and production based skill trees was fine. She did an extremely good job at exploring her skill trees and strengthening her followers as best as she could. But, due to the elitist nature ingrained in her being and the near invincible status that she had, she never thought of exploring the public information network used by other players. That overconfident behaviour soon led to her splendid implosion in chapter 87.
Rare had died at the hands of the players, due to the lack of information on her side, she was thoroughly dragged through the mud. Humiliated, violated even. This, was a slap across her face, in death, she strengthened her enemies and ended up feeling vexed. She was sure that she'd win, but the fact that she did not had pried her eyes open. Her greed for the gold, the xp that served to strengthen her had ended up being her downfall.
[collapse]The author managed to craft a story that displays the shameless nature of humanity. Greed is one big driving force, allowing one to improve. But that very greed is also a curse, consuming all those that revel in it. Even though it would've been a lot better if the charcters, specifically the NPCs under Rare were more fleshed out and given time to mature in these 103 chapters I've read so far, the underlying message from the author building up to that turning point was what has me sold. If not for the very well measured placing, I might've dropped it at the turning point that is ch. 87. But I will stick around to see this through to the end.So, should you give it a shot? In my opinion, if you liked Genocide online and want something that's a wee bit more tame in comparison (the full on slaughter fest doesn't occur until the second event arc starts, which is quite a long time) then this would serve you quite well.My final rating (2 stars taken off for dull, almost too shallow NPCs; 1 star added for translation quality and overall reading experience) is 4 stars.Edit- I tried reading the raws using a combination of Google translate and DeepL, and as much as I like how much chaos the newer chapters (the mastermind arc- ch 246 onwards) bring to the table; I also deeply dislike the lack of the MC's perspective during key developments. Rare's plans are being experienced in full from other player's perspectives, at times these chapters can go on for seemingly forever but when they congeal into a single mass- it's all very cohesive. I'm conflicted now cause I like where the story is headed but the MC's perspective in my opinion are much more enjoyable than some pe*vert in a latex bodysuit.