Choose Your Heroes Wisely Chapter side story 1 Discussion

I started reading this novel 4 days ago because I

found the manhwa first. I thought what a fresh and interesting way to start another isekai story. Beware! This isn't a typical power-leveling or slice of life isekai story!

The first half of the novel had good world building, engaging challenges and intriguing characters. But don't assume that this story fleshes out their characters well.

The positive and the negative parts about the protagonist Shane:

• • Good: comes from the modern world and therefore has knowledge of game mechanics, tactics and strategy. probably a casual gamer in Korea, but develops his skills in tactics and strategy in the game

• • bright / optimistic personality in the beginning, typical ordinary guy protagonist who jokes around with friends and tries to stay out of trouble when it doesn't concern ML, personality leaning towards the natural airheaded cute boy type, book-smart, has common sense

• • Bad: has common sense, but doesn't use it. at least not, when it counts

• • Spoiler

    1. The protagonist faces enemies who are far above his level. Due to lacking information and experience he is saved by the ML's plot armor like features. He gets pulled along by his lamb guide and his hero. He definitely plays the role of
    planning strategies and leaving it to ML to come up with and implement tactics.

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• • Spoiler

    2. The main challenge of the protagonist ist the lack of information imposed on him by the plot. How he receives and processes new crucial information for his life-mission is truly unique:
    An agonizing repeated process of: 'My plan is working but something important feels off. But I can't find out what it is, because there is so much happening right in this moment in front of me. I have to deal with the current life-threatening situation first so I have time and the capacity to care about the key-ominous feeling concerning our current situation later.' Btw that never happens, because some side character or the enemy will slap the protagonist in the face with hints about the truth first. A wall of text in the story is dedicated to the protagonist's path to knowlegde. First someone has to make an ominous statement. Then Shane feels something is off, but has no time to care about it at the moment. Then the situation gets worse the enemy has to ask about Shane's opinion on the hint while mocking him. Shane has no answer except: I believe in ML. Is shocked by enemy giving him the revelation and almost dying. Is then saved by ML and the lamb.

    Yes, he was designed to be like that by the plot. Because of his lack information he can't even begin to think about his own purpose. He truly is a marionette. He solely exist for ML but this left me feeling ominous.

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• • 3. Spoiler

    The MC started loosing his cool and discretion towards the latter half of the end, implicating them all was a drag to read. Him saving the ML arc was underwhelming. The story's unique and interesting world building had left the chat by now. It solely relied on MC's talk-justu to somehow make this tasteless Matrix+ Mirai Nikki-esque major revelation at the end hold any weight or meaning in the reader's mind. I was skimming the tactics and solutions at the end, because at that point, the plot had decided to take the easiest way to end any rushed and abandoned isekai/ gaming plot. No surprises. Only ~230 chapters of build-up to be immeasurably disappointed. My day is ruined.

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The ML is decently developed.

He is fine as a deuteragonist. Nothing much to say about him, since the story already did enough. My personal impression of him is that I felt nothing special about him until the end of the story. Only at the last two chapters I was annoyed at him because of how Spoiler

his lack of communication and actions was even more of his already typical sacrifice behaviour.

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The other people in Shane's party

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    We have the usual mascot lamb, who serves as an OP data analysis tool, part-time computer-projector and comedic relief figure. undergoes some character developement

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    We have Parzan who is the tsundere third-wheel, who initially is the power output of the group. doesn't change much

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    Nasran, the magician who joined for a short time and hugged the golden-thigh

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    Grace, the temp supporter. Monitoring and supporting the group with minimum effort

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    Chariot the token woman in our BL isekai. She's the Joker, when the group/ Shane doesn't know how to advance

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The most important side characters and antagonists. Spoilers!!!

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    Belladona guild master, whose plot-purpose is to connect us to Chelet's hero Hibarin

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    the holy beast Alicia and Hirberin who oppose Shane's faction but later allies with
    Shane

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    the holy beast Hamal and Sheratan, the masterminds.

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    These characters are behind giving us this story of an endless redemption story. The words most spoken are: You are a failure! You are to blame! You tool should do what you are supposed to do. Why should I tell you the truth. You don't need to know that. You don't have or need that information. That is why you can't understand anyway.... Holy beast are not gods. They aren't people either. But they behave like your aunt or uncle at family reunions. The blame-pity party is strong here. And every character gets a piece of the ultimate insult-cake. Until we are in the final chapter/ epilogue where the family pet circus dissolves and gets back into pet-day care. This is what happens when gods/ pet-owners don't train them properly or decide to abandon them at some wasteland to die. I can understand why they behave like that, but their bitter whining s**ked out any sympathy for their good-natured world-saving intentions.

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The plot:

Interessting setting. I liked the world building. The MC's struggle in the beginning in accepting the world's morals and standards. It was light until the fights started. The fight against the enemies in the first few arcs were intriging and felt mysterious. But as more of the truth was revealed the freshness and a major pull-factor was lost. The way struggle is portrayed was believeable. But not the way they got out of struggles. ML saves the day again and again. If the MC doesn't know how to proceed, just believe in the ML.

Spoiler

The way the story progressed after fighting the 2nd major enemy left me in awe. At that point I finally understood, that the MC really isn't a saving- everyone- is-my-only-way person and a not the only capable commander/ strategist in the world. Someone tell me how another guild party in the background managed to destroy the fifth enemy by only using the strategies and information provided by the MC. When he and his guild almost didn't manage to with prior half-backed knowlegde because of the massive mutations and changes to the enemy because of some merges/ power-ups. And why make it twelve enemies but only barely showing six of them.

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My conclusion:

A long story with an acceptable translation. It was easy to read in the beginning... I liked the way the plot twists were presented. The fights in the beginning are engaging. The latter enemies have interessting lore too. If it wasn't for a lot of overworked MC trying to survive his lack of information-thought walls and subpar deduction skills it would be a little more enjoyable to watch him gaining power. As for the romance part... only starving BL fans would call their flirting in the main story enough for a romance story. MC and ML are so busy saving themselves, that to me their interactions didn't spark any fluffy feelings or hopeful indulgence at all. It would have worked out as bromance too.

The story progressed really fast, because the enemies wanted it to end. The ML wanted it to end. The author wanted it to end. And me personally wanted it to end even more. I recommed it for people who aren't too familiar with sci-fi, plot-driven isekai stories and have a lot of patience.