Using the Faulty Skill, “Escape,” I Strive to Become the Strongest One Starting from the Utmost Low End of Ability Levels Chapter 124 Discussion

I read some of this via MTL a while ago while on vacation.

The MC is someone who due to excessive bullying (which started by him sticking up for a girl being bullied) dropped out of school and became a hikikomori. Basically he could not take the bullying anymore and stopped going to school, the girl who he had stood up for got targeted again, and killed herself leaving a su*cide note blaming him, then because the school got him to drop out as that was easier to save face then going after the bully. So isolated from society in fact that he did not even notice that dungeons had become a reality.

The one real friend he had, who gives him some items to help when he is starting out venturing into dungeons, was unfortunately in a different school so unable to help with the issues there.

It is your standard loser outcast overcoming their horrible situation by abusing a loophole in the system of the world. Nothing too original, but a nice take on this type of growth and overcoming trauma.

Eventually he finds out about the dungeons and decided to try venturing into them to make something with his life. But gets (mostly) low stats the only skill he gets is escape, which is risky because he has to not fight back while the escape timer runs down.

The way the stories leveling system works there are basically 4 benefits to combat, Exp, Money, dropped items, and skill points. Using escape sets any Experience gains to 0, and costs him a percentage of money on hand (just like a lot of old RPG video games) and anything killed immediately re-spawns, but does not cost any skill points or other dropped items.

The loophole he ab*ses for power, Spoiler

is that skill point awards are based on the level difference between you and the monster you kill, so others who tend to fight lower level mobs for safety tend to get very few, but him fighting nothing but higher level mobs can farm allot which gaining allows skills that provide stat boosts allowing him to fight higher level mobs. The result is the MC eventually becomes a overpowered walking pile of skills.

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The bully who forced him to drop out of school, Spoiler

she comes back in the 2nd arc as a villain. She is not much better then in school, running an adventurer guild like a black company, abusing her workers and leaving a trail of corpses behind her. But revenge will be had.

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It is an interesting story, but you need to understand Japanese society, how prevalent and bad bullying can get over there, and well as the damage caused what they call Black Companies, as these are core to what is going on, and the MC is dealing withy, in the first couple arcs.