Giant slime. I'm a bit surprised they only tried fire magic. Ice magic should be effective against a watery monster too.

@Kurzaa It swings up and down a lot. This last part 3 had plenty of ups. Reminded me why I stick around with the story.

That was charming.

I'll never get the "fear of rejection" part of these Isekai stories. She isn't affiliated with any previous version of you. And that's like, not even a trope. It's an oft mentioned but never crossed line in circumstances such as these. Why would she care about that? The only reason one might care is to figure out if the age gap is wider than it first seemed.

Now if this were a reincarnation story where he had a mother that would be different. In cases such as those there is a real possibility that the parents may feel you stole their child from them. And that actually happens in stories infrequently.

But has anyone ever read a story where the MC admits to someone he met yesterday he was a reincarnated and had that end the relationship? Because I can only think of one story and that was in a setting where nearly every reincarnated was a bastard.

Either way, I'm glad this series in knocking all the potential issues out so rapidly. Day 2 and we have avoided so many of the problematic tropes like the Yandere "strength seeker" and the literal child with animal ears.

Blessing from a spirit king? How about a blessing from all of them (who live in their kingdom).
And she seems to like the princes. Just, uh, ignore the squick about her mental age.

@Lily-Garden said in Demon Lord, Retry! Vol. 10 Discussion!:

@lucaslp5 said in Demon Lord, Retry! Vol. 10 Discussion!:

Huh? The boss of a former game?

Our MC was a game designer.
I’m guessing the new character is the final boss of a game he worked on

This is from memory so there may be mistakes:

In the Earth flashbacks I think it's his first MMO game that he ran himself, had the social media wave steal the audience from individual sites like his, and where he finally shut it down. That caused a wedge between him and one of the (two?) XX people who had insisted he keep it running even with only a few players left.

(Also, one of the memories was one of the XXs helping him add magic into that original MMO, while the Empire has no magic.)

Then he descended into debauchery for awhile, worked as a contractor on other people's games, and finally was given the chance to create a new MMO (the Empire) at 42-OMG / Mikitty / president blond girl who is somehow connected to the greater cross-worlds meta struggle.

But now that's all thrown into question by him realizing his memories are incomplete and unreliable: how could he be at home shutting down the Empire game if it was run by 42-OMG with him working there as an employee?

(Side note: it's also a clever way for the author to deal with any inconsistencies in the Earth memories in volumes 1-9, if Akira's memories were never reliable.)

Reading the entire volume at once really wasn't part of my plans.. but I didn't hate it!

Lacey realizing her feelings so quickly feels like a sprint, after having just finished the latest volume of Dahlia in Bloom 😏

@Makine well, it's certainty not one of those misleading LN titles. Lol..

@endoftheline said in Guild Handyman? More like Mastermind! Using My Hidden Skills in the Shadows Vol. 1 Discussion!:

Dunno which of the two came first, but where The Eminence in Shadow opts for a comedic take, this tries to take itself seriously. In general I find it much easier to overlook flaws when I'm doubled over laughing...

Yes, Fruit of Evolution is one of my favorite OP MC series because it takes itself silly not seriously. (Hopefully Hanashi's new license negotiations succeed and we'll finally get volumes 11-15)

@karasutengu It's funny to see him going all the rulers

@Lex said in Three Cheats from Three Goddesses Vol. 2 Discussion!:

Honestly, I'm ok with the protagonist having the mind of an adult and having impure thoughts of the sexy goddesses that is kid body still isn't prepared to handle. But when he reacts to being close to an 8 year old girl...that's too much. I hope we'll get another timeskip as soon as possible but with the current pace of the story it doesn't seem likely.

It may be a while until the next volume comes out. There are only two volumes written in Japan too, so we are caught up. Vol. 2 was published in December 2024 in Japan.

@jiofreecs said in Blade Skill Online Vol. 1 Discussion!:

People know about the player named Yuri, given that his name kept popping up as defeating dungeons, so how is he not the favourite in any contest he enters? Did whoever didn't pick him want to lose money?
With 30,000 contestants how did people decide who they'd bet on and how many people needed to pick Z whatever for him to be the favorite?

That's actually addressed too. He wasn't the front runner because it was common knowledge that there were entire teams dedicated to knocking him out early. And w/o knowing how the build works numbers should have been enough. Especially when you learn even the top players have to play smart and to their advantage against numbers.

@thatsleepyguy I don't think so, but maybe since it's on catchup

I rather enjoyed reading as Chelsea toiled over what to make for Glen, and him being a bit sullen over the fact that she kept it a secret from him.

I very much enjoyed reading about Mica's past and how she and Roy met. I wish she has a bigger part in the story moving forward as I like her character quite a bit.

Something else to consider is the we know the kingdom is very peaceful. So far at least, we've not heard of any threats to it or to the royal family, random monsters not withstanding.

That implies that regardless of how we all feel about him, Fausto and his department are actually very good at what they do. That doesn't mean that it's acceptable to sacrifice lives to do so - and it's hard to tell if he was even intending that to happen - but it does lead some credence to the idea that his "ends justify the means" approach isn't entirely wrong, at least in terms of practical effect.

I'm still all in favor of there being a reckoning down the line... I'm just acknowledging that there are shades of grey here that I wasn't expecting 🤔

@karasutengu said in I Shall Survive Using Potions! Vol. 11 Discussion:

@Phabiohost I actually keep two in case one runs out of "juice" (photons).

Thanks Pitohui! That's good advice!

Another great volume. I wonder how many more we'll get since apparently all lefttkdkus to decipher the codex but maybe the author has some surprises in mind.

The afterword became a FUNA novel.

Heh… Diana’s perspective stayed in front of my eyes into the afterward: The first baseball reference had passed by unnoticed, and I thought that pitcher/catcher was a yaoi reference… Then “3-4-5 hitters” showed up and “oops” went through my head. ^^;