Didn't follow the contests, mostly decided to start this volume the way I started others...needed something to read and the synopsis seemed interesting. Overall a great start, biggest gripe is a 19 year old drunk on rum. Beer? Sure. Cough syrup? Why not. But I felt the MC was older, more mature given they were drinking rum.
While knowing that the royal family is evil trash eliminates potential future surprises, there is still the potential for Christine to realize the folly of blindly following orders. Wendy clearly has no clue what is going on, she's just happy to perform a rare summoning spell. So she is still a relatively complete unknown.
As for Mary, taken at face value, she likely signed up for indentured servitude which is fine. But once enslaved (thinking a tattoo like Rising of the Shield Hero, collars are simply visual), sounds like she was tortured or at least brainwashed to be completely servile. She is completely innocent in all this and any "evil" she commits would be like saying the hammer that bludgeoned a man to death is evil. Really hoping she doesn't die.
Also curious if Thomas will be able to create his own magic at some point given the need to imagine the outcome, unless the gods gave humanity the words to activate magic.
Finally thinking that if mana comes from without and not within, then it isn't so much magic capacity as it is magic tolerance...how much your body can tolerate channeling. Kind of like 60 degrees is warm in winter but freezing in the summer. It's what you are used to. Perhaps once Thomas makes that connection, the translation magic then updates itself moving forward, now that he no longer associates his output with his "capacity" for magic.
