I enjoyed this volume more than I was expecting, mostly because I loved seeing Zenjirou being able to are good use of his abilities and tools to outsmart the people around him. I'm still not too enthusiast about everyone getting what they wished for from this marriage instead of him and I'm not looking forward for a repeat of this situation with Lucretia, but at least he has positive feelings for Freya and might even fall in love with her given time.

@TheWickerMan said in DUNGEON DIVE Vol. 3 Discussion!:

As someone who just finished volume 3 and is starting volume 4, I more agree with you than everyone else here. It is an interesting and different story than many of the others in this genre. I do think it went off the rails a bit and the reset is a little worrying.

Insanity and despair is interesting to read and I think the author does a good job getting the awful mental states across in text.

I worry most because the bonus stories are uninteresting to me and it seems that is what we are going to do now lol.

Volume 6 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story Untitled

Volume 5 (Premium Edition): 4 Bonus Short Stories & Bonus Cover Art A Day with Olivia and Evanson A Second Day with Olivia and Sara A Fifth Day with Olivia and Claudia A Third Day with Olivia and Blood

Volume 9 (Premium Edition): 3 Bonus Short Stories Elf Talk Delinquents in Droves

@HarmlessDave I doubt even that. I think the author's personal experience is just interacting with GMs as a player. There are no mechanics or terminology that would make me think "oh yeah, only a GM would know that" - all details about GMs in this novel are things that regular players would either know or assume about GMs.
But I do think that there is some novel balancing as you refer to it (see my answer to endoftheline).

@endoftheline Well, you're generally correct that you don't usually convert your regular player character to a GM. I don't think most companies would allow you, and even if they do, you probably wouldn't want to do that either, since keeping your regular character as-is would probably allow you to go back to playing after you quit your job as GM (which, as I said, is usually a part-time job so I doubt many people would turn that into a life career). In that hypothetical scenario where you convert your player character into a GM then once you quit your job it's completely gone.
Still I wouldn't call it an error - I'm pretty sure the author knows or at least assumes nobody converts their player char to GM but wrote that anyway because they wanted the protagonist to have access to all sorts of gear. If it were a new character, the protagonist would only have GM gear, which, depending on the game, is either completely "broken cheat gear" or purely cosmetic, nothing in between.

This was much better than the previous volumes in term of digressions, though I'm a bit disappointed thatvyhe war wasn't concluded. On the other hand the last part seemed to dispel my worries that Asuka might turn against Ryoma.
Author also reminded us that this series is technically an harem, despite him not writing any romance.

@TheGrimLich yeah I think you're right.

Volume 4 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story The Level 7777s Face Off

I miss Marielle!!! Sorry, I´ve to say it XD

@kuali Ah, yes, mythology, of course. There's clearly something beyond human happening here.

Also, thanks to the translator's explanation in the first volume discussion, I now mentally replace any mention of "Blue Knight Earl" with the equivalent of the Japanese original, "Sir Blue Knight Earl", which never ceases to amuse me. (:

Volume 1 (Premium Edition): High Resolution Color Images

Volume 1 (Premium Edition): High Resolution Color Images

Volume 4 (Premium Edition): 5 Bonus Short Stories The Black Chronicle Claudia's Ambition Letters to the Archpriestess The Black Hand Rides A Thousand-Year Bond

Volume 9 (Premium Edition): 2 Bonus Short Stories Not My Problem A Certain Night's Dinner

@PuckGoodfellow00-0 said in Isekai Jedi, the next big thing?:

@Tahu sounds like a good start for a fanfiction. That's one of the great things about fanfic. It doesn't have to pay attention to the impossibility of a commercial story being written.

Seems to be a thing that references to brands likely to be policed get an asterisk in the name.

Bookworm has Gl*co poses all over the place, and Free Life Fantasy Online has a princess that can block bullets with her glowing energy sword... so you won't be surprised at the frequent references to J*di....

....managed to finish catching up before the... well the catch up finished. This series continues to be great and I can't wait to dive into the next volume for the full return of spidergirl.

It shall be glorious.

@aneliese said in Sorcerer's Receptionist Vol. 2 Discussion:

Well, I think the author has put a lot of thought into this series. Especially the mythological parallels are often well buried Easter eggs, and sometimes seemingly random little plot details turn out to be important much later. But it's also a series with many slow reveals, which can be frustrating to readers. So while I really enjoy this series, I can definitely understand if some readers don't feel the same or have the patience to wait for the payoff. The journey itself also has to be enjoyable.

What I'm saying is that the author is putting a lot of thought into the wrong things. Slow reveals aren't the problem; the entirety of shonen manga and anime are built on that characteristic.

What's happening is that super basic concepts like "how do I structure a plot," "how do I explain the world to readers," "how do I write characters," and "why does this scene actually matter" are being completely fumbled at various points, with the ending of Volume 2 being a particular lowlight.

Volume 3 hasn't gotten any better; if anything, it meanders all over the place to its own detriment, and doesn't fix any of those basic issues. If anything, Nanalie's complete lack of agency (despite being both powerful and the supposed actual protagonist of this story) gets way worse in the first half, and it's becoming clear that the author probably wants it that way.

Like, Easter Eggs are fine, but those are a thing you do after you actually have a proper foundation. Putting in references to Greek mythology does not fix the extremely basic problems with the text. Web novels generally tend to suffer from a severe lack of proper editorial guidance in the LN versions, and it really, really shows here.