Score 3.5 (I'd probably rate it higher if there was some comic relief)

The title, cover, and tags paint a different picture than what this story actually is. Maybe there is some proper training of hero's later (and hopefully not in the JP princess raising kind of way), but the beginning of this story is pretty dark. While I wouldn't necessarily call it horror, I would liken it to the darker themes present in something like the witcher series. If you like dark fantasy settings which don't rely on game... more>> elements this might be up your alley. The MC so far doesn't seem to be an anti-hero, but he's definitely morally grey. He has some dark history and he occasionally is tempted or at least thinks about crimes.

At times I appreciated that the author just summarized some things, but there were other times I wondered why he went into details about certain things. Honestly his time at the training school could have been cut down to 1-2 chapters from 5. All the characters there were throwaways (as far as I read at least) and it didn't add much to the story or the MC. Other than establishing that the MC is a bad ass from his experiences. The time would have been better spent fleshing out the setting a bit (the world) and perhaps establishing the MC's long term plans?

Fights are pretty brutal but don't expect much detail about the action. But that tends to be par for the course for a series with relatively short chapters like this. It seems kind of silly that the other combatants of this world are so quick to judge the MC as weak when overall the story seems to take a more realistic tendency as lives are cheap in battle. Anyone with some experience and half a brain would probably learn not make such assumptions. But I get it. It's a common trope that MC's must be underestimated.

Spoiler

Can't really say I like Hero Ellain much. Elven pride + Hero pride + complete lack of professionalism or at least the making of a good leader. I don't think she even apologies for her panic against the demon. I mean is there really no counter measure to losing your magical lightsource in a cave? Like maybe some torches?

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Ive been sitting on this novel and putting off the review for months, so I cant really write about the specifics anymore as I no longer remember them, so sorry for not being more detailed.

But frankly speaking, this was one of the by far most realistic and natural story I have ever read. And this was what made me keep reading on. It was a very realistic world, interactions, et cetera.

But, like most good novels, the harem came in and obliderated the quality, and in this case– smut. At the... more>> start, the earlier portions of the novel, the romance and smut were interesting to read. But as the story progresses, the baggage has become heavy, and severely gets in the way of the writing, as from what I remember, our strangely realistic MC even for a harem novel, is just a loose man digging in various pants.

I really dont know what to call this novel. Some portions of it were genuinely written so good, like the dark realism. But it feels like there are two or three different stories inside the novel. As in directions the author could've taken but decided to keep all. Hence its neither a scummy male read nor an action adventure story. The story trys to juggle too much, with both conflicting parallel novels inside one novel conflicting with the others path.

It really just felt like a phenomenal adventure story with snoo-snoo forcibly added in. Its not even like the story was particularly great, it was more so just how well the author captured dark realism of reality and made it so naturally flowing.

In case u ever do pick it up, I think the start was a bit slow so needs time to be invested. But honestly its a story I cant endorse, as its a mixed conflicting bag <<less