EXP Is Golden, Volume 1: The Queen of Destruction Speedruns Her Ascension

EXP is Golden Light Novel #1

by Harajun, fixro2n (Illustrator)

The long-awaited launch day for the VRMMORPG Boot Hour, Shoot Curse has finally arrived! As a dedicated VR gamer, Leah eagerly rolls up her character, excited to make her mark on the grand tapestry of this virtual world. A chance encounter at the start of the game leads Leah to a fateful discovery: a hidden skill called Retainer allows her to tame any NPC in the game and pool their experience points with her own!

Combining Retainer with her powerful enchantment spells, Leah steadily builds an army of retainers made up of formidable unique boss NPCs from the game. With the experience points pouring in, Leah establishes herself as a force to be reckoned with…only to be branded a living natural disaster!

Well, if the NPCs want to crown her Queen of Destruction, who is Leah to argue? Opportunities to speedrun the destruction of humanity don’t come around very often, and Leah has no intention of letting this chance go to waste!

Genres: Light Novel, Fantasy

363 pages, ebook

First published January 10, 2023

Reviews

[poet · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's one of these! I like the general concept of the cheat power here even if it makes it hard to really connect with most characters. But it is just One Of These. So ymmv. I had a nice time though.

[CyberBookish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was so close to being a four-star read, but its pacing issues prevented it from reaching that mark. The protagonist spends an excessive amount of time dwelling on her own thoughts, contemplating various character builds. However, when the story finally picks up, it becomes quite enjoyable, and there’s a satisfying sense of character RPG development. Fair Warning: The story concludes abruptly, so we will have to wait for vol. 2 to at least finish this arc.

[Pieter · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF, dropped it at ~80%. OP protagonists doing their thing in a flawed computer game is one thing, and something I certainly can enjoy, but this series just doesn't cut it for me. For one thing, this game is flawed in a way that would chase away most players very quickly, although to some extent I can ignore the bad game elements if it serves an enjoyable story. These kind of stories are mostly carried by their characters, and having the MC being a loner actively avoiding other players is one thing (and NPCs who are effectively slaves to the MC don't count), but going out of their way to humiliate them without any reason beyond testing a few things just doesn't sit well with me. Just not my kind of story.

[Lissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really interesting.

There was a fair mix of things I rather enjoy with things I wasn’t as sure of. The execution was also really interesting.

Furthermore, like “Bofuri” this wasn’t actually an Isekai. But was rather immersive regardless. (If you liked this, *highly* recommend “Bofuri: I don’t want to get hurt, so I’ll max out my defense”)

While I wouldn’t necessarily call this a favourite, it was written well enough and I will be reading the next one.

[Mina ☾ · Rating 5 out of 5]

~~ read till chapter 13 ~~

name: Ougon no Keikenchi
ps: rating the manga not the light novel