After faking his death in the Kingdom of Elesia, Sora moves on to the Holy Kingdom of Frieren, where he dons a mask and restyles himself as a merchant to continue his under-the-radar tour of the new world he’s found himself in. Unfortunately, things are never that easy—an orc massacre of a small village and a dastardly plot in the holy city of Messa force Sora to use his wits to prevent disaster without actually showing his hand. The addition of a colorful group of female adventurers and a headstrong holy woman on the run make things even more of a pain. All the while, Sora’s looking for leads towards Chris and Rurika’s missing friends, and he might just find one in Messa!
Sora has left his starting town and tries to reinvent himself as a merchant in the Holy Kingdom of Frieren. But his dreams of staying anonymous quickly shatters when his journey keeps getting interrupted by monsters. And there's something suspicious about what's going on with the Saint . . .
So I actually liked the first novel for its gradual buildup for the MC. He'd do basic chores and get a new skill. Then practice that skill and try to find other skills that either worked with it or fixed some gaps.
This volume has none of that. Instead we devolve into a slavery harem that begins by enslaving Hikari because apparently kids can't leave town without becoming slaves, and ends with Sora collecting even more slaves. All female, of course. And none of them have any issues with him enslaving them.
The rest of the book is just boring harem crap. Sora's work with a female party of adventurers could have been more interesting, except it devolves into shopping trips and cake. Lots of girl talk. I don't think he even buys a single new skill.
I wasn't expecting great literature, but I'm still annoyed by how hard this crashed. All it needed to do was to keep a focus on the crafting and gradual progression, and instead we get this brainless mush that isn't any different from the hundreds of other isekai slave harems. Not Recommended.
Much like volume, a fairly standard isekai story of a young man finding his way through a JRPG-like fantasy world and meeting young women along the way. It is just different enough to keep me interested in the story. The author is rather blasé about slavery and the associated light novel tropes. It fits the genre, but it is one of those things I could do without, not that the institution exists, but in how it is depicted. Still, as used here (mostly indentured servitude), it is not so bad that it disrupts my enjoyment of the book. All in all, a decent read for its genre and exactly what I expected it to be.
This book was a lot worse than the first, and considerably more boring. He cooks a lot, just the same stuff, but we have to have a couple of pages every time about how he's cooking soup and his slave (yeah, it's one of those) is enjoying it. And he seems to be settling into his role as just real trash. Slaves are convenient so that's OK with him. A bunch of women have been kidnapped to be horribly abused? Well, I feel like cooking some soup right now so let's leave them to it. Get a good night of sleep everyone! I hate these ones, where avoiding responsibility is presented as sensible and 'neutral'. Yuck.
This volume was less enjoyable for me than the first volume. It gets into harem territory, where there's a lot of pretty ladies around the protagonist and a notable percentage of those ladies developing crushes on him to varying weaker or stronger degrees. Yawn. It really doesn't help that the female entourage includes slaves that the protagonist buys and owns
And yet. And yet! I'm somehow compelled to read the next volume! I wanna know what happens next! ...That may say more about me than the book though to be honest
I’m surprised that I didn’t leave a review after the first time I read the book. I guess I was so excited to read the next one I forgot to come back for the review. It’s Great, and just as interesting the second time as the first.