The book starts off greatly, with some character named Rod whose trying to justify being some nasty mf by saying that the frigging cloud of dust that permeates through his room is not a calling to clean the goddamned place but is instead a "beautiful representation of angels and demons locked in a eternal battle". Later he claims not to know why his mother calls him a prima donna. Yes, it turns out Rod was a kid. I had pictured in my mind a full-grown adult squatting in this slum-like room in the middle of the dark gazing at the dirt, so that was awkward. Anyways, Rod invites over some friend named "Mike" who after little convincing persuades Rod to sell his first-born in exchange for borrowing some cheap pirate version cartridge of Final Fantasy named "First Fantasy" for a week. Worst deal with an eldritch entity, ever. At least you should give him the game, "Mike"! Borrow for a week, seriously? He has the console, how are you planning on playing without the console? I suppose it was easy to trick the idiot, given this is the scene when the cartridge appears "And then, out of the top of Mike's backpack, it appeared, as if Mike was a god and the cartridge within was a soul he was lifting from the very pits of damnation". And he wonders why his mom calls him a prima donna
Before we get to question the entire scene, we get some awful ellipsis and jump straight into meeting Max, the to-be-sold first-born, and minute one we realize... like father, like son. The dim-wit is so much a simp that the (female) coworkers treat him worse than garbage, yelling him to get back to work after the guy literally collapses on his feet while (presumably) experiencing hallucinations, and then dumping all the workload on him since they have to take an "extended smoke break", but he doesn't even sighs. Then the boss, Dave, shows in the scene and Max thinks inwardly "ohh, this bastard! I want to punch him in the face, he's the worse" and proceeds to tell him that he burnt an entire batch of brownies to what the evil boss Dave says "It's okay, it happens", and after arguing that he should have a smile while tending the customers (which is reasonable) he even cuts him some slack because Max is "stressed", simply going to his office. Yeah, pure slaver boss right there. Few scenes later, Max gives in to some other female coworker that's obviously lying to get off work early, and covers for her while thinking if she has a boyfriend. On his way back home, his roommate (whom he hates, because... He plays a lot of games? Because he earns more money than he does? IDK) tells him that his dad, Rod, left him a message, but Max doesn't want to talk to his dad because, guess what, yeah he hates his guts for "not being there". Few paragraphs later he confesses that the "not being there" only begins after Max is in his mid teens because Rod hit it square with his art and became rich, yet incredibly busy. So, in summary. Max hates men, in particular those who are richer than him, and simps for every girl he meets. Great character.
Eventually the whole Isekai thing kicks in and he has to rescue the princess chained in the tower. Yes. That's the plot. But Tim Paulson must have realized that between the Grim Brothers and Nintendo that sort of plot requires a little twisting, sort of like when you copy your classmate's homework but have to change the wording a little. So Max has to rescue the vampire princess from the tower, so as to get her off the clutches of the evil Holy warriors of Light. Like the book summary says: "The light has ruled for a thousand years. Now it ends". Spoiler alert, it didn't.
The character isekais like a one HP, zero stats skeleton, and gets trashed the entire book and killed at least a dozen times by about every character he meets, including his team-mate, the berserker "Raeg" (right, because rage) that's a self-serving asshole who apports nothing to the plot, not much unlike Max, the protagonist. By the time I got tired of seeing the protagonist making awful choices like picking a melee class when he can't even lift an axe, or trying to rescue yet another princess (goblin, this time) from the evil clutches of the warriors of light for some unseen reward that might or might not even exist, I also realized that other than names the "Dark" and the "Light" have little to no consequence from a moral perspective. Basically meaning, the idiot main character hasn't and probably won't ever face any moral challenges derived from belonging to the "Dark" faction, given that, well. It's not really dark. Overall, a poorly constructed plot trying to lever on the "dark" aesthetic to somehow knit some interest to the readers, and failing miserably, while also royally failing at being funny as it attempts, or even being a proper litRPG with loot, stats and skill selections, since the loot is crap and Max lacks both stats and skill selections. 2/10
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