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If you enjoy turning your brain off for some light dungeon exploring with minimal world building with a side of slave-girls it's an OK read!

I can distinctly remember two segments that are genuinely good in the LN, the first one being when Michio is exploring the starting town at night trying to find and take care of a bandit gang. During these segments we receive some decent exposition exploring this town's workings surrounding the bandits and how Mochio should operate to deal with them. The second segment being a near death encounter in the dungeon that he sets out to explore. These moments are a ... great contrast to the other chapters of the LN because it's mostly downhill from here.

The LN's overall structure is slow paced. This can be explained by the story's non-exclusive focus one dungeons and the fact that Michio is somewhat cautious when exploring , which is not an inherent problem. However when it's combined with excessive retelling of similar dungeon exploring moments it gets drab pretty quickly. This combined with the subpar world building and little character interactions leads to a situation where the world feels empty and lifeless.

As the synopsis states, there are video game systems implemented in the story that are tied to character growth. I usually love rigid leveling systems, seeing the main character min-maxing his potential growth as well as its straightforwardness in determining power levels. While Michio is the guy to min-max, he is completely terrible at it, to the point of frustration. Not only does he pick bad builds but the LN math is incorrect when calculating the different benefits that he receives, leaving an awful experience when reading segments that focus on min-maxing.

There is a reason why the manga and anime focuses on ecchi, which did not even exist in the LN. It's because the other aspects are not that well written or unique. If you want to read the LN, the first book is the best one by far, so go on ahead. However I personally do not recommend this LN.