Synopsis
Ever wonder what happened to the Isekai’d gamer who found himself incarnated into the overweight body of a LitRPG farmer, only to spit in the face of destiny and earn more money and experience than anyone ever dreamed possible? Fairytales would have you believe he lived happily ever after, but life doesn’t always match up to fairytale endings.
Accidentally murdered by a cleric in another universe during a botched resurrection, Arnold, a semi-pro gamer turned clerical error, has now become a thorn in the vindictive Northern Regent’s side. To make matters worse, he has a giant stuck in his well. And the adventurers’ guilds are pounding on his door for the chance to kill it. Which is more than a little annoying, as all Arnold wants to do is focus on taking his trap method wide while he builds a farm to give down-on-their-luck farmers like him a chance.
However, there is “one” little problem with his plan…
Changing the world isn’t easy. And Arnold needs an entire industry that doesn’t currently exist. And resource management is hard. And trying to find good employees is difficult. And Blackwood doesn’t have the infrastructure to support all these people, even if he does. And the regent is out for blood and trying to ruin him. And no matter what he tries, the giant won’t die. And for some reason, Ranic wants him to find a goal that gives his life meaning.
So let’s see how well his happily ever after really goes…
Review
Arnold is on track to profit and levels but now he just has problems on a much larger scale. He’s got an unkillable giant, thousands of employees, and not nearly enough trade deals. He also needs to figure out what are his long term goals once he can gain a second class. Adventurer sounded cool when he first arrived but that doesn’t feel right anymore.
The story feels very crowded, as Arnold is trying to manage a monster murder farm, the whole town he owns, all the industries that feed into maintaining and upgrading his murder farm, and the philanthropy projects he’s trying to start. Even when Arnold delegates, he constantly has meetings with the heads of different teams.
Most characters from the first book return and many move to Blackwood so we see them a lot. If you struggle with large casts of characters this can be challenging. I recommend reading this book shortly after the first to ease the difficulty.
This ends up being a farm builder, city builder, and very nearly empire builder story. It’s both exhausting and really neat.
LitRPG elements
The system messages are the same as the first book but book two expands on larger scale systems. There are special interfaces a Farm Manager can access and perks that apply to Arnold’s employees. They get visual overlays so trap operators can see area of effect and safe zones.
The village interface is used as they work to restore and expand Blackwood. Noble and royal systems are touched upon. We even examine how the human system differs from that of other sentient races.
There aren’t more system messages but the amount of technical theorizing by characters has certainly increased.
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