Spoilers for the current week should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
Please mention where you are in the book, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting, but please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week.
If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That’s a welcome part of the discussion, and other readers will be happy to help.
Even if you don’t read the chapter(s) in time, you are still encouraged to post your thoughts.
Cultural References
Here is a selection of references that appear in this chapter, with brief descriptions and links to further reading.
I just realized I have no idea where to stop for this week, since there’s no page number in the ebook version If someone knows what the last sentence is, I can at least keep an eye out for that.
I didn’t know Bookwalker had page numbers. I’m using Booklive, which is a sister company, so I would expect a similar behavior, but I guess not.
Booklive only gives percentages.
I think I’m bowing out. I CAN read this text, but with all the lookups I need to do it’s such a slog. Here and there I get a few moments of really liking the narration style so I think I might shelf this for when it’d be an easier read. Hopefully I’ll join you all in the next one
It would be great to have this for the future chapters as I am reading the ebook as well. Just the word that the chapter ends with, or something, is enough to Ctrl+F our way around
That’s an hilarious comparison. I do like the style so far.
Also, the rest of the description made me instinctively root for コンラット. Go コンラット, show those inhumanely 美形 that’s not all it takes.
希望としては三番
待ってくれ。あまりに『お』が多すぎてよく判らない。
ナルニア、じゃなかった、なるほど
(I’m not going to copy everything, but I do like the main character’s banter)
The author lampshading the plot is also interesting. I see it quite often in modern LNs, but didn’t expect it from older work.
Some more references this time. One is (I guess) to ハマの大魔神 (which is indeed a different ほにゃら)
@bibliothecary maybe you could add that to future weeks? Since your version seems to have pages, it’s easier for you to look that info up than for me to calculate where the approximate point would be.
I also really enjoy Yuuri’s narration style and his ‘comments’!
Spoiler
Is this… a reference to something in particular? Because I really felt lost at this part… especially on the page where he says ほにゃら 4 or 5 times, no idea what he meant there… (photo below)
ほにゃら (or ほにゃらら) is a placeholder you use in place of a word (or group of words). I guess you could translate it by “something something”. He is using it here to do some 現実逃避 from the word itself.
The first sentence is a reference to the German song Erlkönig (魔王 in Japanese).
The second one is an anime character (ハクション大魔王)
The third is a former pro baseball player (元 is because there’s another one who took the “title” after he retired) ハマの大魔神.
The last sentence is because the MC realized that he made a mistake (it’s 魔神, not 魔王)
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation! They really use a lot of references in the book (I had no idea about the german song and the anime character), it’s easy to get lost but also really fun to learn about!
I can’t believe you got all that. Though I was aware of ハクション大魔王 .
Based on the title, I don’t know why the reveal in this section got to me. It should be obvious…but kind of an interesting twist. Like a lot of isekai light novels it seems like this story is based on lampooning the Dragon Quest-type fantasy setting tropes.
Finished week 2. Phew, still quite a few lookups, but it’s getting smoother. (I might also just be ignoring some of 有利’s tangents…) I should be commenting more on the story, but I still remember quite a bit from my manga-reading days, so all my brain can come up with is, “yep, that sounds right, I remember that…” I didn’t even register the twist as one.
No worries, I totally see where you’re coming from! This really snuck up on me as a tougher book myself; it’s harder imo than the “adult” (as opposed to an LN) novels we’ll read in the mystery club. There’s truly no way to really know ahead of time…
Right with you here. コンラート is best boy so far. I do like goofy pretty boys, though; ギュンター has potential.
Another reference that would have slipped by me unnoticed:
미남(미형)의 일본어 발음은 bikei, 경비는 keibi. 울트라 경비대의 활약을 그린 유명 특촬물 '울트라 세븐’에서 가져온 말장난.
In Japanese, “handsome man” is pronounced bikei, and “guard” is keibi. It’s a pun from the famous tokusatsu called “Ultra Seven”, about the exploits of the Ultra Guard.
Yuuri: Dude’s like SUPER ULTRA AMAZINGLY beautiful… doesn’t look too bright, though.
Savage! As if Mr. Speak-broken-Japanese-to-foreigners can judge anyone…
If someone knows what the last sentence is, I can at least keep an eye out for that.
losing his words, I see.
Phew, still quite a few lookups, but it’s getting smoother. (I might also just be ignoring some of 有利’s tangents…) I should be commenting more on the story, but I still remember quite a bit from my manga-reading days, so all my brain can come up with is, “yep, that sounds right, I remember that…” I didn’t even register the twist as one. 
