Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 08, 2022 11:46 AM (LZ7Bg)

Posted by: Mauser at September 10, 2022 10:19 AM (BzEjn)

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This surprised me by being better than it deserves to be.

The hero, Shu Ogata, lives on Bayron City, a floating city over the largest underwater Orgonium mine in the world. Orgonium (who remembers "Orgone Energy"?) is a powerful energy source that has made Bayron City insanely wealthy. Yet somehow Shu is broke all the time.

Bayron City is also beset by Demons, something the local government is trying to keep secret. Classed A through D for their power levels, most of them Contract with and possess a human and, well, that generally doesn't work out too well for the human but they keep doing it anyway. Because of some international anti-weapons treaty, the cops are underpowered for dealing with the menace, so the mayor sends out contracts to the various PMCs, or Private Military Contractors to take out the demons when they appear (another part of why it generally doesn't work out too well for the human involved). One of the biggest is AAA. Shu used to work for AAA, and was dating Ayano, the daughter of the president of the company and a captain among the troops. But three years earlier he left the company and started his own PMC. And even though it's just Shu and Kisara, they are extremely successful and piss off all the other PMCs because they regularly underbid them, and they reluctantly admit he gets the job done. Yet somehow Shu is broke all the time.

Now Kisara appears to be a school-age girl with pink hair, but she's actually the only Class-A demon out there. And Shu made a different kind of contract with her where instead of trading his soul for one desire, he parcels off chunks of his memory (Typically a month at a time) and gives it to Kisara to power her up in the form of a kiss.

Ayano still carries a torch for Shu, but given her Tsundere nature, she must have traded her wooden rake to another villager for it. She's been bailing Shu out with money and information all the time (yet somehow Shu is broke all the time.) And at first she doesn't understand why Shu infuriatingly doesn't seem to remember how much they meant to each other. And all he can do is make empty apologies for the things he doesn't remember he did. But by the midpoint, she learns exactly what the contract with Kisara means, and she doesn't like it one bit.

Bit of background. When he was a child, Shu's dad was participating in a safety inspection of the mine, that was more of a PR outing. He and many dignitaries brought their families, including Shu and his little sister. Then there was a disaster, everyone but Shu died, and Bayron City covered up that it was Demons, and scapegoated Shu's dad. So one of his motivations is to restore the family name. Another is to get revenge on the demon who did it, and the third is that he believes his sister is somehow still alive and wants to save her.

It's kind of interesting because of the way the story and background slowly peel like the layers of an onion. It's a little annoying with the juvenility of Kisara and Ayano dueling over Shu's affection. Especially when it turns out that Shu was also fucking the nun-like demon hunter who shows up to try to kill Kisara about halfway through. (And how he gets out of that mess is just... you have to see it.) Apparently he was seducing his way through the demon-hunting ranks just to get to the point of accomplishing his goals, and that included capturing and contracting with Kisara.

It also reminds me a bit of takt op.Destiny in how the girl's power comes at a cost to the guy.

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In the market for a trash hentai isekai? We've got right what you're looking for here.

Hero McProtagonist blows right through the warning screen on this new VR game that says he won't be able to log out, and wakes up in his track suit in a barn. (Sheesh, even Al Sharpton eventually gave up his track suits). He's barefoot though, and he sees a pair of sandals in the corner of the barn, puts them on, and is rewarded with the Thief job class. (The game has multiple job classes that you can equip up to 5 of, in a ranked order). Fortunately he spent a lot of his character creation points on a hugely overpowered sword, and a few other skills he wasn't sure what they were for. Apparently there's no tutorial stage.

Bandits attack the village, and while the villagers try to fend them off, he debates entering the fray, but after identifying the leader, he jumps in and beheads him with his overpowered sword and proceeds to one-shot most of the other bandits, even as they're running away. The village elder puts him up for the night, and reveals a storehouse full of the loot from the bandits, although our hero notes that the special bandana the leader was wearing was replaced with a plain one. The Elder brings forth the culprit, and our hero finds out that regular justice is the guy is to be sold into slavery. He'll get half the proceeds as the victim, and the culprit's family gets the other half as compensation for their loss of a strong back.

Yikes!

The elder also shows him how they summon someone's character card from their left hand with a chant, but if you can't do that, well, chopping off the left hand and presenting that to the knight's guild will let them retrieve it and determine if there was a bounty on it.

Double yikes!

The elder gives him a lift to town with a wagon load of booty, which they sell off, and their thief, whom they also sell off. He warns him off the dangerous parts of town, and the Brothels. Although for a virgin gamer like him, the prospect sounds very enticing. After the Elder departs, McProtagonist gets invited back inside by the slave trader, who sees him as a pigeon ready to be plucked, er, as a potential customer. Figuring him for an adventurer, he tells him about two ways to make money. Either the labyrinth that recently sprung up outside of town, or hunting bounties. Bounties being possibly more profitable, but more dangerous, he suggests the labyrinth. Adventurers, he tells him, often buy slaves to fill out their party. Then the trap is baited by the pretty wolfkin slavegirl in a maid outfit named Roxanne who serves them tea. Then he springs it by pointing out that slaves can't betray their masters (As in they die with you unless you have a will that frees them), that since she's a wolfkin he can fuck her without her getting pregnant or any diseases, and that she's already consented to getting freaky with her master. This apparently pushes all of his buttons. She can be had for a mere 422,800 "Nars". Mind you, they only got 30,000 for the village thief - good thing nobody asked him where he got the sandals... That price also includes the maid outfit.... And he gives him 5 days to raise the money.

(Strangely, the subtitles asterisk out the translation of "Onna Dorei" (Female slave) even in the supposedly uncut version I found.)

So he goes into the labyrinth, kills a bunch of 1st level tree monsters, retrieves the stick remains they drop, and turns them in for cash, and quickly figures out he'll never make the price at that rate. He does learn a bit about some of his skills and the costs of the game system. So he decides to go into the slums and kill some bandits. But first, he does some scouting.

One advantage McProtagonist has is that he is fully into "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" and has absolutely no moral compunctions brought with him from Japan. After all, he wants to buy himself a big-titty slave girl to bed and adventure with, so getting into the bandit gang's house and killing a bunch of them asleep in their beds and lopping off their hands is no big deal.

Needless to say, he makes enough cash, buys the girl, and is quite a bit nicer to her than she expects. He even asks her consent when he shifts from foreplay to the main event. And is only momentarily bothered when he wonders if that really counts when she can't refuse him as a slave.

She is useful in the dungeon. She's great at sniffing out monsters.

And that's about how far we get in 5 episodes. Which doesn't leave a lot of time to fill out the rest of the harem.

I have questions though....

Posted by: J Greely at August 06, 2022 07:43 PM (oJgNG)

Posted by: Mauser at August 07, 2022 12:05 AM (BzEjn)

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at August 08, 2022 08:19 AM (LZ7Bg)

Posted by: Mauser at August 20, 2022 05:33 PM (BzEjn)

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