Title says it all. The writer is just coasting on clichés that these types of stories always employ rather than trying to tell a story. I read up to chapter 19 before I wasn't able to stop screaming at the writing to stop sucking so much so there will be spoilers ahead. I will mark them, but this story is not worth reading so I don't think you're missing anything if you go through them.
To start with this is a story all about how a hypercompetent butler is fired from his place of employ as a lady's magic genie servant after he failed to complete her latest unreasonable request. The person doing the firing, knowing that he was requested to kill a dragon as part of said request, something that is evidently going to be a tall order for anyone even in this magical setting, states without any doubt that he is "replaceable" after he faints from exhaustion from doing what most people would be rewarded with a kingdom for.
So that's an entire household of morons to start with.
He then tries to become an adventurer where he meets and starts working for another noble house's young lady after he washes some clothes using his magic to literally replicate how a washing machine works, and his skill to kill a bird belonging to an atavistic species (smart birds molt and change feathers, this one's species kept its plumage across its lifetime to the extent where their white feathers turn black and indestructible due to accumulated dirt) in order to build a soft bed because the lady's father has a hard time sleeping on non-soft beds that usually only royalty use. That sound stupid? It is stupid.
Now as for why his new master is also a noble lady rather than her father? Well romance of course. Also her father doesn't have the right kind of boobs for the reader to ogle. And shower scenes. Many, many shower scenes where the lady is naked, covered in soap bubbles (not enough to hide her nipples properly) and contemplating how cool the butler is and how much she cares about him and being useful to him.
Then we find out that the aforementioned moron noble house was also a corrupt moron noble house and decided to surreptitiously take a mountain of gold ingots that the butler MC would have received from the princess he saved from the aforementioned dragon. NOTE: This is the first time we hear about the butler saving a princess or this gold and it's only because it's about to become relevant in a few pages. Abandoning my sarcasm for a bit here just to say that this is NOT how you set a plot point up. Introducing a new character and a reason for why an antagonist is about to be nuked from the story a few pages before you do so is lazy as all hell.
On top of that, the head noble of moron house, a viscount iirc, also decided to sell his daughter to an allied noble house's scion, a fat man who was never taught any table manners because as we all know nobles don't care about appearances and manners. When the daughter, formerly presented as "spoiled", from now on presented as "spoiled but with reasons to behave like that and also maybe not that bad actually", opens her mouth to softly protest being forced to marry a man who eats using both of his hands and no tableware in the middle of a ball held by royalty, he smacks her across the face in public. Because he's a moron and the writer really thinks we can't pick that up.
The moron house's lady finds butler boy being fought over by the princess and his new employer master future wife damsel in distress person who pays him and gives him a place to live (I honestly don't know how to describe her, she's painfully badly characterized) and displays how she has brainwashed him to listen to her orders to which the new noble lady reacts by telling butler boy to stop lying to her which is deranged as the man is currently undergoing mental conditioning in front of her very eyes. Afteward the story tries to make us care about moron noble lady by showing us her life was hard, but she did essentially keep butler boy as a slave and sent him to slay dragons for her so honestly don't care that much.
Here I'll stop to mention that the new lady master, the FMC basically, shower fanservice lady, is named Urk. I didn't want to mention her name because it's the stupidest name I've ever read. The word "urk" is usually used as onomatopoeia for expressions of surprise or being hit so every time a character's dialogue is just her name I don't know if they're calling for her or just got kicked in the balls. I suspect the name was intended to be Urd, since her brother's name is Frey so maybe it's Norse inspired, but the English version I read has her name as the word that a punch to the nards would generate and that's what we'll use.
As for moron noble lady with a reason to be a jerk (her name is "Wenty" but again I assume the actual name should be "Wendy"), I admit that I would like it if that story point was properly used and developed, maybe making butler boy actually care for her instead of having a meltdown the moment she gave him an "order" but the entire part where she's told she's being sold off to what looks like an anthropomorphic pig with a human face and then bitchslapped by her father for opening her mouth is so badly paced that you don't even get to feel things for her, be it feel bad or like she's getting what she deserves. The pacing is atrocious.
Then starts a story about how 500 billion monster locusts are coming to get them. Number seems high but the biggest IRL locust swarm recorded was estimated at 3.5 trillion so... whatever I guess. I'm doing a bulletpoint on this one because otherwise this will be too long (hah!):
1. Butler boy proposes that his lemon water concoction (that he introduced at the start of the arc because Chekov's Gun should be fired as soon as possible after it's introduced) can be used to slow down the locust swarm. Not sure where he was planning on getting the water and lemons needed to make what's required to affect 500 thousand million insects in the week (later revealed to actually be 3 days) they have before they're eaten but... magic I guess.
2. Butler boy and Urk talk constantly about how much they care for one another, butler boy makes realizations about how important Urk is for him AS HE IS FIGHTING MONSTERS THAT HAVE INVADED A VILLAGE completely out of the blue because the writer needs to make the connections
3. Butler boy tells Urk that she is a precious person to him and that he will protect her. This is stupid because Urk is introduced as a competent fighter and adventurer. He then tearfully hugs her. They still consider themselves to be butler and employer after this interaction. At that point I figured that even post-coitus they would still be employer and employee because the writer obviously didn't really think that title through all that well. This is happening in chapter 17 iirc. So basically 20 chapters in and in any normal story he'd just be Urk's fiancée or boyfriend at the least. But this is a shounen manga so relationships are terrifying things.
4. Butler boy calls the discovery that monster locusts can eat and adopt the properties of ore such as gold the "greatest discovery in human history" after one was fed a gold bar and another person calls him a genius for this later on. This is only true if nobody every tried to investigate these things (which would require looking into their diet because they destroy full cities and towns) and human history has not had any other discoveries whatsoever.
5. This image of the swarm's master is the only non-stupid thing this entire arc has to offer and actually manages to be quite creepy.
6. Urk needs to have the realization that she cares for butler boy despite constantly thinking about him and talking about how much she wants to be of use to him and decides to join him at the front lines after she's goaded into revealing her true feelings by her uncle just as the aforementioned swarm master attacks them.
7. Butler boy needs to have the realization that he cares for Urk despite constantly talking about how great she is and how she taught him to have free will and also that whole confession scene where he refers to her as some he cares about... Do you SEE how annoying and repetitive this gets? I get that the writer wants to make the relationship a central part of the plot but it's just tiresome by this point.
8. After his wholly original realization that he loves the person he has SUBTLY HINTED THAT HE HAS FEELINGS FOR WHILE CALLING HER HIS PRECIOUS ONE he languishes that he cannot go help her immediately as he needs to keep the frontlines in order but he is then reminded that he has allies. This is stupid because THIS WAS A MILITARY OPERATION THAT HE ENGAGED WITH ALONGSIDE THE GODDAMNED ARMY so how did he need to be told that he's not alone when he has an army behind him? Is he that stupid? They literally have meetings before the operation where they discuss plans and movement so how the hell does it get to a point where he needs reminding that he's not alone and he can rely on his nakama?
And much more but this is as far as I can go. Even getting to this point was more a matter of morbid curiosity pushing me forward to see where this complete car crash of a series can go.
I see that this is a writer & artist combo series so it doesn't surprise me that not only is the art far above the writing quality but it also surpasses the writing in storytelling. There is a part where the plans the army made are shown entirely in the art with no dialogue and honestly just make the whole story like that at that point. The dialogue and narration barely add anything extra to the art itself. It is therefore hilarious that the main character butler boy's name is Art because the art is indeed carrying this series.
I dunno if it's a case of the writer just being new or something, but the writing is honestly atrocious. Not in a way where it makes no sense but rather there is nothing interesting about it. It's just checking genre stereotypes and not actually trying to tell a story. The writer exists just to write down some words to go with the artwork.
I don't think anyone is expecting much from a story with that title, it's pretty obvious what it's about and how it will go, but it still manages to disappoint somehow. Even if it's a paint by numbers cliché story, the writer still needs to give a crap and try to give it a reason to exist which is not the case here. If decent art is your go to and you just need a stupid generic "strongest under the heavens ordinary dude treated like crap until he shows them all how cool he is" story, I guess it could work but there are other, much better written ones out there that actually try to make a point.
For me, the fact that I felt the need to come here and leave a review this long should tell you one of two things: either this series insulted me to the core of my being, or I really had nothing better to do. Since I started reading this series and went all the way to the start of chapter 19 despite the vitriol I appear to have for it, I think you can surmise which of the two options is the one that applies here.
Gave it a 3 only for the art which, while decent to good, is not phenomenal and still is shackled to a bad story to begin with. Artist does have skill though.
(-39)
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