Our MC is a human trafficker, murderer, sex pest, and all-around vile person, but worst of all: he’s bad at the video game.
Disclaimer: Mild spoilers up to Volume 10 unmarked otherwise this entire thread would be a spoiler. I will only be mentioning his abilities/strategies while avoiding actual plot points.
Now, Michio does not have any grand ambitions. Here is are the simple goals he has I’m judging him on:
- Avoiding attention and staying safe in general
- Living a secluded, but luxurious life with his slave harem
- Making a living mainly off exploring the labyrinths
Money-Making
The protag makes most of his money early as a merchant, but within the first 2 volumes he already gets the knowledge to safely become filthy rich:
Magic crystals:
• Take little inventory space - Pocket Sized!
• Gain equal value from any kill
• Scale rapidly with [Crystal Acceleration]
With Roxanne tracking enemies, access to trap rooms full of weak mobs, and AoE spells, he can easily charge these crystals. He later gets rich but in a much slower manner.
Gear
Despite his wealth, he upgrades gear slowly instead of buying the best equipment. Instead he could be:
• Participating in auctions himself
• Offering auction winners ample money directly
• Participating in more than one city’s auction house
• Giving his personal broker a larger budget
The best gear would make the MC near invincible. Status effects are extremely overpowered, but are reliant on good gear with multiple “Skill Slots”. By far, his best option is magic which allows him to status effect groups of enemies from afar at higher rates. Here’s a simple weapon he could very easily make:
Wand, Staff, Etc. with:
• Chant Delay – Stun locks enemies that try to cast a skill
• Petrification – Infinitely stuns enemies on proc
• MP Absorption – Endlessly cast spells
He could also add more status effects, Ignore Defense, Increase Damage, or HP Absorption. Keep in mind he shouldn’t add stat buffs to weapons like he does in the novel since those can be added to his armor. Mid-tier armor alone with the proper enchantments could give the protag near-magic immunity, doubled stats, and status resistance.
Additionally despite consumables (MP potions, health potions, Status heals) being cheap, he only buys a few at a time and doesn’t even stock his full party with them.
Keep in mind we don’t know all the “Skill Crystals” and consumables out there. There’s probably even more OP effects that we don’t know about.
Knowledge
Michio is extremely paranoid, but barely tries to learn about the world. He:
• Never learns to read/write
• Rarely asks experts about the world
• Relies on Roxanne and Sherry to notice gaps in his knowledge
Worst of all despite already giving Roxanne and Sherry enough knowledge to easily make him an enemy of the state, he refuses to share his origins or full abilities with either of them. Those two, Sherry especially, are intelligent enough that they could easily come up with ideas that make the party exponentially more powerful. Heck, it would probably improve his “relationship” with both of them by sharing the rest of his ultimately inconsequential secrets.
Here is just some of the things they could help him to become more powerful
• Tell him more jobs and how to get them
• Explain world politics
• Teach him the enchantments/item sources
• Strategize for the party
• Improving faster by understanding the game mechanics themselves
• (Sherry) would willingly enchant more items knowing the success is guaranteed
Instead he keeps secrets just so the author can repeat the same interaction where most of his party praises his abilities and Sherry becomes confused or suspicious of Michio’s abilities.
Ability Use
Throughout the entire story, our protagonist tends to use a random assortment of skills. He gets 100-150 skill points to allocate across abilities.
He spends 20 points on Durandal, despite it being replacable by Volume 4. It’s impossible to know the exact best loadout since the math isn’t consistent in the novel (and completely different in the manga) but here’s a conservative optimal loadout:
4-7 Jobs : ~7-63p
- Explorer, A job to impersonate, or his highest level job
- 2+ Magic casting jobs
- Assassin – boost status effect chance
- Optional: Hero (stat boost), Gambler (status effects), a job to power level
Chant Omission 4p
Character Reset 1p
Leveling
EXP Boost x5-x20 ~7-63p
- This applies to the whole party if you land the killing blow
Reduced EXP (1/2)->(1/5) ~1-7 skill points
- This only applies to the user but is useful to save skill points
Money Making
Crystal Acceleration x64-x128 ~63-127p
Daily life
MP Regeneration x64-x128 ~63-127p
Price Negotiation 1p
Appraisal 1p
Tough Fights
Meteor Storm 1p
Dumping remaining points into INT for magic damage
[Spoiler his worst mistake Vol. 13]
At the end of volume 13 he wastes an expensive consumable item to buff Durandal making it incredibly powerful. However, he now has the commit 20p to keeping the Holy Sword or risk losing the buff.
Party Formation and Dynamics
In the novels, the main party mainly relies on Michio himself, Roxanne and a tank girl. Sherry does not keep up, but is useful to level. The remaining party members are strong, but fill roles that MC does 100x better.
With how the fights go, it’s pretty clear he would do best with just 5 tank or agile members that draw attention away from him while he wipes everything out with the gear above.
When leveling it’s better if he only takes a few members, but he always takes the full party. For example, he could take a Sherry and Roxanne to power levels on the middle levels. This has two main benefits: giving his party members advanced jobs faster and giving him an excuse to stay on the middle levels. For most of the novels, he is trying his hardest to advance through the floors as slow as possible.
Here are some way better job choices than he currently runs:
[Spoiler Party and Jobs]
~!Roxanne:
1. Hero: best stat boosts, skill, and would allow her to use the best melee weapons
2. Beast King – race specific with decent stat boosts and works well with her fighting style
3. Paladin – worse than above but decent enough
Sherry
1. Jobless – fast to level up and allows her to use any of her unequipped jobs' skills
2. Master Smith – less work than above with slightly better stat bonuses
Miria
1. Honestly replace her with a tank but if not:
2. Gambler: has a skill that allows bosses to take status effects
3. Diver: bonus damage to aquatic monsters and agile
4. Explorer: let her carry stuff or help escape
Vesta - already has the perfect job
Rutina
1. Find a powerful job that buffs others
2. Shrine Maiden/Monk: healing and status effect removal
3. Replace her with another tank
4. Jobless: Allow her to start out attacking and switch to a healer mid-fight if needed !~
Additionally, Michio wastes his party's time doing housework and dealing with public affairs. He could hire people do all that for him or go all-in on his human trafficking character and buy more slaves.
If for some reason you read this, let me know if I’m also missing something else. I wrote this just to vent my frustration at the MC being awful at the game while I was trying to accept him as just an evil, unlikable character.
