本好きの下剋上 home thread

I will definitely probably maybe take a break at some point. Gotta read 夜市 and 博士の愛した数式 at some point too (already bought them), plus maybe books 2 and 3 of 魔法少女育成計画, and maybe 雷の季節の終わりに as well. If I only read this one series I’ll just feel empty inside once I catch up like a certain rainbow turtle shell I know.

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It’s okay; you can feed the webnovel to the void. I’m now three volumes’ worth ahead of publication :upside_down_face:

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I’ll go ahead and move the discussion that’s getting further and further away from this week’s reading here.

Anyway, spoilers

Ah, now we are at my favourite part – speculation about how the magic works. [book 3 spoilers] In the temple scene, Ferdinand says events like these are very common in children with mana who lose control of their emotions (letting mana loose in their bodies) and that the effect depends on the amount of mana, with crushing being on the high end. And even though he’s from noble society where having lots of mana is the norm, he would also have to have had lots of experience with noble children who were lacking of mana and were sent to the temple as a result. Also, shumils change the colour of their eyes and I don’t think they are shown to have a lot of mana.

Well… small children make up nonsensical words all the time. As for the weirdness, I would bet it’s more like an uncanny valley type of thing, since she unconsciously behaves in ways that are subtly off. Though I’m sure a lot of it is offset by most people naturally not really paying a lot of attention to children, especially other people’s children. Benno and Otto are kind of an outlier here, since observation is everything in their profession.

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Mostly volume 3 spoilers. A bit of volume 9 appropriately tagged.

マイン's weirdness

Well, yes, I don’t think there’s any problem with nobles recognizing what it is (they immediately do when マイン gets angry at the 神殿長). I’m just saying the commoners would not know.

About shumils, it’s a bit different, since they are 魔獣 and tiny. I’m not sure if it’s explicitly stated, but rather than the absolute quantity of mana, I think the concentration of mana is what matters for that to happen. Based on their size, it’s possible that they just reach a high enough concentration even without much magic. ぷひ.
Plus, as I said, they would have more control over their magic than a human baby so it’s also possible that they just focus their magic in their eyes for whatever reason.

I think it’s a bit more than subtle, but I guess it has to be attributed to creative license. That being said, when (volume 9 spoiler)ユストクス tried to find more about マイン, it’s true that the kids in general didn’t know/think much about her. Only the artisans found her a bit weird, but reliable anyway.

Book 3 spoilers continued

Well, I was aiming more at Ferdinand saying it’s very common, even though he presumably deals with children with low amounts of mana. If that’s the case, there is a small percent of commoner children who survive until baptism and have their eyes change colour (and a large percentage who don’t survive until baptism and have their eyes change colour). So even if it’s uncommon among commoners, it seems that it’s still not something so extraordinary to be alarmed about.

In the temple scene, Ferdinand makes it sound like it’s the result of mana freely rampaging in the body, so it seems like it automatically happens whenever someone with mana loses control over their emotions. Likewise, with shumils it happens only when they get very angry.

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Book 4 spoilers

One more thing about Benno I came across when browsing through the books. There is one scene in Book 4 where Myne collapses after spending too much mana and skipping a meal and he is offering her a lap pillow and holding her hand. Mark even has to remind him that she’s not Liz, his fiancée, and won’t necessarily end up as her. So I think there are quite compelling reasons to believe he’s attached to her due to motives beyond making profit.

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Book... 3-ish?

Uh, I did not remember that. I also don’t remember it happening to anyone else than マイン. Even in the case of ディルク the symptom is different (he got bumps on his face; that being said, he was a baby, so maybe that’s how it happens with all babies? I do not know). I assumed you needed magic to really go crazy to get that effect (or, again, possibly some specific skill/ weird party trick).

Yes, but we don’t know if it’s conscious or unconscious. Although, the expression of consciousness is a hard debate to have when it comes to actual real world animals, so for magical beasts… (By the way, other magical beasts do that as well)

I agree with that.
Also, Otto kept saying for a while that she is his water goddess (i.e. lover). I really liked the scene where Ferdinand questions them about that :stuck_out_tongue:

Here’s the part in Book 3 where it gets talked about (I bolded the relevant parts):

Summary

「先程の、威圧と言ったかな? あれは一体何だったのか、伺っても良いでしょうか? マインの目が虹色のように光って、体から薄い黄色のもやもやとしたものが出てきていたが……」

……そんな怪奇現象が起こっていたなんて知らなかったよ! 目が虹色とか、体から何か出るって、何それ!?

父さんの言葉にわたしがぎょっとした。知らないというか、見えないのは自分だけなので、わたしの驚きなど誰も気付かないらしく、話はさっさと進められていく。

「激しい感情が抑えきれなくなった時に出る現象だ。魔力が全身を巡り、活性化し、自分の敵だと認識した対象を魔力で威圧する。感情を抑えることが下手な子供には起きやすいはずだが、今まではなかったのか?

両親は顔を見合わせて、記憶を探り始めた。

「目の色が変わるのは何度か見たことがあるわ。我儘を言う時になるのよ。けれど、威圧と言うほどでもなかったわね。無理な理由を言えば、大体は収まったから」

両親は思い出話に花を咲かせているが、第三者として話を聞くと、自分の奇妙さが浮き彫りになっていく。我儘を言うと目の色が変わるような子供は正直薄気味悪いと思う。

……わたし、捨てられててもおかしくないじゃん。よくここまで大事に育ててくれたな。

魔力の差によって影響も差が出るので、以前より威力が上がっているということは、少しずつマインの魔力が増えているのだろう。これから先は暴走させないように気を付けなさい」

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Summary

Thanks for that, it includes exactly what I meant: :slight_smile:

Also, to me it doesn’t really sound like the parents take it as something that is standard, more like a thing that マイン does :thinking: But anyway, in any case they would be familiar with the fact it happens with 魔獣 so thinking about it, it’s not like it’s a completely unheard of phenomenon indeed.

Other than that, I guess literally everyone except マイン is good at controlling their emotions then :sweat_smile: Which makes sense for nobles, since 威圧 is probably the least efficient form of attack, in terms of magic consumption :thinking: You’re better off blasting raw magic with your (End of book 7?)ring or シュタップ

Summary

Yes, but right before that Myne also says that 両親は思い出話に花を咲かせているが, so they don’t seem to be all that perturbed by it either.

Also, they have magical tools to manage any excess mana.

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Summary

is what perturbes me :sweat_smile:

So does マイン as soon as volume 4 (well, not tools but holy thingy, but it takes mana too) :thinking: That being said, she has ridiculous amounts of excess mana.

Summary

It might not, if you had to deal with things like screaming vegetables your whole life.

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We are almost done with the book, and some plot strats moving.

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By the way, as we are nearing the end of volume 2, is there anyone with the paper version who could provide pages counts for the schedule of volume 3?

Also, I’m planning to have a break week, so that volume 3 would start on January 9th, if that’s fine with everyone.

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Got pretty far behind thanks to getting sniped by a speed-reading challenge, but I just caught up on last week today, planning to catch up on this week tomorrow.

I have a paper copy at home, so I can get you the numbers this weekend if nobody else has beaten me to the punch.

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これで『本好きの下剋上』は完結です。
長いお話にお付き合いくださり、ありがとうございました。

:sob:

I love the 5th arc! And I loved the ending.
Well, hopefully I can go back to a normal life now and read other things.
Like the other series set one year later from the point of view of (Volume 13+ character)Hanelore
I’m also really looking forward to the published (and improved) version.

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お疲れさまでした!

I’m not sure that counts as other things, haha. I also see nothing wrong with that though. ^^

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It looks like the time I’ll finally catch up with Re:zero is getting even further away :eyes:

So far… it’s different, I guess, since it’s not told from the point of view of a reincarnated bookworm. It feels more like standard fantasy. Also, so far, it’s mostly romance oriented, so quite different in tone too.
Mostly, I’m just in it for the マイン cameos. :stuck_out_tongue:

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And it’s a wrap, folks. Personally, after reading that part, I went straight for the next volume…
… To be fair, I went straight for the next volume at the end of literally every volume until I reached the end, but hey, it’s still true.

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I’m now up to date with that too… considering the author is only writing 1~2 chapters per year, it’s going to take a while. I assume things will pick up once the main series has been completely published (in… 3 years or so I guess).

It’s fun to see more of the characters and I really like the universe, but I really wonder how the publisher will take it. Again, the tone is very different from the main series, so it’s not like you would keep the same readership, but at the same time you can’t really follow if you don’t know the original story. :thinking:

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