The romance angle is still there but completely twisted. Zhou Peiyu and Zhu Jiajia's one-night stand was supposed to be a romantic moment, but now it's a biohazard. The fact that he's immune but she's turning into a monster creates a tragic romantic tension. Can he save her? Does he even want to after what she did? Their relationship went from strangers to intimacy to horror in a day.
I’m not a fan of the system’s voice prompts being so repetitive. “Ding! Successfully completed… congratulations!” It’s the same formula every time. It makes the system feel like a robot from a budget mobile game. I wish the author would vary the dialogue a bit, or at least add some personality to the system.
I'm genuinely curious if the narrator will ever find out what's really going on with his master's plans.
I liked how the explosion scene hooked me right away. It wasn't just a random bang, they made it clear that police being fast in the lower city means big trouble, and then the detector going off for Strange Dream residue tells you this world has these weird stuff. The description of the warehouse looking like it was kneaded by a giant hand was vivid, and the fact that the coffin survived even though everything else was destroyed got me curious about what a Strange Dream really is. It feels like a fresh take on paranormal smuggling, not your typical magic system.
1 Ronnie’s complaint about the Black Dragon being second-to-last in Chromatic Dragons is hilarious and shows the author knows D＆D lore. But then his scales being multicolored breaks that stereotype. This suggests Ronnie is something entirely new not just a Black Dragon. The World Dragon tag on the character sheet confirms it. I’m curious what unique abilities this hybrid form will have.
The ritual that she starts to develop is what really sells the 'Video Game Logic' for me. She immediately tries to give Tanaka-san a last rite. 'May his soul find peace.' And then she doesn't even get to finish it because the level-up trumpet goes off. '...Ah, this game has a Level system.' The game literally does not care about her emotional processing. It just wants her to level up. The story is completely aware of how this robs death of meaning, and it uses it for both comedy and a subtle tragedy. Will she eventually stop trying to say a prayer? Will the trumpet always cut her off? It's a great running gag but also a subtle commentary on the genre. It perfectly shows how the protagonist is being co-opted into a gamemaster's cosmic joke. The death of the students at the gate is handled similarly.