A Background Character's Path to Power - Chapter 86: One Piece at a Time

Below the nine setting suns lies the remains of the Golden Crows.By chance, a young man arrives in the world of Journey to the West, attaining enlightenment using the bodies of nine Golden Crows, leading to a different journey.Summary for this book: “Living in the Journey to the West, I started off by roasting nine Golden Crows.”Yet another summary is, “My days of collecting bodies in the Journey to the West. When it comes to body collection, no one's better than me. Three hundred years of professional body collection experience, skilled at cooking braised meat, and never adds sugar in it.”

Warning This fiction contains:

Graphic Violence Profanity Sensitive Content

Summary – Level 1:

Delve is an isekai litrpg that follows an average guy who just happened to wake up in a forest one day. He wasn’t summoned to defeat the demon lord or to save the world or anything like that, at least as far as he can tell. The only creature there to greet him was a regular old squirrel.

Soon enough, he meets other people, only to discover that he can’t speak the language, and that not everybody immediately trusts random pajama-wearing strangers they met in the middle of the wilderness. Things generally go downhill from there, at least until the blue boxes start appearing.

Delve is a story about finding your way in a new, strange, and dangerous world. It’s about avoiding death, figuring out what the heck is going on, and trying to make some friends along the way. It’s not about getting home, so much as finding a new one.

Did I mention that there will be math?

Summary – Level 2:

Okay, but what are you in for, really?

Well, this story is supposed to be realistic, or at least, as realistic as a fantasy litrpg can be. The main character doesn’t instantly become an all-powerful god and murder-hobo his way across the universe. Delve is, at its heart, a progression fantasy, but that progression is meant to feel earned. The numbers in this story actually mean something. Everything is calculated, and if you find a rounding error, I expect you to tell me about it. That said, if math isn’t your cup of tea, there is plenty more that the story has to offer. Characters are meant to feel real, and progression isn’t only about personal power; it’s also about allies, connections, and above all, knowledge. Figuring out how the system works is a significant theme.

...

What, you want more details? Okay, fine, but this is going to get a bit spoiler-y. Are you sure?

Yes!

Really sure? I mean, this summary is practically half as long as the first chap–

Now!

Okay, okay!

The main character becomes a magic user, but he takes a route that is not very popular in adventurer culture, namely that of a support. There is a full magic system with various spells, skills, and abilities, but our MC decides that aura magic is the way to go, and that the only stat worth investing in is mana regeneration. Most people at the Adventurer’s Guild think that this makes him a bit of a dumbass, but he’s playing the long game. We’ll see how that works out for him, won’t we?

Because of his build, the MC levels up fast, at least compared to normal people. There are no cheats, though, and he is limited in other ways. There are some clear and pretty obvious downsides to his build. That’s what makes it fun, no?

Morals? Our MC has them. Again, we’ll see how that works out for him. Realism, remember? Would you be okay with killing someone and looting their body? I sure hope not.

POV? The focus is on the main character, but there will be occasional varying perspectives from people around him, or involved in the events related to the main plot. It isn’t going to jump all over the place.

Tech is standard medieval stasis. No smartphones, but the MC does have a technical background. Computers and their programming might be involved. There might even be a bit of uplifting down the road, who knows? Anyway, it isn’t the focus. He isn’t going to invent the gun in chapter 1 and change the face of warfare.

Romance is not a major focus. Friendships are more the name of the game, though there will be some characters in romantic relationships.

There is exploration, though not as much of the geographical nature as you might expect. It is more about exploration of the system and the culture.

The pace is slow and detailed, sometimes verging on slice-of-life. The action is meant to be realistic and grounded in the numbers, and it is intended to have meaning beyond simply punching things until they stop moving.

The general tone of the story is grey, and some parts can get quite dark. People die. Sometimes, people with names, but not anywhere near GoT level. There is plenty of light, too, though, to balance the darkness. The world is dangerous, but overcoming that danger is why we’re all here, isn’t it?

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far through the summary, you clearly like words. I hope you enjoy the story!

What?! The sticking to her daily, eating her tofu (taking advantage of her ) is a cross-dresser?

Not to mention that he is the Evil Highness!! She had slept beside him, and was touched by him, what a big loss!

Ah–!

Softly on his chest, listening to his pounding, strong heartbeat, her face turned red. Her greatest desire was to be in his arms.

She never dared to dream before, dared not wish for, and thought that in this life there was no such chance. This had been in her most secret heart of hearts, she longed for his warmth, longed for his love.

Even though he had hurt her before, he had given her more tenderness than others.

Being teased, loved, laughed at… had infiltrated into her bloodstream. Love, she did not know when it had taken root, for when she discovered it, it had grown into a towering tree, no longer able to be split open or cut off.

His hug, his warmth, she would not allow him to give it to others. If they were not only for her, she would rather not have them.

- Description from Novelupdates

superhuman powers awakened and the world changed, yet Jade remained as he was—the ever so heedless, unbothered, emotionless, and weird guy manning the cash register.But some people deemed him lucky because he seemed to be unaffected by all those happenings. But would they still believe that when Jade came home one day from his night shift, tired and hungry, to find a dungeon gate right inside his house?The worst thing that could ever happen to him was get sucked in that gate, however, instead of the gate, strange Seekers are sucking up to him instead.Jade: Why is this happening?!Seeker 1: Help me go back to my world and I can give you everything you wish for.Seeker 2: I don’t care about going back to that damned world, so can you just let me stay here with you?Seeker 3: Jade, honey, you’re the best Minder! I need you, so come with me to my world.And so on… these Seekers are all lunatics forcing him to help them go back to their respective worlds! But how can Jade do that, when all of them were just mere characters from books?!Now, what will Jade do?