A Player Killer with nothing left to lose, Oric Rune wants nothing more than to avenge the villagers of Ducat, who were butchered before his very eyes by the Drachma Killers. But with the people of the Rune Lands encroaching on the southern cities of Unigaea, and something brewing in the sky that could prove fatal to the entire online world, Oric must make the choice between personal vengeance and becoming the hero he is destined to be.
Joining him on his epic journey are a giant Tagvornin wolf, a mute Solar Mage, and a cunning illusionist named Sam Raid.
My Opinion: 264 pages, $2.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
Full disclosure, I got an advanced copy for review.
The beginning of the novel introduces us to Oric Rune
Class: Level 8 Player Killer
Subclass: Level 3 Herbalist
INFAMY: 38 Players killed
The story starts off with a fight with a group of orcs for the chance to kill the players in the group. Because of his chosen class, every time the MC kills 5 players he receives a free stat point. Unfortunately for his opponents, when they die they lose their character and have to start all over from scratch.
It’s revealed fairly early in the story that the MC chose the class Player Killer to get powerful enough to get revenge against a guild of player killers that destroyed the village he helped create. The class is detested by everyone, players, and NPCs but the MC feels it’s a worthwhile trade off to get strong enough to destroy the Drachma Killers.
The main character goes on a bunch of adventures where he meets various interesting and seemingly broken people. He then learns about a huge threat to the game world he’s chosen to live in and goes to deal with that.
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The game mechanics in the story are solid and I appreciate the novelty of creating a permadeath world and incorporating a class like Player Killer. There’s a bit of crafting and lots of action. The banter between characters is fairly funny.
However, the thing that stops the story from getting a better score is that I never really empathize with the main character. I don’t understand his motivations and even though he’s portrayed as a ‘man who has nothing to lose’ he also wants people to like him, despite his chosen class. He’s not a reluctant hero. He’s definitely not a villain or an anti-hero. I’m not sure what he is beside a decent person, which makes his choice of becoming the thing that destroyed his last life a little out of character.
Overall, better than an ok read. Plenty of action and humor. The use of Player Killer as a character class was neat. Unfortunately, I just never connected with the main character. I listened to part of the audiobook version and sort of like that better than the written version.
Score: 6 out of 10