“Good men want only the power to make things right. Great men seek to make things right and gather the power to do so. Great leaders find those who are worthy of wielding power and set them to the task of making things right.”

Rezkin grew up in extremely brutal conditions, being trained at a very young age to withstand all forms of physical pressure. His trainers were ruthless, putting him through various trials that tested and surpassed his limits. He grew up being part of an organization that enforces the king's will upon the realm. The members of this organization, due to the vigorous training they receive, are extremely powerful. Rezkin was the product of this environment, so he's obviously not someone to be trifled with. In fact, due to some bizarre reason, Rezkin is the strongest man out of all of these people, and once he gets the "chance" to leave this fort and go out into the real world, he has to discover what his purpose in life is, since he's pretty clueless when it comes to knowing why he even exists.

When I read the blurb of this book, I was left pretty intrigued with the story. A man who is a sturdy, disciplined fighter, being thrust into the world after years of living in a secluded environment, having to discover his purpose while facing danger and conspiracies that threaten the stability of the entire realm, all story aspects that quickly drew me into this book. However, a few chapters in, and I was already rolling my eyes. Characterization wise, Rezkin is extremely one-dimensional, with pretty much 0 vulnerabilities. He is the definition of an "OP" character. You can throw Rezkin into an army of 100 fully armed men, and all it takes is a page or two for him to kill them all while remaining unscathed. There are no consequences or high stakes in this story, because even if all hell is breaking loose, Rezkin can pretty much annihilate all danger while probably eating a sandwich at the same time. This leaves 0 room for suspense, because we aren't truly afraid of anything, since we can pretty much guess where the story will go.

 Rezkin is pretty much some sort of high functioning sociopath, or maybe close to one, since he has no true ability to feel any emotion. His entire moral compass revolves around following the set of rules he had hammered into his brain while growing up. For example, one of his golden rules is to always protect and honour his friends. That sounds nice on paper, but he has no emotional capacity to even understand what a friend even means, so if you somehow end up coming across Rezkin in your daily forest stroll, and declare yourself as his friend, he will quickly assume he must honour and protect you, which is how he met his "friends" in this story to begin with. He has no emotional awareness whatsoever, so when one of his friends ends up falling in love with him, and once it is brought to his attention that she is now his girl friend, he quickly assumes that is some subdivision of the category of friend as designated by the rules he has to follow.

All this is honestly quite funny to read, which is probably the only strong aspect of this book for me.Writing wise, this book was another pile of frustrations. It was overly heavy with descriptions, going into endless details about every step Rezkin takes and every tree branch he moves in the process of annihilating his enemies. I assure you, dear reader, you can pretty much skim about 60-75% of each chapter and still understand everything that's happening, since the writing is full of so much detail, without actually having much story in the detail. The constant shifting of perspectives from one sentence to another without prior warning got pretty confusing as well.

My final gripe with this story is the female representation. Every single girl in this story somehow fawns over Rezkin, and his beautifully muscular body and his calm demeanor. Girls even get into brutal physical fights over this man, which again, is quite hilarious to read but also quite ridiculous. This is how I imagined every female character in this book:


And of course, this is how I imagined them every time they warred over Rezkin's affections:


I have to admit, this book would make an excellent anime, and I would hope to see it adapted as one in the future. As an adult fantasy novel though, this was not what I was looking for.The writing was very frustrating to get through, the pacing was uneven and the story was very repetitive. It followed the very strict formula of:

1) Rezkin goes out into the world.
2) Rezkin conquers people he deems to be enemies.
3) Rezkin protects his friends and his girl friend.
4) Girls fight over Rezkin.
5) Repeat all this throughout 483 pages.


I only give this 2 stars for the comedic aspects of the story which had me chuckling. Read this fantasy novel at your own risk.

Thank you to Nicole and Milica for the buddy read.


“As in the wild there were predators and prey, so, too, did they exist among men in towns and cities. The hardworking peasants were the grazers, and the thieves were the starving coyotes.”