[DeepL Translation - needs review] Volume 1: "Please save the world," - the goddess said to me. The game is about to begin," she said to me. But it's wrong to say that to someone like me who's exhausted from job hunting! She pleaded with me repeatedly, and in the end, I was thrown into a world that recreated my favorite game that she had created. I thought my role was to be a "hero," but it turns out I'm a villain who bullies the future hero! The game is a game of "Hero" and "Hero of the Fut...
Tags: BL, Fantasy, Isekai
CW for Attempted rape, dubcon between the main ship, parental death
I'm reading the free version on Syosetsu, so I don't know how different the (quite expensive?) published version is. Vol 1 of the published version seems to cover the first 22 chapters plus the Alfred POV extras. I've read a little past that as of writing.
Plot
A goddess isekais a university student into a world she created inspired by an RPG that they've both played so that he can help stop the in-game plot from happening in the newly created world. When he wakes up in the new world, he realises that he's not the main character, but the rival/bully of the main character, and his job is to rile the main character up to encourage him to level up before monsters come to attack the village they're living in. But he sucks at acting and is too kind to play the role he's supposed to play, so he comes off as kind of a tsundere, which I found pretty funny.
Spoilers from here on out.
It's light-hearted fun until a third party attempts to rape the MC, at which point it just becomes oppressively dark and the love interest's moves on the MC become more questionable. I'm not against SA being in stories like this, but it just felt out of nowhere, unneeded and tonally incoherent with the rest of the story. There's a world in which this is an instant recommend for me, but this isn't it unfortunately. I'm going to continue reading because it feels so easy to read, but I can already see that the story isn't going to go where I personally would have gone with this concept. Three stars because I like the concept and I did really enjoy it up until that point. The first half is like fast food as a book, and sometimes that's what you need.
Difficulty
I binged the first volume in 4 days, so I'd say it's very easy to read. This is my first time reading fantasy in Japanese so I won't comment on the language used, but I don't feel like I'm looking words up too often. There's been a few bits that were harder grammar/structure wise and there's a lot of kanji being used for words that normally don't use kanji to get that old-timey feel.