箱庭の薬術師

A relatively easy cottagecore fantasy isekai for girls

箱庭の薬術師 is an isekai light novel about a young lady named Hinami, who makes a deal with a mysterious god in order to save her dying sister's life. Hinami is whisked away to a fantasy world and given a mission to collect points by making potions — though why exactly she needs to do this, her mysterious god leaves unexplained. This series has also been adapted into a manga under the same title.

The chapters are reasonably short, about 12-24 pages each, but the book feels a bit long at 360 pages. The vocabulary isn't terribly difficult, and obscure words with unusual kanji have furigana. I found the sentences to be straightforward for the most part, not flowery or "literary" at all. The difficult parts are, as usual, info-dumps where characters have to explain how the fantasy stuff in the story works. It's not quite as easy asくまクマ熊ベアー, but I think it's roughly at that same level.

Regarding the plot, this book is basically isekai Stardew Valley. The heroine spends most of her time learning about the video-gamey world she now lives in, deciding what house upgrades she wants to spend her points on, and making friends. It seems at first to be slice-of-life-y, but there is a Plot™ that eventually shows up, though no real progress towards it is made in this first book. Romance is hinted at early on but takes up almost no screen time. If you are looking for a chill time and enjoy imagining yourself living in a quaint magical tree stump house in the middle of the woods, you might like this, so long as you're okay with an almost complete lack of conflict or drama.