9th floor ? kekw that was 100% an hans . at least with the level of this party they should be fine at least if they listen to his orders properly . but i bet baek ho will fuck up in a decisive moment cause hes not used to be under another dude . ngl this could be an arc good as the ice one it seems
Nah, the tension isn't there. We know Bjorn isn't dying and no one else dying matters. If anything it would be good as it weakens Baekho’s forces. That was the main tension in that ice floor arc. Then in the end no one in party died so they all have plot armor now 😑
I think the most important part this chapter was how Bjorn naturally became the leader. If you notice, Baekho’s team just listened to Bjorn without hesitating or even checking in with Baekho. That's huge. It's the difference of leading through fear or punishment and leading to through example or accomplishment. This is how it works in real life too. Think of some capable subordinate giving out orders to his peers and they follow even when a manager or team lead hasn't said anything. And just like in the novel, if the manager knows the subordinate is capable, he'll be hesitant to take charge and divert from his recommendations as he'll take full ownership of the consequences for doing so. Such a subtle interaction is a big reason why I don't want to give up on this novel. I really hope the author gets his shit together. He's got so much potential.
Edit:
Baekho is a foil for Bjorn, so this interaction might be super important later. We already know Baekho has trust issues with people which causes him to push people away in order to minimize the pain when they betray him. Which further stunts his ability to earn loyalty from people. Bjorn naturally earns loyalty to the point that they'd die for him knowing he's an evil spirit. Baekho obviously noticed this and is likely to get dry off when he sees enough of it. It will likely cause him to slowly lose his mind in order to “beat” Bjorn.
Yeah, I think that baek ho is written to be a flipside of Bjorn, where they admire each other enough and respect each other to a point, but have different goals. They are alike, but baek ho sees Bjorn and wonders, “why couldn't that have been me?”, while Bjorn sees Baek Ho as what could have been his future if he had arrived in Raphdonia earlier and had been betrayed deeply by a comrade. I still think they’d have acted a bit different in each other’s shoes, but they acknowledge their similarities enough I also have a theory that this “chosen one” in the record stones could be either or both of them. No name is decipherable so it’s open to interpretation.
Yeah ever since the whole going back in time thing happened, it makes the author himself an unreliable narrator. Anyone could be anybody in history now. The quality had gone down enough where the author is capable of overusing the record stone in this way. For instance, when Auril Gavis was sent back because of Bjorn, that could have made him the great sage. At the very least someone in his party. The solution would be to set actual rules for the stove that can't be broken so we could rule out possibilities, but it seems the author left it ambiguous on purpose to give himself wiggle room.
I think the rules for the stones are: whatever is written there as observed history cannot be changed (at least in the way that is known), and that names are written in a special way that arent easily translated. They can track the same name across different records, but not identify who it is. Someone theorized that the fragments were all broken pieces of a monument (that someone had broken and scattered), and that those who read the fragments knew pieces of the world’s history (past/present/future). Baek ho had seen one or two of these, and so had Gavis, so they know much more than they let on. It's alluded to that they both suspect that the chosen one is Bjorn. We also know that the time travel aspect doesn’t affect everyone or anyone the same – as evidenced when Bjorn got the second fragment and it instead activated for Gavis in the graveyard.Personally, I don’t mind the mysterious nature of stone travel tbh, I find it's limitations to be reasonable with real consequences, and also gives room for new elements – though I really wouldn’t mind if we stayed in the current time frame for the time being 😄
My hottest take for this is that the author is going for some chrono trigger-esque plot where the current issues of the present get resolved via time travel to the past. It feels like this won't be the case because the author has expedited the pace of their plot, it's possible our guys get teleported 20 years back into the past permanently and “win the game" there.We still have no resolution or leads on a resolution for the tribe artifacts been missing which are needed to open this gate.There's probably some plot device related to bjorn been isekai'd the day they went missing that has some meaning.
Love the shifting power dynamic b/w Bjorn and Baek Ho – and lol at the party members gossiping with Naek Ho right there. Almost reminds me of the Clown trying to save face on the forums and at the round table.
Part of me feels like this is a backup server of some sort of the labyrinth… the way that monster wave was triggered with a flash. It’s too unnatural to be the real world, but kinda different from the main labyrinth…
I still think this random that disappeared is one their members. Like the walking lie detector didn’t ask if the guy telling him about this mysterious portal wasn’t hostile towards him. The second they arrive he disappears and they don’t try to be more aggressive about finding them.
I think they are the ones that destroyed the original circle under orders from Noark leadership. The goal is to keep Bjorn away from the surface level and interfering with their plans.
He’s always the outlier that disrupts their plan after all.
That's only because the quality of the writing has gone down. It's like I said before, everyone is being rushed to get to where the author wants. Things like logic, setup and character development take a back seat when this happens. It's kind of a good sign that it's so noticeable now, because it means the story was so tight before that inconsistencies like this stand out.
Times like this always reminds me of the random love communication paper. Its almost like he could be sending messages to his party this entire series even trapped/missing how he is often but whatever. Still a great read
That is exactly my question too. The royals shut down the labyrinth, so is this a back door to open the labyrinth, or could this be the real version of the 9th floor? Or… is this somewhere else, maybe a prototype of the labyrinth?
I don't think they can or did, I think the royals just turned their login server off. Ex the backend is still running they're just not allowing logins.It really depends on how much power we want to give the royal family, do they totally control the labyrinth or do they just have an entry node to it.I think we're really in the labyrinth atm, we will find out if the monsters leave corpses or not without distortion magic when they die thou
If that were the case they would not have disabled the laberinth in the first place since they know that noark has someone capable of entering the server
9th floor monsters meaning we are about to see some strong and difficult monsters but i figured they would have to go head to head with something incredible broken for this party not to steam roll it
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It could be the basement floor 2 🤔
was the 9th floor the last floor?
9th floor ? kekw that was 100% an hans . at least with the level of this party they should be fine at least if they listen to his orders properly . but i bet baek ho will fuck up in a decisive moment cause hes not used to be under another dude . ngl this could be an arc good as the ice one it seems
I think the most important part this chapter was how Bjorn naturally became the leader. If you notice, Baekho’s team just listened to Bjorn without hesitating or even checking in with Baekho. That's huge. It's the difference of leading through fear or punishment and leading to through example or accomplishment. This is how it works in real life too. Think of some capable subordinate giving out orders to his peers and they follow even when a manager or team lead hasn't said anything. And just like in the novel, if the manager knows the subordinate is capable, he'll be hesitant to take charge and divert from his recommendations as he'll take full ownership of the consequences for doing so. Such a subtle interaction is a big reason why I don't want to give up on this novel. I really hope the author gets his shit together. He's got so much potential.
Edit:
Baekho is a foil for Bjorn, so this interaction might be super important later. We already know Baekho has trust issues with people which causes him to push people away in order to minimize the pain when they betray him. Which further stunts his ability to earn loyalty from people. Bjorn naturally earns loyalty to the point that they'd die for him knowing he's an evil spirit. Baekho obviously noticed this and is likely to get dry off when he sees enough of it. It will likely cause him to slowly lose his mind in order to “beat” Bjorn.
Love the shifting power dynamic b/w Bjorn and Baek Ho – and lol at the party members gossiping with Naek Ho right there. Almost reminds me of the Clown trying to save face on the forums and at the round table.
Part of me feels like this is a backup server of some sort of the labyrinth… the way that monster wave was triggered with a flash. It’s too unnatural to be the real world, but kinda different from the main labyrinth…
I still think this random that disappeared is one their members. Like the walking lie detector didn’t ask if the guy telling him about this mysterious portal wasn’t hostile towards him. The second they arrive he disappears and they don’t try to be more aggressive about finding them.
I think they are the ones that destroyed the original circle under orders from Noark leadership. The goal is to keep Bjorn away from the surface level and interfering with their plans.
He’s always the outlier that disrupts their plan after all.
so are we going to see a level 1 monster show up soon?
….huh. so if they leave the labyrinth having entered the way they did where do they end up? or is this the real world equivalent of the 9th floor
9th floor monsters meaning we are about to see some strong and difficult monsters but i figured they would have to go head to head with something incredible broken for this party not to steam roll it