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The Executioner and Her Way of Life




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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Wed Aug 11, 2021 11:56 am Reply with quote
Basic premise.

Menou is officially sanctioned to execute Otherwolders. Specifically, people isekai'd from our world to hers. As such people are gifted or cursed to receive a very powerful ability. This gift is much more powerful, than what is seen in other isekai stories. Even Ains Ooal Gown and the denizens of Great Tomb of Nazarick would have major problems dealing with one of the more powerful of these Otherwolders. spoiler[Thousand years ago, one of the continents was transformed into a plain of salt.]

Good and Evil, and Guilt and Innocence have no meaning to the Executioners. If you are an Otherwolder, the Executioners are coming for you, to kill you. Simply because the Otherworlder's power is so dangerously powerful. The problem though is, most Otherworlders are summoned against their will to these world. They didn't ask for this. The power comes at a price though, which the Otherworlders might not realize at first, unless they are notified by their summoners. spoiler[The power consumes their memories with each use, so in the end they become inhuman powerful entities based on the power they were given.]

Menou the Executioner and Momo her assistant travel the world executing Otherworlders. Momo is powerful in her own ways spoiler[and would probably have been an Executioner in her own right, if not for her mental instability. In a way these two girls are victims in their own right, considering the training and elimination methods used on them.]

In the first novel, Akari joins their party, not as a party member, but rather as their intended target. spoiler[Which is by necessity, since Akari is an Otherworlder, who apparently is cluelessly unkillable. Since they can't kill her, they have to lie and deceive Akari that they are helping her, while they try to find ways to kill her.]

This is where the heart of the story is. What happens you have to get to know the girl you intend to kill, the girl you know who is innocent of abusing or using her powers, and who treats you as a friend she never has had.

In some ways this story is an analogy to the "Wheel of Time" series. Where men born with the One Power are hunted down and killed.

I finished volume 2 a couple days ago. More secrets of the past are revealed spoiler[and some of the cataclysmic (Human Errors) Otherworlders start to awaken and free themselves.]

I don't know what to feel about Menou. She fully knows what she is doing. She knows she is killing evil people and good people. Knows she is killing guilty and innocent people. She is prepared to be hated, prepared to be considered a villain. Perhaps even deserving to suffer in hell, in the afterlife. But it is for the greater good in her eyes. Which could be considered true, considering what happened in the past. On the other hand, I do feel that she has been 'groomed (in the worst aspects of the word)' and trained for this role. A training that was also applied to Momo, which has broken her and made her extremely co-dependant on Menou. Don't get me wrong, Momo can kill and murder with the best of them. She operates solo for the most part supporting Menou. But she is broken and mentally unstable as a person. A victim of the Church origanization that trained them.

This story is going to have a lot of pathos in it, especially volume 2. We do not know the backstory of the legendary de facto villains, because their stories happened a thousand years ago. But there are indications, we will find that out. My feeling is that we would have liked them too a thousand years ago, but they are just tragic victims of events and beings beyond their control.

So this basically works as a Road Story in a fantasy world. Menou and Momo travel with Akari deceptively to help her, while trying to find ways to kill her without her knowing. While Akari travels with them cluelessly happyspoiler[, but with her own agenda.]

Story and characters work for me. I want to know more. I want to know more of what happened a thousand years ago and where are favorites are going know. You can't ask for anything better than that.
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