Toru and the Mangyu Brigade out for a stroll.
After losing his girlfriend to a brave hero, Toru is expelled from his S-Rank party. With a feeling of sadness and pain in his heart, he defeats a demon he meets outside the city, and his ability [to save experience] is broken! Toru becomes level 300 in the blink of an eye! With this power that far surpasses that of heroes, there is nothing that can stop him. Kaede, a s*ave he met on his journey, forms a group called the “Mangyu Brigade”, and easily completes dungeons, acquires the legendary sacred weapons, and thanks to his skills, his friends level up easily! He rescued a countess who was attacked by bandits on the road, and befriended a legendary beast. Toru’s journey continues at a leisurely pace, as he repeatedly encounters various people along the way, while his former party of heroes are deprived of opportunities to play an active role and fall into decline. This is the beginning of the life of a 300 level warrior!Associated Tropes:
- Because Destiny Says So: Averted. The reason why the Hero is so important to fighting the Demon King isn’t because they are destined to do so, but because the Hero Skill makes the hero a Man of Kryptonite to the Demon King, and weakens his power enough to make fighting him actually feasible.
- Chekhov's Gun: A couple of these.
- Not extremely built up, but Toru gaining a Skill Copy ability during his time in the Demon Country allows him to copy Sain’s Hero Skill and defeat Lisa.
- One that WAS built up, from the first chapter no less; When Lisa is defeated and begging for her life, she tries to tell Toru that she does legitimately love him. To prove it, Toru asks her to show him the engagement ring that he gave her. Perceptive readers will remember that she had given the ring back to Toru when he was kicked out of the party, and that he had tossed it away out of frustration. So, Lisa shows him the ring she’s wearing; the ring SAIN gave her, showing that Toru and the relationship he had with her meant so little, she didn’t even remember giving the ring back to him.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Toru's childhood fiancé is the demon king the "Hero" was sent out to fight.
- Evil Hero: Sain. While he does have the Hero job and his kingdom recognizes him as a Hero, he is an arrogant and delusional monster who thinks of himself as superior to everyone else as he was “chosen by God”, and loves stealing away things that belong to other people (especially pretty women, even if they are already in a happy relationship). Moreover, he doesn’t really do anything heroic or great, because Toru’s legitimately good actions lead to HIM being the one to solve most of the problems that The Hero is supposed to take care of.
- Happiness in Slavery: Kaede and Frau, Toru’s slaves, are completely happy and devoted to Toru simply because he’s a good guy and treats them as party members and dear friends rather than just disposable bodies like some slaves.
- Hate Sink: Sain, the “Hero”, is a completely irredeemable waste of space. Putting aside his seductions of Toru’s childhood friends and fiancé, he is extremely arrogant and delusional, believing that he will be the Hero no matter what happens or what he does. The only reason he even pays lip service to anyone in authority or refrains from killing anyone who looks at him wrong is simply because he doesn’t have enough power or influence to get away with it yet. And that’s not even counting the fact that he brainwashed the girls of his party to love and follow him. Or that he later abandoned Nei to die and sold Soara into slavery just because he felt they were hitting the limit of how strong they could get.
- Missed Him by That Much: For a long, long time, Sain's party tries to win fame, glory, and riches by going to dungeons, ruins, monster stampedes, etc., only to learn that someone got there ahead of them and already either cleaned the place out or resolved the issue. Sain takes it as a Humiliation Conga and becomes increasingly unstable, until he's sent by his royal backer to go and enslave some elves for him, and when the elves, now boosted by Toru sent him packing, he finally snaps and kills the hedonistic king.
- Mysterious Past: Kaede’s past before becoming a slave is a topic that she doesn’t bring up, and one that Toru constantly forgets to ask about. It’s later revealed that she’s from another continent entirely, having been transported away from her home village by a magic circle she found, before being enslaved.
- She's All Grown Up: Kaede was first introduced as a sick fox beastkin, with a stubby tail and tiny ears on the top of her head. After adventuring with Toru for a bit and leveling up, her body develops into that of a beautiful young woman, with her ears and tail fully growing out.
- Took a Level in Badass: Almost immediately after being kicked out of Sain’s Party, Toru manages to get enough experience to break the limits of his Experience Absorption skill. Doing so grants him all the experience stored in the skill, multiplied several times. The end result is the Level 20 Toru shoots up to Level 300, far above just about anything he encounters, and he evolves into a Dragonoid (an ancient species that apparently hasn’t been seen in centuries).
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Downplayed, but a reason why Sain hasn’t gotten this treatment is because his Hero skill is legitimately necessary to fight the Demon King. Once Toru copies the Skill and defeats said Demon King, however….
