Evil God-sama, wait, wait a second. Could you at least explain a bit more, please?!
Originally a web novel serialized in 2018, with a manga adaptation reaching the states in 2019, before the novel version started being translated in July of 2020, the story follows the tale of Saijō Haruto (renamed Kijou Haruto for the manga) finding himself murdered by the evil god and then reincarnated in a new world in an attempt to prevent the god of creation from doing the same and thus defeating the demon king. As part of the plan, the evil god curses Haruto with a curse even the evil god himself can not remove or break that fixes his stats and levels exactly where they are, making him unable to grow stronger. This exhausts the evil god, and so Haruto is reincarnated at random, via a dart board but lucks out because while 90% of the board would have resulted in Haruto being born a slave, the dart lands smack dab in the center of the bullseye, granting him nobility as parents.
The curse itself also has a flaw. While Haruto's stats, including his level, can never rise, they can't fall either. So his HP and MP are stuck at their maximum value, allowing him to fire off spells, non-stop. So Haruto gets creative and grows stronger despite his stats.
Alternate titles: Level 1 no Saikyou Kenja ~ Noroi de Saikakyuu Mahou shika Tsukaenai kedo, Kami no Kanchigai de Mugen no Maryoku wo Te ni Irete Saikyou ni ~レベル１の最強賢者 ～ 呪いで最下級魔法しか使えないけど、神の勘違いで無限の魔力を手に入れて最強に ～
Author(s) : Maya Kizuka - Kanna
Level One Strongest Tropes:
- Academy of Adventure: The mage academy not only has inter-class competitions where the winning class can take the loser's classroom, but field-trips involve monster-hunting competitions, and going to other countries, where worrying about monster attacks and bandits en-route is normal.
- Accidental Truth: The entire reason why Tina seeks out Haruto and becomes his maid and caretaker is because she believes he is the reincarnation of her Hero lover. And, while it’s not revealed for some time, she’s exactly right. The problem is, because of how Hero Summoning works for her world, Haruto’s memories of being a Hero were erased, and he doesn’t regain them until some time after they fall in love again and get married.
- Altar Diplomacy: It is common in the story for princesses to be sold into marriages to promote treaties between two countries. Princess Leyfa is one of them. Fortunately, she's paired off with Haruto who is at least a decent and upstanding guy and treats her nicely.
- Bathtub Bonding: In the manga, Tina is shown bathing the (then five year old) Haruto. In the original web-novel, the first on-screen case involves Youko walking in on him and joining him, Mei and Mai summoning themselves via spirit contract, and then Tina walking in because of the noise, and clearly not happy, running off when she's invited to join in. Haruto later makes it up to her by inviting her on a date to a mixed bathing onsen, stopping just shy of a Shower of Love.
- Bedmate Reveal: Haruto's first conscious act in this new world is waking up in the middle of the night being smothered by Tina's breasts.
- Cosmic Chess Game: Which the new world relies on to exist. The evil god sucks up all the negative emotions and uses them to summon demons, the demon king, and so on. The creation god raises champions to oppose him, and if that's not enough, summons heroes from other worlds. Since the last "game" ended too quickly, leaving an imbalance, the Evil god summons his own "hero" and curses him, to keep the creation god from summoning another hero of his own too soon.
- Crapsaccharine World: The new world looks like a nice place to live at first glance, but only because Haruto is a noble's son, and we're seeing it through his eyes. Children are raised to fight monsters, starting at age 5, slavery exists and is legally recognized, demons walk the land, and the world exists because the god of creation and the god of evil are using it as a chess-board.
- Cursed with Awesome: Haruto is stuck with a curse that keeps his stats fixed. He quickly realizes that this gives him Bottomless Magazines with his mana. So while he can't just cast high-tiered spells, he can duplicate the effect by stacking a bunch of low-tiered spells and cantrips together. His strongest spell on record is a combination of 100,000 fire lances.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Since death is always just around the corner in this new world, nobody has a problem with the 120 year old Tina marrying the 10 year old Haruto.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: On a national scale! Tina hates her country of origin, the kingdom of Alheim, because even though her parents were a viscount and a fabled hero who saved the world from a demon king, the kingdom did nothing as her parents were murdered by an elf-supremacist group who then sold her into slavery to a human. It's only because a demon king rose up and attacked the caravan that was transporting her that the scoundrels were brought to task. So when she returns to the country as part of her teaching duties, a hundred years after the incident, leading a field-trip, one would think the current government would be offering a formal apology. Nope.
- Although the king announced that it was a bad idea, all the nobles one-sidedly decided to hold a tournament where the winner would have Tina's hand in marriage, her consent be damned, while spouting elf-supremacists dogma. When Haruto wins the tournament, fair and square, the nobles cry foul and try to discredit his victory, getting named and shamed by their country's Guardian Entity, whom they asked to bless the tournament in the first place.
- When Tina and Haruto are brought before the king, who makes a formal apology, and tries to win them over with a peerage, noble titles, Altar Diplomacy, and so on, to keep them from actively becoming enemies, they politely decline but promise that they won't be the country's enemies if left alone. In response, the Prime Minister and royal cabinet ignore the king's direct order to leave them alone and start scheming to enslave and brainwash Tina's legally recognized husband, and would have carried it out if the same guardian entity didn't specifically call them to task and promise to destroy the country in retaliation.
- Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto Us: The reason the Alheim nobility was so dead set on chaining Tina and Haruto down was the paranoid fear that if left alone, they would sooner or later become enemies and annihilate the country, completely ignoring the fact that Tina had a little over a century's worth of opportunity to retaliate against the injustices she received at the country's hands yet chose not to do so. The Prime Minister even shouted "the chances that Tina, who hates the country, and that human Haruto who is even stronger, and comes from a race greedy for Yggdrasil, would bare their fangs at us is high! We must take action now, before it's too late! If we use the Bangle of Enslavement on him, Tina will surely follow along!"
- Internal Reveal: At the end of volume 2, Haruto reveals to the dean of mage academy and Tina that he's a reincarnator, actually met with The Evil God, was cursed with his stats permanently fixed, and the exact mechanics he used to become a powerhouse that even the Famed In-Story Tina, with her Famous Ancestor, can't compete with.
- Kidnapped by the Call: Haruto was murdered and summoned. He had no say in the matter.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Haruto has this. In his past life, he was summoned to the new world as the Guardian Hero, the very same hero that Tina adventures with and fell in love with. The reason why he doesn’t remember this is because the hero summoning spell returns those it’s summoned after their job is done, and erases their memories of their time on the other world.
- New Life in Another World Bonus: Zigzagged. Haruto doesn’t actually have cheat abilities, as he’s actually under a curse that prevents him from leveling up and growing stronger. However, that same curse also allows him to survive any non-instant death attack and grants him limitless mana and stamina. Combined with his creativity and ignorance of the normal limits of magic, and you get a nice serving of Comically Invincible Hero.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Evil God, BIG TIME. In his efforts to screw over Haruto as the Hero, he inadvertently gives him all the tools he needs to succeed. His curse on Haruto, meant to cripple him and prevent him from gaining strength, grants him effectively endless mana and stamina. Moreover, his randomized reincarnation of Haruto ends up with him being born into nobility, allowing him access to a comfy life and plenty of resources to train, as well as allowing him to meet Tina and attend the academy.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: At one point, Haruto forms a contract with Undine, the spirit of the ocean, but to do it he had to defeat her father, Poiseidon, the god of the seas!
- Reincarnate in Another World: Invoked. Haruto is murdered by the evil god on Earth through invoking a car accident and then Haruto is reincarnated in the other world to keep the creator god from summoning a hero instead.
- Reincarnation Romance: What Tina hopes for when she seeks out Haruto, as she believes he’s the reincarnation of her former Hero lover. Downplayed, as it seems like she was wrong, but fell in love with Haruto anyway. Played Straight as it’s later revealed she’s completely correct, much to the duo’s delight.
- Unwanted Harem: Not that he's complaining, but Haruto has a bunch of attractive women shoved onto him by circumstances beyond his control, the first of which is his maid Tina who has been raising him to be her prospective husband since he was born.
- Wife Husbandry: Gender reversed. When Tina senses the magical energies specific to a reincarnation, she heads to Haruto's new-world parents, and asks to be the newborn's maid, nanny, and tutor, a prospect the family happily honors, considering her fame. She then goes on to raise the boy to be her next husband.
