Literature / Loner Life In Another World

Loner Life in Another World (Hitoribotchi no Isekai Kouryaku), is a Light Novel written by Shoji Goji and illustrated by booota (first two volumes, later volumes had been illustrated by Saku Enomaru). It was first released as a Web Serial Novel on the site Shousetsuka ni Narou on October 12, 2016. It was then released as a full Light Novel in 2018. A manga adaptation was released in September 25, 2019 by Overlap through Comic Gardo, being illustrated by Bibi. Said manga adaptation was licensed by Kaiten Books in English on March 15, 2020. The original Light Novels were licensed in English by Seven Seas Entertainment in February 13, 2021.

Haruka is a loner student in a regular high school class, who only wants to stay alone without meddling in anyone's business. However, the whole class got suddenly summoned to another world. Although Haruka tried to escape, he was summoned anyways, finding himself in an empty room with the god of the new world. The god takes pity on Haruka and lets him choose every single skill...that was not already being taken by the other students of his class. That includes skills from "Villager A Set" and "Contact Lenses", to "Uselessness" and "Shut-In", and so on. After being sent to the new world, Haruka begins to make use of these "Leftover Skills" to make for himself the lonely life he always wanted!

On January 21, 2024, it was confirmed that an anime adaptation is being developed to be released in October of the same year.

Now has a character page, under construction.

This Light Novel has the following examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance:
  • Haruka gets more skills in unintentional ways than intended. For example: he gets "Thousand Mile Eyes" just because he stared at the horizon, and he gets "Presence Sense" by looking around with no monsters in sight, and so on. This is likely due to one of Haruka's cheat skills, but since they didn't come with a manual, he doesn't know which one.
  • Haruka calmly and systemically uses Earth magic to rearrange the cave he finds at the start of his adventure, becoming better at Earth magic as he goes. When his classmates finally arrive a few days/weeks in, it's basically a large Japanese house (complete with bathroom, dining room, et cetera) built into a cave; this is nothing any amateur Earth mage couldn't do, but only Haruka did. Later, he realizes he can do something similar with the stonework style building materials the local culture uses, allowing him to do things like add a basement to the local blacksmith, or... turn the local general store into a 5 story tall Japanese department store, complete with warehouse.
  • Similarly, Haruka learns, and teaches the rest of his class, "Vibration Magic," which allows him to vibrate his weapon, turning it into a Vibroweapon. It's a few hundred chapters later when he realizes that he was abusing the same mechanics that ice magic and fire magic work on. This only worked because he, and his classmates, have enough scientific knowledge to understand atoms and vibration and the like.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts:
  • Inverted, the local town is basically bankrupt, barely able to outfit their town guards and almost completely unable to provide basic necessities to the townspeople, despite there being massive amounts of fertile land and dungeons of every conceivable difficulty that are effectively loot pinatas for various materials — including the frontier-exclusive monster stones. Haruka working to fix this causes the second and third major arcs in the series, when the groups that are intentionally causing this situation in order to profit off of it decide to stop Haruka by any means necessary.
  • Haruka flips the script between Arc 1 and 2 — prohibited from using violence on the exploitative town next to the Frontier, Haruka instead uses economic warfare: Blocking access to the frontier with a fake dungeon to cut access off to the frontier-exclusive monster stones, slowing down merchant caravans to the town, and when the merchants give up, buying out their entire stock so there's nothing left for the town. As this would harm the commoners the worst, the Stalker Girl starts mass-immigrating them to the frontier, vastly improving their way of life and helping solve the frontier's labor shortage.
    Haruka: I can’t kill the townsfolk, which is natural, but I also can’t kill soldiers or even the lord, so I chose to kill the town itself. That place is already dead.
• Adventure Guild: There's one in every major town, complete with wanted posters and quests on a wall, as well as a guild receptionist who can appraise and deal with monster drops. There is a level requirement for joining, however.
• Almighty Janitor: Can't even become an adventurer due to his low level, but easily one of the most important and powerful people in the new world.
• Anatomy of the Soul: Skills are parts of souls, or at least the cheat ones are:
  these are remnants of those heroes' souls, each alive with their own feelings.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!:
  • All of the otherworlders other than Haruka are guilty of this from time to time, but the Jocks take it to new levels. Rather than use any common sense, they chase after flying monsters they can't reach, ineffectually flailing at them. Later, Haruka creates a working Precision-Guided Boomerang ... and the Jocks use them as glorified clubs instead of ranged weapons, much to his dismay.
    Haruka: ... The only thing that is clear is that they have no understanding of how to use a boomerang! Why after shooting with a bow, do they have to switch to boomerangs and rush to club the enemies?! That is a ranged weapon! Throw it, dammit!
  • Amusingly this plays with Unreliable Narrator to become an Inversion of sorts — a later chapter from the point of view of the Class President mentions offhand that they only use the boomerangs incorrectly when Haruka is watching.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Haruka uses the common sense — yes, common sense — of our world to great effect in the new world. Insect monsters? Use insecticide, not magic. Flying moth monsters? A bug net makes more sense than chasing them around the dungeon on foot with a sword. Dangerous wolf monster? Vinegar on the nose will ruin their day. An army of treants? Cooking oil plus a little fire turns them into a raging inferno. His classmates, overcome with the fantasy tropes of their new world, don't even think about doing any of this.
  • When facing the Sand Giant which is actually a fantasy version of a Nanomachine Cloud, made up of trillions of microscopic monsters, Haruka thinks back to his various magics. He never learned Temperature Magic, despite learning Fire and Ice Magic. His Packing magic evolved into Holding magic, which was just a special case of Mana Manipulation magic, so he could learn Mana Wrapping and Mana Control. His Weight Magic became Gravity Magic, which is gravity manipulation and allowed him to learn skills such as Air Walk. His Movement Magic became Teleport Magic, which is space manipulation and allowed him to learn skills such as Air Walk. He doesn't have Temperature Magic, but he gained Vibration magic after learning Fire and Ice Magic. Thus, the reason Temperature magic doesn't exist is because Temperature is just a special case of Vibration... on the atomic level. It's this hint that lets him unlock the magic needed: Disintegration — Nuclear Decay Magic.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • The girls' motivation for keeping Haruka from leaving back to the woods and living by himself in his cave. Beyond just the Mean Girls, Haruka basically scooped up all of the girls when they had effectively given up on life, trained them in how to fight and survive in the new world, fed and clothed them, and escorted them to the town across miles and miles of forest.
  • Similar motivations are given by several other groups, including the leader of Omui, Stalker Girl and her clan of Fantasy Ninjas, et cetera, all after Haruka did similar things for them.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Haruka, several times, due to a combination of his absurd luck, speed that is literally starting to break the physics of his new world, and generally realizing he's needed. Special mention goes to when he's climbing OUT of the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and randomly starts to desperately speed up out of the blue, landing on floor 57 just in time to save the rest of his classmates from a Puzzle Boss they were trying to brute force and failing.
  • During the second major arc, Haruka has split up basically everyone he can, including his pet slime, to do certain tasks and defend certain areas, but it's not enough, there's too much territory, too many things going wrong, and things are starting to fall apart. Enter the townspeople, who are all adventurers or ex-adventurers, and whom Haruka has "accidentally" armed as a military force by mass selling Goblin clubs and making magical clothing based on modern Japanese and American clothes that's on par with light armor.
• Break the Haughty: The Mean Girl squad, made up of all the fashion and pop culture obsessed "gals" in his class, are left to die in a very deep part of a very dangerous forest. Haruka just happens upon them right as they were giving up on life, leading to him "taming" them, like monsters, and dragging them off someplace safe.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin':
  • Haruka's classmates can sense when he's having perverted thoughts and will give him a Disapproving Look pretty much immediately, most often when one of his busty classmates is in combat. Sometimes they'll turn it up so high that it becomes a Death Glare — which can even cause his Enemy-Detecting Radar to fire off!
  • Haruka spends money almost as fast as he can get it, leading to the Student Council President taking all of his money and putting him on a budget. So he just goes and makes another incredible amount of money... only for her to do the same thing to him.
• Chivalrous Pervert: While unrepentantly a pervert, Haruka would never do anything with his classmates. They even give him several Secret Test of Character to see if he would. A fellow loner who just happens to be a stunningly beautiful girl he saves in a dungeon who is very in love with him, on the other hand...
• Clothing Damage:
  • A major component of Haruka's fake dungeon. While nonlethal, losing gear is a career ending nightmare to most adventurers, meaning that after the first few attempts, no one will be willing to try to go through Haruka's dungeon to invade the frontier.
  • The first victim seen? Her Royal Highness, the Princess Shariceres. Fortunately Haruka had left the traps on "half nude" mode. And disabled the tentacle traps.
• Combat Pragmatist: A necessity for Haruka, he uses his leftover skills to lay out traps and kill monsters efficiently. For example, using bug spray on insect monsters, or freezing an aquarium full of deadly fish monsters solid with ice magic. Justified due to his skill "Loner", that he can't form a party by his own will. Not that he cares, though.
• Confusion Fu: Once Haruka begins to master some of his skills, including his literally reality breaking speed, actual teleportation, his divine eye abilities, and his supernatural ability to multitask, his attacks begin to make absolutely no sense. One notable battle has him swinging his staff vertically at someone, only to have it land on them horizontally. From behind.
• Cute Monster Girl:
  • The geeks (and Haruka!) are obsessed with finding these, and extremely upset when they hear about them appearing in other dungeons and being wiped out by their female classmates.
  • Angelica is a rare cute monster girl Lich, although she's also a rare melee specialist lich, and due to some weird interactions between magical items, has been resurrected as a human.
• Disapproving Look: The "flat gaze" that Haruka often elicits from his female classmates (and women in general in the world) when he's doing something absurd. Most commonly by the adventurer's guild receptionist, as Haruka shows up once a day to check for new quests because that's the best way for him to find out if there's an emergency that needs his attention and complains, loudly, that there aren't any new quests to take, despite him being banned from doing them.
• Dungeon Bypass: Haruka does this by accident in "The Great Labyrinth," the oldest known and The Very Definitely Final Dungeon by accidentally falling "outside" of the map and into a chute going straight down to the bottom of the dungeon, leading him to land 100 floors down, when no one has ever gone past about floor 50. Beyond his being now stuck on the bottom floor with the Final Boss, he now has to fight his way out of the dungeon the wrong way up. Amongst other things, the enemies get weaker as he goes up, and he gets items meant to solve puzzles or beat certain monsters AFTER he's dealt with them.
• Embarrassing Nickname:
  • Haruka cannot remember names of anyone or anything, leading to him renaming the town, the villagers, and even the classmates he's known his entire life. This includes entire groups — rather than remember people's names, he finds the cliques they're a part of and names the members around them. (For example, The Otaku Group, aka "Otaku 1, Otaku 2, Otaku 3, and Otaku 4.)
  • Some characters earn their own nicknames. One classmate tried to seduce him, so he calls her "Nudist Girl" from there on out. Another girl helped him catch fish, so she's "Fish Girl," and he constantly speculates about how her parents — fish, obviously — would react to seeing her do certain things such as eating seafood.
  • Others, especially the natives, have names based on the small part of their names Haruka can remember. Meriel Shimu Omui, for example, becomes Merimeri, whereas her father Mellotosam Shim Omui becomes "Meripapa." Princess Shariceres becomes "Royal Girl-sama" and then, when called out on being rude, "Sharishari-san."
  • Class Rep eventually succumbs to this without realizing, calling everyone else by their nicknames in her POV chapters.
• Experience Booster: One of the Cheat Skills is "Experience Boost", which isn't one of the leftovers.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Haruka mentioning Tanaka's name when he sees him working with the Delinquents is extremely out of character in hindsight. This is because Haruka is well aware that Tanaka is a dangerous psychopath and his gaining superpowers in the new world is bad news for everyone.
  • Haruka repeatedly notes how dangerous Omui is, because everyone including the children and housewives are walking around carrying Goblin clubs. It turns out he's quite right, and anyone stupid enough to attack the towns or villages will have to deal with a well armed militia.
• Fragile Speedster: Haruka's skillset primarily revolves around speed, alongside springing ambush attacks and attacking without getting hit. It's noted that his defense is laughably low (he's wearing the equivalent of some thick medieval clothing) and his health and stamina are far lower than the rest of his classmates.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Haruka is a literature nerd, and is very well versed in fantasy tropes.
  • The Otaku / Nerds literally worked for years preparing themselves in case they ever got sent to another world, training themselves in survival skills, medieval technology, et cetera. To the point that they are able to recreate a steamship that doubles as a warship by memory.
• Girl Posse: The Mean Girls, the fashion and popularity obsessed "gals" of the classroom. They refused to work after a while, forcing all the work onto the geeks. And when the class got separated, they had the gall to expel the geeks EVEN after all the work they did for them. However, being left alone without any experience in a fantasy world left the Mean Girls trying to find the geeks to apologize, something Haruka quickly understands. It becomes their driving motivation as they wander the forest.
• Go-Go Enslavement: Technically a prisoner of war, Sherisheri-san ends up stuck with only the outfit Haruka had on hand to wear. Which was something he was intending on making Angela wear that evening in their Inn room. And fully expecting to be beat up afterwards by her for it. Sherisheri ending up stuck in tasteful but extremely erotic clothing becomes a running gag, almost always caused by Haruka.
• The Hermit: Haruka was a loner in the real world (except for some talking with the geek group), and wants to keep it that way in the new world. However, its classmates (and the Student Council President) wouldn't let him have any of that.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Haruka... or so he thinks. He believes the constant lectures and scoldings he gets from the Class President are simply because his "affection score" is too low, and if he can just fine a Pheromone Ring it'll max it out and they'll stop picking on him so much.
• Hikikomori: Yes, is another skill of Haruka's, called Shut-in in the English localization, and it does have a purpose: It makes him stronger when defending his home, a reference to how Hikikomoris often call themselves "Home Security Guards" in Japan. Haruka specifically returns to his cave to reset his "home" before facing Tanaka, specifically for this effect.
• Impossible Theft: While making himself intentionally vulnerable by walking off alone after assassins come after the Omui family and the girls at the Inn, Haruka is set upon by Sherisheri's loyal Combat Maid, who mistakenly thought that Sherisheri was being mistreated, who promptly tries to stab him from behind with a sword. However, Haruka, knowing full well she was there due to his skills and being significantly faster than her, simply takes the sword out of her hand as a "gift." And then complains that it's not expensive enough and asks her if she has any more exotic weaponry to give him. By holding fast to the phrasing that she "gave him a sword" instead of tried to assassinate him he deftly removes any punishment she might have gotten for her mistaken attack.
• Insane Troll Logic: Haruka, in spades, often to the open exasperation of his classmates and even worse, the natives of the new world; the latter often have to get the former (usually the Class President) to translate. Worse, Haruka's thoughts are often just as stark raving mad:
  "Meripapa": "Eerrr, Haruka-kun. I’m one thing, but this person here is this country’s princess, so... If you could~, well, it’s fine if only to the extent that wouldn’t trouble you, but couldn’t you act with some semblance of politeness? No, it’s not like I’m trying to force you, it’s only if you can? If you could put just a little bit of respect into your words it would be nice... Not happening, right?"
  How rude. Even though there is no one who can surpass me in politeness and manners? It is out of that excessive politeness that I’m saving on politeness, actually not resorting to it even once until now? I must’ve accumulated tons of politeness by now, so even interest on it should be enough to make me super polite. I got it perfectly covered.
• Interface Spoiler: A rare non-videogame example. When Haruka falls down to the bottom of the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon they know he's still alive because the Bitch girls are still gaining experience from being tamed by Haruka earlier.
• Japanese Delinquents: A group in the class was more concerned on making the girls their own harem, they even took skills like "Fascination" and "Puppetry" for that purpose. After the geeks told her, the Student Council President got stronger and expelled them from the group, but they came back and destroyed the camp, splitting the class in the process.
• Killer Rabbit: Haruka tames a slime at the bottom of one of the dungeons he explores, who promptly becomes his pet and Team Mascot, spending most of the time on his head and bouncing and wobbling happily. Key phrasing there: At the bottom of a dungeon. The Slime is a Dungeon Master and Dungeon Emperor candidate; that is to say, the last boss of the dungeon who might have been able to turn into a True Final Boss. It is extremely powerful, roughly on par with Haruka and Angelica, although it is a You Are Who You Eat Tank specialist type compared to the others.
• Lighter and Softer: The manga is. The general ambiance is much more comical and cartoonish than seems to be in the web novel. Death, especially for humans, is not shown graphically or even stayed and it's very uncommon to see the word "Kill" particularly when the main character "beats" or "defeats" his enemies.
• Luck Stat: Beyond any of his useless and infuriatingly hard to use cheat skills, Haruka's real "cheat" is his luck — having been given two dice to roll for his luck stat and rolling two Ms on a 6 sided dice, his luck stat is "Beyond Max." It's implied this is why he constantly finds absurdly rare mushrooms in the forest, why he happens to encounter certain items and things just in time, et cetera.
• Madness Mantra:
  • The leader of an adventuring party makes it to the end of Haruka's fake dungeon, only to be caught by the final trap, leaving her (mostly) naked, glued down to a table in an embarrassing pose, and brought forth by a group of golems in something reminiscent of the Coffin Dance meme to be presented to the Frontier's leadership. Hello, your Royal Highness, Princess Shariceres. She is openly traumatized by the experience,
    Sharishari-san: "...Please, forgive me. I’m sorry. Please, don’t do anything cruel to me. Please, be merciful. I beg your forgiveness. Please, don’t do anything cruel to me. Please forgive me. I’m sorry. Please, don’t do anything lewd to me as well. Please, forgive me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry..."
  • Shortly afterwards, he warns her to make sure not to go exploring around Castle Merimeri, because unlike the traps in the dungeon, the traps in Castle Merimeri are set to "Butt Naked" mode.
    Sharishari-san: "Butt... I’m sorry. Please, don’t do anything cruel to me. Please, forgive me. I’m sorry. Not completely naked, please spare me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry..."
  • In a decidedly less amusing variant, Haruka, when carving the names of the dead into the memorial he created at the destroyed village, a process that literally takes him all night.
    Haruka: "Forgive me... Forgive me... Forgive me... Forgive me... Forgive me... Forgive me..."
• NEET: One of the leftover Titles, "NEET (Unemployed)".
• New Life in Another World Bonus:
  • The deity who summoned Haruka and his class has a giant whiteboard full of them. The catch being that they're all first-come, first-served, and Haruka's stunt trying to escape caused him to be last — leaving him with the absolute worthless skills no one else wanted. As an apology, and because he was annoying the heck out of the Deity, the God gives him all of the rest of the skills as an apology.
  • One important caveat is that every single skills is a "cheat" skill, a skill used by a hero in the past. Even the weird and useless ones that Haruka got. Figuring out how they work is the real challenge.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Haruka, who acts like a goofball at the best of times, is also constantly observing everything about the new world, especially about the state of the town he's in. Multiple times he does something seemingly at random (builds a castle ^note Important if you have created a fake dungeon that will only hold out invading armies for a certain amount of time, works to prop up a local business ^note Important to arm the local guardsmen, adventurers, and even townsfolk, wastes all his money on seemingly useless used dungeon loot^note Useful if you need a quick powerful weapon before a psychopathic classmate makes his move, etc) because he sees a problem coming from weeks or months away.
  • Once they compare notes, the class realizes Haruka had been doing that all throughout high school, doing stuff like accidentally walking in between the geeks and delinquents when the latter were bullying the former.
• One Cast Member per Cover: Each novel cover features a female member of the cast, despite the cast being gender-balanced.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Haruka tends to be a sarcastic, flippant, trope obsessed dork who seemingly can't stop goofing off and can't remember anyone's names. When he drops the act, it's because he has good reason to do so.
  • Haruka cannot remember anyone's name, not even his love interests. When he immediately recognizes and names Tanaka offhand upon seeing him with the delinquents, it's Foreshadowing.
  • On the opposite end of the spectrum, Haruka remembering Angelica's name show just how important she is to him, even before Haruka himself realizes it.
• Only Sane Man: Sharishari-san, who has no idea about the situation in the frontier and is gobsmacked that the noble Omui is not only putting up with Haruka, but being outright deferential to him. By chapter 190 she's heard of all his accomplishments and tries to figure out just what in the world is going on, only to be left even more confused at his casual dismissal of everything with mundane excuses.
• The Pornomancer:
  • Haruka, who, due to the game-like world's Skill and Title system, is constantly rewarded with increasingly absurd titles after he begins sleeping with Angelica, abusing his ability to not need sleep. "Lewd Tentacle King" and "Sexual Emperor" are amongst his titles, and they keep getting more absurd as the weeks go on.
  • Haruka half teases, half honestly wonders if Prez got skills like Super Horny and Alpha Male from Orcs and high rank Goblins thanks to Hijack. (yes, the monsters actually have those as skills).
• Power Copying: One of the skills on the board that Haruka noticed at a glance was already taken, Copycat, allows it's user to copy a limited use version of any other skill. No one knows who took the power, although compared to Hijack it's not as dangerous, so they don't try to find out. Tanaka took it, as he noticed the potential.
• Power Parasite:
  • Hijack, One of the forbidden skills on the skill board that everyone, Haruka, the Geeks, and even the Jocks noticed. It is restricted to stealing abilities from defeated enemies, i.e., people and monsters you kill, making it somewhat more restrictive than Copycat, but the power transfer is permanent. No one knows who took it, the Jocks specifically reached out to Haruka in his cave to check if he got the power, as it's so dangerous: Anyone could go on a murder spree to become a dangerous monster. The Class Rep took it, as she didn't want anyone else to.
  • Tanaka was using Copy Cat to make weaker versions of the other's cheat skills, with the intent of becoming powerful enough to use Copy Cat to copy Hijack and then kill the Class Rep, stealing the actual Hijack skill. This would allow him to effectively become a god. He couldn't go straight for Hijack as everyone was on edge about it, and he would have been targeted and stopped or killed before he could build enough power.
• Power Perversion Potential: After Haruka teaches the girls vibration magic, he notes they almost all max it out in a night. And are all learning how to use goblin clubs for some reason. Similarly, after Angelica enters the picture, they all start learning detect enemy skills at a frightening rate. Which would, amongst other things, allow them to know what's going on in his bedroom.
• Rare Candy: The mushrooms Haruka finds constantly in the forest. Goblins that eat them become higher ranked goblins, eventually Goblin Kings and Goblin Emperors; they appear to increase a human's base stats, while also being extremely delicious and what amounts to a health potion. Him selling them to the local General Store without realizing just how rare (and powerful) they are leads to the store owner having a mild breakdown and leads Haruka to openly question if she's addicted to mushrooms. The truth is far more tragic than that.
• Refusal of the Call: Just after the summoning circle appeared in the classroom, Haruka was Genre Savvy enough to try to get the hell outta there by trying to open windows, open the door, break the windows and doors, and even climbed the storage closet and jumped into the hidden attic crawlspace in his classroom to try and get away. It didn't work, but points for trying. Though this also worked against him: by being distant enough from the rest of the class, the god that summoned them ended up piling on the major skills to the rest of his classmates before realizing Haruka was just sort of there, off to the side the entire time. He got all the "useless" and rather questionable skills to make up for it.
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse:
  • The new world Haruka et all find themselves in runs on a system very similar to RPGs. According to this system, Haruka should be pathetically weak, barely able to stand up to a basic goblin, horrifically crippled by his low level, near-cripplingly weird skills, and bad stats. Key word, should.
  • One example of this is weapon skills. Granted to someone once they gain a certain skill level in a given weapon, they're absurdly strong. Haruka is unable to gain them cause his skills are too low and he levels too slowly, but he also doesn't care — because the weapon skills are all animation-locked, which means if you're actually paying attention to the fight, as Haruka does, you can just move out of the way.
• Shout-Out: Volume 1 has one to Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, of all things, when Haruka wonders whether Air Walk is some secret basketball technique like the Chaos Dunk.
• The Shut-In: One of the leftover Titles: "Shut-In (Doesn't leave their home, protected by their dwelling)"
• Spanner in the Works: Haruka, all over. His somewhat random nature combined with not really caring about any social consequences allows him to completely upend the fantasy world's society and status quo. His Luck Stat being a stat, not a skill, and thus granted after selecting things in the whiteboard completely derailed Tanaka's calculations, destroying his perfectly crafted plan.
• Solo-Character Run: Haruka's "loner" skill prevents him from joining human parties, with the tradeoff that he can tame monsters.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: For all the focus the series gives on Haruka as the guy that just straight up breaks the rules of the world, the occasions where his classmates have their moments to shine highlight that when used properly, these kids with powerful skills are terrifying, largely outclassing many natives so long as they're properly geared, readied and not facing a sheer combat experience gap. One rescue of slaves leads to them practically demolishing an entire localized area and burning the surrounding docks to ashes, irrecoverably crippling the enemy nation's trade market economy as a result, far above and beyond anything Haruka had expected from them.
• Survivor Guilt: Haruka does not take the realization that the monster rampages wiped out several smaller villages, killing hundreds, very well. He also has a similar regret about what happened with Tanaka, wishing he could have found another way.
• Tamer and Chaster: The web novel was rebooted a few hundred chapters in as an R-18 (adult only) version, making it Hotter and Sexier, and going for several thousand chapters past the reboot point. The Light Novel is based on the R-18 version, and the manga is based on the Light Novel version. Both of which dial back the adult content seen in the Web Novel.
• Unreliable Narrator: Haruka. While his text comes across as a stream of consciousness style reading similar in humor to Monty Python or Terry Pratchet, it becomes apparent at times it's more akin to him telling the story to someone else, as he tends to be blatantly obtuse, makes jokes about what's going on in his mind, and occasionally breaks character, revealing he knew something else he hadn't mentioned or had a completely different motivation in mind.
• The Wonka: Haruka. Haruka does things that make absolutely no sense to anyone but him, but are so obviously common sense to him that he can't believe anyone else wouldn't understand — and he sure as heck can't explain it. Hearing his inner narrative doesn't help, not the least of which because he lies.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Tanaka. A math nerd and an utter sociopath, he uses logic and probability to puzzle out the new world him and his classmates find themselves in and maximize his chances of survival and gaining power. Contrast Haruka, who is a literature nerd, who recognizes the storytelling-like tropes the world seems to run on, and wants nothing to do with power (and just wants to be left alone.)
  Haruka: "In this fantasy world, in this world of swords and sorcery, where none of the natural laws were the same, he was foolish enough to believe that one still equaled one."

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