Hell Mode: Volume 2

This volume ends with the payoff from two volumes of slow world building. A bit of an info dump, but still woven together well. A bit disappointing that the world looks more like a common isekai trope than it first appeared, but the author has done well enough so far that I’m hoping they’ll break the trope boundaries, at least a bit. The introduction of the noble girl concerns me, she appears to lack much agency and looks like a typical love interest subplot, though there’s very little attention paid to that so far. Right now it’s looking a bit like the next volume will be the “noble adventurer school” trope including a possible love triangle, but the author has done pretty well so far in avoiding the worst tropes, so I’m hopeful it won’t descend to that. This volume also sees the hero reaching a more typical overpowered status, but there’s enough challenges that he’s not just powering through everything, and there are still other characters above his power level. A bit less character development in this volume, but overall the other characters are developed enough that they’re not just plot placeholders, and I’m curious to see how they’ll develop next volume.