Heck yeah, scythes and naginata is really cool. I love type of mid-range weapon like that.
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Wow. I was set up. That’s so… AWESOME! I hoped I would be able to maintain some form of moral high ground while keeping true to my blood elf heritage, and with the sisters volunteering like this, I’ll be able to hold my head high among my people in no time.
The Revenant part is cool. I chose the many eyed Raven and named it Tzeentch.
Since we have Rev does that mean Deathe is possessing someone else? Because it could be kind of fun to compete with some stereotypical bad guy.
Then again, maybe Deathe finds taking the villain role again underwhelming and wants to subvert the prince’s protagonist status instead.
If their a villain can we have a scene where we spend the day on petty squabbling with eachother, only for the prince to show up from a very miserable day we had nothing to do with convinced one of us is responsible. From there our Villainous rival claims credit, leaving us with the option to-
A. Lie and claim responsibility ourselves.
B. Lie and support their claim
C. Honestly admit that the two of you have been to caught up with eachother to pay any attention to the prince.
D. Take advantage of Villainous Rivals distraction to try for a sucker punch.
All of them can be used to set up a battles scene.
A. 3 way fight.
B. You and the prince against VR.
C. You and VR one on one.
D. VR and the Prince against you.
Actually this scene works just as well if Deathe is possessing a heroic adversary instead. Just have them genuinely decide that your responsible for the princes horrible day instead, and change the first two dialogue options a little.
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Wow I thought I didn’t know that there were more Scythe lovers lol
Well a scythe is a farming tool, an improvised weapon, it is not designed to kill. So logically It rarely appear in these type of story if the player character is not some kind of Immortal.
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Guys I get it.
I just asked so and there was a no so nothing can be changed I still find the game great so I have nothing to complain about.
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Just thinking about it, I’m not really sure this is a great choice:
- She reminds me of my favourite character from my favourite series.
- She reminds me of a character I hate from my favourite series.
We’re not really given any information going into the choice; all we know is child-Carmine, who’s very different to how the book character eventually turns out. It would probably make more sense to give a completely neutral description of Carmine’s actions in the series, and then ask us how we felt about her. Also, it would probably make more sense to have more nuanced choices (e.g. “I liked her at first, but I hated how the books wrecked her character later on.”)
One of the things cited by reviewer upon reviewer for their high rating was how the book wrapped up the storyline of Vitalius and Carmine. With her last breath she broke free of Deathe’s control long enough to save her one true love and tell him her long held feelings. She died in his arms, succumbing to the illness she had been dealing with behind the scenes for the whole series. Together the victorious siblings then went to face the real villain of the series: Deathe.
Honestly… this is a very clichéd plot resolution. And while I feel that absolutely works very well for your story (where the main idea is to “fix” the original 
), it seems weird to have reviewers praise the clichéd original ending. 
In fact, thematically, it feels like the original story should have an ending that everyone hated, just to make it so that you have even more reason to want to see it changed.
Am I satisfied with my appearance?
Seems an odd way to phrase it; we’ve just been forcibly de-aged, so we’re probably not really going to be “satisfied” about it…
“How do I murder someone? Do you know anything about ritual sacrifice?”
Nothing wrong, I just love this line.
"You, however, still owe me an answer.
No I don’t? 
I couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know, but he hasn’t told me how to sacrifice people yet either. 
Okay, so it goes into that a bit more on the next page, but I still feel that the word “owe” is wrong in this context.
“How a sorcerer such as yourself did not figure it out immediately is something of a miracle.”
I just said (or at least implied) I wasn’t a sorcerer…
“Where’s the contract? I want to read it.”
I already read the contract before running; presumably this should just be for people who ran before reading it?
I’ve always liked butterflies, and the more wings there are, the prettier it has to be, right?
Another line purely quoted because I love it. 
Talking to the revenant, I would like to have the opportunity to ask if it’s possible to heal a broken soul.
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So is there gonna be more female ROs, because there’s 5 males and only 2 females?
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Hmm I don’t think MC should hate the ending unless they liked Carmine?
I know from experience that a “bad” ending (as in, badly written, not sad/bad thematically, though sometimes it overlaps) or one that is really not my cup of tea will spoil the entire series to me. Like, I’ll start hating everything about the entire series. If the MC thinks the ending is shit, I can’t imagine them thinking of the thing as their favorite series.
Of course, for Carmine-loving MCs it can be a bit tricky, but one may consider her death is the only detail they didn’t like.
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Is there a way to not sell our to the revenent and still advance the story?
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No, i don’t think so. I tried every choice and all of them lead to the same outcome 
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I’d like the option to say that I don’t want to go back to our world, and maybe to react differently to how we feel about our family, like we could be indifferent that we are not going to see them again or happy or sad.
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I’m very conflicted about that too, but I feel like I need to see more before being certain about my opinion… 
One of my most hated thing in fiction are isekai stories where MC goes back to their homeworld at the end “because responsibilities” - I find it to be the worst possible ending to a story. Ever.
Yes, even worse than the “it was just a dream”, because at least if it’s a dream, it’s no one’s fault that MC woke up. While with the “going back ‘home’” trope, MC either decided to abandon everything they gained and what’s probably the best thing that ACTUALLY happened to them, or they forcibly loose it and probably get traumatized forever.
But from what I understood in this story, MC CAN’T go back - in the sense of going back to live there - cause they are effectively dead on Earth, and they actually want to go back just to say goodbye, which is a sentiment I can totally understand and be in favor of. I mean, they’d either go back in “spiritual form” so they wouldn’t be able to stay without a body, or in their new body, which isn’t even human, so it would be impossible too. At least, that’s what I understand from it.
With that being said, I do agree that it would be nice to actually decide what was MC’s relationship with their family. And if it was bad, then yes, no need to actually go back at all.
The way I play my MC, he was clearly depressed back on Earth, and having bad family relationships can’t be helpful with that. So it would make sense if my MC didn’t actually like his family.
But I do not mind the things as they are right now, as long as I don’t discover my MC actually wants to go back to LIVE on Earth.
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Love the new CI’s(crush interests) looking forward to the story a whole lot more now [before you had my 100% focus now it’s 110% with new characters for spice and ice.] 
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Hey! Sorry I’ve been MIA from the forums! Had some health issues over the long weekend (because of course that’s the perfect time to get sick lmao) but it’s my goal to stay at least semi-regular on the COG forums.
Thank you everybody so much for the feedback! I really appreciate it! Also wow this got long. Sorry!
@Idekam Thank you so much for answering that question from @Sakinah_Saraswati! I really appreciate it, and you’re right. All of the students at Ehrenreich are children, and they will remain so for the entirety of this book.
@Den Thank you so much - Dragon Age was a massive inspiration! I really love the stories involving the Circle - and they kind of reminded me of the Residential Schools. Most of the older generation of my family went to them so I wanted to throw some of that in there as well.
Also yes, Carmine is watching over the MC as they go about her life - and she has broken out the popcorn.
@Konoi Thank you so much! I’m glad the new personality types were clearer! And thanks for reporting those typos! They’re on the list, as are most of the things you mentioned. Also you’re right about the Richard thing - it honestly just didn’t occur to me lmao. It was kind of a last minute addition. Just before uploading the update I was playing some Stardew Valley to relax and remembered the unfortunate name I gave my cat. I’ll add something in for the next update!
About the revenant contract, I’ll admit it’s something of a plot contrivance for me - for story reasons, I need the MC to sign the contract and I wanted to add something for the players who didn’t want to while forcing their hand. That, and if a creeper wanted me to sign away my soul the first thing I personally would do is yeet it out of there, so other options also yeeted themselves out of my brain lmao. I’m going to add some middle ground options - thank you so much for this suggestion! It really helped! 
@ParrotWatcher Thank you so much for the feedback! I’ve added your issues to the list of things to fix/consider!
@No_This_Is_Patrick Because majority of the older students ended up female a lot of the students in the MC’s physical age group ended up being boys. That’s why there’s more male options than female. Sorry! The later planned books will have more female options (also I love your icon - bleach was my first anime ever! Holds a special place in my heart 
).
I’m on the boat that just because something is cliched doesn’t mean it’s bad and deserves a negative review, though I know some people hate that kind of stuff. That’s kind of what my whole premise is based on lmao. In addition the MC absolutely doesn’t have to be on board to the whole ‘change the ending’ thing.
There will be three ‘alignment’ routes where the MC can go onboard for villainy, try to save everybody and be a hero, or they can simply be undecided and not sure what to do. MC can also have a negative reaction to Carmine doing this to them, and will have an optional motivation to screw her over. That’s why the MC’s personal feelings on the ending are somewhat vague. There will be a decision in ch:1 to decide the MC’s feelings about the ending of the original series definitively.
@Nazroth and Konoi I see what you two mean, and I’ll add some other options! I’m just not super confident I could write a bad parental relationship MC well, but I’ll give it a shot!
The reason I wrote it the way I did originally is because I like the opposite lmao. I really hate MC’s who basically forget their life back home (basically every isekai protag-kun ever lmao). A series I felt did the whole old life thing really well was Re:Zero’s second season! Subaru and his parents were so well handled - at least to me.
Also (and this is veeerrryyy far off), I plan to have different endings about this topic based on the MC’s choices/preferences.
CI’s? That’s amazing! You’re a genius! I hope you don’t mind if I describe them like that. The Potential RO’s (AKA the students who can crush on the MC) has been a bit of a mouthful lol.
Also thank you so much! I’m so glad you like them!
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Yeah, I understand the need for the contract, that’s why I didn’t say anything about the fact I don’t want it.
The way I see it, the most logical thing for my MC to do would be to refuse at first, because “uh wut?”, but agree later if the revenant gives a more valid reason than basically “just so” 
I kind of feel like they started on a bad feet for no reason, since my MC is pretty peaceful and wouldn’t necessarily hold hatred towards the revenant or anything.
Now, if there IS a loophole to exploit at some point and avoid giving up his soul, he’ll still do so 
Maybe an in-between if you don’t feel confident then? Something where MC’s family loves MC anyway, but they may simply not understand MC well, and the unease would come from MC’s point of view entirely? Like, I don’t think my MC would hate their family per se, if I had the choice for more nuance.
And that actually ties in with my point about isekai.
I didn’t say I like stories where MC necessarily forgets about their homeworld and that’s it. It looses it’s impact too, if it’s like that. I like it when it’s a knowing decision that “yes, I have to abandon some things, but I’d loose way more if I went back - THIS is my life, what I achieved - not the mundane life I had before” (that’s why the revenant’s words about “why would you like to go back there” resonated so strongly with me). There is no choice where they wouldn’t loose something, but I feel like usually, in most isekai, one looses way more if they go back, and I’m viscerally allergic to that. Nothing can ruin a fiction for me more than the “going back” trope in an isekai
I usually have to spoil myself of the ending - well, that part of the ending - to be able to enjoy an isekai story, because if I don’t, I’ll be stressing over the MC going back home at the end during the entire thing, to the point that I won’t focus on the actual story.
I still remember some childhood traumas about the “going back home” trope, where I spent literal hours CRYING over the ending of a story and how unfair it is and how it ruined the entire show/movie. Even now it makes me upset to even think back on it! 
Needless to say, the Narnia stories are my ultimate nemesis
The reason why I’m not scared here is because it’s an IF, and thus, a very player-choice-based kind of work. So I assumed I’ll have the choice/it will depend on previous choices.
And that’s all I’m asking for
And I’m so sorry to hear about that! Hope you feel better soon!
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I would say that while I generally agree with this, there are certain clichés (like killing off an interesting character, often a love interest, purely for shock/melodrama) which I do think deserve criticism.
My MC has decided that since he signed under duress, the contract should be invalid, and thus he has every right to want to try to get himself out of it.
I mean, technically those stories do end with them going to stay in Narnia forever. (Except Susan, but even then, Lewis said that she’d probably end up finding her way back there eventually.)
But I think isekai/other world stories do have to walk a narrow path between giving into the pure power fantasy of most true isekai (which often involves throwing away all of the character’s past), and turning it into a morality story about not getting lost in “childish fantasy” . The latter has worked in, for example, the Peter Pan and Neverending Story books, where staying in the other world is clearly detrimental to the protagonists’ wellbeing (although the movies would generally skip over these parts), but often it’s just done because that’s the cliché, without any real thought as to whether or not it makes sense.
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Yeah, I do agree with that, of course, but in this case, in the in-fiction Graves of Heirs books, Carmine wasn’t liked, and what people liked is that her story basically ended on nothing, in the background, since she was considered uninteresting and uninspired, no?
I’m also certain that seried killed off some very popular heirs earlier in the series only for the shock, for example
If Carmine, a seemingly generally disliked character, was the only one to die in the last tome, and if it was generally well written, cliché or not, I think it makes sense it was more highly rated than the other ones.
And I agree that killing a love interest for the sole shock value is the most evil thing ever
Yeah… it’s a bit strange in the case of my MC, really, since he wouldn’t have escaped to begin with, so it shouldn’t even have been under duress. He would have said no at first, but would probably have agreed after talking more or something.
I have read like… two books… and don’t remember them well. And watched the movies that were done. But I was getting SO UPSET each time that for my own wellbeing I couldn’t go on with the series - I was getting literally physically unwell (not to mention hours upon hours of crying) each time they were forced to go back. If there’s a “final ending” that’s better, I guess I should try and bruteforce my way through it?
Actually, there is only ONE type of scenario that “works” for me in isekai with coming back home - the morality story part doesn’t work either on me, even if done with care. Because I still consider the moral is the opposite, basically.
The one scenario that works is when the world the MC goes to is doomed no matter what, and you know about that from the start or from very early on, and the actual goal of the story is to help everyone escape from there (usually there are more people in these) before it’s too late. This is more common in the “virtual world isekai” stories. For example, I never minded the endings of Period Cube where the protag and friends / love interest go back home, because of that.
The pure power fantasy stories… well, these are the ones that often “forget” about MC’s life on Earth, but then, often, make them go back to Earth anyway, because “that’s how these stories should end”, which is so absurd because it’s all so more shocking since the MC was clearly happier in that new world, as they didn’t care about Earth or whatever.
And well, the morality oriented ones don’t work for me either, as I said, since I still see the moral as being the opposite. Basically, to me, that means the MC grew up, acomplished a lot of things, is not “just a kid” anymore… And then they decide to go back, to become a normal kid again, to return to being a child without responsibilities rather than the accomplished hero they became. It nullifies the message / moral it was trying to teach, basically. So it sits VERY badly with me.
There’s the special case of what I call “reverse-isekai” too, where a being from another world comes to MC’s world. In these cases, the other world is often so superior that I mind them going back less, though it varies more. Sometimes them staying is awful, if they loose their powers or whatever thing they may possess, but sometimes them going away is awful because the bonds they formed. So really, it depends.
Anyway, sorry for going on a tangent for so long!
I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t a relevant matter for the story at hand, but that’s enough!
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Well, it’s closer to the more modern “they’re technically dead in the real world so can’t go back”, so I’m not sure if you’d consider that better. Plus there are at least two more books of having to go back to the real world in between (three if you count the prequel)… 
I certainly don’t want to recommend anything that you’d find distressing.
(Glances at my own unstarted isekai-set-in-a-doomed-world story…)
Yeah, this is the real problem. I think the stories are based on the Hero’s Journey, which requires the hero to enter the unknown to learn whatever lesson they need to, before returning to the their old world to prove how much they’ve grown. However, this obviously won’t work in every case, and as you’ve said, often the choice to return means that they’re leaving behind whatever “adult” responsibilities they had in the fantasy world.
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Glad the abbreviation could be of help. That aside hope you stay healthy and start feeling better soon, all the best 
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Nice story. I like your sense of humour. You had me chuckling a few times.
There is one issue that bothered me a little. Just my personal preference and really no big deal, but I dislike skill systems based on opposing stats. When your skills total 100% and the only way to get better at one skill is to get worse at another, like you have with your magic stats. That, to me, hurts the sense of progression and growth of our character. It means we are (or seem, at least) just as skilled as a 11 year old isekai baby as when we become the next demon lord or whatever at the end of the games. It also doesn’t really make sense to me. Why would learning a new Hex make you forget how to cast an old Charm?
It’s far better to give every skill its own points and independent progression and only lose points if we suffer concrete physical or mental damage.
As I said, no big deal. I’ll enjoy your story regardless. 
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