Azarinth Healer

Blurb

Ilea likes punching things. And eating.

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many career options for hungry brawlers. Instead, the plan is to quit her crappy fast-food job, go to college, and become a fully functioning member of society. Essentially - a fate worse than death.

So maybe it’s lucky that she wakes up one day in a strange world where a bunch of fantasy monsters are trying to kill her…?

On the bright side, ‘killing those monsters right back’ is now a viable career path! For she soon discovers her new home runs on a set of game-like rules that will allow her to punch things harder than in her wildest dreams. Well, maybe not her wildest dreams, but it’s close.

With no quest to follow, no guide to show her the way, and no real desire to be a Hero – Ilea embarks on a journey to discover a world full of magic. Magic she can use to fight even bigger monsters.

She’s struggling to survive, has no idea what will happen next, and is loving every minute of it. Except, and sometimes also, when she’s poisoned and/or has set herself on fire. It’s complicated.

Thoughts

As of writing this review, I have read the first published book on Amazon, and am about to jump into some royal road chapters. There are ten thousand pages on RR, so I’ll be there a while.

I’m not too sure if I should class Ilea as actually insane, or if her blasé attitude towards crippling wounds is perfectly rational given her massive healing capacity.

Maybe it’s a bit of both.

As a reader, I loved it, because it meant every chapter was packed to the brim with action. Who needs downtime to process psychological trauma when you can heal your mind? Downtime because your foot has been cut off? Grow a new one! Acid has eaten away at your face. New eyes, coming right up!

Honestly, there so much going on, if you love similar non-stop serials like DotF, Primal Hunter, etc, this takes it to an even higher level. Ilea’s skills are probably closest to the vitality and regeneration approach found in Outcast in another World. But I like this a fair bit more.

One flaw similar serials often have is scope, item, and skill creep. Remember how Randidly Ghosthound was all about his potion making, and then discovers engraving, and forgets about potions instantly? Or when a character has hundreds of skills but they only seem to use the same three over and over? Doesn’t happen here, hurray! Ilea has two classes, and they have about ten skills each. Most of them are passive, which makes it even easier. In terms of active skills, it’s kept simple, and I appreciate this.

Characters are well done, which can be a weakness for solo-focused MC stories, but this book has reoccuring and numerous secondary and background characters. Worldbuilding is solid, we travel to new places, see new things, and there are teases at the wider world, and the wider elven-driven conflict that will probably crop up a lot more down the road.

For those worried about Ilea, don’t worry, there’s no trace of the men writing women sub, Ilea does get some action, but it’s essentially fade to black, with a few more details given in the lesbian foray than the straight hookups, which probably comes as a surprise to noone. It’s not a focus of the story, it’s not done badly, this is not a harem or sex fantasy, do not worry. I simply state it here given the question always comes up with female MC or series that have any sexual content or implication.

Look, to keep it simple, I’m jumping onto RR for this one rather than waiting for the next instalment on KU. I liked it.

As a final aside, there is so much on RR, I feel compelled to add in this scatter plot (I did an analysis of RR stories here). Azarinth Healer is in the very top of followers, very highly rated, and has far more chapters than almost anything else. Savage Divinity with its almost 15k pages is the king here, but Azarinth Healer isn’t far behind.