This is one of the most brutal manga I've ever read, interspersed with some of the most contrasting damn near noble-bright scenes that feel both incredibly out of place and completely natural. Alicia/Aria gets orphaned, spends three years being abused to hell at an orphanage before getting attacked by a man woman speaking about how she's going to take over her body. Things occur, the woman dies and Alicia gets the knowledge that she's actually from an otome game, the woman got reincarnated here and tracked her down and she has a minor existential crisis over it. And that's kinda all that happens with that,and I'll be honest she kinda gets over it fast, and her personality does a 180.

The kind and caring girl becomes nigh bloodthirsty in a moment, and while I'm absolutely here for how everything turns out from there, you do kinda get whiplash from it. I reckon they're going to reveal the heel turn was the woman's personality imprinting partially on Alicia.

Alicia then runs away, and goes on a series of adventures that alternate from extremely harrowing and traumatic to hilariously over the top, to just plain isekai tropes. I'm not doing it justice believe me, but the journey is just that all over the place, but every change feels somewhat natural and the result of multiple things in the world moving.

Alicia slowly turns from this vulnerable young girl trying her best to a hardened killer and the journey even with time-skips feels very natural. I won't go into the events to avoid spoilers but you get the sense that throughout any time-skip whether it be months or days she's training her arse off.

The one main fault for me is that the story has the bad habit of lore dumping peoples past at the reader, while leaving the MC in the dark about it. This happens with multiple characters to the point you start wondering where all of it is going.

However this is an amazing series, the scene of Alicia winning against all odds are incredible to witness and you really get the sense of just how hard she fights to acquire and retain her skills. There's some things in the later volumes that really showcase just how cunning she's become and man is it so damn cool.

Absolutely looking forward to where this goes, according to some people who've read the LN, we're just at the end of the third book, and there's like 9 total so far. It's going to get crazy!