Chapter Ninety-Nine: Duty I
Added 2025-06-08 20:10:46 +0000 UTCComments
Waiting for story arc endings for Amelia to be allowed to be OP Is like being edged for thousands of words.. Dear god I'm holding on with all my might! Don't do me like this!!! Please let the One Punch Girl out of pandoras box, I'm begging you!!! 😭
Samuel Gatto
2025-07-22 02:10:03 +0000 UTCHey keene, firstly thanks for chapter! And as a aspiring writer I understand why there is some nerfing to amelias presence. For example for one thing having a op character just snap fingers and solve every foe is a very boring story. So keep it up, don't worry about the negative comments on her not being able to do magic. There is a clear reason she can't do it And besides I'm fairly aure in worst case scenario she could quite easily fall off the ship and cast a flying word before she hits the mysterious sky floor stuff. Though not sure if even casting magic away from.the ship will still trigger issues with the ship. Anyway my point being to keep the story interesting there has to be reasons to somewhat nerf amelia. Foe example she has immense power. Probably way stronger than the empress if I'm seeing the hints correctly. But she's inwardly very scared of losing herself if she activates the very powerful 3rd words or beyond. Example of a world builded nerf. Oki I'm rambling good chapter keene keep it up. Much love <3.
SleepyKitten
2025-06-09 20:35:37 +0000 UTCJust copying my reply from below, as this point was more contentious than I thought it would be! > It's a tricky balance to reach, but I haven't forgotten the core premise of OP Amelia. As suggested in the writing, not only is this not a perma nerf, it's also not a total nerf and it's also a nerf that will be shortly avoided once they're off the ship in a few chapters. I.E we'll be back to the normal chaos and OPness in short order! Have faith <3 Thanks for reading! ^.^
Keene
2025-06-09 12:48:12 +0000 UTCGoing to be an interesting series of knots to unravel! Thanks for reading! <3
Keene
2025-06-09 12:44:01 +0000 UTCAmelia can use magic! There's no inconsistency to what's happened before! Thanks for reading! <3
Keene
2025-06-09 12:43:19 +0000 UTCThanks for reading! <3
Keene
2025-06-09 12:41:03 +0000 UTCFixed, thank you! And thanks for reading! <3
Keene
2025-06-09 12:40:54 +0000 UTCThanks for reading!
Keene
2025-06-09 12:40:41 +0000 UTCMmm, she's definitely harmed people before when angry, especially in defence of Serena.
Keene
2025-06-09 12:40:11 +0000 UTCThanks for reading! <3
Keene
2025-06-09 12:39:31 +0000 UTCThanks for reading! <3
Keene
2025-06-09 12:39:23 +0000 UTCGah, nooo. One of my favorite things about this novel was the fact that you didn't randomly nerf the OP character, but still kept the the world and interactions interesting. Don't just remove her ability to throw powerfull magic around from the ship. All the books that do this become worse as they try to justify "intense and interesting" battles, while the character who could end it with a snap of her fingers just meanders around bemoaning their inability to act due to one reason or another.
Kai
2025-06-09 08:51:18 +0000 UTCHey Keene, do you have the Conventions of War outlined anywhere? As, if you're going to have Serena reference them, it'd be cool as a reader to see them :') FOR THE LORE! I can't remember if you already included them at some point - I agree with using them as a catalyst for asking Amelia to define her combat readiness. There's a number of situations she'll have to confront her stance on taking a life throughout the mission - although in the mission briefing they weren't trying to force Amelia to take offensive action, I believe that they must have considered that they'd end up in a situation where Amelia will take action based in her emotional relationship that they know about. I personally didn't remember the diplomat connection, but it's been a lot of reading - and writing - other things since I read the chapter where the diplomats were showcased. I called the potential allied connection, although I presented it as hypothetical at the time. Entitled, I take that to mean there'll be some fun interactions between the Southern Diplomat family and the nefarious human who is muscling in on their proud Suijin relationship, if someone lets it slip :) In any case it explains his entitlement well, if he has diplomatic connections. Those guys can believe they walk on air and can be accustomed to an elevated treatment in conversation. Yes, he's misogynistic, no doubt he's already getting shit about that from his wife as it is, he mentions being scared of her moods, after all. Readers need to remember that for there to be impactful character development, someone has to start out somewhere less than perfect and grow as you get to know the character. No doubt this guy will grow in my estimation through his future actions... right? What we saw in the conversation already sets up this weird power couple in a certain way and we'll see more of that when we actually meet the other party of this couple later, no doubt. Though I'm also guilty sometimes of stopping reading if the people who show up in the story have some exaggerated way of acting that becomes irritating to witness over and over... We've only seen it in one conversation so far and no doubt I'm getting ready to hear more from them if they stir up trouble. I'll weather it for now, buffeted by the winds as they are. Tensions can rise for a while still and I'll not speak out against the choice, due to what I mentioned above about character growth. The previous conversation shows where cultural dispositions clash and I think it comes across well that the regional demons stand apart on domestic issues, though at this point it could still be illustrative of a minority, but it's not been indicated as such so I don't believe that it is, even though he might be a more outspoken figure of their traditional values than most. Thought you handled the roundup and fact-checking of the story that was told well - Serena showing that she's not going to let the conspicious web of circumstances dictate her actions and go along with the flow at the first opportunity. Taking extra time for confirmation is a reasonable approach which their missing military crew should be able to deal with in their absence, given their expected access to rations. It will be interesting to see the fortress when we get there and digging around for if the story about corruption holds up - I hope to see some diverse factions within the city working against the overlord's established order. How relevant that would be to the main plot, comes down to how long you're going to have the characters stay there I guess. Maybe it's a case of "saw it, we'll come back and fix it later, Priorities, priorities". Though, ignoring a hostile situation has to mean they're outmanned and overpowered to justify the leaving it alone approach, like their new ally indicated. It would be vindication for their potential new ally though. Others might argue "convenient" in proving all aspects of the story true - but sometimes truth actually is stranger than fiction. Even in fiction! Now to jump topics to the conversation between the unusual trio(Amelia, Serena and Anathor) who are privvy to more than most of the crew. The conversation was both enlightening and fun to read. It gives a nice nebulous reasoning for why not to push the envelope(of the soul, I guess) as there are unforeseeable consequences to interacting with the ship and I think it works as a "yeah, we need to get our shit together and avoid doing this unprofessional thing" too. Since it also has the negative practical reason of obscuring communications, it'll definitely be a good thing if Amelia's involvement is minimized in the combat situations - or I mean, you can just say that you want more combat ship segments :D I endorse more combat ship segments, they've been great so far. No doubt the boarding actions of fighting this run-away pillager is going to be a banger once they finally catch up to him. That said, the conversation is only half done - as you said it was a 7000 word banger, so I can't wait to read the rest of the conversation and see "the real" cliff. :blob_peek: The story is about more than just Amelia, and I think zooming out to the bigger picture of their circumstances helps to ground the fact that the world is alive. I can't wait to see more of this Pirate infrastructure that was mentioned, and a potential Whale visit. Looking forward to more great reading moments. I also enjoyed the larger discussion around the fact-checking and the way you introduced Aliston's views of the situation and showed Serena as a captain that listens to her subordinates. The interactions between Serena and Aiden were fun for me to read too, they certainly have a way with words, haha. I also would like to mention that I saw some typos occurring in the first part of the chapter but they've already been addressed in your current working process for catching those types of errors, so your process is working! (yeah I took a look to double-check that the ones I saw, were covered) Catch you in the discord!
Lars Nordbotn
2025-06-09 08:02:36 +0000 UTCAs far as I can tell the Vengeance is important because of 𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘵
StapleLizard
2025-06-09 06:38:30 +0000 UTCeven more likely that she'll have to make a choice about it, though. Just having power will cause others to have opinions on how she chooses to use it. So, either you stay out of it, or you take a more defined active role.
Lars Nordbotn
2025-06-09 06:30:40 +0000 UTCThe nerfing kinda takes the “magic” out of the story, so to speak….im here partially to read about Amelia being OP…not an emotional support wife and cook, editing to say I get why you’re doing it…conflict and tension can’t exist in epic ship battles if Amelia just sleeps everyone on board every time, but that’s kind of a choice you made when you started the story and made her effectively a god, and now you gotta do conflict and tense situations and oops…suddenly the premise…an op mage teleported into her op character, turns into an op mage that can’t do magic 90% of the time because they are gonna be on that ship a long ass time…removing a major pull of the story (op nice bubbly mage girl) to fix a problem (op nice bubbly mage girl) feels terrible, at least if that’s a reason someone started reading the story. Furthermore, if it comes down to it and Serena might die…Amelia is gonna be speaking a second word anyway and holding the ship afloat herself if she needs too, and the moment Aiden reports this to intelligence…and he has to if he’s any good as an intelligence agent, any sane military is gonna be calling Serena into a meeting and immediately moving her to a different ship, since they know Amelia will never leave Serena, and someone with the raw power of the empress, even if not true military personnel, outclasses the ship by a ton, unless I’m drastically underestimating how important the vengeance is.
IJustWannaRead
2025-06-09 05:50:55 +0000 UTCGoing be really interesting seeing how both Serena and Amelia handles the nerfing. And like Serena's question to Amelia, something that needed to be addressed. Really like the the complexity of both the captured Captains family name and the tides between the forts command and the pirate Blackhorn. Fantastic world building as always.
Puppy Piranha Forever
2025-06-09 05:01:10 +0000 UTCFully agree- at the moment the Vengeance is a liability. Remove the - ‘Oh, darling not today, I gave a headache’ - Primadonna from the tactical equation. Story-wise it was fun and as sidekick it can still be fun in the future, but as main weapon it needs to be discarded.
Quendolayne
2025-06-09 04:44:19 +0000 UTCThx for the chapter. While it was well written it contents was most unpleasant. Amelia neutered on the ship? Sounds like a boring read in the future, when one of the MCs has to take up knitting - I mean, she IS magic and the story take this away. The next, the smarmy, oily misogynist is maybe innocent? I mean per definition this isn’t possible, but the story drags the reader to the point. So in sum, while it read like an interesting future for Serena it looks like Amelia will, while on the ship, need to be content with the role of the house wife - cooking and good for morale. I’m not looking forward to it. 🥺
Quendolayne
2025-06-09 04:40:05 +0000 UTCTbh Amelia not being able to use magic on the ship seems kinda wack since it was fine for so long.
Aaron V.
2025-06-09 03:15:09 +0000 UTCNaah "you must make a decision" bruh shes basicially on powerlevel of your god-empress, that kind of shit is kind of above the laws. Fuck that noise. Stop trying to cage your gf.
Patryk Rys
2025-06-08 23:47:28 +0000 UTCThanks for the chapter 🍪
SlimeSoup
2025-06-08 22:39:18 +0000 UTCdairy -> diary tftc
trevorix
2025-06-08 21:46:49 +0000 UTCThanks for the chap
Annora D.
2025-06-08 20:57:41 +0000 UTCI still don’t like how Amelia was nerfed with how the ship reacted. Given what we have seen having Anathor and being able to dive seems much less useful than being able to use Amelia’s magic to its full potential. Honestly I think they should switch to the Indefatigable and run the Vengeance on a skeleton crew as a scout ship.
StapleLizard
2025-06-08 20:42:34 +0000 UTCYou probably have her answer already, but I think to get the most character growth out of everyone else, An observer unless shards or darkblades are confirmed to be involved would make the most sense, unless you think that's still contradictory (even I think it kinda is). Sure you've nerfed her Speaking advantage for now but as stated a few chapters ago her regular spells still put her on par with a First Word Speaker at minimum.
shootingQuasar1
2025-06-08 20:42:22 +0000 UTCShe is Dreadmage Amelia Thornheart. Of course she can kill. She won't do so lightly I'd assume. Didn't she sever a Speaker's connection to their god before? I remember that being catastrophic for the victim, even if not lethal.
Tehd11
2025-06-08 20:25:44 +0000 UTCThanks for the chapter!
Bast
2025-06-08 20:24:43 +0000 UTCI didn't make any connection, personally, to the diplomats in the chapter showing off Parliament...but as soon as Aiden made that connection for me, it came back, haha.
CelestialDoggie
2025-06-08 20:24:12 +0000 UTCthank you for the chapter <3
pix
2025-06-08 20:12:26 +0000 UTC
