One line summary: how to live a happy life even with impending doom. Or even shorter: life goes on.
In this post: novel review, summary, and whether or not Willem and Nephren are alive.
The world ended five hundred years ago, when the Beasts turned the earth’s surface into gray dust and wiped out all of humanity. Surviving races migrated to floating islands, Regles Aile, and live happy lives untouched by the Beasts. However, even the air is not entirely safe, and to protect this ending world, young girls called ‘Leprechauns’ wield swords too large for their small bodies to protect all.
Review
Sukasuka didn’t sell so well when it first came out. I will take a guess why. I don’t know if this is the case with the translation, but Sukasuka has a ‘tell-not-show’ issue. For me anyway, it feels like the narration is trying too hard to stress how sad the situation is. The most repeated source of sadness is that the happy days will end soon, and the characters are spending their happy days while just thinking about how it’s going to end soon.
The narration also spends a lot of time musing about the world’s issues and yes, stressing how sad it is. This is especially the issue with the middle of volume five, where the narration jumps from person to person and everybody’s just musing about how sad this damn world is. Like, oh come on, I’ve had four volumes’ worth of musing already, I don’t need another one. The ‘oh this is all so sad’ actually distracts from the actual sadness of the events. I would actually feel more for the story if people didn’t keep saying they are sad. Really.
The story isn’t that sad. Yeah, it’s heavy, but not tear-jerking sad, since sometimes it feels like the narration just keeps going on and on about the same stuff. The climax of each volume is really well-paced and well written, just that the beginning and middle of some volumes are very hard to get through without being bored. The novel is at its strongest in volume 3, and the rest, ehhhhh I don’t know.
Sukasuka pulled off this one thing really well: even if the world is ending, there are those trying to live their lives to the fullest and that’s beautiful.
Summaries:
(*note that I didn’t read them in English so some spelling or terms might be inconsistent)
Volume 1 Summary:
One day before the battle that will seal his fate, Willem promises Almaria that he will come back to eat her butter cake. He never came back.
Willem woke up after being petrified for 500 years and was taken to the surface by a salvager called Grick and the caretaker of the Leprechaun Warehouse called Nygglatho. He also met a Leprechaun, Ctholly, while strolling in town. Willem became a caretaker of the Leprechauns and moved to the Warehouse, where he met many other young Leprechauns, plus two older ones: Ithea and Nephren. Willem got to know the young girls better, becoming a father figure to some of them. Ctholly developed a tsundere crush on Willem, even when she knew she would die in a battle less than a week from now.
500 years ago, Willem was a Quasi Brave and was petrified during a battle against one of the Visitor’s guardian, Ebon Candle. He had exceptional fighting skills and a talent for tuning Carillons, magical insanely OP legendary swords, but did not make it as a Regal Brave because he didn’t have a tragic background. When revived, he lost all purpose and was like a lost child.
Willem taught Ctholly how to fight, tuned her sword, and helped her deal with problems with her Venenum after the battles. He had issues adapting to a world where everyone he knew is dead, and ultimately finding his new purpose at the Warehouse. Only a short while later, Ctholly, Ithea, and Nephren left for a battle against the Beasts that would most likely end up with Ctholly sacrificing herself as a living bomb.
Volume 2 Summary:
Willem awaited Ctholly’s return. He and Nygglatho took a newly awakened Leprechaun, Ti’at, for a medical examination in Cordina Deluce to see if she’s ready to fight. Ctholly and co returned from the battle and Willem greeted her by hugging her. The gang then took a tour around town.
Things start to not look so nice when Ctholly was plagued by visions from the past and would soon lose herself. Despite that, she spent her remaining days happily.
Willem met his old friend, Souwon, who died in the battle against the Visitors only to revive because of a curse he put on himself. They talked about what happened and what to do from now.
Ctholly fell into a coma and met a mysterious girl, Elq. Ctholly told Elq there is someone awaiting her return and woke up. While finding something to eat, she overheard Willem saying “I want Ctholly to be happy.” Willem came out and hugged her.
Volume 3 Summary:
Rhantolk and Nopht, two Leprechauns, were on a mission to the surface. At the warehouse, Willem baked Ctholly a butter cake. However happy she was, Ctholly’s condition worsened and her hair started turning red. It’s revealed that Ithea already had her former personality completely disintegrate, and the new Ithea pretended to be Ithea by reading old Ithea’s diaries.
Ctholly, Willem, and Nephren went on a mission to join Rhantolk and Nopht. While tuning Nopht’s sword, Desperatio, Willem realized that the sword is a ‘kinslayer’, meaning that it was a sword made by humans for killing humans. He realized that the Beasts may actually be humans, and that shook him.
Ctholly noticed that Willem was feeling vulnerable and stayed by his side. Willem, realizing that he found a new life and a place that he belongs, asked Ctholly to marry him. The two were shy about it for a long while after that.
Timere attacked them. The Leprechauns and Willem fought to fend them off. Ctholly overused her Venenum and her hair turned completely red. She used the remainder of her strength to save Willem and Nephren who were falling from the airship and died. The former two were heavily injured.
Willem woke up to Almaria’s voice and Nephren sleeping on top of him. He had somehow appeared in the world 500 years ago.
Volume 4 Summary:
Willem reunited with Almaria, a girl who was like a daughter to him. Nephren learned to use the old language while Willem slipped right back into his old life. The two tried to figure out what’s going on. Willem’s old comrade, Navrutri, appeared to question him why he’s still there when he should’ve died fighting Ebon Candle. The two investigated a disease where people dream of a gray landscape for a few nights and then never wake up again.
Willem investigated ‘True World’, an organization with the core idea that ‘the world is not what it is supposed to be’. Navrutri turned out to be part of the organization, but on the faction that wanted to preserve the world rather than revert it back to an empty gray landscape. Navrutri told Willem that they were trying to prevent the end.
Almaria started having dreams of the gray landscape and then did not wake up. Willem and Nephren went into town one day when people stopped moving and suddenly, half the population turned into man-eating zombies, and then into the Beast Aurora by some kind of curse from the evil faction of True World. Turns out the reason Desperatio worked on Beasts was because they were originally humans. Almaria disappeared. Willem and Nephren stumbled upon Elq, and Elq revealed that Lilia (Willem’s friend) had a crush on him, but Willem doesn’t take the hint.
He and Nephren went underground and found Navrutri near dying, saying that he couldn’t prevent the end after all. Willem went further and found Almaria, who had turned into Beast Chanteur, and killed her, destroying the illusion of the world 500 years ago.
Willem woke up again, this time having absorbed part of Chanteur to survive, he turned into a Beast.
Volume 5 Summary:
Elq, a Visitor ‘killed’ by Lilia, woke up from death. The Leprechauns were fragments of her broken soul reincarnated over and over again. Navrutri’s faction of True World attempted to grind her soul to dust in order to restore the world, but they did not have the technology to grind a Visitor’s soul, and so the chunks were born as Leprechauns. All Leprechauns were connected to Elq, and she has the ability to see their lives and was particularly fascinated with Ctholly’s.
News came that there will not be another Beast attack perhaps forever. The Warehouse was in grave danger of closing down.
On the surface, Nephren, after absorbing part of Chanteur and becoming part Beast, met Carmine Lake and became the only person able to communicate with…them? The beasts did not attack Nephren because they saw her as a friend. Nephren and Carmine Lake agreed to find Willem and Elq, and were later picked up by Grick. Meanwhile, Willem, who had also incorporated part of Chanteur, was unable to properly retain his human form. His former master sealed the Beast inside him along with his past memories. Willem got a new life working at an inn at Cordina Deluce while taking care of Elq, who was with him when he woke up. He tried not to think of the past in order to not break the seal.
The Elpis Empire carried the Beasts ‘Aurora’ up into Regles Aile in order to gain power over the Guardian Wings. Nygglatho brought Ithea, Rhantolk, Lakhesk, and Ti’at to Cordina Deluce, where Rhantolk had a chance to talk with Souwon about the origin of Leprechauns.
Aurora was let loose in order for the Empire to test their new weapon. The weapon was a black armor powered by young Leprechauns in overdrive mode. Willem, who was nearby, disabled the weapon and put the Leprechauns out of their misery. He was then confronted by Rhantolk, Ithea, and Ti’at, and proceeded to remember everything, thus breaking the seal. Willem sacrificed his life to prove that the Leprechauns were capable of killing the strongest beast when the Empire’s weapons cannot. He was killed by Lakhesh, who was wielding Seniorious. Nephren, who was in Island No.2 with Elq, Carmine Lake, and Ebon Candle, felt his death.
Willem fell into a half-dead state similar to Elq. He met his former master in his dreams, who turned out to be a Visitor, and say that he would find a way to understand the Beasts. Willem later woke up and head to the Warehouse, where he met Ryehl (who looked exactly like Ctholly but younger) and was greeted by Nygglatho. The end.
Aaaaaand to be continued in SukaMoka.
bonutzuu 
Bg bahas suka moka
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Beautiful.
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