Spoiler Latest Chapter Discussion Thread for Death Mage Raws

How? Bellwood was punished for his crimes. That is exactly what plot armor is not.

I'm laughing inside because I already know Van can go even further beyond. Destroying souls is so last era. Eating souls are where it's at now.

 

Well, that was certainly interesting!

While Bellwood certainly was a horrible person in the past and is a large part of the reason why others (such as Alda) have become warped, it seemed he's not the type with an ego so large that he could ignore his own sins once that he recognised them. I had proposed the theory that Bellwood faked something which is why Alda believed that Vida might immediately attack Botin or Peria... but unless Bellwood is lying (unlikely given the context), it seems he wasn't responsible for that. Which leaves it as an unresolved question. I'll need to re-read the chapter carefully but it seems that Bellwood doesn't have any additional sins on top of the ones we already knew about.

If anything, this paints a worse picture of Alda. While Alda was heavily influenced by Bellwood it also seems that Alda didn't trust Bellwood enough to talk about why he (Alda) had other reasons for attacking Vida. I also get the impression that Alda won't believe the current Bellwood at all, writing him off as someone corrupted by the Evil God of Sinful Chains.

Bellwood's Guidance is certainly dangerous. It's highly effective (and pretty much purely specialised) around instigating people. A sort of "mob rule" Guidance. If he simply talks to someone who isn't otherwise influenced then he can turn that person into a fanatic. While he has lost access to the skills/jobs system it seems that it is still dangerous for him to talk to others.

Bellwood was basically an idealistic young man who hated the "adults who force others to abandon their ideals and compromise". ie typical angry young man who blames the adults and ignores his own faults, seeing idealogical purity as an virtue. He particularly hated Zakkart for this reason - Zakkart actually used to be a middle aged man but was returned to youth by Vida, and was as much a pragmatist/realist as Bellwood was an idealist. Bellwood basically got intoxicated by this over time - that he was correct about following ideals. It turned into a conviction due to the praise/respect he got from everyone during the war and because he had the "purest" (he thought) type of Guidance.

Will he be able to turn things around and become the sort of adult who can force others (Alda etc) to abandon their ideals and compromise?

While that seems to be the way the story is heading based on this chapter, it feels like the Evil God of Sinful Chains has other ideas. He believes that Bellwood's resurrection would actually be worse for the world than Guduranis's. After all, that belief is part of why he was able to endure being horribly "sealed" by Alda for 50,000 years. In other words, it's a warning that things won't necessarily be so straightforward.

So what are Heinz and Bellwood going to do now? My general impression is that Heinz wants to become strong enough so that he can actually survive a proper discussion with Van. Bellwood is willing to lend Heinz power for that, but won't help him otherwise it seems. Bellwood's main focus seems to be on wanting to talk to Alda and co to persuade them to stop what they're doing.

If anything, it's not Botin and Peria who are becoming a third faction, but Heinz and Bellwood? Maybe. We shall see. Edgar/Guduranis is certainly going to be a complicating factor. After all, Guduranis's number one target is Van. Which means, if Heinz is actually successful in being able to survive going up against Van and persuading him that he truly wants to talk... then right at that moment it wouldn't be a surprise if Edgar/Guduranis attacks Van. Incidentally, Heinz now knows that Van is reincarnation of Zakkart.

So yup, my expectations were wrong. But it's fine that way - if anything, I don't like it when stories follow my predictions as it's boring. I do want stories to have some sort of proper underlying logic though and that does seem to be the case here. There's nothing wrong with Bellwood both being as bad as everyone expected but also not so bad that he could never realise this. That doesn't change all the problems he caused - if anything, it rather bluntly states just how serious, pervasive, harmful, corrosive and enduring his sins are. It does help explain Farmaun Gold more.

But it does leave some questions about Nineroad and Alda. It seems they both tried to awaken Bellwood before and he realised that he couldn't persuade them that he was wrong all this time and that they need to change. So, is it really Alda and Nineroad who are too far gone to be saved? Of the two, Nineroad seemed much more reasonable and she was the one who pushed Alda to compromise on the Vida races. So perhaps she has changed more than Bellwood realised? After all, it's quite possible that Bellwood's perspective of Nineroad is out of date. If so then we could quite possibly see Nineroad abandon Alda and join Bellwood/Heinz.

Things have certainly become more complicated. And more interesting. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that Rodcorte's plan to use Guduranis on Van... might actually have a vague chance of working!

Hard to say what's going to happen to the Evil God of Sinful Chains now. He's apparently "sealed". But for how long? One interesting bit of likely foreshadowing is that he was trying to contact the Vida aligned gods at the time when Bellwood attacked him 50,000 years ago. In other words, if/when he becomes free he's likely to do the same again.

 

While it's fair to say that Alda was already a bastard by himself before Bellwood... Bellwood believes that he instigated Alda (and others). We haven't heard that much about the old times before Guduranis turned up but we do know that Alda and Vida would often argue and that other gods (particularly Peria and Ricklent) generally got them to compromise. It's quite possible that due to Bellwood, Alda can no longer compromise.

 

Unless Bellwood goes to Vida and apologizes for his actions and gets his scolding from Vida's and Van's group, mere plot armor, 50k years imprisonment like Bellwood (suffered mental pain) or Vida who suffered at both Bellwood's and Alda's hands (physically and spiritually) along with her imprisonment.

Edit: Side note, nothing really stops a repeat offender other than themselves.

 

I think that the "seal" on him, so to speak, is the same sort of seal placed on all the other evil gods that have been defeated by Alda's side, since only Guduranis and Van can permanently kill them. Presumably it'll last effectively forever, since they're having to rebuild their strength from nothing. It took the other Gods 100k years to recover after being defeated, and they had a lot more believers and weren't as solidly sealed.

 

Bellwood is doing what he can to avoid burdening himself with more sins. It seems that he even trusts Heinz more than himself. He has truly reformed, and is actively stopping himself from returning to his villainous ways, even if that means he must stop acting independently.

 

Didn't he already knew that info from Mill? I had the impression he was already told about that.

 

Can go three ways to prove me wrong and this is not plot armor:

A. He gets out of the dungeon and immediately goes to Amid Empire's capital and gets caught up to date with what Alda is doing as well as see what his descendant is doing (if Marshukzarl isn't killed off yet) and tries to calm the hysterical masses (fails and ends up as a outcast or imprisoned by Alda, such sweet irony)

B. Gets out of dungeon and asks Heinz and co to take him to the Vidal Empire (when they get out and get updated on the current events for everyone) to try and make amends (like Farming Gold did) and has his little chat with Van and Vida primarily and possibly goes neutral in the second Alda-Vida War.

C. He's freed, but decides to stay in dungeon as a way to truly contemplate his sins.

Saying he felt the weight of his sins doesn't count for much.

 

It's not just what he said. We know he felt the weight of his sins. Bellwood will try to redeem himself if he can, but it matters little for his character because there's no way he doesn't feel guilty after what he experienced.

 

I don't think this is the last we've seen of the guy. For example, I can imagine him exhausting his remaining strength to try to warn someone that Bellwood is back. ie unlike a normal god he won't focus on recovery.

I see that on the Japanese impressions thread the guy is getting a lot of praise, heh. The hero who saved the world, etc.

 

You're right.
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n1745ct/337/

Seems to be a mistake on the author's part.

 

Yup. I don't want to defend the guy either but he did intentionally spend 50,000 years stuck like this because he thought it was better this way. If he wanted to he could have freed himself long ago. It does very much feel like genuine regret.

It does also make sense how Heinz is probably the only one who could have persuaded Bellwood. Or rather, it took a very rare set of circumstances - someone who believed in Alda and someone Alda believed in but had doubts. Bellwood wouldn't have responded to an idealistic/fanatic who was convinced that they were right.

Incidentally...

Zakkart's Guidance skill is 共導士 (Fellowship Guidance? something like that). Nineroad's Guidance skill is 常導士 which is rather more abstract but perhaps the intended meaning is something like Everday Guidance (simple, constant, unchanging).

 

I really want sinful chains to escape now

He's a trap or seal specialist so he should have some way of escaping aldas piles of shit, given the dialogue in the chapter he only stayed their to keep bellwood from getting loose (if he had a way to break out)

And what if sins joins van and gufa to become the trap trio?

 

The little pre-champion summoning info we have on him is enough to say as much. Though what level he was at pre-bellwood is in question, and he might have been lower and cranked up by Bellwood.
Alda is Sheldon from Big Bang Theory turned up to 13 (sheldon is already a turned up to 11 stereotype) with real power. He hates change and has to be right to a level it is not funny. The only thing that ever kept him in line was that the other gods had equal power. Remove that balancing factor and he will enforce his will.

Though I also wonder if some of Alda's issues are not from Bellwood directly, but a result of him being forced into a war mentality and not being able to exit/turn it off it due to his stubbornness and inability to change.

 

Maybe demon king soul affecting him? Maybe instinc or desire?

 

The 共 (tomo) kanji in Zakkart is apparently part of the word "empathy" (共感) but not the same used for friend (友達) and it also means "both" apparently, so I will take it as Empathy Guindance which is kinda of appropiate? A little bit? I mean it could also be "common" or "sharing" which also work.

Funnily enough, the 常 (tsune) kanji in Nines' is part of the word for "common sense" (常識). Now we know who is gonna be Van's final boss!

 

Like the Jarodips section. They're very Gufadgarn in terms of how Lambda fundamentally changed them. Jarodips went from a simple animalistic god that trapped and preyed on those foolish enough to fall into their chains to a god who became very close to humans, who fundamentally changed thanks to them. On Guduranis' world, guilt is merely to be weak, to be tricked. On Lambda though, guilt has far more gradations, far more grey. Now they're a god of vengeance, a god who reflects the violence you've committed against others, a god who makes you see the people you made suffer rather than one who forgives those who have caused suffering. They're also very Van in how much they're noted to deeply care about their followers, no matter how mad or broken the type of people who follow a God of Sinful Chains tended to be, a far cry from someone like Alda, or as we now know Bellwood was in the past.

I also like the touch where Edgar doesn't understand what sin Bellwood could have committed. Guduranis is still very much operating on the world view that the only sin is to be weak. And where Jarodips basically goes "go ahead, go cry to Alda, it's not like he can stab me any more!" Oh, they've got a Shinobu laugh too, always like that.『カカカカ！』indeed. (Also Jarodips is now voiced by Maaya Sakamoto in my head. )

Also fun to learn Bellwood is a more low key deconstruction of the standard isekai protagonist than many of us were theorizing, of the dangers of thinking yourself the hero of your story and everyone else your supporting characters. It's very dark to hear someone talking about fighting for ideals without compromises, only to realize they just compromised on things they were too self-absorbed to see instead. Also I'm very interested in the explanation of Bellwood's [Guidance] skill being one that forces someone down the path to their ideals no matter what, and that it's the "purest" form of guidance, given Van's awakened guidance is Manas-vijnana. If Van's awakened skill represents the seventh of the eight consciousnesses in Buddhism, then did Bellwood's guidance and all "base" guidances in general represent the sixth? And if Van's guidance awakens once more, will it become the eighth, Alaya-vijnana?

I'm finding myself increasingly sketched out by Heinz too. Countering Bellwood over the things he's done with "but you're sorry for it" instead of "but you've paid for your crimes" or something like that just seems to once again reflect a fundamental selfishness in him, the kind of selfishness Bellwood just showed him the eventual heartbreaking outcome of, and yet Heinz still wants to go through with all this. What does it matter if you're just sorry for it? Even Bellwood has spent half his life now locked up for what he did, what have you paid to the people you made suffer? Anyway, good for Heinz for not being turned into a meat puppet, and good for Bellwood for being just another human being instead of a mustache twirling villain (though Alda is getting increasingly mustache twirling. Does he have a mustache?)... unfortunately it seem like the both of them are still going to end up being manipulated to go just the way Alda and Guduranis/Edgar both want them to.

Also please save the Evil God of Sinful Chains Van, they actually seemed really nice!

 

I think that when vida realises bellwood has been released she'll try rescue chains by getting van, gufa and a couple others together to stealth into aldas layer and rescue chains. Or chains could get out itself due to its knowledge on seals.

 

I really like how Densuke just make all major characters to have proper motives beside "plot convenience" and that there is actual depth in those reason. Even if Belly fell a little too "Kouki" without the hypocresy of it. He also gives this childish felling when talking about his past, always saying things like "later" and "next time" to justify his errors.

And Van is voiced by Rie Kugimiya. Yes, even teenage Van.

And now that it's been said, it must be canon!

 

Who needs stealth when you have (void) cannons!