This chapter settles it. This is not gold - it is a beautifully carved, jeweled, and set piece of Emerald - reflecting light that shines into its facets with a radiance that speaks to the simple fact that a gem of such heft has had a lot of care and soul poured into it.
I'd like to think that it's rare for me to be this dutifully, this thoroughly moved by something. Part of me wants to agree with that, and a part of me wants to disagree. For one, wouldn't it diminish the impact of a magnum opus or otherwise incredible piece of fiction? But for the other, there is something to be said about the nature of loving for loving's sake, of having space in your heart to hope and love as your default. As your baseline.
Sorry, this is still about DIE. RESPAWN REPEAT., I promise. What I am trying to say is this story tugs at those heartstrings for me quite extensively.
In trying to conjure up a story, imagery, characters, it's common enough - if you have a good enough eye for it, anyway - for you to see the soul imbued into a work. The author behind it! You can tell that these are more than just words, that there's substance deeply filling and foundationally building each paragraph. To me, this is one of those stories where I really resonate with the -telling, and the -teller of it, at least what's imprinted.
In more objective terms, DIE. RESPAWN. REPEAT. is about Ethan's misfortune on being thrust into a situation that seems thoroughly hopeless at the beginning. But unlike any ol' average human, be they from bumfrick nowhere or be they a grizzled war veteran, his determination to keep on fighting to the end, to keep understanding, to keep exploring and navigating this labyrinthian ordeal of his Trial does not waver. He faces each challenge and... understands it, in a way that's reflective of the author's experience, which I can only assume is not just second-hand, but first-hand as well.
The clarity of which concepts are spaced, expressed, and built upon in this story is magnificent. I find myself traveling with ease between sentences, hardly (if ever) having to reread anything to understand the meaning being conveyed, at a surface level or in the trenches of the between-the-lines storytelling that this work does to assist with characterizing its characters.
The characters are all incredibly faithful representations of 'people'. They're all stupendously believable, and while not all of them are always agreeable -- what is a good story without adversity? -- I can understand, even if only partially, what drives each character, their reasonings for being, or even just for serving bug soup to Ethan.
All the characters have shown weakness, strength, compassion, fear - I would be hard pressed to find a character that has not been explored more than just a pawn in a chessboard.
As an example, the Golems that were briefly examined in the story some chapters ago - with the Fracture - had shown a delicate care to them that endeared me to the ones Ethan ran into without a single word spoken by them, which shows skill on the part of the author.
As for grammar, I've seen no mistakes of the sort. I did see a typo. It reminded me the author was human, something I did need to be reminded of when finding myself beginning to hyperfixate on the story. And finally, I have zero complaints for the styling of the storytelling, other than it's not exactly innovative - but, again, it's hard to innovate on that front, I think. And not every story should even have to. If there were to even be more glaring flaws with the styling of the story, the rest of its qualities would fit in and flood those 'holes' like some Kintsugi work of self-love and -healing.
I could go on more when it comes to what I like about the story, but I would seem like more of a lunatic than I am sure I already so. DIE. RESPAWN. REPEAT. has a soul to me, I think, and if nothing else in this review mattered;
I really, really, really think you should read this story if you like LitRPGs.
