Greetings Neticens of the Internets!
I’ll get to the point.
I’ve read The Greatest Estate Developer over at Asura Scans in three days.
It has been worth it.
5/5 Stars.
Read it. Now
Now, you might be asking, why would I read this webcomic1 specifically? Well, here’s an incredibly simple summary of the plot of TGED:
Civil Engineer gets Isekai’d into his favorite novel. Capitalism, engineering and hilarity happens.
A strip of TGED from Episode 24. The blue haired boy, Javier Asrahan starts to think about the current changes regarding Lloyd Frontera, the brown haired guy that’s making his best Wario impression inside Javier’s mind.
Ok, there’s more to it, but I’ll get there when I get there.
Ignore what the figcaption says. That hooligan is actually Kim Suho, the guy that got Isekai’d into the world of Knight of Blood and Iron after reading the entirity of it before going to bed. Apparently, this interested some entity called “The Absolute”, and transported his mind into the body of a seemingly insignificant character in the original novel, Lloyd Frontera2. Apparently Kim got Isekai’d to “fulfill his greatest wish”, and decides to use this opportunity to BECOME BLOODY RICH!!!
That’s what Kim wants to people think. In reality, his actions reveal that he wants to help everyone and set things right from the novel’s original and grim ending.
There’s also the world’s actual protagonist,3 Javier Asrahan. He’s a knight for the Frontera Barony that was supposed to become a lone ranger style of character, with tragedy happening all around him while it slowly toughens the love out of him, and become a Swordmaster on the way there. Because of Lloyd’s intervention, only the Swordmaster part becomes true.
The enemies to friends relationship between these two oddballs is at the core of TGED, and it does not dissapoint whatsoever. Their characters bounce off each other because 99% of the time, Lloyd drags Javier along like the owner of leashed dog that has way too much energy, and its owner has to follow the dog or it’ll get hurt! Over time they affect each other’s character; Lloyd becomes more keen on saving people (as heroes like Javier should do), and Javier becomes more cunning and a little bastard as he watches Lloyd’s schemes. Cannonicly he still has a pure heart at the end of the story, but he’s definitely mischievious now.
A good arc as an example
Bro is aura farming. Panel from Episode 179.
If you want to know how the story will go, then Episodes 9 through 13 are your must read to decide if you want invest in this story.
In summary, Lloyd needs to collect coal to heat ondol floorings he made, sell it a profit and pay the debts of the Frontera family. Because of the weak bedrock of the mine, shield tunneling is needed to safely navigate the underground without the mine collapsing, like it did with previous barons. Construction goes well until a colony of giant ants is discovered to live under the mountain, and it attacks the workers. This is where I have to mention Lloyd’s stubborness and leadership skills, as his two mottos are “Safety First” and “A leader takes responsability of his actions”, so he orders everyone to escape while he and Javier fend off the ants.
Using one of his early abilities, Lloyd concucts a plan to blow up the colony using the methane found on the colony, killing the ants in the process, but also collapsing the exit. Javier is also knocked out because of the event. This leaves Lloyd as the only one capable of shoveling the bedrock collapsed to escape, which he just barely does before running out of oxygen. This would have been the end of both of them if it wasn’t for one his summons, Ppodong, to dig the rest of the way and safe them both. This event is the first time Javier thinks something positive about Lloyd (remember, he currently only knows the Frontera of the original novel), and starts their friendship.
This event also lightens the opinion of the Frontera Barony inhabitants, that their Baron may not be the hooligan they thought he was.
Anything else?
Read it! It will be worth it!
The comedy is excelent, and it is balanced by action, feelings, and everything in between!
I really want to write the whole plot of it just for you to understand, but I already tried that with another recommendation/review, so I won’t.
That would be everything for today. Toodles!
-
Not a webcomic to be exact, but rather something called a Manhwa, which are south-korean comics. TGED was published on the internet, so therefore I’m calling it a webcomic. ↩︎
-
I’ll refer to Kim Suho and Lloyd Frontera as the same character, because technically they are. Reasoning of why is behind spoilers, so read the webcomic. ↩︎
-
Well, not anymore. Kim takes his place by accident because the trama demands it, but that gets resolved later down the line. ↩︎