How to defeat a demon king in ten easy steps by Andrew Rowe

I din't really plan to buy this book. I got it because audible was offering a discount a half price for three months or something and then the second month they had a different discount with two books for one credit. This one just happened to be the most interesting sounding. 

Plot

The planet goes through cycles. A demon king will appears, rules for a hundred years and takes over roughly half the planet. Then the hero is born and defeats them, people rebuild and then a new demon king appears.

This time however it's different. An early alliance with one of the Kingdoms means that by the time the hero is born the whole world will be under the demon kings command. 

Young protagonist Yui is not a hero but has decided that they don't have time to wait for the hero and devices a plan to defeat the demon king anyway. Step one steal the heros sword from the stone.

My thoughts

The setting is very videogameish people get sorted into classes (not in an dystopian way its based on their actions). Classes that levels up with experience points from killing monsters. though slightly arbitrary like the hero class only being for those with a tragic backstory. It's very cliche. But it makes fun of those cliches and has characters who uses them to their advantage. Like making fun of the unrealistic inventory or ken who knows all the traditions and who by making Yui a green tunic is able to trick all the NPCs. I like Yui experimenting with her magic figuring out how it works. What would make her increase her level and skill as quickly as possible. Al with comments from her long suffering parents. 

Maybe I just have a fondness for clever characters who solves problems especially by using tools in unexpected ways. 

All that being said I'm fairly certain I would have gotten more out of it if I had ever played legend of Zelda or any similar game. I haven't all I know about them I do from just cultural osmosis. But its enough to recognize NPC dialog and enjoy the book.

The book does a very modern thing where it questions who the real villain actually is. Is it the demon king or the silver goddesses that perpetuation the cycle. But it does go somewhere with it and not like how I usually see it, in commentary videos or fanfiction. Though thinking about it this whole book might be considered a fanfiction now that I think about it. 

Regardless I enjoyed it.

Nice and short.