해골병사는 던전을 지키지 못했다

HAEGOLBYEONGSANEUN DUNGEONEUL JIKIJI MOTAETDA

MANGA

STATUS
RELEASING
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
Invalid Date
CHAPTERS
Not Available

DESCRIPTION

Meet the Skeleton Soldier, a meager but fiercely loyal fighter who serves to protect its master, Lady Succubus. Its dream of a peaceful life with her is shattered when they're both brutally murdered by a group of warriors one day. But what would’ve been a pathetic end to an unremarkable soul sparks a new beginning: when the Skeleton Soldier opens its eyes again, it has traveled back 20 years in time! “I must warn Lady Succubus of all the things to come!” But with no special combat skills and a history of failure and defeat, how can it stop the horrible events from unfolding again? Follow the Skeleton Soldier as it faces the most challenging quest of all—rewriting the ending to its own story.

(Source: TappyToon)

CAST

Haegolbyeongsa
Isaac Bel'Homet
Rena
Rae Rubia
Gilles De Rai
Slime
Purson
Malphas

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

NanashiTale
88/100
A simple skeleton soldier dies failing to protect his master and wakes up 20 years earlier when he was first summoned.
Story: A
Execution: B+
Characters: B
Art: B+
Enjoyment: A
Overall: B+

Recommended? Yes. If you’re a fan of fantasy and have an itch for something different and very engaging this may be worth a try.

“Everything is not always black and white.”

Most of us have heard that quote or some variation of it. What can give a story dimension are nuances. When things are not black or white but rather shades of grey it means a situation may not be as straightforward as it was presented at face value. Complex motivations from many sides are something that is natural to the real world but can be harder to convey to an audience in a fictional world because the plot has to move forward instead of exploring a given time from many perspectives.

“Skeleton Soldier Couldn’t Protect the Dungeon” is a perfect answer to this. Our skeleton soldier is stuck in a timeloop which comes with the privilege of exploring everyone’s perspective, gathering clues to uncover a deep conspiracy, and finding out how his actions will steer the direction of everyone he comes in contact with. You bet it’s as cool as it sounds.

The practical art style and saturated color palette compliments the eerie, medieval tone of the story and makes the bright and happy moments pop that much more.

I’ve established that our skeleton soldier is stuck in a time loop but intel isn’t the only thing of value that transfers to him with each new life. The skeleton soldier’s existence has been gamified with stats, levels, abilities, quests and more so the longer he survives with each iteration the stronger he is next time.

Time loops both in games and storytelling mediums traditionally allow for a grand puzzle to solve but can have the unfortunate consequence of diminishing the sense of danger a lethal scenario may pose for the protagonist and some people don’t like that. In response to that, first off I believe the joy of time loops is world building and having another chance to tackle particular problems. Second, there is a degree of risks that are established early on that imply a finite number of respawns (assimilation rate) and a mechanic that doesn’t allow him to permanently reside in a dungeon otherwise he seems to go in a daze and is bound to the dungeon(dungeon affinity).

With so many mysteries our skeleton soldier must make every life count. Today’s friend may be tomorrow’s stranger. Yesterday’s enemy may be today’s ally.

I found the point of view of a skeleton soldier summoned by a necromancer and stuck in a time loop to be an interesting niche to explore. Especially since monsters are a category of characters that are usually an antagonist or a supporter to such in most fantasy settings.

This is a manhwa I never knew I needed in my life, but greatly appreciate to have come across.
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Crowsister
90/100
I want to watch this as an anime someday, it's so...revivifying.
Honestly, if you're a fan of So I'm a Spider, So What, you need to read this story now.

Please go read it if you haven't. Go on, get.

There are spoilers ahead, I'm serious.

The Skeleton Soldier Failed to Protect the Dungeon is, if you'll pardon the mild pun, revivifying, to say the least. It takes several unique genre conventions (monster protagonist, video game mechanics, time-loops, adventure fantasy subversion, etc.), weaves them together, and has an absolute romp with them. I was so enraptured by this story that I power-binged through it to catch up within a handful of days.

The protagonist's relationships with each of the characters, every time he meets them in a different life, are enthralling. They evolve further and further, shattering expectations that they'd reset with the premise's promise of time-loop grinding. And, honestly, they have to be at least this good because the protagonist's care and love are the core motivation for why he seeks to get stronger, for why he's chosen to game the system as much as he does/did/will do throughout the story. At this point in reading (I'm up to Chapter 146), my favorite is the protagonist's dynamic with Isaac. It holds the most twists and turns, though honestly, our skeleton and Isaac's relationship is emblematic of the story's character dynamics. But, frankly, it would be misleading if I did not say why the relationship between our skeleton and Isaac is so rewarding: it would not be this rewarding to see the promise of Isaac and our skeleton getting to a true friendship if it wasn't for the narrative groundwork put in by our skeleton learning about and befriending Lena, someone the status system warned would betray and backstab him if she saw the opportunity. Like real-life relationships, each character dynamic bleeds into the others.

Each character appears to be a fantasy archetype, only for later runs through everything to reveal more at play. With every character introduced. You'll read a story that the skeleton is being told in a natural conversation, thinking that it's just lore because it's presented like plain quest text in an RPG. Several chapters later, the main character of that story will be here in the flesh, snarking, and just all-in-all living their best life.

My only critiques with this story's characters are in a character that hasn't been fleshed out to the extent of the others yet. However, she warrants a warning to anyone sensitive to this kind of character (though, frankly, if she does get explored and fleshed out to the extent of other characters as well as the story giving other trans-coded characters to balance out her portrayal, then I will be editing this review to curb some of my criticism).

Laura is a hard character to really read. This story has had villains be flamboyant and over-the-top before: Isaac is our huge exhibit A for that right there, and he even gets a pseudo redemption arc up until he gets a full-blown savior's sacrifice (we've yet to see the ultimate pay-off of that sacrifice and how it affects the story going forward, so I'm hesitant to call it a redemption arc). But Laura has yet to be treated with the same sort of framing as Isaac.

Her design has no real inherent flaws with it (placed within the spoiler bubble below), but the writing around her is just...hard to digest? You can see the drag queen inspiration very clearly, but the writing very much pulls away from that.

I don't know if the way characters treat her is because the people in the medieval fantasy setting don't know how to handle transition or if the framing overall is going to be Like This™, but every time Laura is either referenced by her chosen pronouns or feminine title earlier on, there are air quotes around them. The last chapter I've read even goes so far as to deadname her. She uses feminine-coded actions to get in people's spaces and threaten them with her power and just the feminine actions. I understand that she's a villain, and if she were designed in a more "passing" body type, I wouldn't even blink at this because it'd be very normal to see a Femme Fatale. I've been expecting a Femme Fatale since Lena's timeline got shifted drastically. But the way Laura is treated from a Watsonian angle leaves this sort of pit of anxiety in my gut. That this story, which has thus far handled everything with care and respect without downplaying any of the weight of the plot, will fumble this.

I want to be wrong because, as obvious from above, I am very much into everything else this story has been putting down. Maybe if there were other characters who didn't have their gender nonconformity framed as predatory, Laura wouldn't make me feel anxious like this.
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