By Torisuke and nyanya. Released in Japan as “Tensei Nanmin Shoujo wa Shiminken o 0 kara Mezashite Hatarakimasu!” by TO Books Novel. Released in North America by Hanashi Media. Translated by Bianca Darcy.

It’s always amusing when you spend most of a book thinking that the plot and characters are going in a direction you very much did not expect, only to get to the author’s afterword and have them lay out exactly why this is the case. When I was reading this book, I could not help but think that it was a lot… fluffier than I was expecting from the premise. The main character spent most of the book worried about how she’ll be treated, but she ended up almost entirely fine. Then I read the afterword, and it turns out the webnovel version of this was much darker, with people treating her like crap, mugging her, etc. And the author took one look at that and thought “isn’t this a bit mean?”. And so we end up with what we have here, which is very much a slow life book about an earnest 11-year-old being hardworking and everyone around her – with one exception – looking at her and thinking “how cute!”.

Lil wakes up one day with memories of her old life in Japan, where she was a boring office worker. Now she’s an 11-year-old refugee girl living outside the city with abusive parents. Previously apathetic to it all, her new memories show her that there’s a much better life than this, and she sets out to try to better herself, first by fetching water from the river, killing rats that eat the stored food, fishing… then finally she’s allowed to go into town and join an adventurer’s guild! She’s just an F-rank, so goes on quests like “collect garbage” and “clean the guild rooms” while also learning how to read and write, because it turns out the only thing in this world that is not a stock light novel cliche is that the language isn’t Japanese. Her goal is to leave the city and become an adventurer!… but let’s start with “baker’s helper”.

So yeah, this is so optimistic and shiny it’s almost too bright to look at. Lil’s parents are scum, and it’s implied they’ll eventually be expelled from the refugee camp, but as she works her little butt off to help the others, everyone’s heart grows three sizes and they accept that the daughter is different. In the town, she’s constantly assuming she’ll be subject to prejudice and abuse, and that just… doesn’t happen, mostly as she uses polite language and is a really hard worker. The memories of her past life mostly come into play to let her do math fast, putting her a cut above other girls her age and allowing her to end up at a job where she has to calculate change. It’s just very, very NICE. I enjoyed that. It’s also a bit dull, frankly. I do hope the entire series isn’t this nice.

Will she leave the town and go dungeon crawling? Will she learn the magic that she’s said to have? Will she be cute and industrious? One of those things is guaranteed.