This six-book companion series to the main Arifureta storyline reveals how the various labyrinth architects met and were ultimately defeated by Ehit.
For the most part it’s just more Arifureta; the same type of humor, fetish content, and action style (the main differences being a complete lack of any harem aspects and the inclusion of an actual lolicon-targeted relationship instead of characters who merely appear abnormally young). That said, it lacks the pull of the main series.
Partly I believe it’s because this is more of an ensemble deal without any real focal character. Supposedly Mieldi is the protagonist, but at first Oscar seems to take that role only for the point of view to sort of fade back into a 3rd-party observer state for the rest of the series. It always kind of feels like you’re on the outside looking in, which brings us to the second half of the issue.
While the main series has a rather varied group of antagonists… that is not the case here. It’s just the church, the church, and, oh yeah, the church. Fanatics all with zero depth. Making matters worse is that there’s no rhyme or reason to who has what powers. Both enemy and ally side-characters alike are just chock full of completely random unique abilities that appear to serve as stand-ins for their personalities.
Those two things combined result in a work that’s rather difficult to get attached to.