An adventure, two hundred years later...
In The Land of Leadale (リアデイルの大地にて, Riadeiru no Daichi Nite), is a series of novels written by Ceez. It was first serialized online from December 2010 to December 2012 on Shousetsuka ni Narou, later being published by Enterbrain as a series of Light Novels with illustrations by Tenmaso starting in January 2019.
Keina Kagami suffered from a horrible accident in which her parents were killed when she was 17. Her body was put on life support, so the only thing that kept her connected outside the hospital was the immensely popular VRMMORPG named Leadale. With many customization options and plenty of content, Keina, under her avatar name Cayna, had many fun adventures in the game world...
Then, a city-wide blackout happened and Keina died in the hospital...but it was not the end for her, because she woke up in the world of Leadale. But many things had changed in the world while she was absent, namely...200 years have passed by in Leadale, so Cayna is now out of touch.
The light novels were adapted into a manga composed by Ryo Suzukaze and illustrated by Dashio Tsukimi, which began serialization online on ASCII Media Works Dengeki Playstation Comic Web in 2019. An 12-episode anime adaptation by Maho Film aired as part of the Winter 2022 season. Both the light novels and the manga are licensed in North America by Yen Press, and Crunchyroll is streaming the anime outside Japan.
Now has a Character Page.
In The Land of Leadale provides examples of:
- Achievement In Ignorance: Lopus summoned an Event Boss by complete accident. He just happened to put in the correct rare ingredients needed in the right spot.
- Absurdly High Level Cap: The game Leadale had a level cap of 1000. If players completed certain quests, they were able to increase their level cap even further to level 1100. These are the elite players of Leadale commonly referred to as "Overcomers" or "Limit Breakers".
- Adaptation Distillation: As often happens with Japanese animation, many of the original novel, light novel, and manga's events are cut out, compressed, or melded together, such as Cayna's other achievements in her starting town like building an onsen or building a mechanized well to make water easier to get.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Because the anime failed to bring up how the water spirits that Cayna summoned in Episode 9 actually controlled the water and helped her get through the underground water passageways when locating the source of a mysterious sound, it results in a contradictory moment where she is seen swimming in that episode, only to reveal in the following episode that she lacks the swimming skill, with her needing a monster to get to the Dragon Palace.
- Backhanded Compliment: After his soldiers continue to Ship Tease him with Cayna, Saber aplogizes for their lack of discipline. She says it's fine and they feel like his soldiers. Saber points out he isn't sure if he is to take that as a insult or a compliment.
- Badass Crew: The rather whimsically named Guild Cream Cheese that Cayna was a member of. All of their members were Overcomers (that is, have overcome the level cap of 1000) and had at least two Skill Masters in their ranks.
- Beyond the Impossible: To get a Summoning Bell you have to play Leadale for 10,000 hours each. If you played the game 24/7 that would take over a year, so the earliest one could possibly get one is with two years of playing. Cayna, given how playing Leadale is the only thing she's able to do while on life support, has TWO of them, which explains why a fellow Player, Xxxxxxx, was shocked to see it.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The Guardian Towers were essentially player designed dungeons that were meant to thoroughly test players in a manner that the corresponding Skill Master found suitable. If the players passed, the Skill Master in charge of the Tower was obliged to hand out a single free skill of the player's choosing.
- The Silver Tower is Cayna's Guardian Tower. Considered the "easiest" tower, the player "simply" had to keep climbing its interminable staircase for 24 hours straight without stopping to rest for even a single moment.
- Moon Crescent Castle was the Guardian tower of the Thirteenth Skill Master. It was filled with so many deadly challenges and spiteful traps that it was just as often referred to as the House of Murder and Malice.
- Camera Abuse: The eyecatch featuring the fairy has her flying towards the viewer, only to crash into the camera lens.
- Fluffy the Terrible: One of the most powerful guilds in Leadale, which Cayna was a part of, was called Cream Cheese.
- Funny Background Event: In episode 3 of the anime, Cayna visits the Crimson Spears HQ at the capital to get their and the merchant Elineh's help. Kenison, one of the members Cayna saved in episode 2, can be seen in the background, waving hello to Cayna and silently backing up his superior and current employer's claims that they'll do everything they can to support her.
- The Game Come to Life: Albeit in standard isekai fanfare. When Keina's life support suddenly cuts off, she finds herself in her Player Character's body and in the world of Leadale. She also arrives in Leadale 200 years since the last time she played the game. There is a bit of zigzagging of the trope however in that Keina still operates using the game's interface and mechanics for player characters, but most people in the world do not. This is lampshaded when she shows a class how she makes potions, and the teacher asks where she got the vial for the potion from, since it wasn't part of the materials she used.
- Ghost Ship: The source of a fog that wiped out Luka's home village and turned its residents into zombies.
- Guide Dang It!: The process of becoming a Skill Master which entails obtaining every skill available in the game. Not only did certain skills lie behind convoluted conditions necessary to trigger a particular quest, anyone who skipped the tutorial and its associated manufacturing skills was also locked out of becoming a Skill Master.
- Cayna actually elaborates about one such instance. Cooking skills appeared to be useless but if certain NPCs were gifted their favourite foods, their approval would rise. Get it high enough and they would give special quests that had excellent vanguard skills as a completion reward.
- Happily Adopted:
- How the three NPCs created by Cayna feel, even after 200 years have passed and all three have regular jobs.
- Later on, Cayna takes in Luka, a NPC who is the only survivor of a village that was wiped out by a fog that zombiefies any NPC that breaths its air.
- I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: When Shining Saber offers Cayna a lift, he picks her up Bridal Carry style, causing her face to turn bright red. It isn't until he sees Cayna's reaction that he too starts to turn bright red. He even points out that he Didn't Think This Through.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every chapter title follows the formula "[Noun 1], [Noun 2], [Noun 3] and [Noun 4] with some additional "a". The anime episodes follow the same pattern, albeit with many of them cut out due to each anime episode adapting more than just a single light novel chapter.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Valhalla, a two-handed sword that is reputedly the best weapon in the game. Cayna can craft it if she has orichalcum, corundum and diamonds.
- Interspecies Romance:
- Society doesn't seem to have any issues with marriage between different humanoid species, even ones with incompatible lifespans like elves and humans.
- Later some soldiers Ship Tease their Captain with Cayna, a Dragonoid and a High Elf.
- I Owe You My Life: After saving Kenison from serious, life-threatening injuries, both he and the Crimson Spears Mercenary Company he belongs to are eager to support Cayna however they can. That they can acquire an exceptionally powerful and attractive High Elf girl with an abundance of skills is a bonus.
- Leaking Can of Evil: All of the quest monsters were sealed within a single city after the Players left Leadale. The force responsible for doing so was never elaborated on but it stood to reason that without Players around, these monsters would very quickly destroy all civilization in Leadale. Now some of them are escaping and are making their presence known, causing catastrophe wherever they go.
- Little Bit Beastly: The beastmen of the world look like humans with animal ears and tails. The most common variety are werecats. It should be noted that Funny Animal characters who have animal heads on humanoid bodies are a different species.
- Lost Technology: With the apparent disappearance of every player except for Cayna, many of the products of the in-game crafting system have been lost to time. Cayna first accidentally alerts Mai-Mai (now the Principal of an Adventurer Academy) of her presence after submitting a High Potion she crafted in the game, which her husband and the Alchemy Professor, Lopus Harvey, quickly discover to be impossible to make with current methods.
- Exacerbated by the fact that Skill Masters cannot pass on skills to NPCs. In theory, a Skill Master like Cayna could go around and revive these technologies by granting the relevant skills to NPCs. However when Cayna tried to give Professor Harvey a potion making skill, he could not make use of it. Skill Masters grant a special item, a scroll or ball of light in the case of Cayna, that Players could "use" from their inventory to gain access to a skill. As NPCs do not have inventories, they cannot be granted skills by Skill Masters.
- Magitek: The original Leadale had elements of this. Cayna's "Silver Ring" equipment that was a commemorative, stat-boosting item for becoming a Skill Master wouldn't look out of place in a sci-fi series but Leadale is a Medieval European Fantasy.
- Master of All: The Skill Masters. They possessed every single skill in the game and were awarded certain privileges by the game admins such as unique items and a Player Headquarters in the form of a Guardian Tower.
- Microtransactions: Leadale had some benefits for the players who spent real money. One of them is the Foster System, in which a player could create NPCs for getting game money faster among other uses.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Leadale's tutorial levels included certain manufacturing and crafting skills meant to allow a player to help their starter village rise into prosperity. They had no other use in the game but were necessary to become a Skill Master. Once Leadale became an actual place, these skills become rather valuable as it can allow a single person to construct buildings literally overnight.
- Myth Arc: Why did the Leadale servers shut down, and why are some Players here? At this time the only thing the Players know is the game shut down six months after Keina died. Then players that were online at the moment the shutdown occurred (Cayna being the exception) started to appear at odd intervals, some just arriving now while others had been there for years.
- Obvious Rule Patch: One of the gameplay elements in Leadale is that a Player can request a unique skill from a Skill Master. However, that just caused anyone who was a Skill Master to be constantly bombarded by Player requests for skills. After the Skill Masters pleaded with the Game Admins to fix this issue, the Admins created the Game Towers for Skill Masters where Players now had to defeat a Brutal Bonus Level to request a skill.
- Player Headquarters: Cayna has one in the form of the Silver Tower, its riddled with traps and trials for deterring players from reaching the top. It also served as a Brutal Bonus Level for the majority of players who wanted to learn skills from Cayna.
- Player Killing: Given how Leadale was an MMO, this was a given. Cayna was one of the more famous examples as her competitive years earned her the moniker "Silver Ring Witch". There's also one such Player-Killer roaming Leadale, and much to Cayna's dismay, he acts as though he's still in the game.
- Player Versus Player: Leadale the MMORPG had this as one of the major facets of gameplay. There were regular "wars" between seven nations that players could affiliate themselves to with rewards going to those who did well. By the time of the story, the loss of the players and the end of these constant "wars" has lead to the nations consolidating into three and the stabilization of the economy (from the loss of players constantly pumping in gold from nowhere and destroying territory and assets en masse), though scars and legacies linger—Kartatz vividly remembers Cayna destroying entire cities seemingly on a whim, and worries that his adoptive mother leaving her 200-year isolation will have her wiping places off the map again over if she loses her temper.
- Rescue Romance: Kenison has developed an obvious crush on Cayna after she saved his life.
- Shipper on Deck: Despite Shining Saber stating he is not in a relationship with Cayna, everyone of his underlings keep giving their support to the relationship.
- Super-Empowering: All Skill Masters have the ability to give other players a copy of a Skill they've earned. However, this led to Skill Masters being constantly pestered by other players wanting them to give them free skills, so they made it so that Skill Masters could construct towers filled with difficult challenges that players had to complete first.
- There Is Another: Cayna sets out to find her friends, who she hopes have also been transported to Leadale, or failing that, find out what happened since the last time she was in the game before being thrown into Leadale 200 years in the future. As it turns out, there's another Leadale player in the world. There's only one problem: He's a Player-Killer (PK) who still thinks he's playing the game and is leading a group of bandits.
- Later on Cayna meets two other Leadale players, Shining Saber and Cohral. Formerly of the Silver Moon Horsemen Guild, they have been in Leadale for differing amounts of time implying that players are returning at different points in time. She then meets two additional ones in the zombie village, a fellow member of her old guild, and also a cross-playing G.I.R.L. who's now physically and permanently trapped as a woman.
- Thou Shall Not Kill: Caerina manages to talk Cayna out of killing a PKer Leadale player who is also stuck in the world and terrorizes innocent people as if he's still playing a game. However, knowing that the other player could easily be a threat to her granddaughter and her troops if left unchecked, Cayna strips him of his armor, places a Punishment Collar around him that decreases his level by 90%, and warns Caerina to keep him restrained in case he has items in his inventory that he could use to make his escape.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Apparently, no one finds anything strange with the Great Sage and High Priest Skargo suddenly running full-tilt across the city streets, surrounded by enchanted sparkling flowers and an ongoing rain seemingly avoiding him. The most the citizens react with is pleasant surprise that they saw such a famous and beloved figure before immediately going back to their business.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Even though Kartatz is at his wits end dealing with Skargo's personality, when Cayna suggested just changing his personality, Kartatz flips his lid at her and defends Skargo by pointing out she is overlooking all of the good he has done for the Kingdom. She admits he is right.
