Armed with this information, humanity explored the world of Ground's Nir. They discovered that, while objects couldn't be transported between Ground's Nir and Earth (save for human bodies), the same was not true of information. Moreover, the information gained from Ground's Nir gave rise to breakthroughs in technology. As a result, governments and corporations around the world devoted their interest in this new world.
Enter the main protagonist, Beatrice. With the job of Holy Swordswoman, she has reached the level cap of 99, becoming one of the strongest humans in Ground's Nir. But her incredible power isolated her from other humans, making it difficult for her to form a party with others. Therefore she was forced to stop visiting Ground's Nir for a few years. Still, there was a bright side to it all - she'd made friends with a young Miniature Orc, Boo Boo, and promised to meet him again when she returned.
Two years later, the general skill level of humans had advanced, and Beatrice could return to Ground's Nir. But as it turned out, Boo Boo wasn't actually a Miniature Orc at all...
The Weakness of Beatrice The Level Cap Holy Swordswoman That Made Being the Strongest Even More Trouble – His Name? Boo Boo is a Light Novel series by Kazuma Kamachi, the first volume of which was released in 2016. It is complete at seven volumes.
- A-Cup Angst: Beatrice and Armelina often express dislike towards Filinion for this reason.
- All Your Powers Combined:
- The Iberian Orcs are said to have gained the strengths of all plants and animals through interbreeding.
- The Sage can use all magic available to humans, but not all of it at once. When she uses Lorelei, however, she is capable of using all magic simultaneously.
- Appropriated Appellation: The Iberian Orcs were given their name by a human, the Sage. It was originally meant as a Black Comedy joke - Iberian ham is an expensive type of ham. However, the Iberian Orcs liked it so much, they even added it into the cave paintings they used to record history.
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: In the first volume, when Beatrice is towelling herself off in Boo Boo's house, she becomes disappointed when he doesn't think of peeping.
- Astral Projection: A jellyfish-like creature in the Underworld provides this power to anyone who touches it. The resulting astral body is transparent and can fly, but can still be destroyed normally. Destroying the astral body causes the user's mind to return to their original body with no ill effects, so it can be used as a means of safely scouting an area.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The Underworld Lord is a more dangerous fighter than any of its minions.
- Badass Normal: Armelina, being a police officer on Earth. She's the only one of the main trio who can fight effectively without magic.
- Bad Boss: The Underworld Lord doesn't hesitate to kill off minions that it deems too weak.
- Bishounen Line:
- The Thousand Dragon is the largest and most monstrous of the Break News, but is actually the weakest among them. On the other end of the scale, another Break News like Sutriona looks like a ten year old girl with fairy wings.
- Abyss, the final result of the Labyrinth, explicitly invokes this. The Labyrinth was made to gather data on what the strongest being was. After countless human adventurers had entered it and defeated its inhabitants, it concluded that humans were the strongest.
- Blood Knight: The members of Elkiad take full advantage of Ground's Nir to indulge in violence that they could never get away with on Earth. After becoming undead, and hence no longer having to worry about their own lives, this has only become more extreme.
- Book Dumb: Boo Boo, due to living on his own in the wilderness and lacking anyone to teach him.
- Calling Your Attacks: Abyss always describes whatever action it's about to take.
- Charm Person: The Succubus has the power to influence humans. This works even through a video of her.
- Chaste Hero: Boo Boo, due to being orphaned from a young age, and (until the present of the series) rarely interacting with other people.
- Dem Bones: Skull Wave, a skeleton wearing a cowboy hat. He even has the power to control bones in general.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: Boo Boo's incredible strength would normally make it easy for Beatrice's party to conquer the entire Labyrinth. However, he also needs a lot of food to sustain his massive body, and the Labyrinth doesn't contain anything he can eat. This limits the amount of time he can spend there to however long their food stores last.
- Dungeon Crawling: The main activity of humans in Ground's Nir is to explore the Labyrinth, as it's the quickest way of earning Experience Points.
- Enemy Mine: In Volume 4, Wildefrau has to work with Beatrice's group.
- Evil Counterpart:
- The Sage to Beatrice. Both are extremely powerful humans, the former in particular. They look identical, because the Sage deliberately altered her appearance to copy Beatrice.
- Disaster to Boo Boo. Disaster is the equivalent of Frankenstein's Monster for Iberian Orcs, and is even larger and stronger than Boo Boo. On top of that, he wields a similar Shining Weapon.
- Volume 5 introduces a building example. The Black Labyrinth, the area created by the Underworld, is this to the Labyrinth. It's an ever-expanding giant web, inhabited by the zombies of everyone who has ever died in Ground's Nir.
- Evil Weapon: Lorelei, a Break News in the form of a sword. It grants its wielder incredible power, but also drives them to ruin.
- Experience Points: In the typical RPG style, humans visiting Ground's Nir gain EXP. However, the points can be obtained not just from combat, but from all kinds of activities like cooking, eating or speaking. That said, everyday actions like those give few points, so the main source is exploring the Labyrinth to fight Gimmicks, disarm Traps, find Treasure, etc. One of the main features of the Shining Weapons humans use is that they can artificially redistribute the EXP they gain however they like, so they can assign the points gained from one action to completely different actions, like cooking food to become a better singer or studying to become a better baseball player. Abyss, a superweapon modeled after humans, is also capable of gaining EXP.
- Fantastic Racism: In general, most humans look down on Nonhumans, the native inhabitants of Ground's Nir. Additionally, even many Nonhumans are afraid of the Iberian Orcs, due to their fearsome appearance and incredible strength.
- Future Badass: Subverted. The Sage looks like a grown-up and more skilled Beatrice, but she merely changed her appearance to look like her.
- Genius Bruiser:
- While Boo Boo is far from the most scholarly of people, he definitely isn't unintelligent. As an Iberian Orc, his mental power is quite high as a result of all the mental calculations he has to do during his daily life and fights so as to not break his own body with his overwhelming strength. Aside from a wealth of survival knowledge, he has a knack for analyzing how his opponent fights to come up with countermeasures and even tricked the Sage into revealing herself as not actually a future Beatrice, but as an impostor that had taken her appearance. In fact, Iberian Orc's brains rival supercomputers, and is mentioned that Boo Boo's calculations would likely be able to accurately locate a ring thrown into the ocean.
- In Abyss' simulation of an Iberian Orc invasion of Earth, the Iberian Orcs swiftly destroy all attempts by the military to respond to the threat not only because of their pure physical strength, but because they quickly worked out all security codes, from the locks on shelters to the launch codes for ballistic missiles.
- Gilded Cage: On Earth, Beatrice is kept in a luxurious home within a forest in Tokyo, known as the Detached Magic Palace. This is to prevent her talent from becoming a threat to the wider world. Volume 5 reveals that the real reason is because she looks like a younger version of the Sage (when in Ground's Nir). This led the government to think that the Sage is her future self, so they keep her confined.
- G.I.R.L.: An example that has nothing to do with the Internet; Inoue, Armelina's subordinate on Earth, is the female Huldra in Ground's Nir.
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: Abyss is an entity created for the sole purpose of opposing the Underworld, with the entire island of Ground's Nir being intended to support her. But after interacting with Beatrice's party, she begins to gain a will of her own. This leads her to refuse her directive, as this would kill all of the inhabitants of Ground's Nir.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Filinion's specialization in healing might seem to make her useless in combat. However, healing comes with the Required Secondary Power of mixing ingredients. She uses this against the Mandragora in Volume 2, instantly destroying the latter's bodies by converting them into ingredients, and even using these to create powerful healing potions. And in Volume 4, she becomes the key for her party's victory over the Sage by using potions that heal but also sap Willpower as a side effect. This works because the magic system doesn't include any form of Healing Resistance. In volume 5 she turns out to be the party's strongest weapon against the Underworld minions, as the old RPG trick of using recovery potions on undead enemies turns out to work really well on the undead forces.
- Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Played for Laughs. Whenever someone discusses the more intimate possibilities of Beatrice and Boo Boo's relationship, this trope is brought up. Though so far, nothing of the sort has actually happened.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters:
- In Volume 1, the human guild Elkiad attempts to defeat the Thousand Dragon by tricking Fairies into feeding themselves to it. Later on, they attempt to outright kill Beatrice's party to stop them registering a Piece. It's also revealed that humans were the ones who wiped out the Iberian Orc village (though later volumes show that there was more to this).
- In Volume 2, the Religious Society try to kill an innocent Succubus, even sacrificing one of their own as part of their plans, just because she's a demon. Subverted; said Succubus is actually the real villain, and they were trying to stop her.
- Ice Magic Is Water: Ice is part of the Water element, to the point that resistance to cold is included in Water Resistance. This is highlighted in the Red Baron of Wildefrau, "Ice Waterfall Princess".
- Improbably Female Cast: Boo Boo is the only major male character.
- Increasingly Lethal Enemy: Abyss has the power to gain Experience Points from defeating enemies, like a human. She can also learn any magic used by an enemy, and can also take in the components of dead Gimmicks to become stronger.
- Interspecies Romance:
- The main premise of the series - even highlighted in the title - is the romance between Beatrice and Boo Boo.
- There's also one between the man now known as Skull Wave, and the Succubus Tselika.
- It's hinted that there was one between the Iberian Orc elder and the Sage.
- Just Toying with Them: The undead Elkiad soldiers fight in this manner, thanks to their Blood Knight tendencies and Resurrective Immortality.
- Living Legend: The man known only as Omega (and as Skull Wave after his death). Among the many legends surrounding him include defeating a dragon singlehandedly, then immediately trying to prevent that very same dragon from dying.
- Mage Marksman: The members of Elkiad use primitive firearms together with magic. This allows for innovative tactics like using magic shields as cover while firing.
- Magic Knight: Beatrice's Holy Swordswoman job lets her learn all kinds of magic, including those normally intended for warrior or magician jobs.
- Magic Versus Science: The conflict between Beatrice's party, who only use magic and medieval weapons, and the guild Elkiad, who use more advanced weapons such as muskets and even primitive rocket launchers. Though it should be mentioned that Elkiad have no problems with using magic themselves, as a complement to their guns.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Ileana, as a Mandragora, has a lethal scream.
- Master of All: The Sage, being the inventor of the magic system used in Ground's Nir. She can attack using all elements, and is immune to all elemental damage and even to physical damage as well. Subverted. She still has to work within the system, which doesn't allow a person to master more than a few fields. Instead, she has the ability to redistribute her Experience Points on the fly, allowing her to counter whatever her opponent can throw at her. It's played straight when she uses Lorelei, which gives her infinite Experience Points.
- Mechanical Lifeforms: The Gimmicks, the inhabitants of the Labyrinth. They are created by the Labyrinth itself to mimic the structures of plants and animals, and to attack any intruders. Through combat, they provide the Labyrinth with information on what constitutes the strongest being.
- Mechanical Monster: The clockwork dragon that fights for the Underworld, built by undead fairies.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The Underworld Lord appears to be made out of several kinds of different marine creatures. It has the head of a lobster, arms made out of bundles of cephalopod tentacles, and scaly skin like a fish.
- Monster of the Week: The chapters of the first volume adopt this format, each one featuring a particular Break News (in the order Thousand Dragon -> Sutriona -> Lorelei). Though the second of these isn't actually fought by the heroes.
- Mood Whiplash: The beginning of Volume 5 is extremely tense, with the Underworld invading Ground's Nir. Then Boo Boo becomes comically scared and clings to Filinion, nearly crushing her. On top of that, Beatrice somehow mistakes this for Filinion trying to seduce Boo Boo, and prepares to attack her.
- Muscles Are Meaningful / Muscles Are Meaningless: Humans get their strength from their Percentage-type Magic (passive magic that boosts their attributes, usually taking the form of clothing or armor), which leads to the likes of Beatrice and Armelina being among the strongest, despite being slender young women. Among Nonhumans, however, size does make a difference. Boo Boo is four meters tall and nearly four meters wide, and is far stronger than any human. Disaster is even bigger and even stronger. And the strongest being so far seems to be the Thousand Dragon, which (as its name suggests) is a thousand meters long.
- Necromancer: The Underworld Lord is a terrifyingly-powerful example, capable of raising every single person, human or Nonhuman, that has ever died in Ground's Nir.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- In Volume 2, Beatrice's party help out the Succubus, only for her to turn out to be the true villain of the book. Thanks to them taking out the opposition, the Succubus is able to cause havoc on Earth.
- An even bigger example occurs in Volume 4. Beatrice's party manages to defeat Abyss and prevent her from destroying Ground's Nir. Except that it turns out that Abyss was meant to counter an even bigger threat, the Underworld, which is capable of threatening not just Ground's Nir but Earth as well.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The undead that make up the Underworld's army include many examples of these. There's zombie knights, zombie mages, zombie fairies, zombie soldiers with magic, a clockwork dragon (made by the zombie fairies...
- No-Sell: By specializing in one element to the exclusion of others, it's possible to gain complete resistance to that element. The two main examples are Beatrice (100% Fire Resistance) and Wildefrau (100% Water Resistance). There are also resistances for different types of physical damage.
- Not What It Looks Like: At the beginning of Volume 4, Boo Boo thinks he's not powerful enough, after the fight with Disaster. He therefore asks Sutriona to train him so he can become stronger. However, he phrases this request along the lines of "use your body to make me a man", which Beatrice... misinterprets.
- One-Gender Race: All of the Break News are female (though they aren't strictly a race, as each individual is unique).
- Organic Technology: Employed by the Underworld. The Underworld itself is an enormous marine creature, looking like a rotting shark or killer whale. A fin serves as a broadcast tower, covered with parabolic antennae that resemble barnacles. The spider-like Arachnes produce black webbing for construction and repairs. The Underworld Lord fights using a saw made of shark's teeth and a spear covered with coral and barnacles.
- Our Fairies Are Different: In general, they fit the standard mold, being an all-female race around fifteen centimeters in height and with butterfly wings. One thing that stands out is that their blood contains an intoxicating poison, which is produced when their bodies digest the toxic Crimson Heaven Flower. The fairies are led by a queen, Sutriona, who resembles a ten year old girl with butterfly wings.
- Our Orcs Are Different: Three different types of orcs have been described so far: Miniature Orcs, normal Orcs (lacking a descriptor) and Iberian Orcs.
- Miniature Orcs (what Beatrice initially mistakes Boo Boo as) never grow beyond a child-like state that resembles a stuffed animal.
- Normal Orcs haven't really been described, though based on Beatrice's comments they can grow to several meters tall.
- Iberian Orcs (Boo Boo's actual race) receive the most focus in the series. They are incredibly strong and fast, as shown by Boo Boo being able to defeat the colossal Thousand Dragon in a fight. They are also capable of breeding with any plant or animal, using this to gain all of the strengths of living beings.
- Another Orcs, past evolutionary dead ends of the Iberian Orc race, are part of the Underworld's forces. They have no common characteristics, we see a giant quadruped with multiple heads, a monstrous bird with the head of a snake, a carnivorous plant that walks on the ground like an animal, and a clione-like species that evolved in the sea and specializes in data processing.
- Playing with Fire: Beatrice's specialty, to the point that she has 14,000 different types of fire magic.
- Person of Mass Destruction: All of the Break News:
- The Thousand Dragon can change the weather simply by flying through the sky, and its massive body allows it to casually level a forest.
- Sutriona can release a cloud of poison that drives people mad. If she went all out, she could cover all of Ground's Nir and make it uninhabitable for decades.
- Ileana's scream can incapacitate or outright kill the population of an entire town with ease.
- Poor, Predictable Rock: Averted by skilled humans. As Beatrice shows, even specializing in one element doesn't mean you can't make use of other elements. By creative application of fire magic, she can manipulate air, generate lightning, and even cool things down (using the principle of laser cooling).
- Production Throwback: The series has several references to other series by Kamachi:
- The main villain of Volume 2 has the same name as the archdemon Tselika, a major villain in The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village.
- Hayabusa Uchimaku and Enbi Hishigami (also from The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village) make a small cameo in a police drama Armelina watches as she eats breakfast in Volume 3.
- The first chapter of Volume 5 has brief references to the National Diet’s subway station underground shelter and the simulator AI Maxwell.
- Required Secondary Powers:
- Beatrice's fire magic creates intense light and noise, so she has learned some magic to protect against these. This lets her guard against a flashbang in Volume 1.
- Boo Boo may be incredibly strong, but he needs a lot of food to fuel his body. This is why he spends most of his day gathering food, and it also prevents him from staying too long in the Labyrinth (which doesn't have anything he can eat).
- Resurrective Immortality: The undead of the Underworld can never be permanently killed.
- Revive Kills Zombie: Healing potions are extremely damaging to the undead, which makes Filinion the most effective of the main party against them.
- RPG Elements: The series includes pretty much all of them, except for a Karma Meter.
- Self-Duplication: By drawing on the nutrients in the soil, Ileana can create countless copies of herself. She can even use another being's body, as shown when she sprouts from the Thousand Dragon's flesh.
- Soul Jar: Boo Boo's Shining Weapon contains the souls of all of the other Iberian Orcs.
- Stripperific: Every female character's outfit. A special mention goes to Wildefrau, whose body is only covered by a sword and some belts (with a transparent dress on top).
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Nonhumans (an umbrella term that covers every race native to Ground's Nir) aren't considered to have the same rights as humans, despite clearly being sapient. A notable example is when the Sage announces an event in which she'll cook Boo Boo and sell his meat as a source of buffs. This attracts a large crowd, none of whom see any problem with eating a person.
- The Worf Effect: The Thousand Dragon is introduced as a monster that humans simply can't defeat. Then Boo Boo beats it in a head-on fight. Then Sutriona easily defeats him in a wrestling match.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Volume 5 is about the invasion of Ground's Nir by the Underworld. The Underworld army comprises every single person who has ever died in Ground's Nir, and only grows as it kills more enemies.
