
by Ryuka Tsukise
Kenji Mori is forty-six, single, and perfectly happy living a quiet life in the countryside. He has a farm to run, an elderly mother to look after, chickens to feed, and Gon, his loyal Akita, waiting for his daily walk. Then a letter arrives. Debt owed: ¥3,000,000. Kenji had agreed to be a guarantor for an old childhood friend—a successful A-Rank explorer who promised there was nothing to worry about. Now that friend has stopped answering his calls. So Kenji does the only thing that makes sense to him. He returns to dungeon exploration. Once a D-Rank explorer, Kenji must start over at F-Rank. Between farm work and dungeon runs, he begins streaming his adventures to earn a little extra money. At first, almost nobody watches. Then viewers discover the strangely capable middle-aged farmer who eats homemade rice balls in dungeons, worries more about damaging a rented camera than fighting goblins, and always goes home early because the dog still needs his walk. Before long, Gon becomes a fan favorite, an injured snowbird monster named Mochi joins the family, and Kenji’s quiet countryside life starts attracting thousands of viewers. But Kenji has another problem. His mysterious Gift, [Shoulder the Burden], has finally begun to activate. Every time he repays debt that should never have been his, something changes. Kenji gets stronger. And the people who forced the debt onto him begin losing the skills that made them powerful. Kenji isn’t trying to become the strongest explorer. He just wants to pay off the debt, take care of his farm, and make it home in time to walk the dog. The Kindle edition is now available in both English and German! English: https://a.co/d/051Bhh7JGerman: https://amzn.eu/d/0ebqis1k
No streak history
One state-enhanced oracle order, filtered by each list. Observed Royal Road ranks remain separate ground truth.
Rank updated 2 Oct 2026, 23:58 UTC
Entry forecast updated 2 Oct 2026, 23:58 UTC
Ranking model: rs-public-oracle-state-v1
Forecast model: rs-model-entry-v1
Chart history contains only this ranking model's runs; legacy points are not spliced in.
Coupled 14-day outlook
rs-joint-entry-copula-v1
Any eligible RS entry
5%
Two or more lists
3%
Likely threshold order: Comedy → Action → Adventure → Fantasy → Main.
Leading bundle: Comedy (1%).
Estimated from one fitted shared story path; category probabilities are not multiplied as if lists were independent.
Separate entry forecast; this probability does not enter the ranking score.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#10034 of 12,435 · 9984 below RS #50
By genre
beats 82% of similar stories
beats 1% of similar stories
beats 83% of similar stories
Firing on all cylinders
Traffic and conversion are both strong for a story this size. Readers are finding it and sticking — if Rising Stars is the goal, this is the moment to push.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.