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ブラック魔道具師ギルドを追放された私、王宮魔術師として拾われる [Black Madougushi Guild o Tsuihou Sareta Watashi, Oukyuu Majutsushi to Shite Hirowareru] (Novel) #1
My Magical Career at Court: Living the Dream After My Nightmare Boss Fired Me from the Mages' Guild! Volume 1
Magic is everything to Noelle. She loves it so much that she puts up with her horrible job at the Mages’ Guild to practice it. The hours are long, the pay is rock-bottom, and the boss is a nightmare! But as long as she has magic, she can withstand the hardships. At least, until the day she hears these dreaded words:“You’re fired.”
Noelle’s hometown in the outskirts of the kingdom doesn’t offer many alternatives for a career in magic—especially now that she’s been blacklisted from guild work! Just when it seems like all hope is lost, Noelle’s old friend Luke shows up to give her an opportunity she never could have imagined: a job as a royal court magician.
Now Noelle is living the dream, rubbing shoulders with the kingdom’s greatest magicians and showing off her skills. She has a beautiful new workplace and a generous new boss, but how will she cope with intense entrance exams, her marriage-obsessed mother, and the rules of etiquette? What awaits Noelle in her magical new career?
Noelle’s hometown in the outskirts of the kingdom doesn’t offer many alternatives for a career in magic—especially now that she’s been blacklisted from guild work! Just when it seems like all hope is lost, Noelle’s old friend Luke shows up to give her an opportunity she never could have imagined: a job as a royal court magician.
Now Noelle is living the dream, rubbing shoulders with the kingdom’s greatest magicians and showing off her skills. She has a beautiful new workplace and a generous new boss, but how will she cope with intense entrance exams, her marriage-obsessed mother, and the rules of etiquette? What awaits Noelle in her magical new career?
179 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 7, 2021
61 people are currently reading
116 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 6, 2024
Super cute! The MC h is kind of dense, but not in a TSTL way. I hope things work out for Luke! You got this buddy, I have faith in you!
4, I got the second one that’s how much I enjoyed this one, stars.
4, I got the second one that’s how much I enjoyed this one, stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2024
This was a fun light novel that mixed the tropes of rom/com with the salaryman who becomes a hero story.
Character - 7/10, Plot - 7/10, Setting/Magic - 7/10, Writing - 6/10, Enjoyment - 6/10
The MC is a young woman who graduated from a prestigious magic academy in the capital and returned to her rural hometown to get a job that involved magic. Unfortunately, the people running the mage's guild in her town are sexist and only assigned her the most mundane tasks, which mostly involved enchanting crystal balls. The guild resembles the exploitative black companies in Japan where everyone works unpaid overtime to meet quotas and deadlines. As a result, our genius MC had developed the ability to use and maintain multiple support spells simultaneously to meet the workload.
Despite this, she's eventually fired by the asshat guild managers. Luckily, her former rival/classmate is now a high-rank court magician and came to offer her a job as a court mage. What follows is the standard comedy of an uber-achieving genius who can perform miraculous feats of power while feeling worthless and everyone's must be complimenting her just to be nice.
The setting and magic was pretty generic, just an ambiguous hodge-podge of technology and magic that serves the purposes of the story. The magic followed the elemental affinity model where most people have a specialty in a certain type of elemental magic, supported with various unaspected boosting spells. The story doesn't really delve too deeply into the details.
The writing was fine, with minimal mistakes. There weren't any fancy turns of phrase or anything worth highlighting. Everything was just practical and functional. If I had a complaint, it would be the typical annoyance of how the author felt the need to recover the previous scene from a supporting character's view. The characters were all pretty bland, so these scenes often felt redundant rather than contributing anything we didn't already know.
Overall, I enjoyed this and there was a nice bit of satisfaction with the background subplot following the crystal ball guild after the MC was fired. It was a nice story to read in the waiting room while my car was getting some service done, but ultimately I think I got my fill from this first volume. The MC is extremely OP, so I don't foresee much genuine tension in future volumes other than the standard blue-balling of a light novel following a romance plot. Maybe after 7 volumes of fluff, the characters will painstakingly admit their feelings and consummate them by briefly holding hands or some other nonsense. If that sounds of interest, then feel free to continue the series as it's likely a pretty fun slice of life magic story in that regard.
Character - 7/10, Plot - 7/10, Setting/Magic - 7/10, Writing - 6/10, Enjoyment - 6/10
The MC is a young woman who graduated from a prestigious magic academy in the capital and returned to her rural hometown to get a job that involved magic. Unfortunately, the people running the mage's guild in her town are sexist and only assigned her the most mundane tasks, which mostly involved enchanting crystal balls. The guild resembles the exploitative black companies in Japan where everyone works unpaid overtime to meet quotas and deadlines. As a result, our genius MC had developed the ability to use and maintain multiple support spells simultaneously to meet the workload.
Despite this, she's eventually fired by the asshat guild managers. Luckily, her former rival/classmate is now a high-rank court magician and came to offer her a job as a court mage. What follows is the standard comedy of an uber-achieving genius who can perform miraculous feats of power while feeling worthless and everyone's must be complimenting her just to be nice.
The setting and magic was pretty generic, just an ambiguous hodge-podge of technology and magic that serves the purposes of the story. The magic followed the elemental affinity model where most people have a specialty in a certain type of elemental magic, supported with various unaspected boosting spells. The story doesn't really delve too deeply into the details.
The writing was fine, with minimal mistakes. There weren't any fancy turns of phrase or anything worth highlighting. Everything was just practical and functional. If I had a complaint, it would be the typical annoyance of how the author felt the need to recover the previous scene from a supporting character's view. The characters were all pretty bland, so these scenes often felt redundant rather than contributing anything we didn't already know.
Overall, I enjoyed this and there was a nice bit of satisfaction with the background subplot following the crystal ball guild after the MC was fired. It was a nice story to read in the waiting room while my car was getting some service done, but ultimately I think I got my fill from this first volume. The MC is extremely OP, so I don't foresee much genuine tension in future volumes other than the standard blue-balling of a light novel following a romance plot. Maybe after 7 volumes of fluff, the characters will painstakingly admit their feelings and consummate them by briefly holding hands or some other nonsense. If that sounds of interest, then feel free to continue the series as it's likely a pretty fun slice of life magic story in that regard.
October 13, 2023
Noel loves magic to the point of obsession. She wants nothing more than to be the best mage she can possibly become. But years of working in a dead-end job, under management that sees her as expendable, have worn her down. Luckily, the day she gets fired and old classmate, Luke, shows up to recruit her to HIS workplace with the royal court magicians. Noel is all fired up to show Luke and the world she can succeed---little realizing how much she's already learned . . .
This was a fun story. It's got a fairly typical arc with the old job being super exploitative, the new job being much healthier, and dense Noel not realizing she no longer has to perform at superhuman levels just to make quota. I like that although she struggles some with her self-worth from all the constant putdowns, she's also strongly optimistic, and doesn't let herself bog down in all the negative thoughts. In her mind, that defeating self-talk is just a challenge to do better.
Of course the humor is that Noel's idea of "minimally competent" is rather far ahead of most people's ideas of "super excellent." Luke, who was a rival who fell for her despite himself, is trying to get her into a better place, both for her sake and for his own. Noel, of course, doesn't notice Luke actually likes her---she's just accepted that he's her eternal competitor and the benchmark she has to surpass.
It's also fun seeing the downfall of her old workplace after she left. This happens over the course of the book, without Noel ever needing to be involved, as the consequences she was holding at bay finally come home.
The only thing I don't really care for is how obsessed her mother is with marrying her off. It's all she ever talks about. I feel like her mom is doing more to ruin Noel and Luke's relationship than support it.
Overall, this has the right mix of humor, magic, and fun. I rate this book Recommended.
This was a fun story. It's got a fairly typical arc with the old job being super exploitative, the new job being much healthier, and dense Noel not realizing she no longer has to perform at superhuman levels just to make quota. I like that although she struggles some with her self-worth from all the constant putdowns, she's also strongly optimistic, and doesn't let herself bog down in all the negative thoughts. In her mind, that defeating self-talk is just a challenge to do better.
Of course the humor is that Noel's idea of "minimally competent" is rather far ahead of most people's ideas of "super excellent." Luke, who was a rival who fell for her despite himself, is trying to get her into a better place, both for her sake and for his own. Noel, of course, doesn't notice Luke actually likes her---she's just accepted that he's her eternal competitor and the benchmark she has to surpass.
It's also fun seeing the downfall of her old workplace after she left. This happens over the course of the book, without Noel ever needing to be involved, as the consequences she was holding at bay finally come home.
The only thing I don't really care for is how obsessed her mother is with marrying her off. It's all she ever talks about. I feel like her mom is doing more to ruin Noel and Luke's relationship than support it.
Overall, this has the right mix of humor, magic, and fun. I rate this book Recommended.
October 4, 2025
A bit hard to recommend.
My Magical Career at Court etc. is about an incredibly passionate and capable woman slogging out at work, severely exploited and belittled, until she's fired without notice. In the midst of her despair, an old friend reappears in her life, offering her a prestigious job in recognition of her skills. From there, she goes on the performs nearly unprecedented feats of magical mastery, one after the other. When once she was abused, now all her colleagues lavish her with praise she so rightfully deserve.
This seemed like something I would like, if not love, but the main character is not relatable. The main character is unable to see her competence objectively, understandably so after constant belittling, but book doesn't show her perspective personally enough. Where are the mental gymnastics to explain away the praise? How does her trauma affect her aside from being unable to accept praise? Was she even affected by her abusive workplace?
I'm just confused who this book is for.
If this story is an escapist fantasy for the ones who've been beaten down by exploitative workplaces, this story doesn't seem to spend enough time fleshing out her traumatic experiences. The descriptions of her abuse is a little too impersonal and vague, like a third person account told after the fact as opposed to a story happening right now as we read.
A quote from the prologue to illustrate, "I decided to drown out my aimless misery with a ton of food. I went to a place run by the Adventurers' Guild called Big Belly Cafeteria, a site where droves of gluttons came in search of glory."
How does someone in "aimless misery" have such clarity and levity to describe herself as a "glutton" "in search of glory"?
But maybe this story is for the ones who want a light-hearted power fantasy about a hidden talent breaking out of the rural countryside? In that case, it doesn't make sense for the main character to carry such a recent trauma that she's barely affected by. As far as we can tell, the abuse only affected her behaviour but not her thoughts. She's still perfectly capable of telling self-aware, self-deprecating "jokes" for the reader like, "Well, I am short, but I don't want people seeing me as a kid, and that's why I'm wearing four layers of padding on my chest!"
And by recent, I mean very day of her firing. Both quotes I gave are from the prologue on the very same day she was fired, and told without a hint of irony.
The book also has multiple PoVs talking about how impressive she is, how she's such a valuable asset that literally everyone would love to work with. All that might have been enjoyable if the juxtaposition of PoVs was starker. However, her PoV is just mildly self-deprecating whilst everyone else thinks she's a very good colleague. Underwhelming.
One more thing, the villains (her abusive ex-employers) are also comically stupid. Maybe not unrealistically so, but in a way that trivialises the horror of their misdeeds, to the detriment of that story.
Sufficed to say, I don't recommend.
No judgement to those that do enjoy it, in fact, I'd like to know what you liked about it since I wished I liked it more.
My Magical Career at Court etc. is about an incredibly passionate and capable woman slogging out at work, severely exploited and belittled, until she's fired without notice. In the midst of her despair, an old friend reappears in her life, offering her a prestigious job in recognition of her skills. From there, she goes on the performs nearly unprecedented feats of magical mastery, one after the other. When once she was abused, now all her colleagues lavish her with praise she so rightfully deserve.
This seemed like something I would like, if not love, but the main character is not relatable. The main character is unable to see her competence objectively, understandably so after constant belittling, but book doesn't show her perspective personally enough. Where are the mental gymnastics to explain away the praise? How does her trauma affect her aside from being unable to accept praise? Was she even affected by her abusive workplace?
I'm just confused who this book is for.
If this story is an escapist fantasy for the ones who've been beaten down by exploitative workplaces, this story doesn't seem to spend enough time fleshing out her traumatic experiences. The descriptions of her abuse is a little too impersonal and vague, like a third person account told after the fact as opposed to a story happening right now as we read.
A quote from the prologue to illustrate, "I decided to drown out my aimless misery with a ton of food. I went to a place run by the Adventurers' Guild called Big Belly Cafeteria, a site where droves of gluttons came in search of glory."
How does someone in "aimless misery" have such clarity and levity to describe herself as a "glutton" "in search of glory"?
But maybe this story is for the ones who want a light-hearted power fantasy about a hidden talent breaking out of the rural countryside? In that case, it doesn't make sense for the main character to carry such a recent trauma that she's barely affected by. As far as we can tell, the abuse only affected her behaviour but not her thoughts. She's still perfectly capable of telling self-aware, self-deprecating "jokes" for the reader like, "Well, I am short, but I don't want people seeing me as a kid, and that's why I'm wearing four layers of padding on my chest!"
And by recent, I mean very day of her firing. Both quotes I gave are from the prologue on the very same day she was fired, and told without a hint of irony.
The book also has multiple PoVs talking about how impressive she is, how she's such a valuable asset that literally everyone would love to work with. All that might have been enjoyable if the juxtaposition of PoVs was starker. However, her PoV is just mildly self-deprecating whilst everyone else thinks she's a very good colleague. Underwhelming.
One more thing, the villains (her abusive ex-employers) are also comically stupid. Maybe not unrealistically so, but in a way that trivialises the horror of their misdeeds, to the detriment of that story.
Sufficed to say, I don't recommend.
No judgement to those that do enjoy it, in fact, I'd like to know what you liked about it since I wished I liked it more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 2, 2025
So much better than I expected
I’ve gotten used to light novels having shallow plots with overblown drama. That was not the case here. There was certainly a healthy dose of drama, but the characters are well established as prodigies. It’s realistic for them to take down an exceptionally rare monster in a very OP fashion. Also, they don’t come across as Mary Sue, since they both earned their skill through endless hard work.
Luke is obviously in love with Noelle. Everyone except Noelle seems to realize this. I think Noelle is also falling for Luke, but she isn’t self-aware enough to realize that either. I’m looking forward to the development of their romance as they repeatedly save the country from disaster.
I’ve gotten used to light novels having shallow plots with overblown drama. That was not the case here. There was certainly a healthy dose of drama, but the characters are well established as prodigies. It’s realistic for them to take down an exceptionally rare monster in a very OP fashion. Also, they don’t come across as Mary Sue, since they both earned their skill through endless hard work.
Luke is obviously in love with Noelle. Everyone except Noelle seems to realize this. I think Noelle is also falling for Luke, but she isn’t self-aware enough to realize that either. I’m looking forward to the development of their romance as they repeatedly save the country from disaster.
November 19, 2023
A fun story with interesting characters. A young woman who is coming into her power and truly understanding her value and the young man who has fallen in love with her but is constrained by societal expectations (he's a noble and she's a commoner) from telling her about his feelings. A story we've all read or heard before but, as ever, it is fun to read what different authors do with their characters and the world around them.
Enjoy getting into this comfortable read!
Enjoy getting into this comfortable read!
December 30, 2023
3.5 stars but I'm rounding it up to 4.
Is this the most well-written light novel I've ever read? No. Do the characters have lots of depth? Also no, lol.
But if you're just looking for a lighthearted book with a fast-paced story, a main character who is totally oblivious but also kind and motivated, and a lot of magic, then you might enjoy this. I'm looking forward to reading further volumes.
Is this the most well-written light novel I've ever read? No. Do the characters have lots of depth? Also no, lol.
But if you're just looking for a lighthearted book with a fast-paced story, a main character who is totally oblivious but also kind and motivated, and a lot of magic, then you might enjoy this. I'm looking forward to reading further volumes.
September 10, 2024
I don't like how she keeps thinking that she needs to repay Luke for choosing her. Too much talk about doing it for him and making him proud and all that jazz. I want her to do things for herself. I understand how being treated as worthless made her self esteem plummet, but I hope she realises soon that she is worh so much more.
September 10, 2024
I have tried a few books of this genre that have turned out to be more interesting than I expected and this one certainly had an attention-grabbing title.
The story wasn’t bad, but I found the writers style a little bit irritating at times and I was never sure whether this was meant to be a children’s book.
If possible I would have given 2.5 stars.
The story wasn’t bad, but I found the writers style a little bit irritating at times and I was never sure whether this was meant to be a children’s book.
If possible I would have given 2.5 stars.
March 26, 2024
Maximum effort
Forgive the Deadpool reference, but it seemed to suit the moment so well. Noelle is a testament to what doesn't break you makes you stronger. Her ever cheerful, empty headed personality makes it impossible not to support her hustle. Hang in there, Luke! 😁
Forgive the Deadpool reference, but it seemed to suit the moment so well. Noelle is a testament to what doesn't break you makes you stronger. Her ever cheerful, empty headed personality makes it impossible not to support her hustle. Hang in there, Luke! 😁
October 23, 2023
Good book can’t wait to see what happens with the dragon
October 26, 2023
Wholesome
Fun and easy to read with good development. I am looking forward to how the story progresses from here. can't wait for the next one.
Fun and easy to read with good development. I am looking forward to how the story progresses from here. can't wait for the next one.
February 2, 2024
Writing is a little clumsy, but it was funny. It reminded me of “Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies…” in having an OP main character that is humble and oblivious to how powerful s/he is.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 9, 2024
DNF'd at 24%
Amateur writing.
Amateur writing.
February 13, 2024
excellent read
Very excited to read this volume, it was a lot of fun and I can’t wait because there’s volume two… But I can already tell I’m gonna want volume three.
Very excited to read this volume, it was a lot of fun and I can’t wait because there’s volume two… But I can already tell I’m gonna want volume three.
April 12, 2024
Super overpowered and oblivious, but she is fun to read about.
July 25, 2024
MC is basically Mahoraga which is funny
March 29, 2025
Cute and fun but nothing special with the typical docile mc with a stomach bigger than her size and a lack of self-awareness of her abilities
April 30, 2024
So cute! It’s like a mashup of Sorcerer’s Receptionist with the childhood friends/rivals and the heroine is a bit stupid and clueless like Tale of the Secret Saint, although not quite as dumb. I love how the hero is so in love with her but can’t marry her because of their social classes.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews