Tenebrarum Avencourt
The clock is ticking for Laurence Vidi. Once the youngest son of a well-respected upper-middle-class family, the Vidi, Laurence's quality of life has fallen drastically. Depressed, anti-social, and unmotivated, his chances of getting out of the pit he's dug for himself are slim. As he sits freezing in an apartment he owes three months of rent for, Laurence aimlessly attempts to address the many problems in his life. He's utterly broke and heavily in debt. Luckily for him, the city of Avencourt is about to undergo a storm. As two aging cons try to set up a drug distribution ring to make ends meet, a resurrected crime family tries its hand at expansion on the east coast. Laurence finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and unwillingly enters the criminal underworld. Will Laurence get his life back on track and thrive? Or overestimate himself and become another casualty in the underworld?
Alright, I'm a bit new to web novels, but I read manga and light novels before coming here. This novel follows Laurence Vidi, an unemployed Lawyer who is a NEET. He gets pulled into becoming a money launderer by two desperate criminals and now needs to learn how to launder or die. In the beginning the story seemed to be going for a Law firm success story but now resembles Ozark more. It has a simple but effective formula, Laurence needs to launder more money, tries something new, get's into a problem, get's out of it, and meets some new side characters and a bit of worldbuilding is done. Already introduced characters are developed as they interact with Laurence more. The author also started something new by giving important side characters their own POV to flesh the story out faster in different areas. We don't get much info on Laurence himself, other than his family are wealthy but estranged from him. Tiny details are littered in chapters, small things like how his mother would take him back but his father wouldn't, or how Laurence is used to budgeting but is also irresponsible with money. He's a demotivated disillusioned millennial who can't put in hard work unless his life is on the line because he's disconnected with reality. The update schedule for this novel is needs a lot of work, but the author seems to be putting in some work recently to pumping out some chapters regularly. So far, a 4 is about as high as I'll rate it. The writing quality is nice, Avencourt is interesting but the novel still needs more chapters before I'd give it a final rating.