Rudeus takes small steps to restore his confidence. 

At the end of Season 1, Rudeus was left emotionally shattered. His emotional attachment to Eris Greyrat proved to be detrimental to his well-being after she left him behind. Unable to cope, Rudeus does the only thing he knows how to do; he goes adventuring. The adventure is a little different, it lacks spirit. Traveling north to find his mother who was still separated and missing due to the metastasis event (teleportation event) he meets other adventurers trying to make a living. To others he appears to be dead meat, a broken spirit looking to die. 

His plan is simple, it’s to make inroads with the adventurers in the town and look for clues to find his mother. He spends time with the adventurer group Counter Arrow, even meets a person he considers like Eris, an archer named Sara. She doesn’t like him at first. 

Rudeus suffers from confidence issues that affect his performance. Largely supporting himself, and joining Counter Arrow at random intervals, Rudeus is able in moments to find himself. He still can perform amazing feats if he tries. Starting to find his confidence renewed, Rudeus is able to again start living and making decisions for him, instead of performing rote mechanical motions to get him through the day. 

Living is more than just performing the same routine always, it’s taking actions with purpose and confidence that those plans will succeed. What is the purpose of a routine if it leads nowhere? While lifestyle is important, it’s not the end all of existence. To make the most of his new life, Rudeus works to do things differently than he had in his old world. Of course having magical powers makes his new life already a lot more interesting, however deciding to live differently takes sheer willpower. 

What is the takeaway for the audience? 

One takeaway for the audience is the concept of not letting life get in the way of starting again. When negative experiences happen, it’s not enough to continue to wallow in the experience. What good does it do to keep reliving a negative experience in your mind? Negativity follows negativity. Putting yourself into a negative frame of mind will only continue to harm your self-confidence. What is needed is a mental reset. 

That being said, performing a mental reset is not easy. There is a different way for everyone to do it. Some of the simplest techniques include creating distance or separation from the event. Whether that is through time or physical distance, or some combination of the two. Rudeus uses his journey to the north to get away from the event, and move forward. 

While his spirit might be broken Rudeus still shows strong survival instinct. Of course there is the obvious argument that even if he killed himself, he might get re-isekai’ed. While we do get some internal character monologue, it’s impossible to get a complete picture. Even if we could get a complete picture, it wouldn’t be entertaining.  It will be hard to know if the survival instinct might be misplaced due to the events that lead him to this world, but the instinct is undoubtedly there. 

Good events, and a reframed state of mind begins to heal Rudeus’s heartbreak. Slowly he regains his confidence in himself and can execute on his abilities. Whatever the rest of the story of Rudeus entails, it’s likely he will need to be his best version of himself to do whatever needs to be done next. The world he lives in is just as cruel as the one he left, if not more cruel. 

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – Orsted Poses a Real Threat

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – Paul’s and Rudeus’s Second Chance

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – Is Rudeus a Pedophile?