with him easily killing a Kraken in one shot sufficiently early on in the story

since he once threw a spear and kill a kraken with 1 shot and his sword skill is pretty good too since it was mentioned that he was 1 of the 7 people to kill the barbarian king who at the time was the strongest in the world (in the og romance fantasy novel, he is the final boss that og heroine and her harem has to work together to beat but butterfly effect made him appear much earlier)

or heroines in this case cause the it is harem

MC was a war veteran against barbarians and he was 1 of the 7 who fought and won against the barbarian king but at a result, all his friend and comrade die in the war. MC lover, Hecate, also die in this war but from su*cide due to PTSD and trauma of witnessing all her friend die instead, which affect MC a lot and the reason why the romance here might be a bit slow since after her death, MC is reluctant to be in a relationship (which lead to some of my favorite moments in the novel where the heroine slowly heal MC wounds through their interactions. Opening MC heart and help him move forward and start a new romantic relationship with the heroine of the novel). After that, when he went back to the empire after the war he was under the first prince faction in the fight for empire succession (crown prince faction was the weaker at the time because 2nd prince grand father is a count with political influence comparable to that of the duke at his strongest time (2nd prince mother was also the 1st queen so even more power to the 2nd prince faction) but MC manage to take away the count power and political influence the through legal loop hole and at the end, Assassinate the count but mask that as a su*cide

Nothing that memorable happens till to like 180, ofc we got some sugar in between but plot wise I wouldn't say there's much progression. Like ye there's was the thing where the "red flag people" were attacking, but honestly that whole part was pretty boring and that one of the main issues of this novel, world building. Now Imma be that guy who's like world building this and world building that but it's true this time. While the characters themselves change and their relationships, and all that fun stuff, the world or the progression of plot is still a bit lacking. Like they talked about how kagan's family is still there and shit, but we don't really see them expanding at that. Ofc the author would probably get to it in the future, my guy probably wants to situate the relationship status quo between the main cast first before getting to real shit.

first off Louise going crazy, and we have magic king, irina and section one or eri joining too. First off Louise and irina had their moments but after that they're barely mentioned of course there's still 50 chapters of mtl but imma read that later. We have magic king or Beatrix, for now she feels pretty standard but that's fine because she mommy and her breakdown feels a bit out of nowhere. Not in a way where I don't understand why she did what she did and why Carl got mad, but in a way where it just felt sudden. Like for marghetta, it was expected and we kinda knew it was gonna happen, since captain obvious, but for Beatrix they were just having a conversation and then boom big f*cky wucky. Other than that nothing much happened, tho seeing MC actually showing off (kinda) for once was pretty nice.

overall still a 4 and probably gonna wait to 400 chaps come out to binge again.

The MC isn't just cynical because "lol exhausted office worker, end of thought". He's cynical because he's the sole survivor of a su*cide squad that put an end to the war his country was going through. One of the other members of that squad, btw, his fiancee actually survived the war but then took her own life afterwards.

The heroine of the original novel MC fell into doesn't form a reverse harem just because she's the dense heroine of a shojo novel that unintentionally pulls people in with her relentless positivity but fails to realize they're romantically attracted to her because the plot demands she have a smorgasbord of hunks pining for her affections. She unintentionally puts up a barrier around her heart, forming a series of shallow friendships but subconsciously fearing developing anything closer than that, because as a child, her sister that she loved resented her for monopolizing their parents attention to the point of committing su*cide.

the Empire is much stronger than it likely was in the manhwa. (It was likely semi-collapsed by the time the novel begins.)

depressed and suffering from ptsd, and it shows in his perception.

Carl is a civil servant and high rank at that. There is a mystery around his background and what he did for his job. The story starts after 5 yearish after he came into the novel. The original MC is Louise, love interest 1 and is described in the novel as a capybara because she attracts many people who are powerful and handsome. They make a cooking club and Carl is the caretaker of the club. As the story progresses you slowly learn about Carl's past but I won't spoil it. Carl taste buds are so bad. There is another love interest called Mar, and she is pretty cute and has some good scenes. I love the interactions of Carl and the reverse harem of Louise, Carl hates work and the harem is bothering Carl so much!

Mar best girl