Well...

I get why everyone goes "You just don't like romance" when people complain about love interests in these types of webtoons/manhwa and those people certainly do exist, but I'll say for me it's not the fact he has a love interest, it's the fact that the love interest is Tess.

For one I think the discrepancy between those who read the novel and those who don't somewhat appears due to her future choices and actions that you may or may not agree with. I think that can definitely cloud my expectations of characters and how I view them while reading the webtoon but I think it's also a valid consideration in why people don't like her in the comment section (I will admit to not being caught up to the novel - I left off in volume 7 after things happened).


My second point of why I don't like Tess is that for me she really doesn't have a personality. From the beginning her whole persona seems to be based around Arthur. Sure it's been mentioned she's student council president and does other things but pretty much every single scene she's been in has always consisted of her going after Arthur, thinking about Arthur, or just "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur" and it gets old really fast. It feels like she's obsessive with no other personality traits and in my opinion that's not cute, funny, or healthy at all. As for her actions they almost all come across as rather selfish and spoiled since she always feels the right to hit him when she's upset or pout when something doesn't go her way. While you can expect that of someone who's in their younger years, literally no one is helping this situation at all considering how much they egg this on and give into her demands anyway.

In the end, it's not that I don't like romance, it's that I don't like Tess. I'm more team Lilia if were choosing someone anyway. Whelp, thanks for coming to this Ted talk that I wasn't expecting to write out.(〜￣△￣)〜