I will give you unsolicited advice as someone who has finished the novel -- don't stop reading here. Youll get what you're asking for, much more than that, I assure you, and the romantic aspect is not just an afterthought but is genuinely part of their character growth. My only gripe here is that this smut chapter should not have been shown here YET although we have already seen them have so much tension between them. It was probably an editor decision to show smut here just to please the readers who are looking for that kind of action
Please so you have the novel link
I haven't read too far in yet. Only upto where you find out that the MC's lost his best friend and almost his whole team who were cruelly killed fighting a war that the "God" of their world is forcing them to fight. He is a war veteran suffering from severe PTSD, survivor's guilt and debilitating levels of grief who wishes to die but is being pushed to live because friends that he lost in that dungeon each saddled him with a last wish hoping that sense of duty will keep him alive until he can somehow heal. I hadn't really expected, given the yaoi tags on this story, that I would find this stirring of a story writing, and difficult topics like being handled respectfully instead of being shoved in just for the sake of drama and fear factor. But, now I am worried about reading further. Because I am loving this now but since this is going to turn into romance sooner or later, I am not going to able to finish this and stay just as happy at the end of it. I don't want to be disappointed so I am just going to stop here and leave with good memories instead of risking any further chapters. I just wish they'd kept romance completely out of this or made it so minimal that no one realises it was even there. Why the hell does a story that starts so well have to be a romance? This deserves to be a action-thriller-character development manga similar to shounen genre.