haneul, hari and hari’s brother are the mvps of this manhwa. the fact that haneul is only 20 yet could sort out both her feelings and the MLs and actually make him realize how he feels.
while the ML has made MANY MANY mistakes, the manhwa does a good job at holding him accountable for all the things he’s done wrong. i realize now that his love for his step sister blinded him to what true affection looks like and the only way he knows how to act is by constantly doing things for a person all while feeling guilty and dirty about it. he never felt ashamed when he was with hari and therefore couldn’t make the connection and I can tell he’s starting to learn how to function normally but he needs to confess soon.
about the FL…
i think her friend already mentioned that she’s had some problems in the past when writing and i can only imagine that it has to do with her not being able to distinguish what’s real and what’s fake. she acts professionally yet thinks she’ll be treated like the character of her novel. a woman in a man dominated world and i think this will be developed upon later in the story. and for her clothes, this is a smut novel full of “fan service” what did you expect?
y’all her thoughts got a bit lost in the translation but FROM THE NOVEL SPOILERS
she was never considering the affair. she only thought that if he supposedly liked her why would he put her in a position where only she would get hurt? she’s realizing now that the man she put on a pedestal isn’t all that good while the man she was intimidated of is actually very kind and affectionate. she was in shock mostly but disgusted and wanted to get away from the prince.
SPOILERS ABOUT ML FROM NOVELUPDATES
ml love fl long ago at first sight, after he visited palace to ask for support because his land suffering from poor and drain, but the emperor refused to meet him, he accidently saw beautiful fl and he thought he never can marry her because her family is rich and his land is poor. Later he received the letter from emperor about marriage and he was surprised abt this, and he tried to find the way to solve problem in his land because he loves her and fears she hate this marriage because he cant provide her the life like in capital. So he went to fight with monster to find the source of problem. He got a lot of injure and scars due to that (fl never know about this).
OP basically said that he has no real power in the dukedom and since his land was poor, he has to go an fight all the monsters to get recognized. apparently the FL grew up rich so he wanted to give her those same luxuries.
this is actually so funny like subverting all the normal isekai tropes and the fact that girl actually has good ideas due to her majoring in all things shoujo/isekai/rogan romance related is crazy. the romance is also very cute.